It’s no secret around these parts that I’m a little cynical when it comes to politicians for the most part.  It’s also no secret that I’ve been a little less than impressed with the AR-01 Democratic feild.  But I said sometime bag that one of the newest faces, Ben Ponder of Mountain Home, had caught my interest.  Well today, I got to sit down with Ben and talk to him one on one.  If he interested me before, he impresses me now.  Dismissing him as just another face in a dull crowd is a mistake, let me assure you.  He is, and I say this as someone who’s been around long enough to become more than a bit disillusioned with politics, the most knowledgeable, thoughtful, genuine, and interesting candidate running for any office that I have ever met.  Very rarely do I approach a write up on much anything around these parts with any trepidation, but listening to Ben was such a unique experience that I’m afraid I might not be able to do it justice.  Still, I’m going to try, so here goes.

I started off asking just a casual question that I hadn’t really thought much of, and it was simply if he minded me saying that he was a dark horse candidate.  Ben ran with it and used it as an opening to lay out the reasons why he was running and what his candidacy is all about.  As he pointed out, the only reason he might be referred to as a dark horse is because he hasn’t held an office to this point, and he left it open ended as to whether or not that was a good way of judging a candidate’s qualifications.  He also related an interesting story about how when he was in Chicago he saw some poorly made signs for a guy with a funny name running for the U.S. Senate.  So, as he said, there’s plenty of precedent for an unknown quantity making it big and delivering big results.

The qualifications he can list and his reasons for running aren’t from your standard list either.  He’s got more degrees than you can shake a stick at, but admits that he was a bit of a black sheep in the academic world as he always wanted to find practical applications to the things he studied.  He’s worked in the clean energy field and the health care field, among other areas that are at the forefront of today’s public policy debates.  And he’s a student of history, which I personally think is pretty important.  He can talk to you about the diary of Thomas Jefferson or the writings of Abraham Lincoln, and he holds thesehistorical figures in high regard and from the inspiration they provide he takes a high minded approach to politics that strives to make our political process into something more and better than what it is.  He said he never expected to run for Congress at 34, though he admits it’s something he’d wanted to do eventually, and he said he’d much rather spend time with his wife (who he describes as “a superhero”) and kids than campaigning, as much as he loves the later, but as he explained, the Founders were great becausethey rose to the occasion to confront difficult circumstances and now our generation had to be up to the task.  He said he’s frustrated with the “shrill nature” of our politicaldiscourse and that he wants his campaign to be different.  He wants it to be about issues and ideas, and he says he plans to be putting out some detailed issue positions soon (and frequently) which is more than could be said for the rest of the field.  What’s more, he says he has no plans on being a seat warmer and says plainly that we should be able to expect more from our Congressman than just pork (which he rightly pointed out is only considered pork when it is going to other districts, while acknowledging that some of those projects are worthwhile endeavors). 

From there we moved into a discussion on health care.  I started by asking him about the health care proposals he had put out and quickly came to realize that I had actually misunderstood them at first.  In fact, they’re actually much better than I had thought.  Ben is critical of aspects of the health care reform bill in Congress now, but the points he makes are pretty good.  As he said, if you have an insurance claim “you’re eventually going to end up on the phone with someone who’s job is to stall.  These people know the exact percent of people who will get mad or frustrated and just give up, and when that happens the company wins.”  The individual mandate, he rightfully points out, is a boon for insurance companies, because even with everyone in a captured market the point for the company is still to make a profit, and even if you ap the revenue they can raise from premiums they’re still going to find a way to make a profit by paying out less on claims.  He favors making health insurance companies more of a co-op style system, though he freely admit that won’t solve the whole problem.  I asked him if that was comparable to Senator Conrad’s proposal, but he said he wasn’t aware of all the specifics.

