Talk to This Year's Quirkiest Senatorial Candidate

Not many candidates for the U.S. Senate are 4'9" tall and only have one hand. But Oregon Democrat Steve Novick qualifies on both counts -- and uses them as pluses in his TV ads. Like this one, where he shows why he's the best beer-drinking partner among all the candidates. Or this one, where it's obvious why he's for "the little guy." Also, as far as we know, he's the only candidate this year for any major office who has his own brand of beer. And his online campaign manager is a major Slashdot junkie, too, which is certainly in his favor. But will humor and oddness get Steve into the Senate? We don't know. So ask him. In fact, ask him anything else you'd like about campaigning and politics. He's promised to respond, and seems like the kind of guy who will give interesting answers, at that. (Please follow Slashdot interview rules, as always.)

Comments

Mending the "Unchecked President"

[eldavojohn]

Complaints have been registered far and wide of our cowboy president. Democrats voting on bills hasn't done anything--some Democrats seem to have sat idly by as it happened. If you're elected into office, how are you going to stop this? More importantly with the president in his last term, how are you going to undo what has been done? Whether Clinton, Obama or McCain win, give us plans of action for how you intend to undo what you listed on your site: "warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, covert CIA 'black site' prisons, use of torture in interrogations and other tactics in tension or direct violation with the law have sparked outrage here at home and sullied our name abroad."

Universal Health Care

[pudge]

Steve, your state already tried, and aborted, an attempt at universal health care. Do you want federal universal health care because Oregon needs to take money from other states to make it work? Would you raise federal income taxes to make it work? How much?

Re:Universal Health Care

[Notquitecajun]

Also, how will you prevent universal health care from being abused - IOW, how would you prevent the fat, lazy, and stupid from running the health bills up that the rest of us would have to pay for?

Re:Universal Health Care

[ChristTrekker]

That right there is a good argument against universal health care. Unless you really want government intruding on and micromanaging everybody's life. You don't have to worry about it being abused - universal health care, by its very nature, is an abuse.

Re:Universal Health Care

[imag0]

Please remember that, when using inflammatory rhetoric like that, the largest receivers of government welfare money happens to be large, multinational companies and not the "fat, lazy, and stupid" that you are probably thinking of.

Re:Universal Health Care

[Dice]

It's not just abuse by We The People that we need to worry about. A federal health care system means putting control of what goes into our bodies in the hands of the government. Let me remind you that this is a government which has a well documented history of experimenting on its own people for the purposes of developing mind control drugs and the like.

I, for one, do not welcome our new Big Government overlords.

Re:Universal Health Care

[Mr. Slippery]

how will you prevent universal health care from being abused - IOW, how would you prevent the fat, lazy, and stupid from running the health bills up that the rest of us would have to pay for?

How will you prevent universal fire service from being abused - IOW, how would you prevent the accident-prone, careless, and stupid from playing with matches or storing oily rags next to the furnace, and running up the tax bills for fire department services?

We don't worry much about that because we know that no one gets their house burned down by choice, even if fire service is free. (I.e., without additional cost to the recipient - of course TANSTAAFL, it's paid for by taxes.) We do of course engage in public education campaigns to reduce the risk, mandate building codes, put warning labels on dangerous things (I love the label on my water heater, which features a burning stick figure running from an explosion - a very clear message of "do not fsck with this appliance"), but by and large we don't interfere with people's daily lives to make sure they're not risking the public expense of a fire.

And in the same way, no one gets sick by choice, even if medical care is free. I don't care if you start giving away coronary bypass surgery, paying the sick leave, and giving away a free bottle of single malt with every surgery (a drop of the craythur thins the blood and helps prevent blocked arteries, you know) - I'd rather not have my chest carved open and a vein ripped out of my leg, so I try to eat right and exercise.

Also, we understand that it's to my benefit to have my neighbor's flaming house put out before the fire spreads. We ought to understand that it's also to my benefit to have my neighbor get his TB or herpes or bird flu treated before it spreads - or better, gets preventative care to maintain his health so he doesn't get infected in the first place. Especially in this age of bioterrorist threats, universal basic health care is part of the state's mandate to "provide for the common defense".

If the Interstate Highway System is seen as part of the nation's defense (as it allows for troop mobility), surely an Interstate Health System that protects against epidemics (natural or through enemy action) and keeps Americans healthy enough to fight ought to be justified as well.

Re:Universal Health Care

[pudge]

I would suggest that Oregon's attempt at universal health care never got off the ground because major portions of it were blocked by the Republican-controlled legislature.

