The Santa Barbara civil litigation attorney has pledged to accept no more than $250 from individual contributors during his campaign.
The Santa Barbara civil litigation attorney has pledged to accept no more than $250 from individual contributors during his campaign. Hager says that’s the price you pay for – and for being – an independent candidate.
Capps’ district encompasses Northern Santa Barbara County, including Orcutt, and much of San Luis Obispo County.
In a telephone interview Monday, Hager, 61, said he decided to run in April because he was increasingly alarmed by what he saw as the failure of Congress to take responsibility for the financial collapse of 2008.
“Congress passed laws in late ’90s and early 2000s, including laws that Capps voted for, that allowed for financial gambling at high levels to occur,” he says.
“As I got deeper into this election, I realized one of the fundamental problems is campaign financing.”
Hager is fond of quoting Alexis De Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, for his “prescience” when he wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
Shunning what he calls the moneyed corruption of partisan politics, Hager says running a low-budget campaign allows him to speak his mind without consideration for major donors and special interests.
“I have freedom,” he states. “If someone gives me $250, it helps my campaign without influencing it. But if an individual gives me $2,400, that’s more likely to have a potential influence.” “You can’t campaign, as I have, on campaign finance reform when special interests are stuffing your pockets with money,” he adds.
To illustrate his point, Hager claims that he is the only candidate talking about the war in Afghanistan, while his opponents have been tellingly silent.
He wants an immediate, orderly withdrawal from the region. “Watson and Capps are afraid of alienating voters,” he laments. “They’d rather take no position than take a position that would hurt them politically. That’s irresponsible.”
“Even though Capps hasn’t addressed it directly, she has voted for continued funding in the war in Afghanistan, so she is in effect supporting it,” he says.
Hager is among three candidates – Republican candidate Tom Watson and Libertarian Darrell N. Stafford – aiming to dethrone Capps, who has held the office since 1998, in the November general election.
Capps and Stafford ran unopposed on their parties’ respective tickets. Watson outdistanced four others when he captured 38 percent of the vote on the Republican ballot.
Hager, who bills himself as a fiscal conservative and a social libertarian, wears the political neophyte badge with honor. But that doesn’t mean he has no ideas. His platform focuses on campaign finance reform, reinvesting in education, immigration reform, stopping offshore drilling and cutting debt. The latter, he maintains, impacts all of the other issues. The national debt and the unemployment rate, he contends, are the primary reasons for voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties’ nominees (he says he has no reason to think Watson, another political newcomer, won’t toe to the Republican line). He bristles at Capps’ congressional record, noting that the national debt has more than doubled while she’s been in office. But he doesn’t let Watson off the hook. “Like many Republicans, he says he wants to cut spending, but he only wants to cut social programs,” Hager sniffs. “We need to cut across all areas, including the military.”
It’s tempting to peg Hager as a libertarian. He supports gay marriage, legalized marijuana (though he has serious questions about the implications of Prop 19), a flat tax code that exempts the poor, and he opposes the recent healthcare initiative (“I’m a lawyer, and I can’t even make sense of it!”) and the two U.S.-led wars in the Middle East.
But he insists that he is not tied to any one ideology. “I oppose new offshore drilling,” he says. “Our coast is our equivalent of a national park. Plus, we have a tourist-based economy here. Even more unsightly rigs would diminish the attraction of our coast, and another oil spill would be economically devastating.” Hager says colleges and universities need to reassess how they manage endowment funds, which have suffered because of “risky investment strategies” in an already volatile market. He promises to champion a boost in student loans and grants, particularly for those who perform well academically. “A student who graduates at the top of his or her class should have their loans partially forgiven,” he says. “Education is an investment, and students have been getting the short end of the stick because they’re not big campaign contributors.” Small businesses are also a top priority on Hager’s to-do list. He wants to increase the number of business loans and offer tax credits for hiring new employees.
“Small businesses employ almost half of the workforce,” he says. “If we can get each business to add one employee, it would reduce the unemployment rate dramatically.” But before Hager fulfills his promises, he has to defeat six-term veteran Capps.
He doesn’t see the challenge as an uphill battle, banking on anti-incumbent fever and voter disillusionment with candidates catering to political extremes. He says voters are yearning for a candidate who will set a less divisive tone in Congress and address the biggest issues that will require bipartisan solutions. “Both sides are talking at each other instead of with each other,” he says. “There’s a tribalism going on in Washington. There’s no one acting as a peacemaker to bring about genuine dialogue.”