I conducted an interview with Democratic candidate, Dr. Victoria Wulsin earlier this evening around 6:30. We talked about her campaign, Portman, the 2004 election, gay marriage, and torture.  With no further introduction:

Ann Driscoll: Why did you decide to run for office?

Dr. Victoria Wulsin: Well, it's something I have wanted to do for a long time.  I think government is the entity which bonds and unites us in society, and we got a great one.  And, I like leading people.  I like listening to people.  I like making decisions.  I like negotiating.  I like talking to people both in my office and in large groups.  And I like adventure.  It feeds me.  So why not try this?  And I'd been increasingly upset with the voting record of my predecessor that I felt something had to be done.  And if that magnet to the President could get elected, I think six times, I could certainly get elected.  So that's why I campaigned.  

AD: There's this perception that Rob Portman did a great job among Republicans and Democrats.  You heard Brewster Rhoads say that at the Hamilton County Dems' meeting.  So you don't think that Rob Portman did a good job?  Why do people have that perception if it's not true?

VW: They have the perception because he's a, not quite charismatic, but attractive guy.  And well-spoken, modest, well-educated, well-connected.  And he was present.  He would come and be in the parades.  He would come and speak in the elementary schools.  He would come  to all the counties not just...he lived in Terrace Park, is that Clermont County?  And he was present, and that's good.  And he voted, however, not in the best interests of the people.

AD: Some examples?

VW: Sure.  The, what's it called, there's a better word for it, but the Arctic Pipeline, he voted for.

AD: In ANWR

VW: Yeah.  In ANWR.  He voted for restricting some patient care to adolescent girls without parental permission, making it harder to get a physical exam if you're an under-age female.  

AD: Anything else with regards to his economic policies or...?

VW: I don't know them that well, frankly.  But in general, I think what's called free trade is not fair nor does it seem to help the workers on either side of the boundary.

AD: And he has been a leading proponent of this free trade you're talking about?

VW: I'm not sure leading proponent, but yes a proponent.  And obviously that's pretty important since he was just appointed trade rep.

AD: Why did we lose in 2004?  Why did John Kerry lose the presidential election, and how does your theory on why he lost, and how did that shape your campaign?

VW: Oh, I'll tell you.  That's a really good question.  I think we need to remember John Kerry did really well.  So, there were a lot of us out there that were getting the vote.  Why he didn't win, and it is due to, try as he might, he came across as a snob.  And unfortunately, the Latin influence in his wife, Teresa's demeanor seems to accentuate the sense that they're of a different class.  They're not ones of us.  Unlike, for example, John Edwards, who's cute as a button, and his slightly plump, attractive wife of many years, with two small children no less, and having lost his son, it's very life-changing...So let's get back to John Kerry.  I think that his message was too complicated.  I think he didn't get back to what he could have, he as a Democrat, but as an alternative to Bush, could really offer.

AD: Which was?

VW: Well, I mean, I certainly would have said, we need to, I mean, this is the obvious one: we need a multi-national effort to get out of Iraq.

AD: Oh, he always said that though.  That was his stump speech.

VW: Yeah, I guess I didn't hear it.  Now what does that mean?  You heard it.  I mean, now that you say it, I guess I kind of hear it.  But he didn't make me want to listen to him.  And I think I make people want to listen to me.  

But how did it change my campaign more is that I'm not going to try to woo Republicans.  I'm going to be natural, and my ideas and my presentation, my passion and my compassion will woo people, Democrats and Republicans.  We can shed that artificial, divisive label, sort of like a, Vonnegut would say, a "grand faloon."

AD: I'm just going to move onto your domestic platform.  Your website says that you want to lower the cost of prescription drugs and make healthcare more affordable, and certainly you have the experience to know what you're talking about, but how exactly do you plan to implement this, in as simple terms as you can possibly say, in two minutes?

VW:  Well, let me address a few of them.  We can start with prescription drugs.  And prescription drugs are personally important to me because, as a daughter, I'm seeing my parents revolve their lives, it seems, around the hours in which they're supposed to take the pills.  And sometimes my mom watches the clock because she has to take one pill on an empty stomach.  So she takes it every morning and waits an hour.  Now, I'm getting off the subject.  Let's go back to cost of drugs.  I just think a lot about drugs and seniors, and my parents spend a lot of money on health insurance.

Okay, one, let's legalize re-importation of drugs from Canada for the obvious.  Two, brand-name drugs could be more accessible to more people sooner if they had to lose their status as copy-written or whatever it's called.

AD: So their patents

VW: Their patents, yeah.  So reform patent law.  Three, currently the pharmaceutical companies set the price at which medicare will pay for them unlike HMO's who are able to negotiate, you know, basically "hey we're going to give you our service rather than this drug company, you know, what kind of deal can you do?" Medicare is not allowed to do.  

AD: Is this all drugs or is this healthcare as well?

