When I recently visited Democrat Scott Harper’s Naperville campaign headquarters the place was full of activity. Volunteers lined a table in the middle of the office stuffing envelopes. Staffers typed intently or made calls from their desks. It was a Thursday morning, five and a half months before Election Day, but the atmosphere was charged and the group was focused. This fact alone should give Illinois Republicans pause.
Harper is running to represent the 13th Congressional District, which has long been a GOP stronghold. Once represented by none other than former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the seat is currently held by five-term Republican Judy Biggert.
But the tide might be turning. Democrat Bill Foster's upset victory in the neighboring 14th District, along with a national and local trend to the left, has many people predicting that Harper can defeat Biggert. Early indicators are hopeful. The campaign boasted record-breaking fundraising numbers in their first quarter, and the district has been included in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC) list of targeted seats in November. Adding to this momentum is Harper’s contention that he will fight harder than any of the district's previous Democratic candidates to ensure his message is heard.
A native son of the 13th, Harper has traveled the world during the course of his career. A successful business owner and entrepreneur, he is also an aspiring scholar in the field of social ethics.
To give our readers a better understanding of the first-time candidate, I sat down with Harper to learn more about the Democratic reawakening in the collar counties, his growing volunteer force, and why the DCCC is focusing on the race. We also discussed a variety of policy matters including Iraq, the importance of electricity in any national energy policy, and how his experience with manufacturing helped shape his economic views.
MB: Tell me the story of how you decided to campaign?
SH: I’m a business executive and I was running a successful small business. It was an interactive design firm, it’s one of the leading interactive design firms in the Chicago area. And I had in the back of my mind public service. I had volunteered on campaigns and the like through my career. When I came to a political convention some Democrats from this area, this is my hometown, approached me, and they said, “We need someone to take on Judy Biggert.” I had been following her and I knew that she wasn’t right for this district, that she had just been a rubber stamp for the Bush Administration. That did not suit the district because it is moderate even though it leans slightly Republican. It’s […] a suburban moderate district.
MB: I know that you were also pursuing a PhD [in Social Ethics, before entering the race]. Has that applied at all to your efforts in politics?
SH: It has. It’s not the most direct link, but basically my research has been to deal with how we generate ethical decisions. There’s very strong evidence that it comes from the gut […] that we want to help people. The problem is how you square that with the amount of bad or the amount of evil in the world. Basically we want to respond well to the people who are like us, or are in our group. But the research also strongly suggests that that definition of “us” vs. “them” is very moveable. And my candidacy is all about shifting that line out so that the circle is bigger and there’s a greater definition of “us,” and I think that’s one way to describe what the progressive movement is about. Let’s embrace the various aspects of our fellow citizens. Working people and the people who aren’t as privileged, and let’s bring them inside the ring.
MB: Nowadays, it’s almost a question of bringing in political moderates who might find themselves voting Democrat this year when they may have traditionally voted Republican.
SH: Exactly. And there are plenty of those. I mean our district is 60 percent independent, and our message is actually preferred. Over two-thirds go our way when presented with the contrast between my positions and Judy’s -- of those independents. So that’s very telling of both how far right the Republicans have gone, and how much potential there really is as we get our message out through the summer and fall.
MB: We got the news [of recent Democratic special election victories] from Mississippi, and then earlier from Louisiana. How do you see what’s looking like a national trend towards the Democrats?
SH: That’s a very good indicator in my mind, and as you know –what I think was behind the question- is that we started off with Foster in the 14th. So Mississippi one was three-for-three. I think it’s very telling because the 14th is two points less Democratic than this district. So we were very heartened. In fact we played a significant role in Foster’s victory. One hundred and ten volunteers out of his 700-some on election day were from our campaign, so it was very gratifying that we could help him get over the top in that grassroots sort of way. The fact that we have better demographics than he does, that’s heartening, and the Louisiana and Mississippi districts even more so. We want that wave to benefit us but we’re not planning to depend upon it. We’re doing everything that we can to reach out to as many people personally as well as hopefully some press and media in the fall.
MB: Talk a little bit about the response thus far. Have you been heartened by it?
SH: The volunteer organization that we’ve been able to put together might be the best metric, and we’re up over 110 volunteers right now. Every day we’re calling we’ve got around 20 shifts a week of phone bankers, we’ve got people who are knocking on doors every night and all weekend. So it’s very heartening that people have rallied around us. I’m going to community meetings the staff is going to community meetings. We’re getting a great response there, and adding to our volunteer base and continuing the momentum.
MB: This is now a district targeted by the DCCC. It sounds as though it’s engendered quite a bit of enthusiasm nationally, what do you think was behind that decision?
SH: It’s great news for the campaign. Sarah [Topy, Harper’s campaign manager] has done an amazing job of bringing focus and knowledge and pressure at the right points, both in organizing the staff and reaching out to the broader community. So we think that they added us to the list for the three reasons. The demographics look good – it’s in Illinois, right? We’ve been doing very well with fundraising. And Sarah and the team have put together a very well-organized campaign. They [the DCCC] recognize that we can win.
MB: What is your strategy in going up against an opponent who has all the benefits of incumbency?
SH: There’s no question that incumbency is an advantage, but she also has the disadvantages of incumbency and a voting record that’s been solidly behind Bush. Bush is just as unpopular in this district as everywhere else, I mean he might have a few more percentage points, but it’s thirty one percent favorable instead of 28 or whatever. He’s very unpopular here and she’s been supporting him on every big issue from the war to the environment to the economy. Just down the line she’s been rubber stamping the administration. So of course that’s no big secret.
MB: What kind of response do you get as a Democrat running in a place where maybe that’s something new to some of the people you talk to?
