What can electric cooperatives accomplish politically at a time when the political system is dysfunctional?

Plenty, and electric cooperatives are positioned perfectly to fill a need, according to a one-time top Republican official.

“You play a very important role here because through your members, you’re still people power,” former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis told electric co-op delegates at a regional convention held in Charlotte in September. “In a very polarized Washington, you maintain a good balance between Republicans and Democrats in equal respect.”

A past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Davis told about 350 supporters of the Action Committee for Rural Electrification that partisanship and ideological purity have consumed the nation’s capital in recent years.

A moderate middle, especially in the House of Representatives, has all but disappeared as Republicans and Democrats strive to be perceived as the most conservative or liberal representatives of their causes, Davis said. “The good news for you is that a lot of your issues really straddle this. They’re not really ideological.”