VW: I'm just talking about prescription drugs.  Okay, so that's prescription drugs.  In terms of accessibility

AD: To healthcare

VW: To healthcare.  There are several groups that I'm concerned about.  And let me just talk about them.  The first and most important group are the well people.  We do not take care of our well people enough.  What do I mean by that?  I mean, by preventing disease, by promoting healthy lifestyles, we can cut down on our health care costs significantly.  Alright.  What do I mean by prevention?  I mean things like immunizations for children.  I mean regular prenatal checkups for women.  I mean complete access to contraception for boys and girls.  And so on.  And so I would say that would be my first plan of attack to reduce the costs of health care.  And it would be an enormous paradigm shift.

AD: So do you plan to quote, socialize healthcare?  Is your healthcare plan similar to so-called "Hillary-care" in the 90's?

VW:  The word I like to use, the expression I like to use is "single-payer" system.  Now that doesn't necessarily mean socialize, but it basically means that there's no competition for doing certain procedures because it's mandated by the state that they be provided to everyone, okay.  And, it's complicated, but I, my first research, my first serious research project of my life was the summer before my senior year of college when I was researching my thesis, and lived in rural England, the United Kingdom, for about eight weeks.  And experienced working with doctors and nurses and learning about health care.  And I realized that so-called socialized medicine gives people a lot of security that we don't have.  A lot of us live in fear of health crises.  That shouldn't be.

AD: But we also have the best health care system in the world.  People come from all over just to be provided by health care here, so there has to be some kind of balance between competition and that security that you're talking about.

VW: I think you're right

AD: Okay, I'll just move on.  Recently Alan Greenspan said that the economy was turning up, and that he was very optimistic about it.  So my question to you is, with so many candidates running on the basis of improving the economy, is there a problem with the economy?

VW: Yes, there is.  And I would say the first two features that are interrelated are the deficit and job loss.  In terms of the deficit.  I believe in a balanced budget, and I believe we can live by a balanced budget.  And the first thing I would do is pay our United Nations dues so that we could renegotiate with that world governing body to which we've belonged for fifty years- almost sixty years- and substitute our military efforts in Iraq with truly multinational peacekeeping forces, which are going to be so much cheaper than what we're spending on bombs and uniforms and rations and healthcare.  So now we're going to balance the budget.  Now how does that affect jobs?

Basically, what a deficit means is that assets that we want right here in America or in Ohio or in my backyard to develop and to develop the capitalist model of being rewarded for making something more valuable than it started. (laughs) It's complicated.  

AD: Okay

VW: So wait, but let me just finish because I think it's important.  

AD: Okay

VW: If, on the other hand, I'm expending more of that asset than is there, obviously I'm going to have less to invest, create, mold, and therefore I don't have to hire any people to help me do that.  And jobs go down.  You said as simple as possible.  I think that was pretty simple.

AD: Yesterday was the gay pride parade.  And I'm curious what your thoughts are on the status of gays in our country and the quest for legalizing gay marriage?

VW: I think that biology shows us that being homosexual is not a developed trait.  There's something chemical and/or genetic and/or biological that predisposes some people, men and women, and more to homosexuality than to heterosexuality, and one of the things that is interesting about that, is why would anyone choose that lifestyle, that sexuality that is so abhorred by so many individuals and societies worldwide?  So once you establish that as a fact.  Just as nobody chooses to have muscular dystrophy.  Or nobody chooses to be shy.  Or nobody chooses to be intelligent.  These are, in many ways, very endowed by very early childhood chemicals and genetics.  

Okay, so back to marriage.  Marriage is a wonderful legal document that binds two people.  And I know that in my own life, having that legal document binding my husband and me, has often strengthened my resolve to work out problems rather than dissolve this very important union.  I would like two people of the same sex to have that same right.  And I further believe that I would like that right, and that right, the right to the rite, the r-i-g-h-t to the r-i-t-e, to take place in a legal office like a city hall, whereas the sacred ceremony would be just that, religious, whatever kind you want.  But whatever you do, you still have, if you want your benefits in terms of dependence.  There are all kinds of reasons for the legal benefits to marriage.  I would work to make that happen.

AD: How?

VW: How would I work for it?  I don't know.  Can I just say, I would keep it on the agenda.  And if there were ever such a thing as a proposal to change the constitution.  To restrict marriage.  I would be very against it.

AD: My next question, I think this is the most important issue facing us right now.  Donald Rumsfeld recently called the Amnesty International report on torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay as absurd.  Is Amnesty International, with your experiences, reliable?  Or is Donald Rumsfeld right?  And what is your opinion about stopping torture during interrogations?  How would you stop it?

VW: Okay.  I think it really happened.  There is too much evidence that it happened to think that it was a fabrication.  I think it happens.  In other words, it hasn't been stopped.

AD: How can it be stopped?

VW: Well, first of all we need to get out of Iraq.  And we need to probably liberate the vast majority of suspects at Guantanamo.  Incarcerating without cause?  No due process?  We criticize foreign countries for human rights abuses and then we do that?  It's so obviously hypocritical to me, I just don't get it.  So, they should be released.  We should stop the War.  

In terms of actual management of the soldiers on site.  You have to keep it within the military.  These civil, these contractors doing it for money have the bottom line as their motivation.  You've gotta' have soldiers who are under the command of the President of the United States.  Even though that sounds old-fashioned.  But I really, I know that's one of the problems.