At this hour, Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has been missing from the campaign trail for eleven days. Rumors are swirling around his absence. Some sources claim he is a psychiatric inpatient, others that he has relapsed into a hotel room with Andrew Gillum.
Which is to say the rumors are crazy and all over the place, so I have no idea what is really going on. It could all just be the Ken Paxton campaign doing Talarico dirty (“Where’s Jimmy?”) while he is disappeared.
My point is that Talarico could make it stop today with a single social media post. He has not spoken in public since he left a fundraiser in New York City hosted by Robert De Niro on 28 September. The silence itself is speaking.
Talarico reportedly joined a video call with the U.S. Hispanic Business Council on 30 September and mentioned visiting an urgent care the previous evening that had confirmed he had the flu. His campaign says he is still recovering. Talarico’s next public appearance, a CNN town hall, is scheduled for next Wednesday.
“You know where he is?” President Trump told a Paxton rally on Wednesday. “He’s sick because he’s forced to eat meat for political reasons and he’s throwing up all over the place.”
Take the president seriously instead of literally and you will have a much better time in general. Talarico denies being vegan, but truth is hardly the point, here. Politics are about the projection of strength, and Talarico is projecting weakness.
“I guess I've been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail,” Talarico reportedly told the video call, “and so I want to keep everybody safe.” Here we may have the true story of Talarico’s absence. He might just be following the progressive disease protocol.
Talarico’s campaign absence makes sense as costly signaling, that is, a virtue signal. He is demonstrating empathy and concern for the well-being of other people. See how much I care? I am reducing transmission of the dread disease. I am a good person.
Masking and social distancing do not embarrass the progressive soul. They mark the progressive as someone with a good soul, a participant in the ritual cleansing of the Elect. Masks and social distance make the leftist activist, which is to say the median Talarico campaign volunteer, feel safe.
Maybe James Talarico is just being a scrupulous liberal. I could be wrong! Maybe he will emerge from his campaign cocoon a few moments after I publish this to reintroduce himself as Jennifer Talarico.
Or maybe Talarico read internal polling that crushed his spirit, and he decided to coast easy until Election Day while he stays on the phone with his donors. Texas is still Texas, after all, and the polls are broken. Published numbers show significant Democratic bias.
Texas has a long history of disappointing Democrats. Whenever he re-emerges, James Talarico might disappoint the party once more by appearing so weak for so long, no matter what the explanation is. Politics is a blood sport. You have to play hurt, or you’re not gonna make it.
Democrats Have A Serious Polling Problem
It was not supposed to be this hard. Democrats were counting on voter anger at Donald Trump to give them power in Congress again. Any normal presidency has thermostatic effects on voters, and Trump is hardly a normal president.