Vietnam Vet, Businessman Running Against Martin Meehan Curt Lovelace June 5, 2002 It's assumed by many in the Fifth Congressional District that in order to represent the area, one must be a Democrat from Lowell. But Chuck McCarthy is a Republican who grew up in Billerica and now lives in Dunstable. He fully intends to win the seat in November.

Candidate Chuck McCarthy speaking with children.

A 51-year-old Vietnam vet, McCarthy believes Martin Meehan, the current Congressman, has spent too much time on national issues and forgotten about the needs of his District. The challenger wants to help revitalize the area through lower taxes and the creation of new employment opportunities.

MassNews recently interviewed McCarthy in his Chelmsford campaign headquarters. MassNews: Why did you get into this race? McCarthy: I looked at running for Congress a few years back, 1996 to be exact. I was going to run in the First District against John Olver. But at the same time Jane Swift was running, so I decided that a little guy from Townsend probably couldn't make it. Even though I thought I could beat Olver, I didn't think I could beat Jane in a primary. I decided to wait until the circumstances were different. MassNews: When did you move? McCarthy: Six years ago I moved to Dunstable and I wasn't too enthused with the Congressional leadership here. I wanted to bring in some outside ideas, some outside thought processes other than those of a career politician or a lawyer. I'm not either of those. This is my first time in politics and I'm very proud to say I have a background that's very different from that of most politicians. MassNews: In what way? McCarthy: I have two Master's degrees, but I had to work for them. At the age of 17, I was in high school. It was the late '60s. You knew when you got out of high school, the draft was coming. My father was a career Army guy and I wanted to do something different. I really didn't want to go into the Army. I decided to leave high school and join the Marines. I think that was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made, even though I don't condone leaving school early. MassNews: What did the Marines do for you?

McCarthy's Career as Written by his Campaign After leaving the military, McCarthy earned his high school equivalency degree, and the new husband and father attended night classes for his bachelor's and master's degrees while working in the day. McCarthy earned an associate's degree in electronic data processing and bachelor's degree in management information systems from Northeastern University in 1979, a master's in business administration from New Hampshire College in 1982, and a master's in communication from Fitchburg State College in 1996. In 30 years working in the high-tech industry, McCarthy has earned a reputation as a start-up specialist, sought after by entrepreneurs and executives struggling to turn around failing companies. He spent the first 12 years of his career honing his business skills at high-tech giants Honeywell, Sperry Univac, and Hewlett Packard. For the next 18 years, McCarthy focused on helping new companies grow and troubled companies turn around. At these companies he held leadership positions, such as chief executive officer, chief operating officer and vice president/director. He founded two companies, Basic Networks in 1992 at Wannalancit Mills in Lowell, and Nexus Communications in 1998, which today is known as Octave. In addition, high-tech companies he has worked for include Banyan, Pathway Design, Wang, Proteon, Videoserver, Multilink, LifeCare Technologies and Evidian.

McCarthy: What the Marines did was to give me focus and direction. One thing about going to Parris Island, South Carolina, is once you get there, you get religion very quickly. Ten months later I ended up in Vietnam. Four days in Vietnam and I got hit. I thought everyone was going home when they got hit - and most people were. But I was in radio communications and had been to forward air-controller school. They needed forward air-controllers near the Cambodian border and my number came up. So I went out near the Cambodian border with a Recon outfit calling in air strikes on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

McCarthy in the Marine Corp.

MassNews: What happened on the Ho Chi Minh Trail? McCarthy: I received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Navy Commendation and Navy Achievement medals for various things I did during my time in Vietnam. I came back early from my second Vietnam tour because my dad took sick. He had been a B17 ball turret gunner in World War II and had been shot up pretty badly. A piece of shrapnel finally worked its way up to his brain and he became paralyzed at the age of 47 for the rest of his life. The Marines came and found me - it took them a couple of weeks to do so - but they asked me if I wanted to go home. I came home and took care of my dad. MassNews: How did you become a union member?

McCarthy: The Marines told me I could stay in Boston for a year. So I worked during the day as a union member for the Boston and Maine Railroad, pick-and-shoveling. At night I posted the guard for the Navy base. Interspersed in there, I was a pall bearer for all the Marines that came back into New England. After that year, the family was stabilized and I went back into the Marines and finished out my time.

