Stand for something
We call it "running for Congress," although ideally a candidate is running to pursue an agenda as a member of Congress and not merely to hold the office. It's an important distinction that came into sharp relief this week.
Democratic Congressional District 3 candidate John Oceguera showed up on a couple of TV shows and said ... nothing. Despite valiant efforts from the likes of Jon Ralston, Hugh Jackson and Elizabeth Crum, Oceguera declined to take a stance on virtually anything.
Reaction was swift: Oceguera got some upbraiding on my blog (www.SlashPolitics.com). He was pilloried by Ralston and J. Patrick Coolican in columns in the Las Vegas Sun. The Republican Party used a reference from the comedy "Dodgeball" (that I didn't get!) to mock him. Some Democrats wondered if he'd given up.
"It wasn't my finest TV hour," Oceguera acknowledged on Friday. "I think my priorities are in the right place."
I asked about those priorities in a common question: Why are you running? Oceguera said he saw too much bickering in Washington D.C., while joblessness reigns in Nevada and Republicans want to take away Medicare. (If you're saying at home that this line will cause even more bickering, you're right.)
But it's a start. After a week of being accused of having no views, Oceguera was ready at last to answer direct questions with direct answers.
On the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: He's for it. "I think the Affordable Care Act was a good start," he said, mentioning specifically allowing children to remain on their parent's health-insurance plans until age 26, and a ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
And, "Unlike [his Republican opponent, Dr.] Joe Heck, I would not vote to repeal health care."
While we're on the subject, Oceguera said he'd like to see electronic health records used to increase savings, and to authorize Medicare to use its vast bulk-purchasing power to negotiate lower prescription drug costs. (No, those are not new or innovative ideas, but they are direct and concrete.)
"Nobody should be using 911 as their primary health-care provider," said Oceguera, a former firefighter.
On the stimulus: He's for it. Congress faced an economy in free-fall, and a choice: Do something (i.e. spend money to keep the economy from collapsing) or do nothing (allow that collapse and its consequences). "Clearly, something had to be done," he said.
Had he been in Washington, D.C. at the time, he'd have pushed to allow states more flexibility in how they spent stimulus funds, pushed for more tax cuts for the middle class and pushed for more small-business hiring tax credits.
"The bottom line is, it saved thousands of Nevada jobs," Oceguera said.
Want more? Oceguera says he definitely opposes the budget proffered by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, which would shift Medicare toward a voucher-style program for younger people. He also opposes the just-passed Republican House budget, which Heck supported. He wants to end provisions of the tax code that allow U.S. companies to avoid paying taxes by shipping jobs overseas, or by setting up the kind of complex international money-transfers that increase profits for companies such as Apple Computer.
He favors allowing the George W. Bush tax cuts for people earning more than $250,000 to expire. And he favors the so-called Buffett Rule, which would set at 30 percent the minimum tax rate for any American earning more than $1 million annually, whether from wages or investment income. And he'd like to see a standard deduction for home offices.
No politician wants to hand his opponent an issue ad on a silver platter. But, as Oceguera surely learned this week, it's better to take a campaign hit for standing up for something than standing for nothing.
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.
