While I was in West Virginia I sat down with Mike Oliverio, one of the cycle’s hardest-to-pin-down Democrats. In May’s Democratic primary, Oliverio
defeated 28-year incumbent Rep. Alan Mollohan
. Democrats immediately realized that this meant that the 1st district of West Virginia would be easier to retain – internal polling had Mollohan’s re-election number below 30 percent. But they didn’t know what to make of Oliverio, a conservative state senator who’s pro-life, anti-spending, and opposed both health care reform and cap and trade. He was even murky on whether he’d back Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. That was before hedging on Pelosi was cool.
Oliverio is nothing like the man he wants to replace. Tall, with the mien of a high school football coach, he met me in his campaign office wearing a polo shirt with the West Virginia University colors, blue and orange. Behind him sat a chart detailing the size of the national debt and how much of it Americans “owned,” per capita. He indicated this chart occasionally to make points.
SLATE: So why are you running for Congress?
OLIVERIO: I’m a fiscal conservative. I’m proud to say that. I launched my campaign in front of the bureau of public debt, where 2000 federal employees manage the country’s debt, because i wanted to draw attention to the debt of our country. I developed an iPhone app where people can see what they’re indebted to.
SLATE: The main Democratic argument on economics, though, is that we need to run up the debt now, until the economy recovers.
OLIVERIO: The way we really got a handle on state government during my years in the legislature was that we really developed priorities, and other things we said no to. The federal government has to step back and say what are our ultimate responsibilities? Social Security was an investment that was made and we have to fund that. Investment in our infrastructure, I think, is the best way to help grow our economy. I’m a big proponent of infrastructure development and have seen in our area how that’s played great dividends.
SLATE: Infrastructure spending in the last two years?
OLIVERIO: No, no, in my service in government. Thank you for letting me clarify. Where I think government has to have a restrained appetite is on all the restrained project and the earmarks. And it’s hard sometimes. You might have a community group come to you with a good cause and it’s beyond what government can afford.
SLATE: Well, how do you determine what’s waste and what’s useful?
OLIVERIO: Is it in the best interest of country? You have to evaluate whether it will bring benefit to all kinds of people. WIll it simply be in one company and government be in the business of picking winners and losers? But if we build one road and there are water pipes and sewers alongside of it, a property owner along the side if we put the road for one business down at the end, we’re not being stewards of the public money, we’re picking a winner, Look, the thing Robert Byrd was criticized for the most was bringing the FBI center to Clarksburg. Now look what’s happened there! It’s a world class facility. It doesn’t just employ West Virginians. It’s helped the law enforcement officer in spokane, the cop in in St. Petersburg.
SLATE: This isn’t how the White House talks about this stuff.
OLIVERIO: This is a real view of mine, I think that when people have problems they ought to try to solve those problems themselves. If for whatever reason they’re unable to, and gov intervention is required they should go to the lowest level of government that can solve that problem. They should only get up to the local government if they can’t be solved through corporate means, up to the federal government if it can’t be solved locally. The problem in our soceity today is that too many people take the exact opposite appraoch, and that is bankrupting our country.
SLATE: In Washington, Republicans are talking about checking the power of the EPA, particularly as it sets regulations on carbon. Would you join an effort like that?
OLIVERIO: Well, first, any national energy policy should have as its cornerstone coal. To the person in New York or Boston who no longer thinks coal is important to our country, I’d ask: Which twelve hours of a day do you no longer want electricity?
As for the EPA – the EPA is an agency of the federal government, not an agency of their own. In my mind they seem to believe they have jurisdiction beyond that which is granted by congress, We don’t have problem with the EPA doing their job as set by Congress, We have a probblem with them making their own rules.
SLATE: If you win, though, you join a Democratic majority that doesn’t think this way. This is sort of what Republicans are pointing out in their ads.
OLIVERIO: If Republicans want to attack us with other labels, I guess they will.
SLATE: This usually takes the form of them transposing your face with those of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
OLIVERIO: They’ll do that. Obama and Pelosi will be there. They’ll come. They’ll go. Leaders change. I’ve been a state senator for 16 years. That’s through four governors. I want to be a constant – someone who will be there articulating their values regardless of who the speaker is.