MassNews: Are you married?

McCarthy: I met a wonderful woman, been married almost 30 years, and have two sons, 23 and 26. Along the way I went to night school. I got a GED, an associate and bachelor degree and two masters. I did that because I knew education is the great equalizer. You need to get an education in order to have a career and get focused in life. I did that.

MassNews: Where have you been working?

McCarthy: By the time I got my degrees, I started to advance. I spent 30 years in the high tech business, the last 22 starting companies. I was fortunate enough to be with six startups, of which four went public and two were sold. I started two companies myself. One went out of business because of funding and the second one is still in business, ready to go public.

MassNews: Why are you running?

McCarthy: I decided it was time to bring my education, the experience of 30 years in business and family experience into Congress. Remember, Congress was intended to be made up of citizen-representatives. The intent was for us to elect citizen-representatives. They would go to Washington and serve their country. Then they would go back home and maintain their farms. I will go to Washington in January 2003, if elected, and I will spend a number of years there. When the district says my time is up, they'll vote me out and I'll go back into my high tech business.

MassNews: You've stated that "education is the great equalizer." What is your view of public education today?

McCarthy: I think we've done a tremendous job in public education, but I think we need to do a lot more from the federal government's point-of-view. When we dictate a program we ought to fund it. An example of that is today we dictate this special education program from the federal level, but we only fund it at 20 percent. That means 80 percent of the burden is left to the local school districts and we all know how much they're struggling today to make ends meet with the tax burdens we have on the constituents.

MassNews: What should the feds do?

McCarthy: The federal government should not dictate specific programs, but should put the money down in the states and then hold them accountable for the results, based upon testing. Today, if you look at President Bush's education program, that's exactly what he's doing. He's giving more money for education in the public sector, yet he's holding the schools accountable and that's exactly what we should be doing. If they don't meet certain guidelines, then you give school vouchers and give people choice.

MassNews: You said that when your time is up, you'll leave. How do you feel about term limits?

McCarthy: Well, as you know there are no term limits today. And as you probably also know, Congressman Meehan made a stipulation that he would only serve four terms. The important thing isn't that we have term limits, it's the breaking of that promise. I'm not for or against term limits. Would you lose people if you said they could only serve two terms? I don't know that. I'd have to think hard about running if they were going to limit me to two terms. I do think that representation should be left up to the voters. They should have the last say as to when they vote somebody in and out, based on performance.

MassNews: What are the key issues for the Fifth District and the state?

McCarthy: The key issue for the Fifth District is certainly the economy. Our unemployment figures are some of the highest in the state. The rate in Lawrence is at 12.6 percent; Haverhill is 6.9 percent; Lowell is 6.5 percent; and the rest of the district is hovering above 5 percent for the first time in a decade, while the state enjoys a 4.7 percent unemployment rate.

MassNews: Why is unemployment so high there?

McCarthy: Something happened in this district. This used to be the high tech district. This used to be where all the growth and new businesses were happening, in the 495-128 belt. Right now Jeanne Shaheen is running for Senate in New Hampshire and she claims that New Hampshire is the second highest high tech employer in the nation, behind Silicon Valley, in California. Well, that used to be the Merrimack Valley.

MassNews: What does that have to do with Rep. Meehan?

McCarthy: For the past six years, while Congressman Meehan has been focusing on campaign finance reform, the unemployment rate has skyrocketed in this district. Instead of concentrating on local issues, he'd rather be on "Meet the Press." So in reality, if we had those six years of trying to figure out why Malden Mills was going bankrupt, or why we were losing Bradford College or why Lucent Technologies was leaving the state, we could have saved some jobs in the Fifth District. That's the number one issue today.

MassNews: What about senior citizens?

