Josh Harder gets it.
And in more ways than one.
Harder is returning by a comfortable margin to Congress for his fourth term in January.
He did so by not ignoring an old axiom — all politics are local.
And while axioms are never absolute, there is a lot of truth to them.
Harder is clearly a Democrat.
And he is one of 435 people elected to do the people’s business in the House of Representatives.
But he resisted the urge to add his voice to the shrill echo chamber that national politics has become in the Age of Clickbait where 15 or so snarky and inflammatory words qualify as serious debate in the town square.
And it’s a town square where the likes of Meta, TikTok, X, et al use algorithms to help curb the possibility one might — if left to make their way around the Internet on their own accord — stumble across different views.
Can’t let that happen less it weakens the business model of focusing ads to neatly tailored audiences.
That doesn’t mean the congressman doesn’t use social media.
Quite the contrary,
He simply has resisted the urge to play to the lowest common denominator.
But it is more than that.
Harder doesn’t refuse to see what is in front of him.
The Northern San Joaquin Valley is neither fish or fowl in today’s political world.
Years ago, it could have been considered solid Republican.
And in the last 16 years it has popped up increasingly in the Democrats’ column, especially in San Joaquin County.
The top of the ballot has gone for Obama, Clinton, and Biden by comfortable margins in the 14 percent range in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 in San Joaquin County.
It was credited by many with the ever increasing numbers of Bay Area expatriates crossing the Altamont Pass — and in less numbers, the Pacheco Pass — in search of affordable housing.
As of Tuesday, Donald Trump is 695 votes ahead of Kamala Harris in the San Joaquin County tally.
Is Republican stock on the rise and Democratic fortunes on the decline in San Joaquin County?
No.
It is the more moderate collective sensibilities of a region where blue collar workers from agriculture to construction to trucking to logistics with “local jobs” and white collar workers employed in the cutting edge tech sector “over the hill” coming together.
Those sensibilities are molded by the struggle to raise families and/or keep a roof over one’s head whether you are working in the world’s most productive agriculture region or employed in the world’s foremost tech hub.
Toss in a healthy dose of first generation immigrants along with a kaleidoscope of cultures and faiths — mix it with the synergy that steady and strong growth creates — and you have a region that can’t be pigeon-holed by party labels or political leanings such as conservative or liberal.
Call it moderate or turning purple, and you still wouldn’t be 100 percent right.
Instead, it is a smorgasbord of views, values, and such that bubble to the top that doesn’t check all of the boxes on any political list.
Harder, on more than one occasion since his first successful campaign for Congress, has notes how the Northern San Joaquin Valley where he was born 38 years ago in Turlock, is California’s true melting pot of cultures and politics.
He did not need a degree in political science from Stanford or a master’s in business administration and public policy from Harvard to grasp that, although he has degrees in such disciplines from both.
Harder understood that from being raised here.
He respects the private sector’s vital role in making America the one of opportunity during his days as venture capitalist.
And he has firsthand seen the promise and challenges this nation has as an instructor at Modesto Junior College.
Yes, Harder is a Democrat.
It is why it shouldn’t have surprised those who vilified him for voting for Nancy Pelosi for speaker at the start of his first term in Congress after defeating Jeff Denham in 2018.
By not being a renegade that some believe he should have been, Harder did the heavy lifting that enabled him to secure a position on the House Appropriations Committee that essentially oversees the nation’s purse strings.
That has led to Harder being able to secure needed funding for San Joaquin County for pressing healthcare needs to freeway construction with results that is above the proverbial pay grade of a typical congressman.
And he gets what federal issues with local implications that really matter to his constituents’ day-to-day lives, financial well-being, and their future.
Topping that list is water, flooding, and air quality — three issues in San Joaquin County that federal agencies — the Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers, and Environmental Protection Agency have oversized roles in impacting.
San Joaquin County, with more than 60 percent of California’s fresh water passing through it between fragile levels, is ground zero in the state’s non-stop water wars.
The two major water basins of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers merging here to create the Delta is the result of geography that also puts the county at the heart of the nation’s most challenging air basins.
Harder since Day One has taken the lead in both areas that are truly local issues intertwined extensively with the federal government,
With all due respect, former Congressman Jerry McNerney, who once represented San Joaquin County in Washington, barely qualified as a lightweight when it came to looking out for the region’s best interests when it came to water issues air quality.
Yet, McNerney was able to get elected over and over again for basically concentrating on non-local federal issues outside of casting a vote on bills that impacted water locally.
Harder has been able to weather the political landscape this election cycle because he has — and is — invested heavily in time and legislative effort in water, flooding, and air quality issues on the federal level that are paramount to the health and vitality of the 9th District.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