Yes, because of the obvious problems in PAYING for it. That the legislature blocked it is a good thing: universal health care does no one any good if everyone is broke. The proposed system was literally incapable of sustaining itself.

I think that experience underscores the need for us to address health care reform at a national level. The path our health care system is on is clearly unsustainable, with exploding costs and declining coverage. I think there are several comprehensive plans out there to ensure everyone has affordable health care, while tackling the cost of care.

None I've seen. All of them only discussed more regulation, and direct cost controls, to control costs, which either wouldn't work, or would only work in the short term, increasing costs and decreasing care in the long term (which always happens when you remove competition).

Here's a fuller explanation of what I think that will take and several measures we need to take to control costs.

I see several problems. First, Medicare negotiating lower drug prices causes INCREASED prices for those not on Medicare. This will be a big hit to middle class and poor families. I agree with this in principle, but see no way around it harming others. The middle class especially is already subsidizing drugs to Canada and other countries; now they would be subsidizing drugs to Medicare recipients.

This does not actually reduce national costs, it just shifts them, from the taxpayer to the drug consumer, which seems to me to be the wrong direction that most Democrats who favor universal health care want to go.

I also absolutely disagree with federal school lunch standards. The federal government has no business of any kind in the local public schools. Period, end of story.

As to hospitals, similar story: the federal government should not be paying for this equipment, or restricting its purchase.

However, I ABSOLUTELY agree that we need to reform the drug patent system. Thanks for highlighting that. I don't believe government should be in the business of handing out monopolies JUST FOR THE SAKE of handing out monopolies. The Constitution is clear: the point of a patent is to encourage innovation. It is only worthwhile to the extent it does that, and patent terms should be tailored to provide the MINIMUM rights necessary to accomplish that goal.

Further, I agree that taxpayers should not be subsidizing drug companies' ads. Indeed, we should not be subsidizing drug companies at all, including money for research. This ties into the patent issue because we pay them to do research and then give them a patent, too! Any research we DO subsidize should be public domain.

Which brings me to farm subsidies: no, we should cut all of them. We do not need them. Yes, the cost of food may rise, but our taxes will be significantly less (assuming the government doesn't spend that money on something else ... ha!), and individual states can increase food aid to needy families if necessary.

But all this put together will only begin to address the cost problems. The real big problem (other than tort reform, which is not a big issue for some, but a huge issue for others) is the lack of competition and choice that allows all kinds of health care providers -- from drugs to machines to hospitals -- to jack up the cost of health care. It's very similar to the patent issue. That is what government should be working on: finding ways to introduce more competition.

Providing insurance to everyone is not the answer. Reducing the cost of health care is the answer. And while you have some good ideas, it is only barely a start. Frankly, I think many people -- not sure if this includes

Re:Universal Health Care

[bzipitidoo]

An abuse? Oh really? Are you aware that city water supplies are an example of universal health care? Fluorine is added to reduce tooth decay. It works, and it's pretty cost effective. Benefits everyone except possibly dentists. Lots of other things are done to the water supply. So we dodge the thrills of cholera epidemics that happen all too often in places that don't have good water supplies. But maybe you'd prefer to dig your own wells and buy your own filters and softeners, giving up the cost savings to be had from doing this on a massive scale, and do all the maintenance and monitoring yourself and worry about whether your neighbors' wells will dry out yours, stuff like that? And wonder when your young one will end up in a class seated next to the child of someone too poor to afford such niceties? That's why we have very low cost vaccinations, and will even give them away to the desperately poor. They're so worth it.

Likewise there's a lot of savings to be had if we'd just put up a little money up front for checkups and preventative care. Sadly, you can't just get a blood test, no you've got to fill out a ton of paperwork about all the details of your health insurance, questions about your health history, and read and sign many pages worth of disclaimers, permissions to disclose info, permissions to substitute generic drugs, acknowledgments that you owe what your health provider fails to pay, and maybe an arbitration agreement, and, always, always pay some kind of fee. Often, poor people are poor because they have no financial sense. They find it very difficult to budget such things. The fee alone is enough to keep them away. Even if it's free of fees, it's not really free if you have to spend an hour or more on paperwork, sit on your butt in a doctor's waiting room for more hours (don't you just love being told that you can put your wait to good use by filling out forms?), and perhaps drive 20 plus miles just to reach the place. Our health care system is full of those kinds of inefficiencies. So if one such poor person works as a janitor at a school, and comes down with tuberculosis or the flu perhaps and feels very ill but does not see a doctor and instead keeps on working because he needs the money, and consequently gets half the student body infected, that's going to cost a whole lot of money. A few free tests and doctor visits for everyone once every 2 years or upon reaching certain ages, or some such, could save us all money. You may have noticed that often employers will spend a day or two to host some kind of health checkup for all their employees. Once had my cholesterol levels checked that way. Pretty haphazard and spotty checking, doing it like that. If you're away on a business trip or sick that day, guess you just miss out.