McCarthy: The second issue is senior citizens. We have a Social Security System that's going to be bankrupt by the year 2040. The Social Security System today is a pay-as-you-go system. The total number of people paying in has to be greater than the number of people taking out. It's not an annuity system and it's not an investment system. We only get 1.2 percent return on our money. That does not bode well for anyone under 50 who's going to retire in 2030 or 2040. We have to do something that's creative and we have to do it now. Senator Kennedy wants to wait until 2030 to start looking at Social Security. I believe if you do that you're never going to recover in those ten years. There is some move afoot to do a personal individual account for those new people coming into the system that are used to 401K investments. I believe that is the way we should go. We can take 5 percent, but not more, from the Social Security System and put it into long-term money market accounts, and I say long-term because the stock market has always been cyclical, but over the long term, it has always returned eight to ten percent. If we can get an eight to ten percent return we certainly won't have a bankruptcy problem.

MassNews: How about Medicare?

McCarthy: Medicare, the second senior issue, is out of control. Today, senior citizens make choices as to what they eat and what they buy for prescription drugs. Prescription drugs should be covered by the federal government. Besides making decisions about whether to eat or take pills, seniors are starting to take some pills only every other day instead of the days they need them. We made a promise to our senior citizens years ago. If you paid into the system, the system would be there for you. We're not keeping that promise. We've got to make sure that we cover them on Medicare, Medicade and prescription drugs. The cost of Medicade versus the cost of health care is out of control.

MassNews: Where are you on education?

McCarthy: Education is a big issue. We need to make sure we educate every child so that no child is left behind. Right now, in our fourth grade results, the United States is in the lower quadrant for the industrial nations for reading, writing and arithmetic. We are falling behind our global competitors because we're not teaching the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Forty-seven percent of all math teachers in Massachusetts at the fifth grade and above are not certified math teachers. We're teaching one of our toughest subjects with teachers who are not qualified. We have to find new and creative ways to get teachers certified, or find new teachers.

Right now we're doing ourselves a disservice by having kids reach high school who don't have the technology skills we need in order to compete on a global basis. We're not producing mathematicians; we're nor producing programmers. We have to change that now.

I went to night school. I understand what it is to sit from 6 to 10 at night, four nights a week plus Saturdays. But we need to solve that problem. We need to get the right skill sets so that people can prosper in a global environment.

MassNews: Any other issues?

McCarthy: National defense is the last issue I concentrate on. Certainly as a former marine, I support our troops around the world. And I support taking care of their families and certainly taking care of homeland security. We need to protect our borders. Just recently our Congressman voted against the Border Protection Act. We have to be protective of our borders so that we can be proactive instead of reactive in the case of terrorist attacks. This war on terrorism is going to last for years. We have to make sure we don't lose faith in what we're doing in that war like we did in Vietnam.

MassNews: How do you feel about private gun ownership and the second amendment?

McCarthy: I fully support the Second Amendment and private gun ownership. I do draw the line on one aspect of it, which is automatic, assault weapons. Other than that I support the right to bear arms.

MassNews: What about abortion rights?

McCarthy: I'm against late term abortions. I'm also against funding by the federal government for abortions. However, I am for the woman's right to choose. So that makes me a right-to-choose candidate.

MassNews: Your opponent has spent a lot of energy on campaign finance reform. What are your thoughts on that subject?

McCarthy: Well, I'm somebody from outside the circle of politics, so I understand what it is to have to go out and raise every dollar. I understand the need for campaign finance reform.

MassNews: How do you feel about the new bill?

McCarthy: We just spent six-and-a-half years fighting for a bill that didn't do anything for unemployment; it didn't help anybody with education; it didn't help our senior citizens put any food on their tables. What it did is to allow you, if you gave a thousand dollars last week to a political candidate, now you can give two thousand. Yes, it took soft money out of the Democrat and Republican national committees, but it just put it right back into the special interest groups. It didn't solve advertising problems in the later stages of the campaigns, it's just that the Democrat and Republican national committees can't advertise in the last 30 days of the campaign.

So we really didn't solve anything with this, although it is a step in the right direction. What it did for the average voter is to allow them to give more money - and less than one percent of the voters give money in the first place. I think the time could have been better spent looking at the local issues for this district.

MassNews: What makes you a Republican?

McCarthy: I was a Democrat at one time. My first election coming out of the Marines I voted Democrat. My parents were Democrats. I was a union member. I've learned things the hard way. So in reality, I'm a Republican because the core values that I've learned are that people should earn what they get and people should be focused on expanding their abilities to earn and their ability to be part of society and not be part of a handout program.

McCarthy's website can be found at www.mccarthycommittee.com.