Ralph Hall was my representative my whole life in
Texas. He was first elected to the US
Congress in 1980 and served my district until 2015. About every two years we’d get these little
tokens in the mail. The tokens were
discs with pennies encased in them. I
thought they were the coolest thing ever.
Of course, I had no idea who he was or what he did. But he had to be amazing.
I never thought about the guy. I mean, what difference does an out of town
politician make in a kid’s day to day life, right? Outside election season he was out of sight
out of mind. December 1998 Hall joined a
handful of other Democrats (Ralph Hall was a blue dog Democrat by the way) in
voting to impeach President Bill Clinton.
Clinton was a popular president and I supported him. Looking back though, this should not have been
a surprise. My district was super
conservative as was Hall. He also
apparently did good by them by bringing home the bacon.
 |
| Ralph Hall, official portrait. |
Years would come and go.
Hall would continue to get re-elected.
I voted for him twice in general elections. Incumbents are hard to beat after all. Then 2004 came along. After over 20 years as one of the most
conservative Democrats in the US Congress, Hall announced he would switch
parties. He cited the fact that the
majority party, now Republicans, refused to allocate funds to his district because
he was a Democrat. Rather than politickingand compromising and schmoozing, he simply switched teams. He would finish his term as a Republican and
run for re-election as a Republican.
I was livid. I wrote
a letter to the editor of our small local paper on why I felt betrayed and how
he should step down until re-elected. I
felt I was fair, honest and well-spoken in my correspondence. It did not get published. Other than a small note mentioning his defection,
the matter was dropped. Whatever.
Hall easily won re-election.
Now, I guess, he was honest with his constituents.
Before election day though, I had the opportunity to
interview Mr. Hall face to face. I had
been working at a TV station since February, a month after Hall’s departure
from team blue. It was now June
2004. I had moved past that betrayal
from the party switch. I was going to
cover some Republican Party shindig in Trenton Texas (or was it Leonard
Texas?). It was an event to boost Laurie
Blake, candidate for judge. She was a carpetbagger and ended up being embarrassing as a judge.
Hall served on the Energy Committee and I felt I would shake
things up a bit. How these things work
is you shoot Broll and get a couple minutes with the Representative. You ask questions that are…softball. Stuff
like, “how does it feel to be awarded the key to the city?” I asked that question to be sure, and several
others just like it.
Before we started though, I had to wait my turn. He was already getting interviewed by Noelle
Newton from the rival station. He
wrapped that up and I started rolling.
As I mic’d him up we introduced ourselves.
“Hello sir, my name is Jeremy Jones with Channel 12.”
“Good ol’ Channel 12.
Hello Jeremy, nice to meet you.”
“I see you already spoke with KTEN, with Noelle Newton.”
“Yes sir. She’s real
easy to talk to. Real easy to look at.”
I thought it was hilarious and I completely agreed.
I had gotten his audio levels during our little exchange and
asked if he was ready to go. He was and
I shot him some easy questions, not really paying attention or really caring
about his answers. A moment into our
interview his phone rang and he said, “I have to take this.” I told him no
problem and stopped rolling. It was a
brief call. I wasn’t listening in but I remember
this brief part of the conversation, “yes George, we sure lost a great
one. I’m gonna miss him.”
Earlier that day it had been announced that Ronald Reagan
had passed away. Turns out fellow World
War II vet George HW Bush had called Ralph Hall in the middle of my
interview. I remember in the first grade
“voting for president” and I selected him over Michael Dukakis. It was an easy pick to make, I could pronounce
“Bush”. “Dukakis” not so much. A few
years later I took part in another national election. I picked blue in a poll
as the next m&m. Sorry pink and
purple, you suck. Apparently until 2000 I
was good at picking winners.
I started rolling again and asked my “gotcha” question. It was something about petroleum regulations
caught up in committee. I have no idea
anymore. Basically, it’s not a typical
question a small town local reporter is going to ask a representative. I guess I just wanted to see how he’d respond
to a real question, maybe I’d earn his respect for not being a cookie cutter
dolt asking a meaningless question? He
responded okay and crap…I had no follow up.
Go figure. It's always the followup that gets the meat.
I played back the exchange about Noelle Newton for coworkers
and they all got a kick out of it. He
was such a dirty old man (I don’t say that despairingly, my beloved Opa is a
dirty old man too) I never had the guts to tell Noelle about it though. She eventually got a job in Tulsa like I did,
but I never actually ever saw her up here. Unlike in Sherman, I’m relegated to work at
the station only in Tulsa.
Ralph Hall would get re-elected four or five more times
after that. And yes, he still mailed out
encased cents. But in 2014, after seven decades of having at least one WWII vet in Congress, Mr. Hall would lose in a primary to a teabagger candidate. He was
the last WWII vet, and at age 91 was the oldest “sitting member of congress”
ever. He probably should have left
congress ten years earlier anyway. Hall
relied on “traditional” mailers. Those
stupid coins and name recognition. He
rested on his laurels. He was complacent
and lazy. His opponent invested in new
media and actually fought. Hall was out
of touch and took his voters for granted.
As of this writing Ralph Hall is still alive at the age of
95. The brief time we met he was
certainly affable, pleasant. From what I
can gather he genuinely wanted to serve his constituents, though I may have
disagreed how he did it. After he does
pass away, he will have a lasting legacy.
Lake Ralph Hall has been in the works for over 25 years and will cost
upwards of half a billion dollars. It
will certainly make its mark on the small communities it will surround and for
whom it will provide water. Even so, I will
always remember him for those penny filled discs we’d get in the mail.
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