There were a couple of things that caught my eye in this morning’s News-Gazette. The first was the headline on Tom Kacich’s article on page B-1, “Johnson gets aggressive on fundraising”. The second was Jim Dey’s editorial supporting Urbana’s proposed aggressive panhandling ordinance. The editorial concludes saying,” It seems hardly too much to ask that aggressive panhandling be discouraged through an ordinance.” The first image that leapt into mind spawned by the juxtaposition of that headline and that editorial was of the Congressman stalking through Lincoln Square while aggressively shaking a tin cup and being followed by a policeman.
I guess that aggressive panhandling can be either a virtue or a vice depending on where you sit. It’s a virtue if you sit in a seat in Congress and are raising money for a re-election campaign in an unfamiliar district. It’s a vice if you are sitting on the curb trying to raise the money to rent a room or buy a meal. Both the Congressman and the Panhandler are begging for money. Is the difference that the Congressman has something to sell?