Back in March, Friends Journal and the Earlham School of Religion co-hosted an online discussion with six Quaker candidates for congressional seats. The idea and coordination came from the awesome Greg Woods. I went to see just how high the 2018 “gray wave” had crested.
Spoilers: no wave. Four of the candidates didn’t make it out of the primaries and a fifth was running as an independent in a long-shot candidacy. The one candidate to win major-party primary was the awesome Shawna Roberts1 of Barnesville, Ohio. Shawna’s one of the most down-to-earth, real, people I know and it was a lot of fun to follow her campaign. Her twitter feed has been a hoot:
Last night, at the BPW forum, my opponent’s statement said his childhood home “didn’t even have indoor plumbing.”
Oh, Bill. Indoor plumbing’s still pending at our old farm house.
You can’t out-hillbilly me. Unless you eat squirrel brains. I draw the line at squirrel brains. pic.twitter.com/hGMJvQ8Yhq— Shawna Roberts (@RobertsOhioD6) October 20, 2018
Unfortunately Shawna only got about 30 percent of the vote yesterday. This election was not kind to Democrats in rural districts like southeast Ohio’s 6 and she was running against an incumbent. From my vantage point 30 percent seems pretty good, though as my seventh grade math teacher used to intone in his weary baritone, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. 2 Still, the prospect of a Mrs Roberts Goes to Washington win had me hoping against the odds. I’d love to see her continue to be involved: 2020 is only two years away.
Stats on everyone’s results are at the updated Quakers in Politics page. For anyone wondering about Quaker politicians, Paul Buckley had a nice overview of our complicated relationship to voting a few years ago.