It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon and as always, whenever I’m meeting someone for an interview, I’m so worried about being late that I end up arriving entirely too early. Today I’m meeting RJ Hadley, who’s looking to sew up the Democratic nomination for the U.S senate, and I have an hour to kill inside the Brick Store Pub before he gets here. The server comes over and asks if he can start me out with a drink. Well this is a working lunch, I thought to myself, so I better take it easy. “I’ll have two shots of whisky and a beer,” I tell the young lad. “Oh and a dozen raw oysters.”
“We don’t have oysters sir.”
“What! Well, what’s the closest thing you’ve got?”
“Tuna steak?”
“All right, lay it on me but make it rare god damn it!”
The kid was back in no time with the drinks and I felt a little bad for giving him such a hard time about the shellfish. But I had a real lust that day for raw oysters, I explained to him, and when I get like that I can be a little crazy. The whisky and beer calmed me down and the Tuna was a little done for my taste but still pretty good all the same. I looked at the clock and it was nearly two, Jesus Christ! Hadley’s going to be here any minute and I’ve spent the last hour arguing about raw oysters; I haven’t even looked at my notes! No sooner than I get my notebook out, do I see RJ walk through the door. I quickly skimmed over my notes, which were written in something similar to the English language and would only make sense to me but to my surprise they were actually pretty good. I may get through this after all. Hadley picked me out the crowd pretty easily. RJ is a big guy with a bear grip of a handshake. He is not intimidating in the least but I had the feeling he could be if wanted to. Hadley ordered water and a turkey sandwich. I had another beer with the fish and chips and we got down to business.
Wait a minute; let’s back up to how I got this interview in the first place. A few weeks ago I was wondering who, if anyone, would be challenging our loathsome incumbent Senator Johnny Isakson (R) in the good ole’ red state of Georgia. And low and behold the only person I could find who was balls crazy enough to take on Johnny boy was the former Chief of Staff from Rockdale county; RJ Hadley (GA Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond announced his candidacy a few days after this interview took place). I started following RJ on Twitter to keep abreast of what he was up to and the first tweet I saw from him was a plug for his online store. Now bare in mind that I had been following Hadley for a week or so and this was the first thing that I saw him post and it pissed me off. I wanted to know how he was going to beat Isakson, not how much an RJ Hadley Snuggy was going to set me back. So I tweeted something close to what I just said above and this cheeky bastard not only replied to me, he offered to give me an interview! From that point on, without even meeting the guy, I liked him. It took moxie to call me on my shit and moxie is something that is greatly lacking in the 21st century politician.
Now where were we? Oh yeah, the pub and the nitty-gritty on RJ. As a child in rural New Jersey Hadley’s family lost their home to foreclosure, so even from a young age he was no stranger to hard times. To rise above the hard times, RJ’s family always taught him that “education was key” and through support from his family, church, scholarships, and a lot of hard work Hadley would eventually attend Dartmouth. Next it was on to law school at the University of Tennessee but RJ’s time there was cut short due to a family illness. Hadley would also excel in several IT ventures but it was in Atlantic City, as a social worker, that he found his passion for public service.
Public service “has a lot to do with the kind of candidate I am,” says Hadley.” “I know it’s kind of a catch word now but I am about the people. I can get wonky if you want to and we can sit down and get into the meat of it but that’s not my real interest. I’m interested in the policy issues as they relate to the guy that’s on the ground.” “Public Service,” he says. It’s right in there in the words “serve-the-public.”
RJ cut his political teeth as a volunteer on the Obama campaign and would eventually become an Obama delegate at the 08 Convention in Denver. After the Convention RJ ran the campaign for Rockdale’s first African American Chairman of the County, Richard Oden. “It was one of those not gonna happen, never gonna happen in Rockdale County” kind of races. “My kind of race,” RJ says. After they won, Hadley was brought on as the Chief of Staff. There were those in Rockdale who were skeptical about RJ in his new role but then after about a month on the job “I wrote a grant for some foreclosure stabilization money and got the grant. It was about 2.7 million dollars, after that we were fine,” RJ says laughing. A lot of those same naysayers would end up becoming some of RJ’s most enthusiastic supporters for his senate bid. “Rockdale County has been very supportive.”
