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EYE ON NYE: Glenn Nye is campaigning door to door in his bid to unseat Thelma Drake
Youthful enthusiasm is a beautiful thing—especially when it is still unspoiled by the business-as-usual in Washington.
Thirty-three-year-old Glenn Nye, who’s running his first campaign for public office in a race against Republican incumbent Thelma Drake for Virginia’s 2nd District Congressional seat, will need all of the youthful enthusiasm, not to mention public support, he can muster. Drake’s recent "no" vote on the G.I. Bill may have pissed off enough local veterans and their families to put her on seriously shaky ground for November, but people know her name.
And that’s Nye’s biggest challenge. It’s one he plans to meet by getting as much face time with his potential constituents as possible. Which is why he was going door to door on a recent Wednesday evening in a middle class Virginia Beach neighborhood populated by brick ranchers not far from Mount Trashmore.
It was the beginning of the recent early summer heat wave—96 degrees, dogs barking, teenage kids rolling by on their bicycles, the heady scent of honeysuckle drenching the air. But the weather did not deter Nye, a Hampton Roads native with deep family ties in the region, and a graduate of Norfolk Academy.
"Compared to Baghdad, this is nice," he pointed out.
Nye may be a newbie to the political game, but he’s quick to tout his extensive experience with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department and various NGOs in the Middle East and elsewhere. His bio notes that he received the Superior Honor Award from the State Department for organizing the rescue of American citizens caught behind insurgent lines during a civil conflict in Macedonia.
And he says it was his volunteer work with Physicians for Peace that turned him on to the idea that "American can play such a positive role in the world."
In black slacks and a tie-less white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Nye looks attractive, thin and spry. He walked briskly, eagerly from house to house. At one point he stopped to pick up a piece of trash off the sidewalk—an empty cigarette pack, which he crushed and place neatly in his pocket before depositing it in a trash can a few blocks later.
"This is my favorite part of the job" he declared. "I just like talking to people."
Some of them wanted to talk to him; others clearly didn’t.
One man remained behind his glass front door making cryptic gestures that at first came off as legitimate sign language until it became clear he was motioning to be left alone.
"That’s the first time I’ve seen that." Nye said. "You have to respect people’s privacy."
Other people were far more receptive.
"What’s on your mind this year?" Nye asked one woman.
"Make the dollar bill work a little bit more," she answered. Then she pitched him a softball.
"Are you for the families or are you for big industry?" she wanted to know.
"I’m for the families, 100 percent," he said.
Another woman lowered herself into a chair on her porch and proceeded to pontificate on her frustration with the war, the economy and Washington politics.
When Nye told her he wanted to rise above those politics, she was beyond skeptical.
"You can’t do that. I’m sorry. I wish you could," she said. "You can’t possibly go up there and not play the game. Even if you’re as pure as the driven snow."
Nye listened patiently and thanked her for her frankness.
In addition to introducing himself to voters, Nye was circulating a petition to ask Congress to discontinue subsides for big oil companies. It obviously hit a chord, because virtually every person he spoke to signed it.
The following afternoon, I had a chance to speak with Nye in more detail by phone about his background and his political views. The following are excerpts from our conversation:
You’ve worked in public service for more than 10 years, but this is your first run for elected office. Was there something specific that made you decide now was the time?
Well, I decided to get into public service because I grew up here in Hampton Roads in an area that’s so heavily military, and I saw our soldiers and sailors deploying overseas and I knew that they were going out to serve their country and do the best that they could do. That just inspired me to get into public service. I went to study foreign affairs, and I decided that the right route for me to serve was to go into diplomatic service and become a foreign service officer….[T]hat has taken me around the world to places like Kosovo and Afghanistan and Iraq, where I’ve worked on serving American citizens and trying to keep them safe…,[while] also trying to spread…democracy and…economic development. But I’ve also seen over the course of the past 10 years our position in the world decline because of leadership in Washington…I’ve done my best to try to execute the foreign policy that both of the last two presidents…set forth, but I’ve realized over time that there’s only so much I can do from the outside….In order to really [affect] the policies that have such a broad impact on the world and on our strength here at home, I need to be involved in the making of the policy in Washington.
You support a gradual withdrawal in Iraq, is that right?
What I’ve said is that after having spent most of last year in Iraq, I’m convinced that we need to have a new strategy for victory there. We have to get the Iraqis to take greater responsibility. They need to know that they have to take responsibility in terms of reconciling themselves politically and in terms of paying for their own reconstruction because they’ve got the money. And the best way for us to convince the Iraqi government to take the lead…is to show them that we’re not going to be there forever. We need to formulate an exit strategy and start to implement it….I think that strategy should be flexible in terms of how we implement it, but we’ve got to start it.
Can you give me some specific examples of things you’ve experienced in Iraq that have lead to that set of beliefs?
