On April 25, 2018, Scott Taylor, Virginia’s Congressman for the Second District, canceled a scheduled May 1st meet and greet with the voters in Accomack County, located on Virginia’s portion of the DelMarVa, or the Eastern Shore.
According to the campaign, he had a family commitment that his scheduling department overlooked. He is expected to reschedule the event soon.
One thing of note is that he was just on the Eastern Shore on April 15th for a “Mayor’s summit” where only Town Mayors were invited and there was no affiliation with either the Northampton county or Accomack County Republican Units. (Accomack and Northampton are the two counties that comprise the Virginia Eastern Shore region.) Unfortunately, this was not advertised publicly and even if it was, non-Mayor citizens would not have been able to attend. What went on in this meeting was anyone’s guess. Was it to try and influence the Mayors to convince their constituents on who to vote for in the upcoming contentious Congressional primary on June 12th? Or just a harmless meeting to try to help the local community? This seems to be the only public video clip from the meeting:
To be fair we can assume the canceled event was an honest mistake and the Mayor’s summit was a fair and balanced meeting to assist with the community leaders. That being said, it does present an optics issue for the campaign, which has persisted with Scott Taylor since this primary season began. He held two town halls shortly after taking office and hasn’t been back since except for invite-only fundraisers. Many constituents out here have said that he is out of touch with the working folks.
His opponent, the Honorable Mary Jones, former Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in James City County, on the contrary, has attended two meet and greets, one in each county, open to the public, and has been available to anyone who wants to speak with her, friend or opponent.
She doesn’t have a reputation for being hard to get in touch with or even blocking people on Social Media who don’t agree with her. A recent poll taken in a popular conservative Facebook group, Virginia Freedom Caucus, showed that at least 6 constituents, in that one group alone, and now eight including yours truly and another member from another political group, have been blocked from his official Facebook page from being able to interact on the page. This isn’t for being vile or abusive, but simply disagreeing with his policies and strongly voicing opinions.
To sum it up, I look forward to the canceled meet and greet being rescheduled so that all the locals can attend and ask questions. My personal opinion of Congressman Scott Taylor as per the Eastern Shore region of Virginia, is that he sees regular citizens as “chopped liver” and only needs to hobnob with the elite to try and float his name recognition to gain him a re-election. This as opposed to getting down in the trenches with the real day to day folks and answer some of the concerning questions that linger about him, such as his soft support for the southern border wall, and many attacks on the President via CNN, and MSNBC.
Based on my observations, while the sitting Congressman does have name recognition, his primary opponent is a much truer conservative and more vested in working for the little guy as opposed to trying to catapult her career as high as possible. In the end, only the voters can decide what they think.