Chuck DeVore on today's big issues and why he wants to take down Boxer
Political - California
BY Landon Bright
Monday, 19 October 2009 10:10
“Everything Boxer says about cap and trade is not true.” That’s according to three-term Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine). DeVore is the lesser-known name in the Senate race that features the well-known, if not polarizing, Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina. He is trying to steal the spotlight from the two and become California’s next great Republican Senator. But for now, DeVore has to be concerned with Fiorina, who he will most likely face in the Republican primary next June.
DeVore sat down with the SDNR editorial board. Here are some highlights from the interview.
SDNR: If and when Carly Fiorina officially enters the race, how will your campaign change?
CD: It won’t change a dang thing. I look forward to her being in the race. It will put the spotlight on the race and it will give my campaign more name ID. She’s going to bring more interest into this race that would otherwise be a cakewalk for me in the primary. If I can’t beat Carly Fiorina, there’s no way in hell I can beat Barbara Boxer—she’ll be a great tune-up.
SDNR: Were your plans always to run for the Senate?
CD: I’ve never had a desire to be anything. Offices are tools from which you do things with. It just appeared to me that the intellectual vigor of my party had been spent under George W. Bush. There was just no enthusiasm there. As I was pondering the possibilities of four years of democrat rule and probably increased representation in the House and the Senate, I realized we need a movement conservative to run against her, we need to set something up where people have a clear choice between someone who believes that government is the solution for every problem mankind can ever have versus a belief rooted in the founding principles of this nation that government exists to protect our unalienable rights. That the government does not exist as a means to provide us happiness, it just gives us an environment to allow us to pursue happiness.
SDNR: What’s your take on the healthcare debate?
CD: It’s a dangerous thing (universal healthcare). You’re talking about having increased government participation in one-seventh of the economy. When, what is largely wrong with healthcare today is the government to begin with. It’s the free market that brings us high quality fuel to our local gas stations; it’s the free market that brings fresh fruits and vegetables to the grocery stores. You would think something as important as healthcare would cause Americans to say ‘gee the free market works so well in providing us high quality and reasonable costs for everything else, wouldn’t we want more of that for healthcare, not less? But it’s precisely the direction they want to take it. It’s more government intervention in a system, that while it has its blemishes, it’s still the best in the world. If you look at the things that need to be fixed, clearly interstate competition for insurance policies is one big thing. We need to go further in the direction of health savings accounts and get rid of the asinine policy of flex accounts. I mean what brilliant individual thought of that, where you can set aside $4,000 and if you don’t use it by the end of the year you lose it. That makes people overuse healthcare services, because you can’t roll it over--that’s stupid. What you want to do is encourage people to stay healthy by accumulating tax free dollars year-to-year that can only be used for healthcare. That’s why we need to have more things like health savings accounts and not less.
SDNR: What about cap and trade? Is it going to put us in a competitive disadvantage?
CD: It (cap and trade) will not reduce emissions and it will not create jobs. But, it will increase global emissions by shifting emissions from efficient places like California, which is the most electrically efficient state in the country, to places like China, where they are building two 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plants every week—every week, that’s a hundred a year, it’s insane. Somehow this thought by equalizing California’s law (AB 32), which is a bad law, will be preempted (and will) transfer our mistake to the whole country. This will prove for better or for worse that things do start out in California. In fact, if you want to see a laboratory for everything Obama wants to do and why it’s failed and bad look at California.
SDNR: What are you pushing right now to stimulate job growth in California? What regulatory changes would you like to see?
CD: Well the things I have pushed in the past have pretty much gone nowhere, mostly because we are outnumbered 2-1, but you got to continue to try. I’ve had five bills regarding nuclear power in last three years. California is one of six states with a ban on nuclear power. It’s interesting because when I go to testify on these bills, the groups testifying at my right elbow are the construction trade unions, the steel workers, the electrical workers, the pipe fitters unions. They are the ones who build the nuclear power plants, and that always freaks out the Democrats, but they still vote against it. I had a tax cut bill that would have reduced the highest marginal rate in the state by a quarter of a percent, just to argue the case cause I am Vice Chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee, that obviously got no votes. I was one of three Republicans on the Assembly floor to argue against Prop 1A, the measure that would have extended the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the state level for two years.
SDNR: Any particular message you would like to send out to San Diego voters?
CD: Well, Barbara Boxer is on the wrong side of the water issue. She’s been historically on the wrong side of border security. She flip-flops on whether she wants to build and complete a border fence. Basically, she tries to get her cake and eat it too. She’ll support the authorization, but she never ends up voting for the appropriation. Clearly, on the issue of modern nuclear power, she has not been a friend of it. Yet, San Diego County generates half of all California’s nuclear power through San Onofre. And at any given time you probably have 20 nuclear reactors in your harbor (Navy vessels) that have not killed anyone yet, as far as I have seen. It seems to work and be a reliable and affordable source of power. Interestingly enough, it’s the lowest source of carbon emission power you could possibly imagine. San Diegans are going to care about jobs, the economy, water issues and domestic energy. It’s just that you have a local take on that. And you have the biggest stake in the military—more than any county in California.
SDNR: Do we need to send more troops to Afghanistan?
CD: I am going to leave that decision to the commander on the ground. My question would be ‘Do we intend to win, or not...Do we think we want to win on the ground in a traditional campaign or are we happy with the Taliban taking over Afghanistan again? And if we are, I suppose there is a case to be made that you contain them there and you have an understanding that if they ever attack us again we’ll kill the leadership, like we did the first time. I don’t think that’s a wise thing to do. But I hope the President makes a decision soon.
SDNR: You are trying some unique campaign strategies as far as your YouTube video, what’s behind that strategy? Do you worry about any backlash from them?
CD: People are busy, if you’re going to inform them they want to be entertained if possible. That’s one reason why we use things like that (YouTube videos) to get our word across. I don’t view it as mudslinging when I take her (Boxer) owns words and throw it right back at her; we’re not making this stuff up.
http://sandiegonewsroom.com/news/ind...ticle&id=36209
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Originally Posted by Rekonn
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