Absolutely. I’ll give you one example. We worked closely with members of the Iraqi government. The project I worked on was an employment program. We gave jobs to Iraqis to give them purpose and hope and keep them from joining the insurgency….One of the programs that we did was to hire Iraqis to clean up trash in the city of Baghdad. We employed thousands of Iraqis doing that….But it’s a very expensive program. We told the Iraqi government members that our assistance was temporary and that they needed to take over responsibility for the program….But months into my working on the program they still just refused to take it over until I finally asked them one day: ‘Why is it that you won’t make plans to take this over yourselves?’ And…they shrugged and said, ‘Well, as long as you’re going to pay for it, then we’re happy for you to continue to pay for it.’ So…we finally just let contracts expire in certain parts if the city of Baghdad and we had to let the trash pile up there. And when that happened, the Iraqis then took action. They went out...and they made a plan and they found their own money and they hired the workers and they got the trash cleaned up again. So it clearly illustrates that it’s really a question of will. When we properly incentivize the Iraqis to take things over themselves and they realized that we weren’t going to do it for them anymore, then they took action. And that’s what we need to do at a higher political level.
You talked to a lot of people last night about the economy and about gas prices specifically. How do you feel about McCain’s temporary summer gas-tax-relief idea?
I have found that what most people are telling me is that they want a solution to the problem that is long-term. They’re asking for people in politics who aren’t just looking for the quick fix. They want to have people who have some vision, who are going to look ahead and bring us practical solutions that will really solve these issues over the long term. And that’s why I’ve found that so many people are saying they want us to invest in alternative energies and solve this dependency on oil over the long term.
I want to go back to the Middle East question for a minute. One of the women you spoke to last night expressed wariness about the idea of us negotiating with terrorists. She said ‘those people can’t be talked to.’ What’s your response to that?
I think it’s very important for us to make intelligent use of both our military power and our diplomatic and public diplomacy outreach. We have to do a better job of blending the two and understanding when we need to use hard power, military power and when discussions and diplomacy are appropriate and how to blend the two to get the best outcome. I think we’re in the predicament that we’re in now because our administration has relied too much on exclusively military power. We discovered through programs like the one we did in Iraq that we won a lot more friends and we were able to stabilize neighborhoods and cities a lot more effectively when combining that with the military working the security side of things than when you have the military acting by itself. And I’ll tell you people that we worked with, soldiers we worked with, division commanders liked our program. They asked for it in every city where the military is active because they know the value of soft power.
Thelma Drake has frequently been accused of toeing the party line too tightly, of being kind of a lapdog to the administration. Are there ways in which you differ philosophically from mainstream Democratic Party values?
Well, first and foremost I think we’ve got to have a balanced budget and be fiscally responsible. It’s important for the future, the strength of our economy and I would be in favor of a balanced budget amendment to make sure we are much more careful about the way the government spends money. The people that I am talking to are asking to have representatives in Congress who are not tied too closely to one party and are going to make decisions and stand up for the values of the district regardless of…what the president’s policy is. And I think that’s one of the reasons that people have responded so well to my candidacy. I’m someone who has served my country overseas, and I’ve done the best I can to help promote U.S. interests and this is in an apolitical way…[T]hat’s the kind of leadership and attitude that I intend to bring to Congress. People like Mark Warner have shown us…that when you put aside party allegiances and work across the aisles you get a lot done.
The League of Conservation Voters recently gave Drake a pretty abysmal score for her environmental voting record. What’s your approach to the environment and public policy?
First and foremost, we have to recognize that we come from a unique area here in Hampton Roads. It’s beautiful and it’s unique in the sense that we have a very sensitive environment in our waterways and our beaches. Not only is our economy dependent upon it but our whole way of life is tied to our environment. I think it’s important that we recognize that and that we take measures to protect our local environment. I’m pleased to note that just recently we’ve been able to start eating Lynnhaven oysters again and that’s due to conservation efforts that have been taken recently….I think it’s important that we take those kinds of measures….
Outside of obvious issues like the economy and the war, what do you see as the most important issues for Virginians and for the 2nd district?
I think…people are just looking for us to get beyond partisanship and focus on practical problem solving. That’s the number one thing that I usually hear from people. They’re tired of the old Washington politics. And they’re ready to move past that. That’s why there’s such a strong movement right now for change, for just bringing a new attitude into government and that includes things like having the vision to look forward in areas like energy and in creating American jobs and in issues like healthcare. Another issue that’s obviously critically important to this area specifically is treatment of veterans. I worked very closely with service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan ,and I have seen how much they sacrifice for us….I think we need to take much better care of our veterans.
What was your reaction to Obama’s securing the nomination?
I think it’s great that the contest has now come to a close and that we’ve selected a nominee and that everyone can get behind and that the party can be unified. I think it’s really great that there are so many new people getting involved in politics this year that normally haven’t been because they’ve been disillusioned with the process. And now we’re finding just thousands of new people in Virginia and in the district here who are registering to vote and get involved. It’s just there’s an energy here that I think we haven’t seen for as long as I can remember. | 
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