Letters

Last week, I watched one of the most impressive candidates for Long Island office that I have ever seen. I’m not exaggerating.

John Avlon, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. representative from the 1st Congressional District, sat with the Southampton Democratic Committee and others for almost two hours, speaking and answering questions, lots of questions.

We’re not an easy crowd. We didn’t hesitate to raise the hard issues on which Democrats have been cast as vulnerable, like crime and the border and the economy. The more progressive among us challenged Avlon on many of his avowedly centrist positions.

As to these and a host of other matters, he responded with full, relatable answers, demonstrating in each instance that he’d thought carefully about this thing and how it bears on the life of the everyday citizen.

That last part’s important. John Avlon has been a TV anchor and commentator, a journalist and author. With that background, you’d expect the “elite” charge to be thrown at him — but it doesn’t stick, because he comes across as someone who knows and cares about each of us, a regular guy.

So the media experience works for him rather than against him. Clearly it gives him powerful delivery, though it’s not just how he says things but what he says. The content is deeply persuasive, to me at least, and that’s partly because the man is a serious historian (books on Washington and Lincoln, among others) and a lifelong observer of the national scene.

John Avlon truly knows what he’s talking about, a regrettably rare quality in our politics.

Not only are we local Democrats not an easy crowd, we disagree among ourselves on a lot of people and things. Unanimity is pretty much foreign to us. There are exceptions, though, and in discussion, after hearing from John Avlon, we agreed — all of us — that he is the candidate we should support for Congress this year. People were frankly blown away by this guy.

I know I haven’t touched on substance here, but there’s just too much for one letter. I’ll get to it another time, and I know many of my friends among the Southampton Democrats will do the same.

George Lynch

Quiogue

Lynch is the communications chair for the Southampton Democratic Committee — Ed.