“So what encouraged you to run for the Senate,” I ask.
“A mix of things, I think the incumbent encouraged me just because of his approach and his attitude to things; just the overall environment and wanting to see things get better.” Make no mistake, Hadley does NOT want to be a career politician; in fact he thinks that’s part of the problem in Washington. “I think you go, you do the best job you can, and then you come home.” RJ rejects the notion of term limits though. Instead he seems to take the tact that, if elected, the voters will let him know when it’s time to hang things up.
All right, enough with the background stuff, let’s “wonky” and find out where RJ stands on the issues.
Financial Reform: Hadley is basically on board with the Volker plan but stopped short of saying if he would vote on the bill as it stands right now in the Senate. “I don’t necessarily have a problem with big banks,” he says, but “My concern is what are those banks allowed to do.” RJ thinks that “banks should get back to being banks” and that other institutions should handle things like credit default swaps. Hadley went on to say that, “We need to establish again the guidelines of what a bank should be doing” and that he would support a return to Glass Steagall.
When asked about healthcare reform the first thing RJ said was, “I really wanted to see a public option” and that he “believe(s) in healthcare as a right.” And what about Georgia Governor Perdue’s effort to sue the federal government over the healthcare mandate? “I feel like it’s a little disingenuous” and that it “just seems like political posturing.” Hadley dismisses the argument that all of this won’t cost anything and seems to think it’s kind of a waste of time, “It’s almost like the leadership, they pick these other things that they can focus on,” rather than focusing on the issues that matter; jobs, clean energy, and other things that are going to “create some new opportunities for Georgia.”
Shifting gears, I really try to get RJ to come out for legalizing Marijuana but couldn’t get him to budge. He pretty much sees it as a gateway drug and worries about easier access of the drug to our youth, “That’s the social worker part of me” says Hadley.
“Do you think there is a legitimate medicinal use for it?” I ask.
“That I don’t know,” says RJ, “I mean, I’ve never used it myself. I don’t really have any experience with…”
“Never?”
“No. Never.”
“Never, ever smoked pot?” I say.
“Never.”
“Never, wow.”
“I know, I know,” says RJ. “I’ve lost a number of jobs over that because…”
“Because you haven’t smoked pot?”
“Yeah because it’s like,” ‘no you must be lying,’ he says laughing.
But as far as medicinal use, RJ seems agnostic at best. “I guess if it deadens pain, which I guess is what they’re saying, it’s like hey I’m in pain and I smoke this pot and it takes the pain away; I guess there’s value there.” He doesn’t come off as judgmental about the whole thing but at the end of the day Hadley just worries about “any public policy initiative that’s going to make this drug possibly more accessible to our youth.” I guess that’s just the social worker coming out of him again. “But the economic argument,” for legalization he admits with a smile, “is hard to ignore.”
So what about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?”
“End it,” RJ says, without nuance, then goes on to say that one-day, maybe not in our lifetime, we’ll look back on that policy as “silly.”
“What about gay marriage,” I ask.
“I’m a Christian ok.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m for it.”
Oh! Phew, He’s for it!
“I’m married, I want people to have the same rights that I have. It’s just that in my Christian belief there is no such thing as gay marriage, per say.”
Wait what? “Let’s leave the spiritual aspect out it,” I say. “In the eyes of the government is it okay for two gay people to be married?”
“Yes!” RJ says. When it comes to transferring property and being covered on your spouses health insurance, and all the other LEGAL benefits that come with getting married; “Why not?” he asks. “It’s just pure judgment,” to say that, “I don’t agree with your lifestyle, you’re a sinner,” that shouldn’t be in the argument at all, he says. There’s a “governmental realm and a spiritual realm” and RJ sees the importance of separating them. And when it comes to the argument against gay marriage, “If you take the spiritual aspect out of it?” Hadley asks. “What’s your argument? You-have-no-argument.”
