Yet her greatest gift as a politician appears to be an almost Potteresque ability to remain invisible.
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Stefanik steadfastly avoids taking a stand on anything that might create controversy. Her entire public persona consists of scripted constituent-service visits--visiting a butcher shop here, talking to farmers there, bragging about dealing with veterans benefits issues--while saying nothing about the train wreck in D.C. She votes with Donald Trump 90 percent of the time, but doesn't talk about it, silently luxuriating in support from the NRA and big donations from one of the most ruthless financiers in the history of other people's money, the reptilian Paul E. Singer, and his company, Elliott Management.
She is, in short, the perfect former Harvard intern: perky, ambitious, and someone who knows her place. She's on all the right committees, and she smiles nicely while quietly voting to take away health care for people with pre-existing conditions and nodding right along with whatever her House Intelligence Committee mentor, Devin Nunes, thinks should be done about the Russia investigation--which evidently is whatever Donald Trump thinks should be done about the Russia investigation.
And she loves her some Brett Kavanaugh. Or at least did in July.
As of Friday, after the allegations of sexual abuse against Kavanaugh from Christine Blasey Ford were public, a Stefanik staffer in her D.C. office said the Congresswoman was "watching the process very closely."
Watching, and saying nothing. And doing less. Not even after the New Yorker report came out about a second Kavanaugh accuser, nor after Michael Avenatti said he's representing a third Kavanaugh accuser, nor after Montgomery County, MD, law-enforcement officials reported hearing from what may be a fourth Kavanaugh accuser.
Stefanik has a unique platform. She's a a member of the Congressional Women's Caucus cosponsoring an extension of the Violence Against Women Act. She went to a snooty private high school and an elite Ivy League college. Brett Kavanaugh and the women accusing him are Elise Stefanik's people, or at least her forebears.
She could be a strong, independent voice here, speaking out on the need to investigate these women's claims, and the need for a discussion about Kavanaugh's character, which also includes gambling debts and perjury allegations.
But, as usual, she has decided not to use that voice. Instead, she issues press releases and tweets about her non-controversial legislative efforts--really, who is FOR invasive species?--rendering her insignificant, out-of-the-way, under-the-radar, unimportant.
Invisible.
