In Texas a disturbingly familiar scenario is developing, where an aged congressman republican has disappeared from the campaign trail for the midterm, drawing comparisons with the health episode that involved the historical leader republican of the Senate Mitch McConnell at the beginning of the year.

The reporter Jake Lahut has detailed the absence of weeks of the deputato John Carter (R-TX-31) from public view in a post on his personal SubStack.

McConnell, 84, known above all for his role as leader of majority republican of the Senate, has caused wide alarm at the beginning of the year when he disappeared from public view after being hospitalized. The little clarity in the communications of his staff on the situation has fed conspiracy theories on his condition and has relaunched the debate on the risks tied to elderly officeholders who hold on to power. Even if McConnell then returned to work, appeared frail and at times seemed to lack awareness of the surrounding context, continuing to cause concern. That episode has supplied the schema that is now repeating in an electoral district of the House: questions on the capacities of an aged officeholder to which his office has for the most not answered, leaving to reporters and hearsay accounts the task of filling the void.

Now, according to sources reported to Lahut, another aged republican officeholder — the deputato of Texas John Carter, also him of 84 years — is out of public scene from weeks, and the absence has arrived in a delicate moment: the last stretch of a campaign for the midterm, when the outgoing officeholders usually address the voters in public events.

"Last week I received a report that an octogenarian congressman of Texas had practically disappeared from the campaign trail", has written Lahut. "Apart from some votes mid-September, the deputato John Carter (R, TX-31) has been seen very little in the last months".

The service of Lahut has cited Dale Ross, ex mayor republican of Georgetown, in Texas, that has described the congressman of 84 years as "the father of the republican politics" in the Williamson County — part of the area of Austin, Round Rock and Cedar Park to north of Austin that includes most of the district. Ross has affirmed to have heard that Carter was facing serious problems of loss of memory and other possible pathologies.

"John would have had to retire years ago", has said Ross. "You hear talk of articulated and similar things. But he simply likes being a congressman. It's a thing from Mitch McConnell".

Ross has also said to Lahut that he intends, for the first time from years, to break with the Gop voting for James Talarico in the electoral race for the Senate of Texas.

"Everyone wonders: why do you continue to do it at 84 years?", has said Ross. "This is not the republican Party that I have always known".

"The surprises of October and the late reports are for me reason of suspicion", has added Lahut. "However, after that the affiliate NPR of Austin KUT has published the report on the disappearance of Carter from the campaign trail — including a short telephone interview in which the congressman results incoherent — I have felt the duty to publish parts of my interview with the mayor Ross... Initially I was cautious in reporting on the health of Carter, but after having heard it in that interview it is clear that something serious is happening".

According to the report of KUT, the opponent of Carter, Justin Early, has stationed outside the electoral office of the congressman with coffee and donuts, waiting that he went out, while the supporters shouted "Where's John Carter". Carter has never appeared.

In a short telephone interview with the reporter of the Williamson County Kailey Hunt, Carter has said: "No, I am perfectly fit to hold the office and next week I will be up there" — a statement barely comprehensible. With only that phone call and second-hand accounts as public information on his condition, the case of Carter inserts now squarely in the debate relaunched by the absence of McConnell on the aged officeholders — with the difference that this time the question on the fitness is tied to a name on the ballot of the midterm in a single district of the House.

Carter has limited itself to declare in the interview that was facing "problems at home" to justify the absence. What will happen depends now largely on Carter himself: if he will maintain the promise to return "next week" and if his electoral office or congressional will furnish more precise information before the day of the vote — the same clarity whose absence has transformed the health episode of McConnell in a story that still persists.