There was no escaping the politics of healthcare in this year's Fourth of July celebrations for Senate Republicans, the New York Times reported.
Many of them simply didn't show up to face the hometown crowds at annual parades around the country, the Times reported.
"Things are different now," Karen Lobban of Alderson, W. Va., said of the the town's annual parade that's unfolded for every one of its 56 years without political disputes getting in the way.
Though Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin walked the parade route, his GOP colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, missed the event, releasing a YouTube message instead, the Times reported.
And in neighboring Ohio, GOP Sen. Rob Portman had no public events scheduled, nor did the two Republican senators in Iowa, Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst. Parades in Colorado also went without Sen. Cory Gardner, according to the Times.
The GOP-majority Senate has yet to come through with a promised repeal and replace bill for Obamacare, and proposed legislation hasn't been popular, the Times noted.
"Never before, in the 15 times that I've marched in this parade, have I had people so focused on a single issue," GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told the Times after she participated in the parade in Eastport. "I think it's because health care is so personal."
At a late-morning parade in Ely, a small city in northern Nevada, GOP Sen. Dean Heller, who has opposed the current bill, rode the parade route on a horse.
"Get in line behind Trump!" one man shouted, while another told Heller, "Thanks for protecting Medicare," the Times reported.
In Shell Rock, Iowa, Connie Christiansen stood on the lawn of her family's house after watching a parade of Boy Scouts, tractors, ATVs and musicians — but no United States senators.
"I think they've got their priorities mixed up,” she said of her senators, adding that if she saw Grassley, she'd tell him to retire.
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