I just got off the phone with Jon Powers who is running for Congress in NY-26th.  Besides being very friendly and at ease, Powers is knowledgeable, energetic and accessible.  Here are excerpts from the interview:

RT: Why are you running for Congress?

The America I grew up believing in and went to war for is no longer being represented in Washington.

RT: What will you do to ensure Upstate has parity in aid?

[I'll work for] a mixture of aid and investment.  It’s about leadership, going across the country to places like Silicon Valley with green tech jobs and selling Western New York as a great place to run businesses and to work.

RT: What are your thoughts about healthcare?

[We must promote policies that] cut costs for small businesses to provide healthcare, look at drug companies, and find ways to negotiate the costs of prescriptions.  There has to be shared costs.

RT: What would you do about the subprime crisis?

The problem is predatory lending.  The first thing I would do is to work for oversight to prevent that.  Our current government cut the legs out of that oversight.

On foreclosures, I support a moratorium for 90 days and a freeze on adjustable rate loans.  It’s about accountability.

RT: Do you support the Teacher’s Union?

My mom is in the teachers’ union.  The big problem with education is the federal mandate for NCLB, which is unfunded so the states have to pick up the local costs.  We have to re-prioritize education in this country.  We have to be reasonable.  Teachers are critical.

RT: Your thoughts on the war and how your view of the war changed?

I was there in the beginning.  What changed my view was seeing the incompetence and mismanagement in Washington.  We didn’t have a plan to implement and we didn’t have the right equipment.

RT: What were your inspirations growing up?

The community.  I was an Eagle Scout, an altar boy, and we had the Harris Hill Men’s Club (actually men and women) and they would throw this Fourth of July picnic, just like they did when I returned from the war.  We were always involved, civically active.  I also watched the Buffalo Bills.

RT: So, no Spiderman, Batman or Superman?

(Laughs) [As a kid] I wore a Superman hat.

Powers went on to say (bold mine):

This is an election that comes around once in a generation.  We have to do it together.  We have a mandate for change.  We have the best chance, not because I’m a veteran, but because we are out there having the conversation with the voters that nobody else is having with them.