With voters riled, GOP senators are laying low

ALDERSON, W.VA — In normal times, the Fourth of July parade is a fat pitch down the middle for the grinning politician. For instance, here was Sen. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat facing re-election next year in a state that President Donald Trump won by 42 points, waving unheckled among the firefighters, beauty queens and county commissioners who streamed up Maple Avenue.

Political disputes have never impinged on the festivities here, said Karen Lobban, 70, who has been involved with Alderson’s parade in one way or another for all of its 56 years.

But, she added, “Things are different now.”

Manchin’s Republican colleague in West Virginia, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, was not here Tuesday as she had been two years earlier. She released a Youtube message but had no public events for the day. The Republican senator next door in Ohio, Rob Portman, had none either. Nor did the two Republican senators in Iowa. The parades in Colorado proceeded without Sen. Cory Gardner.

It is a tough summer for Senate Republicans, who are trying to combine a long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act with a replacement that has, in legislation drafted so far, been as popular as sunburn. Protesters have staged sit-ins at Senate offices, and editorial writers have blasted their states’ congressional delegations. Planes have even flown admonitory, if occasionally poorly conceived, banners over state capitals.

Republican senators have had to decide whether public appearances would be fruitful or the crowds hostile. Many lawmakers seem to have given up on town hall-style meetings and parades. Others are still braving them, knowing they may get an earful on the health care bills.