To the Editor:
The Wednesday article on Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry Mark Alliegro’s nascent congressional campaign (“Prof. vies for Congressional seat,” Feb. 12) highlighted his call for a return to “citizen representatives” in Congress, rather than a “class of political elites.” He also admonished that being a legislator “doesn’t require that you be a lawyer.”
If Alliegro’s “Back to the Future” campaign for a seat in Congress is successful, we can only hope that his grasp of current political issues is better than his recollection of political history. Two of the three politicians whom he cites as examples of “citizen representatives” (Patrick Henry and John Adams) were actually highly regarded lawyers whose social and economic standing surely placed them among the political elite of their day.
But Alliegro’s campaign rhetoric is useful in one respect. It reminds us that just because a campaign pitch may sound good, that doesn’t immunize it from scrutiny against real facts.
Steve Lincoln ’81
Danville, Ca.
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