In the last election cycle, and in every prior one it seems, politicians land at the Avoca Airport and spend a few hours posing with the locals and holding forth at rallies dutifully covered by the local news.
Inevitably they pitch us on their Scranton roots.
This phenomenon, as predictable as a sunrise, occurs without variation every two years.
Why is our region such a great place to campaign? Northeast Pennsylvania's history, values, and people, represent the heart of America.
For a politician, to line up with the descendants of coal miners in grimy coal towns and hang around with all the regular old "folks" (when I hear a political type calling us "folks", I immediately get nervous) is part of a big game to prove what regular guys and girls they all must be.
They have a beer, eat some pizza, jaw with the locals for a bit, then get back on their Lear Jet and fly someplace nice, like the Hamptons, which very few locals will ever visit.
The crazy part of all of this is that the local "folks" seem to love the attention at election time.
It might be nicer if they visited us a little more often.
Our regular old folks around here do a lot more than just vote and pose with candidates for high office.
We have lives and communities which these "leaders" ought to know more about before they ask for our support.
A little more time here would permit them to see us doing stuff that's not so newsworthy, like getting laid off.
The 300 workers, for example, who just lost their jobs in Mountaintop, with another couple hundred up in Dickson City, now have a lot of time on their hands to hang out with good old regular folks.
Now they are probably really in the mood to bang back a couple of beers.
If one is unemployed, there is no better time to do some heavy drinking, and maybe go to the casinos and waste an unemployment or child support check.
Maybe the politicians could even bring a little bailout money for these workers, who have lost good jobs which will never be replaced.
They could sit on the porch with these workers, have another beer, open the bills, and talk about being behind on the mortgage and real estate taxes, which the county just raised again by 25%.
Sadly, the politicians don't come back except at election time, but then they come with great frequency, greater, it seems, with each campaign.
I would guess that this is because in very few places still beats the solid heart of our great country.
We are the workers, the soldiers, the fathers, sons, and daughters, descendants of a proud and brave group of immigrants against whom no obstacle could stand.
Enduring through hunger, oppression, and poverty, the generations before us educated and fed their families and in the process created America.
Many of the young people left, not because they wanted to, but because there exists here no opportunity.
The struggle of those who remained has left the landscape scarred, the people tough and hard as the blistering winter wind.
To stand among a people who stand as a lesson for the country and the world should be a privilege.
Instead it's a campaign lark.
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton haven't been here in a while.
It's really hard to leave the Hamptons unless you absolutely have to.
Maybe they should just stay away, not only at election time but for good.
In the final analysis, I am not sure they are fit to stand beside us.