Forcing people to pay for basic health care is like forcing people to pay to use toilets. Some airports used to do that. If you make it cheaper to crap on the floor, then some will. Those persons might care that it's unhealthy, and understand that it will cost society more in the long run, but feel they need that quarter more right now, and find their act to be the most pungently appropriate way of expressing their displeasure over such a system.

Re:Universal Health Care

[iminplaya]

Wall street pays for it themselve.

No they don't. We all do. You're full of it if you think they pay for anything. And the way they throw money around in their tight little circle, it just pushes prices up for everybody else. And just in case you didn't notice, I was talking about their latest and ongoing bail outs, not about their doctors bills, which you can be sure are also covered. The saying has changed. The biggest welfare queens wear Armani. So let's ask our latest "big man of campus" if he would continue bailing out the Forbes top 500. And anybody who thinks he should has no room to complain about universal health care or any other social program.

There's some more fodder for you idiot troll mods from the pudge FOX network. You've revealed yourselves quite clearly.

Re:Universal Health Care

[sethawoolley]

I can't reply to a syntax error

There is none.

Re-read it.

because you accuse me of misinterpreting you whenever you do it and I attempt to figure out what you actually meant.

False. I accuse you of misinterpreting me when you ASSERT that I said something I did not.

I didn't assert them, when they were vague, I just tried to make something consistent out of it. Since you don't actually have a consistent set of thoughts on this matter, I can't assume that you've merely made a mistake in transcribing your thoughts. So I'm not going to assume you're consistent anymore.

Each time, it turns out that you didn't actually mean what you said.

False.

but if they've prohibited building permanent structures on it, then that's something you simply don't own

Exactly. The Democrats pretend you DO own it, but you do not. They make you pay taxes on it, your name is on the deed as the owner, but they prevent you from doing anything with it.

They tax your land and/or the improvements (depending on the exact scheme), not the area above.

What's so difficult about the logic?

Nothing. Why do you ask? It's the Democrats who don't understand it, not property-rights advocates, who understand it completely. This is what I said in the last reply.

Keep asserting.

Again, you think you own something ancillary to the land itself

False.

So you don't own the airspace above the land and the ability to build on it. I'm glad we've established that.

which was what I was complaining that property-rights activists don't understand

Yes, and you were wrong.

Thanks for demonstrating my point.

I didn't.

In fact, it is the property-rights activists who DO realize that this is a debate over what people own. They are the ones who consistently and properly refer to restrictions of their property rights as a rejection of the premise that they own the land in the first place.

That's a false conclusion

False.

p = you own land

q = you own the airspace above the land

Now show me again how you go from p to q?

If you want both rights, you have to buy p and q.

... which is why you've consistently lost the argument in court. No court recognizes that an ability to use X with your land is an extension of your land ownership.

Also false. Unsurprisingly, you do not know what you are talking about. Indeed, there are many decisions, including Supreme Court decisions, that regard certain land use restrictions as takings. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), and so on.

An example of takings is when you take the right to use the airspace above the land when you already had ownership of the airspace above the land. But if you never had the right, and the government was just letting you use the airspace and then changed their mind later, that's not takings. The debate is, as you agree, about what you actually own, not over takings itself.

That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself.

Yawn. Tell me again how you aren't committing a textboook appeal to authority logical fallacy.

When you don't have a reasonable reply

Ummmmmmm. You want a "reasonable reply" to an ad hominem/red herring fallacy? That is what "That level of nuance isn't understood by property fundamentalists like yourself" is. It is a fallacious claim. There is NO SUCH THING as a reasonable response to such a claim, except to call

Re:Pork...

[Reality Master 101]

Excellent question. I would love to hear a Democrat actually answer this question and see if they care about fiscal responsibility. And yes, I know the Republicans have been spending like drunken idiots, but at least that is in contradiction to what they *say* they believe in. Democrats traditionally believe in large government transfers of wealth from one group to another. It would be interesting to hear what they say now that we simply can't continue as we're going.

