Interview: Craig Mason (D) for the 4th District U.S. House for the State of Washington

By: Ky Starr 

Q: What distinguishes you from your opponents?

I believe in stake-holder capitalism.  Doc believes in share-price-driven deregulated capitalism.  He is a free market radical.  I believe that the free market radicals are the flip-side of Stalinist socialism, each killing society in the name of an idea.  ONLY the New Deal regulatory state and stake-holder capitalism has worked.  Doc's deregulation of the energy markets,  and the Enron manipulations and implosion logically follow from his policies.

I believe in government-business-labor cooperation to create high wage jobs and a fair rate of return on investment.

Q:  When did you first get involved in politics?

I began paying attention at age 6, when the events of the 1960's had the adults in our neighborhood shouting almost every night over the violence and protests on the news.  I worked in two campaigns while in high school, but had no time while working my way through undergraduate, graduate school, and law school.  Until this race, I was active for a decade in the institutional politics of the college at which I teach.
 

Q:  What is the greatest challenge of public service?

The challenge is the trivialization of public "debate."  Even though Ross Perot got people to listen to 30 minute economics lectures, the media continues to insist on sound bite politics.  Fact-finding has given way to "perspective-finding" as if there are no facts left to constrain "spin."

Invasions of the private sphere seem to fluctuate wildly, from the intrusions upon Clinton's legal trysts to the press giving Bush a free pass on his illegal partying and AWOL past. 
 

Q:  What is the most important issue facing the 4th District?

In general, economic development is the greatest issue.  Government-business partnerships, and New Deal style investments in infrastructure are needed.

In particular, the greatest issue is STOPPING the so called "acceleration" of the Hanford clean up.  The bonuses for rushing are starting to produce sloppy design and construction.  The project is huge and my opponent is an irresponsible fool to boast that by cutting the project by two decades and 30 billion dollars he is doing ANYONE any good.  We must do this job slowly and carefully.  (Doc Hastings was also willing to cut another 400 million this year as part of a rushing of the rush-job called an "expedited" program.  Expediting an acceleration!  Haste making waste!)  Hanford must be cleanup responsibly.

Q:  What advice would you give someone thinking of running for public office? 

Find a way to state your truth, and run on it. 

Q:  What is your favorite political book? 

My favorite book is Goodwyn's The Populist Moment.  However, I can see that Truman's The Governmental Process has a huge truth in it -- only an the U.S. today?