Dave McCormick is the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate who is running against Democratic Senator Bob Casey (with whom we were unable to secure an interview as we went to press). McCormick served as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedgefunds. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Last night, you and Senator Casey had a second and final debate. How are you feeling following the debate last night? (This interview was conducted on October 16 and the final debate between McCormick and Casey aired on October 15)
I feel great about the debate, because it gave me an opportunity to really show the difference between an energetic, strong leader and what I think are very common sense policies to get our country and our Commonwealth back on track, versus a guy that’s been around for 30 years and doesn’t, in my opinion, have a strong track record to run on. He’s been a career politician that’s voted for these policies, which are increasingly extreme and out of step with Pennsylvania. I thought it was a great opportunity to provide the contrast. I’m new to politics so anytime you can get on TV and have lots of people watch, it raises awareness of who you are and what you can offer as a leader.
For an election that will have drastic effects on Gen Z voters, what do you say to young voters who might still be on the fence or aren’t planning to vote?
I think it’s a real tragedy if you don’t vote. I really do think this is the most important election of my lifetime. I’m 59 and the outcomes are not going to affect 59-year-olds that much. They’re going to affect people like you because the America we have, the one that’s created such opportunity for young people of all different races and creeds and from all different parts of our great Commonwealth is slipping away.
It’s the combination of terrible economic policies, extreme liberal policies under Biden-Harris and Senator Casey, the wide open border, the crime, [and] the war on fossil fuels. All these things have profound effects for young people. What I say to people on the campaign trail is that, for young people, this election is about the kind of opportunity you’re going to have. I’m someone who’s lived the American dream. I’ve been super fortunate. I’ve got six daughters, 24 to 18. I want to make sure that great America is available for them, for you, and for your kids, and this election could be more important for that.
Right now we are facing an affordability crisis that is felt no more than young people entering the workforce. How do we take steps toward addressing this problem? Especially amidst globalized issues around inflation and affordability?
Well, the inflation is the direct response or result of bad policy. We’ve had 20 years of spending too much money and fiscal irresponsibility. But what’s happened under President Biden and Kamala Harris and Bob Casey, who voted 100% for these spending bills, is we’ve had $5 trillion of new spending, and that new spending is what’s driving inflation. Even Democrat economists like Larry Summers, who was the treasury secretary for President Obama, says that it’s all this spending that’s created inflation or shrinkflation. That’s the worst kind of tax, and it’s really a regressive tax because it hurts people that are living paycheck to paycheck or it hurts people living on fixed income the worst. It hurts young people like you the worst because you don’t have a lot of income, so your prices went up, and you don’t have the income to offset it.
The way to fix it is to reduce this extreme spending, particularly in all these subsidies for fossil for solar panels and electric vehicles and windmills. I’m for all forms of energy. I’m just not for subsidizing them and penalizing fossil fuels. We’ve got to make America more business-friendly, particularly to small businesses, which create most of the jobs and create opportunity for young people like you. We’ve got to reduce the regulatory burden. So we have to create a robust economy. So when you guys graduate from college, there are lots of great paying jobs. Listen, I’m a guy who has run multiple companies. I’ve hired hundreds, probably 1000s of people your age. What I’ve learned in that time is young people have lots of views, but the most important thing for most of them is, “How do I have great jobs and opportunity?” That’s what I’ll be focused on as a Senator.
Among our peers, one of the most common things we hear is that people are sick of the relentless nasty rhetoric on both sides of politics, and they’re tired of the constant descent polarization. How do we start? How do we start to address this national crisis of polarized politics?
First of all, we’ve got to have a big argument, a big fight, if you will, about ideas, because the idea is that the choice between ideas right now is really extreme. You have more and more socialist kinds of policies, excessive spending, price controls, lots of giveaways being proposed by Vice President Harris, Bob Casey, and others, versus what I believe to be coming back on track to fix our borders and so forth. We shouldn’t shy away from that argument, because the consequences are really big, but we don’t have to have vitriol. We don’t have to dehumanize people. We don’t have to attack individual values, even as we have this big argument.
Second, when I’m going after Senator Casey, I’m attacking the positions he’s taken, the votes that he’s had. I’m not attacking his character, unless he is, in fact, lying about me, which he unfortunately has. So that’s the way I’m trying to handle my campaign, the way I think about this as a public servant is I go back to my days as a platoon leader. In the ’80s I had in my platoon a young man from rural Alabama. I had an African American man from Newark, someone who was a college shop drop out from Boston, in that group of people serving America, protecting one another, supporting our mission. I never remember talking about race. I never remember talking about religion. I don’t remember talking about politics. I’m a patriot who wants to serve our great country. I’m a Republican, I’m a conservative, but I’m someone who wants to make our Commonwealth better and America better, and represent every Pennsylvanian, regardless of what party they are. I’m not trying to just represent Republicans, and I think that spirit is the kind of spirit that I’ll take to the Senate, and hopefully that kind of spirit by me and others will help bring the right kind of stability to the discussion.
Of the issues of our time, young and especially college voters emphasize the importance of climate change on this issue. You seem relatively out of step with the rest of your party since you acknowledged climate crisis on the debate stage. So, how do we take the first steps to address this issue?
It’s by starting with a very realistic view of what problem we’re trying to solve. I think in dealing with it, the problems we’re trying to solve are how to create as much prosperity for Americans in the world as possible, while also optimizing our security and our independence. We don’t want to be dependent on others for our energy, particularly because our energy needs are growing, while addressing the very real challenge of climate change.
If you define the problem as climate change: it’s very bad solutions, which I think is what’s happening, solutions that hurt working families in Pennsylvania, solutions that make us less secure. You have to define the problem the right way, and then the key is innovation, which is going to be able to optimize all three of those things. America is the most innovative country in the world, and fracking is the best example of that kind of innovation.
But there should be more in nuclear, wind and solar, and carbon sequestration, carbon capture. There are huge strides to be made, but we have to start with the recognition that fossil fuels are a reality for the foreseeable future, and natural gas in particular is a great path to reducing global carbon emissions. And let’s hope we got to extract that natural gas, put it around the world, and here, the numbers don’t lie. It’s something like a 15-18% reduction in global carbon emissions in the United States through the last 10 to 15 years, despite the fact that our energy needs have gone way up. The reason for that is that the fracking revolution has allowed us to use natural gas, and it is a key to reducing carbon emissions.
We need to embrace all sources of energy. We need to include fossil fuels, and we need to be at the forefront of innovation. We need to not have the government be placing unrealistic mandates. Subsidies in place that disadvantage fossil fuels over others, I don’t think that’s the way to make sure that we have healthy economic growth, national security and continue to make great strides in the transition on reducing global carbon emissions.
Click here, for Dave McCormick campaign web page. Click here, for Bob Casey’s campaign web page.
