Concord Standard and Mt. Pleasant Times
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
www.standardandtimes.com

Eyes are on Kissell This Time Around

By Dale Cline

Larry Kissell's minimally-funded campaign for Congress in North Carolina's 8th District raised some eyebrows when the Biscoe school teacher came within 329 votes of unseating incumbent Republican Robin Hayes of Concord in 2006.

The grassroots campaign was outspent 3-1 by the Hayes campaign, and it drew little attention from the national Democrat party.

But last week, when Kissell officially kicked off his 2008 campaign, Sen. Majority leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, was in Charlotte to help him. They started the day touring the USO and visiting with soldiers and military families there.

"There's something about 329 votes that gets the attention of a lot of people," Kissell said. We have the full attention of the national party.

"And more importantly, the 329 votes get the people of the district into the mindset that it can be done. The energy coming out of that is what's exciting to me."

Last year Kissell raised and spent just under $800,000, compared to $2.4 million for the Hayes campaign. "We almost won with $800,000," Kissell said. "We feel that $1.5 million will get the job done."

Kissell has been teaching social studies -- world history and civics -- since a mid-life career change in 2001. Prior to that he had spent 27 years working in textiles, first in administration, then in manufacturing.

People in the 8th District are concerned about the economy, access to health care, education, and the war in Iraq, he said.

His criticism of Hayes includes that he has voted strictly along party lines, supporting the administration regardless of what's best for his constituents in the 8th District.

"Well, he's voted 97 percent of the time with the administration," Kissell said. "It's a voting pattern that doesn't favor the working people of this district, and a lot of people in this district are hurting.

"We want somebody to say it's a good bill or it's a bad bill, not that it's a Democrat or Republican bill."

That's particularly true of bills that have hurt the economy of the textile-dependent 8th District, where four of the 10 counties are routinely among the top-10 in the state in unemployment.

"We should have no more free-trade deals until we start seeing new jobs coming back into the district," Kissell said.

"CAFTA and fast track have had an effect on our district. Fast track enables the president to make deals without going through Congress. That's not the way it's supposed to be."

"Those pieces of legislation weren't good for our district, and my opponent was a key vote on both of them."

But economic development in the district goes beyond the federal level, he said.

"There's no easy answer," he said. "We need to deal with it at the state level, the local level, find businesses that are starting up and give them all the help they can to grow their businesses and create new jobs."

On education, he said the federal government's No Child Left Behind program sets up good schools to fail.

"No Child Left Behind needs a lot of changes to be effective in helping our kids," he said.

"... I believe that smaller classes, more technology in the classroom and reasonable funding is what our children need."

On healthcare, the focus should be on children and elderly.

"Beyond that, I think someone will address health care in the next (presidential) cycle," he said. "It will be difficult because we are in such bad shape regarding our national debt.

"...President Bush inherited a budget surplus and the national debt has gone up by $3.5 million under his administration's watch."

Also under the Bush presidency, the U.S. has become increasingly dependent on foreign oil and that's reflected in prices at the gas pumps, he said.

On the war in Iraq, the United States has overstayed its mission, Kissell said.

"Our position has been that we were given three missions -- search for weapons of mass destruction; none were found. Oust Saddam Hussein; he's gone; and set up the ability for those people to have a democracy; they've got it."

He said troop deployment should be phase out over a 12-month period.

"Our troops are over-extended; we need to be preparing for our next mission," he said. "We need to be repositioning ourselves for our best interest.

"We can't just pull out tomorrow, but we phased in within a year; we should be able to phase out within a year."

Kissell said he believes he can be effective in Washington despite his lack of experience in politics.

"I think that would be my big strength," he said. "I don't owe anything to anybody but the people in the district. I can go to Washington and speak with the values of Middle America.

Kissell said he's proud that most of the money he raised for the 2006 campaign came from individuals.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, of the $781,742 he raised, $578,543 came from individuals and $175,675 came from political action committees.

Contributions to the Hayes campaign include $1.17 million from PACs and $918,661 from individuals.

"We had over 10,000 people invest in our campaign," Kissell said. "There was a strength to our movement."