He is running in a district where Republicans have not won since 1960, but that does not deter former Marine Chris Fields (R-MN) from believing he can replace incumbent Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District and so join the other 434 U.S. representatives on Capitol Hill in January 2013.
“(The) campaign is going good, we have a lot of support” said Fields in an interview with New Agora journalist Professor Wall, “the interesting part of the people that support Chris Fields is this: they’ve ranged from all spectrums of the political world. We have Democrats, hardened Democrats, because frankly they are not very satisfied with Keith Ellison and the things that he has been doing, the grandstanding in Congress, his lack of legislative achievements and so they are in our camp; and then we have social conservatives that are in our camp because I am a strong pro-life candidate and we also have Ron Paul supporters and I’m a liberty loving guy like all of those guys and so our support is very deep and very wide. In fact, last month alone we raised thirty thousand dollars which is a big deal for a congressional campaign of this size in the toughest district for Republicans to win in.”
Fields said his motivation to run was twofold. Part of his motivation came from his experience growing up as the impoverished child of a very young mother (she had three children before she was twenty) which left an imprint on him and has helped him understand the struggles of so many of today’s Americans. The other part came from his twenty-one years of service in government as a United States Marine. Those experiences, said Fields, evoked a very strong sense in him of what he could do to turn things around.
In current events, when asked for his opinion on Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” bill currently going through Congress, Fields emphasized that it would not be a quick process to bring the end of the Federal Reserve about, but that he supports ‘the thrust of (Ron Paul’s) argument which is: “we need accountability.”’
“I think that’s where his bill is aimed: at getting more accountability with our economic policy and I would be a huge supporter of that alone” said Fields.
Concerning Ron and Rand Paul’s new crusade for internet freedom, Fields supports efforts to keep the internet open and free.
“We would have to take a look at the legislation (in favor of internet freedom), but I did not support SOPA” said Fields
“What I am concerned about with internet freedom” he continued, “is that it has to remain open, it has to remain accessible to everyone, to bloggers and to the wide range of Americans who want to be able to express themselves. What is truly concerning to me is when you have, whether it is the recording industry or some of the other industries that are lined up against (internet freedom) and they want to control the voice, they want to own the internet so to speak. That really doesn’t sit well with me and it shouldn’t sit well with a lot of Americans.”
- Chris Fields converses with potential supporters as part of his bid to win the congressional seat in Minnesota's 5th House District
In regards to the prospective indefinite detention of Americans thanks to certain clauses in the NDAA law, Fields stated that, while the clause was, in a sense, ambiguous and many had tried to reassure Americans that the law would not be used or construed that way, he still could not have supported it.
“With the NDAA, no I could not have voted for that, with that statement in there. There was one statement that could be construed as ‘Americans could be held, detained’; President Obama had a signing statement saying ‘Hey, this in fact not what we are going to do’, this is not a road his administration was going to go down, but the fact that its in there just leads me to believe that some clever lawyer somewhere could potentially use that and that is enough for me not to support that bill. I don’t want to give those folks the ammunition to restrict American liberties and our due process because that is what this goes to: our due process.”
Fields expressed even stronger concerns about the use of drones on American soil. “I’m particularly concerned about drones and here is why:” said Fields “A couple of weeks ago a drone just crashed in Maryland and Maryland is a pretty big state, but my experience in the military is that we usually test out equipment out there on the West Coast in Nevada in the big desert, so that wouldn’t have raised my eyebrow; but the fact that it crashed in Maryland, like what sort of testing were they doing out there? What was this drone’s mission in particular? Was he going around picking up signals from everyday Americans? We need to know more about that and the fact that this administration has used drones so extensively in the War on Terror, it is a system that can be ripe for abuse.”
Following up his opinions on these issues, Fields emphasized that, unlike Ellison who seems to choose his battles based on the administration in power, he would rather vote for what was right than follow the party line.
“I’m not interested in the Left or the Right so to speak, its about what is right for me and what I see (as the difference between) myself and Keith (Ellison) is ‘Hey, I want to be someone that focuses on what is right and I don’t care who the administration is’; if its President Romney, no, I get to oppose his use or abuse of drones; or you know, this NDAA, I don’t care who put that bill forward, you know, you have to have some sort of integrity and that’s what our political system is missing right now.”
Upon being asked for his stances on some of the main social conservative issues as well as Obamacare, Fields re-emphasized his pro-life roots, especially being born to a fifteen year old mother, and added “I am Pro-Life from cradle to grave with no exceptions and you know what, I am pretty unapologetic about that.” He did go on to add however that he was not a single-issue candidate and that he felt that the country has more pressing concerns which must be solved before a constitutional amendment banning abortion could be constructively addressed and have any hope of becoming law. Speaking on Obamacare, Fields expressed grave concerns about the Federal Government intervening in healthcare and said he would prefer state and local authorities taking control of their own situation in regards to addressing any healthcare problems. Fields also added that he felt the marriage issue would be best settled by the people at the state level in the referendums currently being voted on rather then judges.
With two candidates vying for the Democratic congressional nomination in Congressman Ellison and activist Gary Bosiclair, (an ally of Democratic presidential candidate Randall Terry), Fields is ready to lay out why voters should pick him over either of those candidates in November.
“With Keith, you know what you’re going to get” Fields said of Ellison, “Keith has been in office since 2006 and not much has gotten better in the lives of many of the people in the district. Minneapolis is home to the largest achievement gap in education between black and white students and with regard to unemployment we still have the largest unemployment gap between blacks and whites in the entire country. That is an embarrassment and I would say this: In the age of Obama and with a representative like Ellison, that should not be the case. Minneapolis and the fifth congressional district have not gotten the focused attention they need. Keith is out talking about a lot of national issues, you name it, everything from Syria to Palestine to Citizens United, this guy is all over the map and what we don’t have here is focused attention; and what we aim to do is provide focused attention, not focusing on the issues that are friendly to Left or issues that are friendly to the Right, but focusing on what is right and what is right for the fifth congressional district. We need to get private enterprise in here and we need to start making investments, not just government investments, which is exclusively what Keith talks about almost, but we need to get private dollars, we need to make ourselves more attractive economically so that we can get new Fortune 500 (companies) to grow. We have a lot of Fortune 500 companies, but we don’t have a lot moving here and that’s what we need to begin to do.”
With Boisclair, Fields commented that: “(I) read some of his stuff, I understand he is pretty strong on the (Pro-)Life issue and I applaud him for that but beyond that we have not seen a whole lot of information with regard to where he stands. If you are going to be strong on the (Pro-)Life issue but then continue to support some of the other drastic environmental pieces of legislation that the Democratic Party has put out, like being opposed to the Keystone Pipeline and things of that nature, well then you have the difference there. So you have to backup what you’re talking about with a strong agenda that gets people back to work and in particular addresses the achievement gap in education as well as the unemployment gap.”
Concerning his political future, Fields was asked if he would consider running for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Al Franken or Governor Mark Dayton in 2014.
“Well right now we have to focus on what is on our plate and so me pontificating on what I am going to do the day after the election is probably not where my focus needs to be. And one of the things that voters are going to understand about me is that I am incredibly focused and incredibly disciplined. And that is probably a product from me being in the Marines but probably not insofar as, coming from the South Bronx in New York City, there is a whole lot of ways to get yourself distracted and turned around and so that you go all off of course in terms of making yourself successful in life. (I) been able to avoid those distractions and so I think in the political sense here I can avoid the distraction of thinking about tomorrow and focus in on what is important for today.”
© 2012 New Agora and The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written, re-transcribed or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.
No comments:
Post a Comment