Biden pays campaign visit to shipyard?
Fosters.comVice President Joe Biden is expected to tour the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard this morning, an event we are told will highlight the shipyard’s work-force engagement.
It is a process, once described in a Portsmouth Herald news report, as “one that empowers the rank and file to speak up and assures that managers will listen.”
Also attending will be U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, representing New Hampshire, along with U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud, from Maine — all Democrats.
Of course, we understand this is campaign season and why this published list includes only Biden’s Democratic brethren. Regardless, it is nice to have the vice president grace the Seacoast and bring attention to the quality work being done at the shipyard by our friends and neighbors who work there.
That said, some words of appreciation are due many who are apparently not on today’s guest list or not attending for various reasons. They include names synonymous with past efforts to keep the shipyard open so that today’s visit is even possible.
At the head of this list is former New Hampshire governor, former U.S. Senator and Republican Judd Gregg. It is believed by many that he did the most significant amount of the heavy lifting during more recent rounds of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process.
Also deserving credit during his time in the U.S. House of Representative is now Republican State Sen. Jeb Bradley, of New Hampshire, who also poured his life’s blood into keeping the shipyard open.
Across the border in Maine, words of appreciation go out to Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to whom both Republican and Democratic ears in Washington have learned to listen.
Should another BRAC closure round loom, it will be Collins, along with New Hampshire’s Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who will be called upon to fill the role played previously by Gregg.
And less we forget, some additional kind words go out to now retired U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, also of Maine and also a Republican.
This is not to ignore the key roles reserved for any member of either Maine or New Hampshire’s congressional delegations — Democrat or Republican — in keeping the shipyard open and serving our nation. But it is to note the bipartisan nature of the effort, something today’s ceremonies would seem to ignore.
In having followed attempts to close the shipyard since the days of the Nixon administration, we know that at times it takes more than one party bending the ear of a Washington administration to keep the shipyard up and running.
We hope that our vice president will offer bipartisan words to that effect today, even though his visit can be seen largely as a campaign swing (maybe for him?) for Democrats.
.