Okay fair enough, “What about the War on Terror?”
“We spent $125 billion last year,” on both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “$160 billion this year,” for something that is still questionable as to whether or not it’s, “making us safer.” RJ fully understands that there are people out there who want “to harm us, I get that” but he thinks that our money and resources could be spent better by “boosting foreign intelligence” and bringing in other diplomatic partners such as China and Russia. “This is a world issue, we can’t afford to be the ‘911’ for the world as much anymore.”
Should we bring home the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“As a start, yes.” But the next part, according to Hadley, is bettering intelligence work through our various agencies and carrying out more strategic strikes. RJ believes that this is not a conventional war and can’t be fought as such.
“This isn’t us storming the beaches at Normandy,” I say.
“No, I think those days are behind us.”
But just as important as how we fight the War on Terror is what we do with our troops when we finally get them home. RJ thinks that the $160 billion we’ve already spent this year on the wars could be better spent on “getting our VA hospitals up to snuff” so we don’t have these “horror stories,” like Walter Reed. Then there’s the issue of destitute veterans; “why are there over a million of these vets,” he asks, “that are homeless on the streets?” Hadley suggests that a more robust GI Bill and a government jobs program could help alleviate these problems. “It’s one thing,” he says when the Republicans cry out for a strong national defense, “when you’re over there but when you come home” and “you need services and support;” the GOP changes their tact to “well we’re not so much behind you anymore, you know, because now your taxing the system. You’re taking money out of my pocket.”
“Climate change,” I ask next, “is it a problem and what do we need to do about it?”
“I think it’s a problem,” says RJ and “I believe that our actions are altering our world and environment.” Hadley says he would like to see us “have a bold vision toward clean energy” not only because of the environmental issues but also for national security reasons and the potential for jobs created by an influx of green technology. So how do we achieve all of this? Is a Carbon tax the answer? “I don’t know,” he says, “because that’s going to be a real big blow to Georgia,” and it’s agricultural economy. RJ does, however, see opportunities for wind and solar power in Georgia but is skeptical about nuclear, “my problem with nuclear is that, I just think we haven’t solved what we’re going to do with the waste.” Hadley’s not too crazy about Cap and Trade either, “I think for Georgia it’s going be a real strain,” if we go to Cap and Trade. In my opinion RJ sees the scope of the problem here but like most of us doesn’t know what the hell we should do about it.
So that’s how it went down at the Brick Store Pub. And how do I feel after sitting down with the prospective senator for an hour? A little buzzed, the beer was rather strong, and Jesus Christ I’m stuffed! A tuna steak and an order of fish and chips, what was I thinking? But oh yeah about Hadley, he hasn’t been in politics long enough to be poisoned by it and in my book that’s a big plus. He wants to bring the troops home, also a big plus. He’s for repealing “Don’t ask Don’t Tell” and is pro gay marriage (at least in the legal terms and for me that’s the whole argument), which is another plus. He wants universal healthcare; plus, plus! I would liked to have seen him take a stronger stance on financial reform but he did say he was on board with a return to Glass Steagall and that’s a hell of a lot more than you would get out of most politicians. I disagree with him on Marijuana but he makes a reasonable argument. My biggest disagreement with him though is his views on what to do on climate change, specifically on a carbon tax. I understand a tax is never popular but we can’t truly begin to combat climate change until we start to ask people to make sacrifices and some of those sacrifices will have to come out of our wallet. But the real question is would I vote for him? In a heartbeat! Compared to anyone else running for the senate (especially the reigning douche bag Isakson) RJ is a welcomed breath of fresh air. So come next fall, if I have anything to say about it, he’ll be on his way to Washington.
