Catching up with the Challengers: Mark Mays, Democrat and doctor, diagnoses the condition of the 5th District

For more than a decade Mark Mays has been something of a mainstay in Eastern Washington politics. He served as Peter Goldmark's campaign chair during his 2006 congressional race, acted as one of Gary Locke's Eastern Washington campaign coordinators, and sat on Tom Foley's finance committee during the days that he was the speaker of the House.

But through all of this, the professionally accomplished Mays, who works as a psychologist, holds a law degree and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, has never been a candidate. That all changed earlier this spring when Mays expressed interest in running for the 5th District position for U.S House of Representatives currently held by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Colville). He officially announces his candidacy later today.

"My focus has never been to run for office, it has never been my plan or goal," Mays told PolitickerWA in an interview. "I think this is a real pivotal time. I think there are probably 40 or 50 reasons I would have done this. I'm worried about my kids, full grown; I'm worried about the world we're passing on to them."

When it comes to policy, Mays conjures up his medical background by describing the problems that face Washington into two groups: acute and chronic.

"I don't think that's necessarily the same things as priorities of importance," he said, "but it certainly is emphasis in terms of where you want to spend the most energy immediately."

The first of those acute conditions is Iraq.

"I think that was a tragic mistake," Mays said of the 2003 invasion. "I think we need to immediately start to deliberately withdraw and redeploy troops I think we need to do than in a way that was less impulsive than was the character and pattern when we went into it. I was in the military and I think there are times when some countries feel the need to make these sacrifices, and these are horrible sacrifices, but this is not one of those. I don't see how this furthers the world's interest or our interest. So that's certainly the primary one. I'm very opposed to the war, I think it's a tragic mistake and furthered by poor responses once there."

Second is health care.

"There's a real crisis in health care and I don't think people really appreciate that," Mays argued. "If you're over 65 and you move to Spokane, good luck finding a doctor who takes Medicare if you don't have supplemental insurance."

The third acute condition is the economy, part of which Mays believes has been caused by the growing gap in education and income between the haves and the have-nots in American society.

"We don't want it to be that one group of our youth who are saying, ‘this Chardonnay's a little too oaky,' and another group is saying, ‘do you want to super size that?' and very little in between," he warned.

Mays, who once was Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Eastern Washington University, sees investment in education as a crucial aspect to the long term financial well being of the country.

The candidate also aims to push for a pro-business climate in the state, but one where business plays a more holistic role in the success of the culture.

"I'm not anti-business. I want' businesses to succeed," Mays said, before adding, "but I want people who work there to be able to share in the productivity that they've created. I want the business to be able to respond to our long term cultural interests rather than just the next quarter."

Mark Mays is a friendly man with the inviting yet earnest voice of a professional psychologist who has spent so many hours listening to the tragic and heroic problems of Prisoners of War. He often uses folksy phrases to express his feelings and muses on the delightful condition of life. He also speaks in terms of values, believes it is critical to his success to be able to present those values in the campaign. The values of Eastern Washington, he believes, are the same as those of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately the Party just has not done well enough to show that to voters in Mays' predominantly rural district.

"I think if we can help people understand that protecting endangered species isn't because we are more concerned with the snail darter than we are with them," Mays said about environmentalism, "but it's because that's a warning light on the dashboard that tells us we are all going to be in trouble soon if we don't pay attention to it."

He also weighed in on health care by way of bringing it closer to home.

"Abstraction of universal health care is one thing, but if you let people know that it's just not right for a working single mother who works a job and a half, who works very hard, and is very responsible and is not able to take her sick child to a doctor, no one supports that. That's not what America is about, and I think if we can help people understand that, I think that is really the issue at hand."

As for why he is running against incumbent Cathy McMorris Rodgers, it comes down to his faith in the Democratic Party principles and a few critical votes.

"Well, I'm not sure what she's done to contribute to the district," Mays said of McMorris' record. "And her support for the war, I just can't get next to that. Her ninety-six per cent agreement with George Bush, I can't get next to that. Now there are some things I'm sure I would agree with her on, but not tax cuts at a time of war, not tax distributions so that the wealthiest pay the least."

On the campaign front, Mays has his background on his side as someone who has been involved in Democratic politics for over a decade, as well as his reputation as a local doctor, lawyer, and the one-time chairman of the Eastern Washington University board of trustees. But those will only take him so far.

At the time of the interview in mid-March, Mays had yet to officially announce his candidacy and as a result of that had yet to begin fundraising. He acknowledged that he might not be able to match the incumbent on the money side, as is the usual case in congress, but Mays also hoped to ride a wave of momentum that has nothing to do with cash.

"One of my favorite quotations I like is, ‘the absence of money isn't the problem, the absence of ideas is the problem,'" Mays said then cited a concept from the book Freakonomics to explain what he hoped would help propel his campaign. "Maybe it's the likelihood of winning or the excitement about the race that pulls money to it rather than the money that pushes it forward."

Furthermore, Mays feels that he has a successful political climate on his side.

"You have to look at how potent our incumbent is," Mays said in light of what he predicted would be an election that chooses a Democratic President and a continued Democratic Congress in the fall. These would be nothing but positive for down-ticket Democrats, and could serve as the key to getting over the edge.

The Spokane Democrat also knows that it is not easy to communicate one's entire campaign message on a small budget in politically hostile territory. McMorris won the seat in 2004 with 60% of the vote, and defeated Goldmark two years later 55% - 45%. Still, Mays subscribes to the idea of "low information rationality, the idea that people tend to minimize the costs of making decisions by relying on pre-held values and beliefs, often created by way of religion or partisanship, as a screen through which to filter the great wall of information humans are saturated with these days.

"You can't expect people to go home after they worked two jobs and are worried about getting their kids dental care to say to themselves, ‘I want to look at alternative means to deal with the problem of the Kurds in Turkey,' but there are people who they listen to and do pay attention to," Mays said. "I think there are ways to communicate our values rather than just our policies. I think that people are rational, but I think they are rational in wanting to make sure things are compatible with their goals and values. I think the Democratic Party is compatible with people's goals and values."

In spite the challenge of unseating an incumbent, what it really comes down to with Dr. Mark Mays, after he looks at the health of the country with its acute and chronic problems, and lines them up with the values he holds and believes that his district holds as well, is the future. He wants to take his values and diagnoses to Washington, DC and set up a better world for the next generation.

"I don't want to turn to my kids and say I didn't do all I could have done."