By Tom Grace
The Daily Star
Cooperstown News Bureau
Richard Hanna has spent the better part of three years running for Congress in New York’s 24th Congressional District, and from what he’s seen, the biggest issue in the land is lack of confidence in the future.
“Of course people are worried about jobs and the economy,” he said last Wednesday in an interview with The Daily Star. “But I think it’s more than that. It’s about confidence. People are no longer confident their government can solve problems.”
Through much of his life, the nation’s problems were seen as cyclical, he said. But the poor job market, poor real estate market and other signs of hard times are because of “structural problems,” not economic timing, Hanna said.
“People see that we’ve squandered our prosperity, that we’ve set up all these institutions we can no longer afford.”
The way forward is to rein in spending on unnecessary programs and initiatives because “I don’t think we can tax people any more,” he said.
Extending the Bush-era tax cuts “would be great, but the problem is they’re built into the budget. The problem is how do we pay for it?”
Hanna, who is running against incumbent Democrat Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said running for office is hard work.
“The system makes it hard to run against incumbents,” he said. “They have built-in advantages, and of course, they use them.”
In 2008, Hanna came close to winning, a near-miss that made it easier to say yes to running this time. But competing with someone who is in office, has name recognition, announces grants and works with business and political leaders is a tall order for any challenger, he said.
To a certain extent, office seekers’ fortunes also depend on events beyond their control, such as the rise and fall of other candidates in other races. Two years ago, the popularity of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have helped Arcuri. Polls this year show Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo far in front of Republican Carl Paladino.
Hanna said he is concentrating on his own race, confident people will see he is a moderate Republican whose philosophy is in line with the district.
Hanna, 59, who operated a very successful construction firm, said he decided to plunge into politics less than a year before he announced his run for Congress in 2008.
“I’d sold my business and done pretty well, and I didn’t like the direction we were going, as a nation,” he said.
In a sense, the United States seemed to have become a collection of 300 million special interests, with too few people thinking about the collective good, he said.
Hanna said strident rhetoric and philosophies were — and are — driving people apart, and he sees his role as trying to restart discussions that may bear fruit.
Asked about one divisive topic within the district, horizontal gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, he said he sees the same stridency at work.
“On both sides, you have extremists and they have their experts, but the two sides are not talking to each other,” he said.
“What I hear from most people is they don’t want drilling unless they’re sure it’s safe, so I think the science should rule,” he said. Until drilling and fracking are regarded as safe by scientists, Hanna said he will remain skeptical, but willing to listen.