Politics used to be personal.

People running for state and national office would show up and give a speech. Folks would listen and form their opinion. In between, the candidates would shake hands, eat the local food and listen.

Kankakee, as a midsize Midwestern city on the Illinois Central railroad, once regularly drew stops by presidents and presidential candidates, particularly Republicans. Dwight Eisenhower was here. Richard Nixon was here. Ronald Reagan was here. William Taft was here. William McKinley was here. In more recent history, Barack Obama was here before he was president.

Now the world is more electronic. People do not travel so much or invest the time to listen to whole speeches. We live in the era of the television commercial, the sound byte and the tweet. Our attention span is increasingly limited.

The same is true for statewide office. Once, if you were running for a statewide office, any office, you would stop in Kankakee. Now, not so much.

With this in mind, we commend Gov. J. B. Pritzker for his willingness to visit our local area. In half a year, Pritzker has been here four times, stopping at King Middle School, the Illinois Veterans Home at Manteno, and the expansion at the CSL Behring plant. His latest stop was to take in the Chicago Bears Training Camp. Pritzker has also been invited to address the Kankakee County Branch of the NAACP in October.

Now we are not in full agreement with Pritzker’s policies, which seem to be: raise taxes and fees and see who will stay to pay.

But you have to give him credit for a willingness to meet the people. He may have been here as much in half a year as any of the past three governors were in a full term.

Seeing things is a step toward learning about them. Meeting people is a step toward listening to them. Welcome back, governor. Come again.