Prediction: If this is asked, he'll dodge the question by saying he'll cut the defense budget, and then use that money for social programs. Of course, the defense budget is a relatively small part of the budget, but he won't mention that, and he certainly won't mention cutting anything else where it NEEDS to be cut. And he'll totally ignore the part about pork spending.

Fiscal Responsibility

[explosivejared]

You talk about fiscal responsibility. Does that include government regulation that promotes sustainable growth over growth for growth's sake? If so, what would such regulation be? Finally, I think we can all agree that Americans live beyond their means. What role should the government in dealing with the current credit crises? What action should be taken at the microeconomic level? Are you in favor of the Bear Sterns bailout, etc?

Because of the owls

[iknownuttin]

How willing are you to NOT "bring home the bacon" and possibly sacrifice local needs and wants rather than further inflate the budget? Are you for attempting to actually CUT the budget instead of cutting the rate of increase?

In Oregon?!? There's a bunch of folks who've lost their jobs because of Washington, as far as they're concerned (environmental lobbyists to be exact) and they want their due. In other words, start carving up that pork because the rest of the country owes them for keeping the owls happy!

Re:Nucular...

[andphi]

I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's possible to both fear and favor a given course of action - expanding our nuclear energy base, changing jobs, or owning a fire-arm for self-defense, for example - if the alternatives are less favorable or more fearful than the one which worries one even as one chooses it.

Flat Tax, Fair Tax

[penguin_dance]

Where do you stand on having a Flat Tax? What about the Fair (or Consumption) Tax? And why.

Re:Environment & Fiscal Responsibility

[jd]

I've personally never seen the conflict myself. If you salvage twice as much, provided it is done efficiently, then you reduce the cost of mining and ore processing (both of which are expensive), which must lead to a net reduction in cost of materials, which in turn must lead to a saving for the consumer. Efficient environmentalism is expensive to start, but would (on the longer-term) work out cheaper.

The same is true on pollution controls. A lot of pollution is generated by the processing method itself, so improving the method must reduce the pollution. Since creating pollution consumes resources (materials and power) that the company has paid for, it would seem to follow that the less pollution a company creates, the cheaper it would be. Now, there's only so far you can go with this, and the research to get any further than what is presently done isn't cheap and will give declining returns, so filters and overheads are inevitable, but it does lead me to believe that environmentalism is cheaper than we're being led to believe.

(Since we can reasonably assume companies want to make money and therefore want to lower overheads, we can assume that a lot of the research and development necessary is beyond a lot of private industry at this time, and/or there's not enough incentive to handle the high initial costs. Maybe the role of government can be to fund some of the work, perhaps provide X-prize-like challenges, and once things are cost-effective to deploy, offer tax cuts on business so that it's practical to switch methods and add an inefficiency tax to make it impractical not to.)

Senatorial candidates with national ambition?

[rjamestaylor]

Mr. Novick, your YouTube presence has attracted a lot of attention -- even mine. I find your ads pithy, sharp, witty.

When Senator Hillary Clinton ran for the open Senate seat in New York everyone knew it was but a springboard to the US President campaign trail. When Senator Obama left the State Senate for the US Senate, many people dreamed -- and more, probably, feared -- it was but a springboard for the top national office.

What is your opinion on candidates who use a limited election to project a national campaign? Who, while denying the charge, are seen as using an office for personal gain rather than determinedly seeking to serve in the very office they fight to obtain?

Lastly...what makes your beyond-the-borders campaign different than those (named and not named) others whose State-representing Senatorial campaign have reached national (and international) attention?

Not like other politicians?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

In your television ads, you state that you are not like other politicians. How do your political actions differ from those normally held by politicians: namely, increasing budget sizes - whether for the war, healthcare, public schools, or other state-run programs - through taxation or deficit spending; and advancing laws violating human rights - whether through increased regulation of the economy, privacy violations, taxation, etc.

Also, how do your political motivations differ from those that have become the norm in politics? Politicians, acting as the "supply", have increasingly manipulated the economy to service the demand of corrupt companies offering to fund their campaigns - such as by contrived monopolies or selective tax breaks. How do your influences differ from the standard fare?

Re:Not like other politicians?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

advancing laws violating human rights - whether through increased regulation of the economy, privacy violations, taxation, etc.

Come on. You may oppose taxes or want a lazzie-faire system, but to put those concerns as the same level as human rights is pretty insulting.

There are valid disagreements about the optimum role of taxation and government regulation (there cannot be none of either, even at the minimal contractual enforcement level of uber-libertarians). Whereas, I would say that human rights are things that are pretty universally agreed upon within the western world.

namely, increasing budget sizes - whether for the war, healthcare, public schools, or other state-run programs

I actually care a lot about which of these he wants to spend money on.

through taxation or deficit spending

Again, a distinction that I care about greatly.

