Doc Hastings and where he sits right now in the national conciousness
Doc Hastings’s ‘q’-rating is up! Sam Sedar of Air America Radio referenced him the other day, and seemed to — as well as anyone — put the right posit on who the nation knows Doc Hastings as. I paraphrase but I have the gist down, “that Doc Hastings guy.”
Other ways of putting it that I have heard have been “that Doc Hastings guy, from Washington State.”
Which is that Doc Hastings is referenced just often enough with just enough uncertainty as to who the heck he is that you have to qualify his name with “that guy”. Or perhaps people are embarrassed at referring to a self-given nickname “Doc” for a Congressman?
This all is just as well. He might have been the Speaker of the House under extraordinary circumstances. Dennis Hastert had him tapped in case of emergency in the last Congress. Fortunately, I imagine that if things had come to that point, we all in America would have greater things to worry about than who is running the Lower Chamber of the Legislative Branch — better to just go ahead and dissolve the government than put Doc Hastings in charge.
South Central Washington must be proud. The only way my Congress citter can make the news is by making bad Star Trek references on the House floor. And there he’s referred to as “David Who?” Hastings is a vaguely known commodity… who is popping up in the news.