Voters normally don’t like politicians who prefer flights in private planes. Few things fuel resentment as quickly as the image of a chartered aircraft waiting to whisk away some hotshot congressman or pretentious politician from the public eye. But it’s not that way with Rep. Todd Rokita.
A new digital ad, recently released and first obtained by the Washington Examiner, shows the Indiana Republican flying his little twin-engine prop plane, airlifting patients to hospitals across the country. Now a candidate for U.S Senate, Rokita is an angel flight pilot. His passengers are mostly sick kids traveling for faraway medical care and they fly for free.
“As secretary of state I’ve been to every county in Indiana, 92 counties every year. This little plane isn’t much. It’s like driving an old car,” Rokita says as his aircraft, a Pipe Seneca II, taxis down a black tarmac and takes flight over giant square plots of Indiana farmland. “It’s allowed me to get all over Indiana and I’ve met incredible people.”
“I am inspired by the generosity that I see in Hoosiers. People volunteering their time, volunteering to support other people, that in many cases they’ve never met,” Rokita continues. “Flying for charitable flying organizations in how I can give back.”
About two-and-a-half-minutes long, the clip features stunning images of the state, no doubt designed to resonate with voters ahead of the May 8 primary. Shot just below cloud cover, the aerial ad also gives a snapshot of Rokita who earned his pilot’s license at 17, who shuttles himself between his home district and Washington, D.C. most weekends, and who has logged hundreds of hours as a volunteer medivac.
Angel flight organizations typically fly missions for patients too sick to make it to a hospital on a commercial flight, let alone after a long road trip. The little girl in the pink sweater, her parents tell the camera, has had surgeries since birth, most recently to treat a closing esophagus. Without the angel flight, would mean 12 hours in the car.
“As a parent of a child with disabilities,” Rokita says, referring to his son with Angelman Syndrome, and explaining his motivation, “my heart goes out to parents of sick children.”
“Sometimes the care they need is on the other side of the country. We pilots volunteer our time and our airplanes and it’s a blessing on pilots like me to be able to play a small role in these families lives and help them through difficult times. I’m a pilot, so this is what I can do.”
The airplane ad provides a softer profile of a congressman unafraid to mix it up with his opponents. Rokita has thrown elbows at the other candidates since the beginning, rallying his supporters under a populist banner of “defeat the elite.” Annoyed opposition operatives have groused about Rokita, pointing to the plane as a sign of hypocrisy. But those attacks won’t land when voters learn Rokita is up in the air to fly sick kids to surgeries.
