Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren introduced herself to the Vineyard last weekend during a two-day swing through the Island that included public and private fundraisers, visits to Island newspapers and some unscheduled face time with voters on the street and in restaurants and coffee shops. We hope to see incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, too, in the weeks ahead so that Vineyard voters will be offered the same chance to hear his message and position on issues as the November 2012 election and this significant race draw near.

A place where people of so many differing backgrounds and party affiliations come together during July and August, the Vineyard has become a well-established stage for summer political fundraisers in recent decades. And while the Island also has earned a reputation as a bastion of liberal Democrats, in fact that has not always been the case. From the 1940s through the 1960s Dukes County, along with most of Cape Cod, was a Republican stronghold in predominantly Democratic Massachusetts. Prominent summer residents who were Republicans came to the Island for the saltwater fishing and duck hunting; many of them also were ardent conservationists and are responsible for the large parts of the Island that remain protected areas today. In the 1970s the countywide party profile shifted toward independents and Democrats as the Island began to be populated by an influx of young back-to-the-landers and retirees. The demographic of summer residents made a similar shift.

This week the national news was abuzz with reports that President Obama will not be vacationing with his family on the Island, as he has for the past three Augusts, though the White House has yet to confirm it. This was less of a surprise to Island residents, who are generally working months ahead to accommodate the entourage that must accompany a sitting president on holiday.

Beyond the glitz of fundraisers and glamor of visiting celebrities lies an Island beset with the same intractable problems — health care, affordable housing, jobs — that are bedeviling the rest of the country. Much is at stake in the November election, and we urge the candidates and those who support them to pull back the curtain on the Vineyard as political stage to understand how the Island itself is suffering. It will be instructive.