I'm quite familiar with the town. Basically there's nothing there that is a destination except a couple of tattered antique malls and maybe a good BBQ (not Haitian, not cat) place.

IMO Springfield was selected for Haitian bombardment because it contained mainly poor working class people, with no clout. Nobody currently famous is from Springfield so it has no champions. Nobody in neighboring cities cares about Springfield. We visited a couple antique malls there a couple of years ago and they were both shabby with few customers.

Not too far away from my house - Middletown, about 10 mi from me, has JD Vance. But Springfield - no one.

This is similar to ignoring East Palestine after the train wreck.

The ruling class selects winners and losers.