Marcia Fudge: The silent campaign
By Xanayla Harris
Silence fills the room as her name is called and announced to everyone. It’s Ohio’s 11th District Rep. Marcia Fudge’s turn to talk and she commands the attention of everyone in the room as each word leaves her mouth. 🔗
She speaks with an eloquence and a force that demands to be heard, whether you choose to listen or not.
Everyone is watching her, waiting with bated breath as she asks Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos basic questions that should be second nature to her. With each stumble DeVos makes over her words and a few incorrect answers, it’s clear that Fudge has gotten her right where she wants her.
It’s evident in moments like this that Fudge knows exactly what she is doing, and judging by the response from the news media, she did it well. So why is she not campaigning for reelection?
Republican Beverly Goldstein is running against Fudge in the up-and-coming November elections. Goldstein has a campaign website, an office where you can go see her in action and actually sit down for an interview.
A very stark difference from Fudge.
A quick search of Fudge’s name and you will see there is no campaign site, no word on her campaigning for reelection, not even a page that talks about her going up for reelection, which we only know she’s doing because she won the primaries and of course, she’s listed with the Cuyahoga Country Board of Elections as an official candidate.
So why isn’t there a site where people can see how the campaigning is going, like there usually is when incumbents are trying to be reelected?
Associate professor of political science at John Carroll University Colin Swearingen put it this way during a sit-down interview: “Her district is so Democratic, there is no way she will lose in the general election, so she doesn’t really have to.”
And this is very true. Democrats have held the seat in the 11th District of Ohio for 17 years, nine of which Marcia Fudge has served as its representative. The district is 32 percent more Democratic than the national average, according to Ballotpedia.🔗
So unless a big shift happens, the district will likely stay this way for a while.
Just to set things straight, Fudge is not just sitting in her office doing nothing. On her official congressional website and social media pages anyone can see what she is up to day-to-day. The website shows the many different bills she votes on and when her upcoming meetings are. It is not as if she’s not making herself heard at all. In fact, her social media pages are the most up-to-date. That’s where anyone can see her opinions on politics, issues and the news stories the general public hears about every day.
In the 2016 election, a group of Northeast Ohio incumbents including Fudge did not come to a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland. That left some people feeling sour, according to a Cleveland.com article at the time. 🔗
Another way of phrasing the question is, should she be campaigning for reelection if she knows she is going to win? What is she doing instead? Would campaigning actually be a waste of time when she has other responsibilities as a member of Congress?
As Swearingen puts it, Marcia Fudge not campaigning “may allow her more time to work on legislation or on her causes that will help the district in Washington D.C.”
If anyone goes on her official government website, he or she can choose a tab that even shows all of the bills she has introduced and co-sponsored. The very first bill that is listed was introduced just a few weeks ago. It’s about providing policies and better research to understand the causes and consequences to individuals affected by sexual harassment, specifically in the scientific workforce. 🔗
But there are dangers to the approach Fudge is taking in the 2018 election. A few years back, a politician named Eric Cantor from Richmond, Virginia, was considered a potential Speaker of the House of Representatives and a very important member of the House. During the primary elections for Speaker of the House, instead of campaigning at home, he was in Washington. As Swearingen puts it, not campaigning so that at least people knew who he was made him lose. A lot of people said it was smugness, arrogance and simply being too big for his breeches — such that he would turn away phone calls and emails. It was a big reason he lost the primaries that year. 🔗
And it doesn’t help that less than half, specifically 37 percent, of Americans cannot name their representative, according to Nick Freiling of Haven InSights. 🔗
Although all of that cannot be said for Marcia Fudge, there are some similarities. When prompted for an interview at one of her offices in Ohio, a student journalist was given information to set up an interview. Nothing has been heard back yet. Yet, a few years ago, when a journalism student from John Carroll reached out to Marcia Fudge, they went and sat down for an interview a coffee shop.
This is not to fault Fudge herself. She is in Washington D.C., where it would be hard for a student from Ohio to have a face-to-face interview with her.
However, when trying to contact Fudge about why she is not campaigning, nothing was heard back from her as of deadline time for this story. But this, of course, might change.
Campaigning doesn’t guarantee that the candidate will win. It’s all up to the people to elect them. But it seems, from previous years, that this isn’t always guaranteed, especially if one considers the case of Eric Cantor. Looking at Marcia Fudge’s track record, there is no reason to think she will not be reelected.
The same way a commands the room as she speaks, with power and vigor, is one reason to think she will most likely win her reelection — whether she campaigns or not.