I asked him if he thought health care should be considered a right or a privilege.  He said that was a good question, and proceeded to answer in a way that I have never really seen another candidate do.  Most would just answer the question or try to answer without answering.  Ben’s style is different.  He not only gives you an answer, he tries to persuade you, and teach you something while he’s at it, and he manages to do so in a way that is incredibly interesting and involving.  As he walked me through a discussion over the question, I was wowed by his depth of understanding and his thoughtfulness as he explained the difference between what we’d consider a God given human right and a civil right guaranteed by the government, concluding by stating that access to basic health care is essentially a matter important to human dignity, something he says he’s strongly concerned about.  At this point, he even strayed off into a little talk about the struggle against malaria in Africa, detailing how fighting the epidemic could actually be done at a reasonable cost.  (That’s something I’m not used to hearing from an Arkansas candidate for much of anything.)

We were running short on time, so I regrettably didn’t get to talk about the public option as much as I wanted to (though he volunteered that if people are going to discuss a public option they should be sure they know what the term is referring to).  Still, we did wander off the beaten path into some interesting topics.  For instance, we discussed the budget deficit, and Ben took on what he called “the false dichotomy” that Democrats are “tax and spend.”  As he said, “Republicans are borrow and spend.  A government can only raise revenue two ways-either by taxing people or by borrowing money.  Our national credit card is our strong economy and our good name, but each time we swipe that credit card we hurt our economy and our reputation a bit.  These people may say ‘I didn’t raise your taxes’ but they raised our kids taxes.”

He also stated that a budget is a statement of our values, and that if we take an honest look in the mirror we might be shocked by what some of our values are.  “We certainly value the defense budget.”, he said, moving from the budget to talking about the war(s).  “It pains me that we’ve gotten into thesewars without an end game.”  I asked him if he supported the decision President Obama made on Afghanistan and he said that he did because he trusts his judgment and says plainly that he doesn’t have access to the information the President does.  His concern though is “what happens if we succeed?  Best case scenario-we beat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  They don’t just go away.  Where do they go?  Nuclear armed Pakistan.  Then we have a real cobra on our hands.”

His explanation as to why he is a Democrat was rather surprising.  “I’m radically prolife.” He said, smiling a bit and seemingly studying my reaction.  “But the reason I’m a Democrat is because that goes beyond abortion.  It extends to all human life, including, for instance, concern for the soldiers that we’re sending into harms way and for the civilians of the countries we’re fighting caught in the crossfire.”

We were running out of time so we had to narrow it down to one more question, though he promised that we’d talk again at some point.  So I decided to throw him my curve ball and asked “Where are you at with regards to LGBT issues?”  Usually, when I throw that out there, it trips Arkansas politicians up, but Ben responded with something I wasn’t prepared for.

“My brother is gay.” He said.  (I asked if it was okay if I took that down and he said it was.)  He then went on to talk about both his love for his brother and his Christian faith in a way that could get to anyone with a heart beating in their chest.  At one point, he said pointedly, “I don’t consider myself a Christian…I consider myself a follower of Jesus Christ.”  He also said that regardless of one’s religious belief on whether or not being gay is a sin we should all treat other people with dignity and grace.  He also said that he is absolutely against impinging on the rights of others and that we should never sanction discrimination, stating “If you look through history you can’t find one instance where you can say discrimination was justified.”

As I said, I had great interest in Ponder before I met him.  Now that I have, I’m simply blown away.  He is, to my perception, unlike any other candidate in the field.  His knowledge, eloquence, thoughtfulness, compassion, understanding, candidness, and courage all combine to make him uniquely appealing, and while he’s not a progressive per se (he himself said that labels have no meaning to him) and I don’t agree with him on everything, I think he has a broad enough appeal to satisfy a huge segment of both the primary and general election electorates.  I still have a hundred million other questions I want to ask Ben, and I hope I do get to sit down with him again soon.  But while this isn’t a Blue Arkansas endorsement and shouldn’t be considered such, I personally think I’ve found the candidate I want to be my Congressman.

Tags: AR-01, Ben Ponder, Democrats, elections and campaigns, primaries

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