MOUNT VERNON – Ken Harbaugh, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House 7th Congressional District, took questions on everything from his vision for healthcare reform to opponent Bob Gibbs’ allegations that he cheated on his taxes during Thursday night’s annual general election debate at Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Foster Hall.
Gibbs declined an invitation to participate in the debate, Mount Vernon News managing editor and event manager Samantha Scoles said, as he told the News (which hosts the event) that he was working in Washington that night.
Gibbs has yet to debate Harbaugh, although the News reported Tuesday that the Republican incumbent has agreed to debate Harbaugh at Ashland University in the near future. Gibbs has held the office since 2013 and won the Republican primary in May with 75 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, Harbaugh, a former president of Team Rubicon Global, a worldwide disaster relief organization, won the Democratic primary with 86 percent of the vote. Harbaugh is also a former U.S. Navy pilot, a life experience which he consistently referred back to on Thursday night when discussing his non-partisan mindset.
“An election is a conversation. It is also a reminder of something that I think I appreciated instinctively as a Navy pilot, didn’t know quite how to articulate it. But it’s this idea that in moments of crisis, Americans rise to the occasion,” Harbaugh said in his opening remarks. “When I was leading my combat recon crews on these missions off of North Korea, off of China, off in the Middle East, we set politics aside in our moments of crisis as a crew, and we rose to the occasion because we had to.
“I think that we are facing a political crisis in this country. But the good news – it’s what I see in rooms like this, on the doors that I’m having conversations on, on the driveways, is that the central truth is still there – Americans rise to the occasion in moments of crisis.”
Local residents watched on Thursday while representatives from Knox Pages, the Mount Vernon News, WNZR and WMVO/WQIO asked discussion-based questions to candidates running in four different races on the November 6 ballot: Ohio Senate 19th District, Knox County Commissioner, Ohio House 68th District and U.S. House of Representatives 7th District.
Because Gibbs chose not to participate in the debate, Harbaugh stood alone on-stage while receiving questions from local media members. As someone who has never run for office before, Harbaugh was first asked what he views are key issues in Ohio’s 7th District, which includes Ashland, Coshocton, Holmes, and Knox counties, as well as parts of Huron, Lorain, Medina, Richland, Stark, and Tuscarawas counties.
“Healthcare,” Harbaugh responded, seemingly without hesitation. “Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare.”
Harbaugh became emotional when talking about his daughter, who he said needed four surgeries during her infancy due to a pre-existing condition. Harbaugh said he and his wife, Annmarie, had to schedule the first surgery without any way to pay for it.
“That is a terrifying place to be in,” Harbaugh said, on the verge of tears. “As a family, as a father, there is no fear quite like leaving an infant on an operating table, and retreating to the waiting room to have all that worry and concern about how that procedure’s going to go, and having added to that the fear that that decision is going to bankrupt your family. And that is a concern I hear time, and time, and time again in our town halls.”
On multiple occasions, Harbaugh seemed to come back to the issue of healthcare reform during his Q&A session on Thursday night. Ultimately, he advocated for increased healthcare services for people of all ages.
In a question concerning economic health indicators, Harbaugh said that “wages have not kept up with the growth in corporate profits, and they especially haven’t kept up with cost of healthcare.”
“My mom went to the pharmacist a couple of weeks ago for 80 Celebrex pills and she was told, ‘$1,600.’ And of course, she came home without them,” Harbaugh said. “We are forcing people, seniors especially, to make decisions about filling their prescriptions or putting food on the table every day now, across the Ohio 7th and across the country.”
Harbaugh said the first step in initiating healthcare reform would be “shoring up the Affordable Care Act.” He advocated for bringing premiums down by “re-establishing some predictability in the market,” and also added that he’d make an effort to allow medicare buy-in for younger Americans, while expanding access to the FEHBP for the country’s youth.
Harbaugh also tied healthcare into the opioid epidemic, stating that America lost more people last year to heroin overdoses than it lost during the entire Vietnam War, and that “we have political leadership that is not treating it with nearly the degree of seriousness it warrants.”
He referred twice back to his family’s aforementioned struggles, which he believes symbolize the greater healthcare issue in America – one that goes beyond politics.
“A pre-existing condition doesn’t care whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. At some point, everyone’s going to have one,” Harbaugh said. “And we need to fight, in the richest country on earth, to make sure we take care of that.”
Harbaugh also addressed recent claims from Gibbs’ chief of staff, who called him a “carpetbagger” for allegedly cheating on taxes on a house he owns in Connecticut.
According to Cleveland.com, the issue is a tax reduction Harbaugh received for years through a Connecticut state program for military veterans. When he and his wife left Connecticut in 2009 to move back to Ohio, the article states, they continued to own the house but forgot about the tax break. They failed to update it to reflect that they no longer lived there, the article said.
In response, Harbaugh reportedly wrote a $3,800 check to the Hamden, Connecticut, city government after learning of the issue via a digital campaign attack ad in mid-September.
On Thursday, Harbaugh said he had “no apologies” for growing up in a military family and serving the country. When asked directly once more about the allegations, Harbaugh got to the point.
“Annmarie and I have always paid our taxes and I am proud to have been able to take the veterans’ exemption on a home that we owned in Connecticut,” he said. “But this is just an example of dark money in politics attacking Ohioans, and Bob Gibbs’ biggest corporate donors funding hit ads and trying to disguise them. We take zero dollars on our campaign from corporate PACs; Bob Gibbs gets nearly 90 percent of his money from corporate PACs.”
When asked about how he plans to make changes at the federal level to ensure Ohio infrastructure is done by Ohio companies using Ohio steel, which is something he has advocated for during his campaign, Harbaugh said he would pursue federal law stipulations to make such a reality possible.
“In federal law, we can stipulate – and also at the state house, this is partly a burden the state house is going to have to shoulder – that those contracts need to be fulfilled by companies either based in Ohio or by Ohioans,” Harbaugh said.
Harbaugh expressed concern over the lack of broadband internet connectivity in certain areas of the district, stating that OH-7 is ranked 411th in connectivity nationally out of 432 congressional districts. He went after Gibbs, who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, which Harbaugh said “controls the purse strings for that kind of investment (needed to improve broadband services).”
“That’s just neglect. That’s just not right,” Harbaugh said. “We have got to include, in our infrastructure thinking, bridges, roads, filling those potholes, but also high-speed internet.”
Harbaugh also emphasized the importance of investing in community colleges, which he believes “are our secret weapon.” Additionally, he said he supports tax credits for employers who hire community college graduates.
Finally, Harbaugh explained his campaign slogan, “country over party.” He referred back to his time as a Navy pilot, when he “swore on the oath, not to a party,” reminding those in the audience that he put his life on the line for that oath. He said, if elected, that the Oath of Office, his family, and the voting public would need to keep him accountable.
He said that as the district’s representative, he promises to “keep showing up.”
“I hear Ohioans desperate for a representative who’s going to show up, who’s going to mean it when they say ‘country over party,’ and who’s going to work for them,” Harbaugh said in closing. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in Washington – a generation that is willing to work together to get things done, like I did as a Navy aircraft commander, like I did as president of Team Rubicon Global.
“Ohioans are sick and tired of the partisanship, they’re sick and tired of the lack of anything being accomplished in Washington, and I think 2018 is the year we prove that America remains a self-correcting democracy.”
To re-watch Thursday night’s debate, click here.
