Republicans Promoted a False Rumor That James Talarico Was in Ohio
Nine days off the trail with the flu, and somehow the story became Ohio. That's the part I keep turning over. A candidate gets sick, stays home, and the rumor mill decides he's secretly somewhere else entirely, doing something mysterious. There's something almost primal about it. When someone disappears from view, even briefly, our brains refuse to accept the boring explanation. We want a plot.
The flu is mundane, unglamorous, inconvenient. Ohio is a story. That's the engine of conspiracy thinking, I think: a deep discomfort with empty space, more than malice. The rumor spread widely before it was debunked, which tells you how hungry people were for the dramatic version.
I'd want to know how the campaign handled those nine days, whether silence made it worse. Because the lesson might be that absence speaks louder than any statement. We're pattern-seeking creatures, and when reality gives us nothing, we'll invent something. Usually it's Ohio.