SH: The Democrats are delighted. They’re sort of beside themselves. And I’m sure that’s part of the response that we’ve had on the grassroots side. There’s a lot of hidden Democrats. I mean it’s amazing to me that you’ve got a district that’s rated 47 percent Democratic by the NCEC [National Committee for an Effective Congress] and then there are still a lot of Democrats who think they’re the only ones on their block, or the only one their neighborhood. Obviously those both can’t be true! So what I see happening is Democrats are getting energized, whether it’s for Hillary or Barack, and then finding out that there’s a vigorous, viable Democratic congressional candidate in their district -- it's like: “Aha, great!”
Then at the same time there are the Independents … When I meet them at their door --- and those are the kinds of people we are specifically targeting in our field outreach -- when I meet them they like my profile. You know, business man, for small and medium-size business, for working families. It’s like [snaps his fingers]: “Great! You fit!”
MB: To get on to some policy, let’s start with the war in Iraq. What kinds of policies are you looking at in terms of ending the occupation?<
SH: My one line version of the answer to your question is: a principled phased withdrawal. I think the war was a big mistake from the beginning. I was out against it. I do have some sympathy to the “You break it, you bought it” kind of mentality. I do care about the Iraqi people and I don’t want to see genocide on our watch, because it is our watch for better or worse. … But the solution is political not military. And I’ve done a fair amount of research on this. I feel like if we have something like an announced timetable and a phased withdrawal that’s our best chance for getting the political change that we need to really solve the problem.
MB: Would it be fair to say that’s something similar perhaps to what Barack Obama is proposing?
SH: Yes.
MB: Talk a little bit about the rising cost of oil and what kinds of things might be done to counteract that?
SH: We’ve got to have an Apollo-sized focused effort on alternate energy. I feel like wind, solar, hydro, wave, geothermal, recycled energy from industrial heat, potentially even nuclear, I know that’s potentially controversial, but we’ve got to get our electricity grid up.
We always talk about car emissions, which I definitely want to work on too, but let’s not forget the gorilla in the room. If we could increase our electrical grid, the stability of it and the robustness of it, then we can go to electric cars. So right now we don’t have the supply of electricity to go all electric. I think that the electricity infrastructure is the key to the whole thing, and if we go to renewable fuels on electricity and then we can get transportation through electric cars. For example we could do cellulosic ethanol. But for me for sure the long-term issue is to find alternatives to oil because basically we’ve come to a point in the global cycle of oil where we’re at or past the peak of oil exploration … So I think we’ve got to get serious and tackle it like its a national goal.
MB: In terms of the economy, what kinds of policies are you looking at for Americans who might be feeling the downturn?
SH: Jobs, the middle class, working families, I feel like that’s my mission. I feel like so many things have combined to derail us. Job [loss] is the thing that I think is the most worrisome. … Of course the government doesn’t create the jobs, the business leaders do. But in terms of the environment, what we’re really doing is incenting people to take the jobs overseas. We need to reverse the incentives. So I think there are two good ideas in terms of tax policy that could work.
One is that the marginal corporate tax rate is quite high actually. Some big well-connected companies have tax breaks so that they’re effective tax rate is very low, and that’s another problem, but the stated marginal tax rate for companies is actually higher than the European corporate tax rate. That doesn’t encourage foreign direct investment which also could provide jobs. So one thing we could do is reverse the tax incentives so that you pay a higher tax for your foreign operations than you do for your domestic operations and that would reverse the incentives. Right now it’s zero for foreign and quite high for domestic so we’re pushing jobs overseas.
The other thing we could do on the capital gains rate. We could do something similar for both shareholders and corporate officers and employee owners of companies if there’s an ESOP [Employee Stock Ownership] plan. We could make the capital gains rate differential between foreign and domestic operations. We could say it like this: “If you have 70 percent of all your employees in the U.S. you can have a ten point lower capital gains rate for your shareholders, for your officers, for your employees.” I think something like that would capture the attention of investors and bankers and venture capitalists.
I think those types of ideas that understand and appreciate the free market, but that want to use it as a lever to do good for the middle class and for working families. I think those are the kinds of solutions we need. I’m not sure if my exact descriptions of them are going to be the magic bullet. But those are the kinds of things I think we could do and we should do.
MB: Are those ideas that you’ve come up with partially through your experience as a businessman?
SH: Yes. Before I started this company I was a manufacturing executive and consultant and I worked extensively all over the U.S. helping businesses. I also worked all over the world. So I have a ground-level understanding of what globalization is all about. Whether it’s the village or the city or the megacity, what manufacturing is like in the northern territories of Hong Kong, or in Venezuela, and I’m convinced that we can manufacture in this country.
Absolutely we can manufacture in this country. It’s a myth that we can’t, or that Chinese factories are so efficient or so low costs or all this stuff. There are certain labor costs advantages; I’m not sticking my head in the sand. But the Germans manufacture and they have a much higher cost structure than we do. So it’s a lack of personal will and various flaws in the system that are creating this myth that we can’t manufacture anymore. Partly it’s training programs. As certain industries tend to go offshore the unions that have supplied the workforce for those industries, their training programs lag in terms of new entrance and level of training. Some people have told me that it’s hard to get well-qualified machinists, which is shocking. They’re one of our supporters and we’re very proud of that. But in some areas the training programs have lagged so there are definitely other structural issues that have to be addressed as well. Not all of that is the government, but I think public servants can have a role in reaching out and hearing about needs and then finding about solutions.
MB: The way you describe these economic policies, they sound to me like solutions that wouldn’t necessarily be anathema to a person who considers them self a fiscal conservative.
SH: Exactly, and I’m hoping to be that kind of bipartisan legislator that can work across the aisle. I have progressive goals, but I think we can use means that the right won’t necessarily reject out of hand. I’m hopeful. We’ll see [laughs]. Experience may be a harsh teacher in that regard.