Re:Not like other politicians?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Can you be more specific about what benefits you are referring to, and how the government is able to provide these benefits while private organizations are not?

Heres a short list of things. Tell me where you think free enterprise can hold a candle. I'll even leave out the standard police/army examples.

1. Fire departments
2. Road construction
3. Park maintence
4. Libraries
5. FDIC
6. Rural electification
7. Unemployment insurance
8. Flood insurance
9. Food and drug safety testing
10. Welfare
11. Social security
12. Farm price supports
13. Witness protection
14. EPA
15. Net Neutrality (coming soon?)
16. Postal Service

In all those cases there is a natural monopoly, a trajedy of the commons, an issue of ensuring fairness, or just the small size of private organizations.

Water infrastructure?

[bbasgen]

  Infrastructure is failing in various parts of our civil society, while we also have droughts throughout the country that will continue to persist if not worsen. Oregon experiences its share of both of these important issues.

  I'm curious if you have considered a national water infrastructure? It would certainly be difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Is long term planning no longer viable in our modern political climate? Like so many other issues such as national debt, corporate greed, and the environment: is short-term expediency too powerful a force to overcome? Is it even conceivable in the modern political landscape for audacious projects to occur, such as the interstate system for water?

Re:Nucular...

[Null537]

Isn't this a bit of a weighted question?

"Are you in favor of nuclear energy, or are you afraid of it?"
"I'm against nuclear energy"
"Ha! Nuclear fearing member of the sheeple!"

How about "Are you for or against nuclear energy, and why?"

Re:Environment & Fiscal Responsibility

[SteveNovick]

Thanks for the question. Environmental action has been one of the centerpieces of my record of public service. I spent over eight years at the U.S. Justice Department, suing polluters for violations of the Clean Air and Clean Water Act and I was a board member of the Oregon Environmental Council for the past decade.

Your question does raise a challenge of transitioning to sustainable practices. In some instances, like Superfund cleanup, there are steps we could take right now to reduce the burden on average taxpayers by restoring the polluter pays principles that originally paid for toxic waste cleanup.

But in other instances, like making the investment in renewable energy or expanding mass transit and other conservation initiatives, it will cost some money. That is why in this campaign I have been advocating several moves towards better fairness in our tax code like requiring people who make their money buying and selling stock to pay the same rate as what people pay on regular income. Or that people making a million dollars pay Social Security tax on all of their income, not just the first $100,000. In the long run, reducing our energy consumption, using it more efficiently and reducing the massive cost of global warming and pollution to our economy, health care system and communities will save money. But you are absolutely right that it will take some money up front. I'm committed to telling folks the truth about that and how we are going to pay for it.

As an Oregon voter, let me amplify that:

[Penguinisto]

Okay Mr. Novick, I have a specific instance for you as an example:

About 20 years back, Josephine County (Grants Pass, et al) got a massive infusion of cash in repayment for gov't-enforced restricted logging rights in their area. During this period of time, IIRC they spent it like drunken Sailors on Leave (e.g., they pretty much poured it into programs which has nothing to do with stimulating industries that didn't involve cutting down trees).

The payments timed out last year, and now the county government is in full-on panic mode. They simply have no cash available to keep feeding all the expansions they poured the dough into all this time, and are even in a crunch as to funding basic services. Some towns in the Northern end of the county are even considering changing their incorporation so that they become members of the county to their north.

So... if (okay, when) they come screaming to you for a return of federal funding to help dig them out of their (IMHO self-created) multi-hundred-million-dollar mess, what will you do? Tough Love, Open the floodgates, what? (and if there is any money going that way, please stipulate some sort of money-management controls for the idiots running the show down that way...?)

/P (who lives in Portland, but have relatives living down that way)

Re:Interrogation...

[Mr. Slippery]

how do you propose - in a positive light - to add to the national defense against militant Islamists, who have proven both time and again - in peace and war - that they want to attack the US?

Most of these people want to attack the U.S. because the U.S.'s policy in the Middle East has been brutal and stupid. Iran hates us because we overthrew a democratic government and installed the Shah. Bin Laden got people on his side because many were upset with a U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has been an Al Qaeda recruiter's wet dream.

If you want to defend against "militant Islamists", stop helping them recruit followers - reform foreign policy. Get troops out, make support of Israel contingent on human right improvements, stop backing dictators. Oh, and stop torturing people, that'd help a lot.