An Interview with 32d District candidate Will McVay: "I will stand up for what I believe in.":

Will McVay: unrepentent

1.  You're the State Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party of Delaware, but you are also a serial registration changer.  You've been a Democrat; you've been a Republican.  Right now you're running as a Republican for State Representative in Delaware's 32nd District.  What does all this maneuvering say about you, and about the Libertarian movement?

I've also been registered with the Green Party, and recently started five new Delaware political parties.  You can register to vote as a member of the Order of the Jedi, the Sith Lords, the Lesser of Two Evils, None of the Above, and the Bacon Party of Delaware.  I'm sure plenty of people have their own opinions as to what all of this says about me and the libertarian movement, but I think it says that some of us are starting to look more deeply at the electoral system that has exclusively favored Democrats and Republicans for 150 years, despite the growth of the Libertarian Party over the last 40 years.  We are looking at the rules that have been put in place, both formally and informally, to entrench the special interests funding both parties and to exclude the vast number of Americans feeling increasingly out of touch with their own government.

The Delaware Code sets a number of constraints on your political activities based on your party registration, but to them party registration is just an entry in the voter database that can be changed during the open registration periods.  During those periods, I changed my registration.  Now that I'm registered Republican, those same constraints prevent the REPUBLICANS from keeping me out of their primary election.  The laws they have used to exclude us, we can use to make them include us with a little creativity.

McVay with LP nominees Johnson/Gray 

2.  Your party jumps have even attracted national attention.  A lot of Libertarian commenters at Independent Political Report condemned the Gary Johnson presidential campaign for endorsing you in a race where you were not filed as a Libertarian.  (You are still the only Republican in the country he's endorsed.)  What do you think of that controversy?

They're entitled to their opinions.  I think they're letting a couple of silly state laws shape their thinking.  Delaware's libertarians know who I am.

3.  What have you got to offer the voters of the 32nd District that they can't find with a more traditional candidate--Republican or Democrat?

I've got a different perspective from a traditional Republican or Democrat, because I'm a libertarian.  I also have the kind of tenacity that puts me in a Republican primary anyway because the rules allow it.  If I'm elected, I will press the rules of the House and the Constitution to press for the rights of the people living in the 32nd District and the rest of the state.  I'm not trying to go to the General Assembly to make friends or do what's been done for the last however many years.  I'm going to disrupt "business as usual".

4.  Your primary opponent, Ellis Parrott, seems committed to ignoring you rather than debating you.  Since he is ostensibly the candidate that the district committee supports, how do you expect to get him to come out and play?

What district committee?  Most of the activists in the local Republican Party support me, or at least are remaining neutral pending the result of the primary.  The local sentiment has been enough to scare off the upper echelons of the party who had initially planned to issue an endorsement in early June.  I have it from a few people that my opponent has been seeking the endorsements of prominent Republicans since and is coming up short.  Enough people have met me and gotten into discussions with me to know that I will stand up for what I believe in, back up what I have to say with specifics and facts, and can offer up a pretty stiff cross-examination without calling names or throwing around meaningless labels.  I can't say I blame him for hiding.

That being said, there IS a discussion being hosted by the Kent County Young Republicans on August 30th, time and place to be determined, that I hope will offer SOME opportunity for a discussion between the two of us.  Hardly the kind of conversation with the district that I would have hoped for, but it's better than nothing.

5.  Let's talk specific issues.  What's your position on:

A.  Single-payer health insurance, specifically the Kowalko-Jaques plan that was introduced and then so quickly withdrawn?

I've written quite a bit on my website about this topic, but I was skeptical from the beginning.  As the discussion continued in those first few days, the lack of specific numbers, the lack of a plan for dealing with retirees' health care, and the risks of concentrating all of Delaware's health care decisions into the hands of 15 people weighed heavily on my mind.  I communicated my concerns to Representative Kowalko on a number of occasions and I hope that I helped motivate him to strike the bill.  I never did get any answers from him that didn't question my reading abilities or family lineage. 

B.  Race to the Top and other Federal mandates in public education?

The money isn't worth the strings.  Less than 10% of Delaware's education funding comes from the Federal government, but so much of the other 90% is spent on complying with those mandates that on a simple dollars and cents basis, we're getting a raw deal.  We're also constraining the freedom of teachers in the classroom to follow a curriculum that will prepare students for the job market without constant tinkering by administrators complying with endless mandates.

C.  Corporate welfare for "politically correct" "green" companies like Fisker?

Fisker is the most egregious example, but all of these politically motivated investments are going to follow the same pattern.  If they're politically motivated, the benefits will be politically allocated.  Fisker, Bloom Energy, even Amazon are all the result of politicians tinkering with the rules in such a way as to benefit the well connected over the well intentioned.  Any innovative small business would do well to locate where the State doesn't back the competition. 

D.  Tax rates and government regulation?

As with politically motivated investments, you're going to get politics mixed into economics when you try to tinker with taxes and regulations beyond basic protections.  Tax rates, credits, and deductions will get carved out for the guy who knows a guy, and the industries being regulated will populate the regulatory boards charged with keeping them on the straight and narrow.  Our taxes and regulations need to be so painfully simple that everyone can follow them. 

E.  Marriage equality?

Government should treat all marriages equally by ignoring them.  Government has no business interfering with a religious sacrament one way or the other.  As long as government interferes like it does though, it needs to interfere equally. 

F.  Medical marijuana and the war on drugs?

Delaware should not only fully implement its medical marijuana bill, it should unilaterally stand down the War on Drugs. 

6.  The 32nd District lies in the one part of the State where unemployment continues to rise.  How will you help bring more jobs into the district?

I will always be available to help my constituents individually to cut through any red tape preventing from from starting or expanding their business, and collectively from needing to deal with any of the red tape at all. 

7.  Win or lose this primary, this election, what's the future in Delaware politics for Will McVay?

I don't know, I'm making this up as I go.