An Interview with Congressional Candidate Neal Collins

Neal Collins for Congress

            I’ve known Neal Collins for quite a while.  We went to college together and we both had the same concentration, a major in Political Science with a minor in French.  We had many classes together and became friends, yet we were far from similar.  I am a liberal who interned for Bernie Sanders back when he was still in the House of Representatives and Neal was the President of the Furman University College Republicans.  Our senior year he even got Ken Starr to come to our school for a lecture.  He was excited and pleased with his accomplishment, and I was repulsed yet attended out of curiosity and respect for my friend and current roommate.  Our senior years we were randomly selected to be roommates, and that fit perfectly.  For three years, we had known each other, cracked jokes in class and not agreed on a single issue concerning politics, so why not finish off our undergraduate educations by getting to know each other better, cracking more jokes, and continuing to disagree on everything.  That is exactly what happened.  We would stay up late into the night nearly every night debating some issue, we would hardly if ever agree on anything, and when we could debate no longer we would go to bed with the knowledge that the same scene would most likely replay itself the following night.  This may not be anything extraordinary, but I must say that I am amazed how we never made it personal to the point where we could no longer remain friends.  Therefore when I heard he was running for the vacant Congressional Seat for South Carolina’s 3^rd District, I knew I had to see it and be a little part of it, if not for the chance to have one more cordial debate.

            My First foray with the Collins for Congress campaign occurred on September 5^th, and I drove up to Easley, SC from Atlanta to find out what a day in the life of a Congressional candidate consisted of, and I was pleasantly surprised.  Throughout school you hear much about the complications of running for public office.  You hear about the struggles to receive donations.  You hear about the negative influence of lobbyists.  You learn about balancing your obligations to your community and your party.  Yet in school the focus of a political science concentration is not about the campaign, but instead about the governing.  What I saw with Neal on that day was campaigning at its idealistic essence.

            The schedule for the day was simple.  We were to meet up with a couple of his campaign staffers in Easley before heading to the Clemson football game against Middle Tennessee before heading up to Furman University in Greenville for the Paladins’ game against Presbyterian College.  All the while, the goal was to hand out as many Neal Collins for Congress flyers as possible, shake every hand, and to spread his campaign slogan of “Responsibility, Recovery, Reform”.  This was not rocket science, and that was great.  Neal truly wanted to put in the legwork, hit the pavement, and literally meet as many of his constituents as possible.  On this day I got to meet them too.

            In Easley I realized that I am definitely a big city person, and got reacquainted with the small town “charm” that I grew to tolerate, but never enjoy during my four years a Furman.  (I actually took a year of independent travel because I just needed to get away)  To Neal on the other hand this was home, and you could tell by the comfort he exuded in all of his actions, whether it was buying supplies at Home Depot or getting breakfast at Bojangles.  After Easley we headed to Clemson for the game.  We set up a Collins for Congress poster at the front of the University so everyone could see it and then dove head first into the “Orange Sea”.  For those of you who have never attended a Clemson football game or tailgated at the University, the thing you need to know is that every Clemson Tiger bleeds orange.  If you are not prepared the Sea will swallow you up before you even realized it.  Thus I stayed close to Neal because he had been here before and knew how to swim, and I like the city.  We embarked on talking to South Carolinians “tent to tent” instead of “door to door”, and that is when the true campaigning began.  Neal talked and talked, and walked and walked, and all at an impressive pace.  I wanted to take a break, but wouldn’t let him know.  Neal talked to each person.  Answered all their questions.  Handed out flyers, and stickers.  We talked to influential (well connected in the community) voters, we talked to drunk and sober students, and basically everyone in between.  If you were at the game you heard about “Responsibility, Recovery, Reform”, and that was it.  You tell people who you are and what your positions are, and talk to them as if their vote matters.  Every vote matters.  That was Clemson and now on to Furman before the game finishes.

            We got to our alma mater, and Neal set up a table in front of the stadium to catch everyone who leaves the stadium.  The city of Greenville does not fall within the 3^rd District that Neal is campaigning for, but many of the people at the game may so this is still a good visit.  Once the game ended Neal on his own, without any staff, started handing out flyers and talking to people about the issues just the same as at Clemson.  I tried to stay in the background because the last thing he needs is a liberal interjecting about issues.  Liberals and Conservatives do not seem to be agreeing with each other much or even liking one another nowadays, so I went with the safe assumption that my opinion would not be what his potential constituents wanted to hear.  I decided to mutely hand out flyers instead.  I could not sit idly by and watch people leave without getting a flyer.  We handed out every flyer, saw some of our old professors, and that was Furman.

            After Furman I found out a bit more about where he stood on most issues, and I was not surprised.  We still disagreed on everything.  He was opposed to health care reform because it placed more responsibility on the government instead of on the individual, and thus infringed on our personal liberties.  With concerns to Afghanistan he felt he needed more information, and needed to know our objective for the war and a potential strategy before deciding if we should leave or stay in the region.  These where his honest opinions and even though I disagreed with both of them, I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion.  The discussion finished when we grew too tired to talk.  I then put the Godfather part 2 in the BluRay player and fell asleep.  In the morning I drove back to Atlanta.

            On the way home I knew I had learned a lot.  I saw a maturing candidate at the beginning of his career, and saw a very grassroots campaign.  All the people who helped him out during the day were all volunteers, and Neal does not employ any high-powered political consulting firms.  This was a nice glimpse into a young campaign, but I knew it was not enough.  Thus I followed up with Neal in November and learned about how his campaign had matured.

            He now does daily “door to door” campaigning in addition to weekend “tent to tent” campaigning and this has really helped him learn about the voters.  Before he just followed the issues that he felt were important, but now he knows that “an issue that was not that important to him may be very important to the voters in the 3^rd, so now he has to get educated on this issue and make it important to himself.  If I am going to represent the 3^rd, I have to represent what is most important to my voters.”  When Neal told me this I knew that he had not only grown as a candidate, but also as a person.  The campaign in November still had that fresh grassroots feel, but some of the idealism had been replaced with realism.  Neal before wanted to capture a lot of the youth vote, but the young people in his region still do not participate that much in politics, so he now had to divert his attention somewhere else.  He just did not have the resources to go after regular voters and people who usually do not vote.  Being a young politician I could tell he wished more young people participated in the process.  Neal attends more dinners, and gives more speeches than before and they are not bad.  He is not Barack Obama in the oratory category, but he could probably do a better job of following the President than Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.  The campaign has grown and continues to grow.  He is busier now, has to delegate more, has to go to more dinners and give more speeches, but no matter what, he finds the time to knock on doors and talk to the people.  This was good.  It was simple, and was grassroots politics to its core.  This is something that is very hard to witness nowadays, and it all stems from a kid I used to joke with in French class.  Life is funny and full of surprises.  I look forward to checking on Neal in the months to come, and I would not be shocked if he continued to surprise us all.

Comments

[Deborah]

Great, informatvie article. Good luck to Neal.