An Election Day 2020 chat with State Senator Mark Obenshain

This Election beat reporter spotted 26^th District Virginia State Senator Mark Obenshain mingling at the Warren County Republican Committee table in front of the Warren County Government Center Tuesday afternoon. Our professional relationship goes back to Obenshain’s initial run for state elective office – could it possibly be 17 years ago in 2003?

After a check with election officials inside, we caught up with our state senator on his way to his car to ask his perspective on Election Day 2020, and how busy he stays in his district on any Election Day even if he isn’t on the ballot that year – this isn’t the first time we caught him in Front Royal on an Election Day with or without his name on the ballot.

“I do every Election Day,” he said of district-wide precinct hopping. “It’s good to swing through and see what’s going on; thank the people who are working the polls all over the district. And today’s a lot nicer than a lot of Election Days have been up here,” Obenshain observed of the blue, sunny skies and Spring-like 60-degree temperature mid-afternoon, November 3^rd.

Mark Obenshain on his Front Royal-Warren County Election Day pit-stop talks with constituents outside the WCGC. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

But turning from the pleasant weather, we asked Senator Obenshain about a much chillier phenomenon, the national political climate. That climate has become increasingly chilly, shrill and divisive. – “It’s like you don’t have political opponents anymore who share a mutual goal of improving the lives of constituents from differing philosophical or economic angles. Rather, you have political enemies who are going to destroy the nation, state or municipality if they take political control,” we observed.

Does he see a problem with this turn, we asked.

“Yes I do. I think that it is getting worse. We’re growing a new generation of political activists who are educated on college campuses where diversity of opinion is punished, and not rewarded. And I think it is a dangerous new development in our political environment that is a real threat to free speech,” Obenshain replied.

Having not been in college in nearly five decades, err years, I wondered whether both sides of the political spectrum weren’t involved in such suppression of contrary opinions.

“I think there are instances in which both sides may be blamed. But I really believe the institutionalization of it is a creation of the Left, the folks who believe they ought to have the hecklers’ veto on college campuses and elsewhere to keep speakers away they don’t agree with. And that’s being carried over to the public sector, even the private sector where people are getting fired from their jobs because they’re not progressive enough …” the senator replied.

Coming from the other side of the political spectrum than my conservative Republican State legislator with whom I’ve been able to good naturedly meet in the middle on political observations over the years, I observed that while in college those decades, I mean years, ago, students on both sides were very vocal and not afraid to hash out differences over a good, old fashioned verbal sparring session.

“Yes, you and I are old. And back when we were in college the professors were more middle of the road. Now they are not,” Obenshain assured me of his perception the scales had shifted to the political Left on campuses this century.

Despite coming from opposite political spectrums, Obenshain and this reporter bemoaned the loss of civil political discourse without the specter of an all or nothing outcome on the fate of U.S. and Western civilization. “I miss that on the national, and even state and local, scenes,” I told my state senator.

Senator Obenshain on a sunny, warm Election Day in Front Royal, with a somewhat chillier political climate at play nationally. I swear it was sunny, the WCGC roof was casting shade close to the building as the sun made its way westward.

“I do too,” Obenshain replied, noting a personal experience with a constituent. “A young neighbor of mine who’s been working on a graduate degree had as an assignment for his graduate program to call somebody he disagreed with on issues and try to interview them. He was shocked that I was willing to talk to him. And I said, ‘Of course, it’s what I do’ … And absolutely refusing to acknowledge somebody else’s point of view is, I think, anathema to the underpinnings of our democracy.”

And at that point Senator Obenshain excused himself, not to avoid the potential of our entering into an extended philosophical debate on the ultimate advisability of the American two-party system or the relative merits or lack thereof of the modern Republican and Democratic Party apparatuses, but to make the next and subsequent stops on his Election Day tour of his district’s election precincts.

But darn, Mark – it would have been fun.