Weigel

90-Year-Old Man Wants to Keep Job So He Can Do Very Little With It

Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, looks at a monitor as he waits for the subway after a vote at the Capitol on Jan. 15, 2013. Pretty exciting stuff.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Rep. Ralph Hall is 90 years old, and running for re-election. This is just a little baffling to idle observers—if they know Hall at all, it’s for his lost-looking demeanor at congressional hearings, or for the public services (a nice lake) named for him in East Texas. In endorsing his strongest opponent, John Ratcliffe, the Dallas Morning News noted that Hall had been pondering retirement since at least 1994. He didn’t retire; he actually left the Democrats for the GOP 10 years later, when he was redistricted into unfriendlier territory.

Point is, he’s running again, and this ad is supposed to save him.

Kind of a reductio ad absurdum of Republican campaign ads. He’ll never vote to raise the debt limit—yes, a lot of luck he’s had in preventing that happening.