Published: August 20, 2008 10:35 am      

Getting to know Blake Cummings

Ada — Blake Cummings of Pauls Valley is the Democratic contender for the U.S. House District 4 seat. Cummings is set to square off in November against GOP incumbent Tom Cole. In the beginning of the month, Cummings took the time to stop by the AEN newsroom and field questions from reporter Judd Morse regarding his campaign and his stance on many key questions voters will be asking in November.



Judd Morse: Can you talk a little bit about your background and why you decided to run for congress?



Blake Cummings: Sure. I was born in Muskogee, grew up in Eastern Oklahoma, over in Haskell County. My dad is a retired school superintendent, my mom is a homemaker and actually a former member of the Choctaw Nation Housing Authority Board. I was co-valedictorian in high school, went to the University of Oklahoma on a scholarship. Graduated with a BBA in petroleum land management. Most of my adult career, I’ve been in the oil and gas industry. Working primarily in the oil and gas land department, handling title issues and ownership issues. But in the late 80s and early 90s I actually had my own company and drilled a few of my own coal-bed methane wells. The oil industry does go up and down; when it was down in the 90s I went to work in telecommunications, working a lot in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I helped to put in wireless internet projects; my job was to negotiate franchise agreements with the various city governments in north Texas. I also worked in government relations for a cable company for a few years before I came back to the oil industry.

As far as why I’m running for Congress, well I guess there are many reasons. One of the primary reasons is -- I think about what Ronald Reagan said in 1980 when he was running against Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” And that resonated with a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats alike. And I think that same question is resonating this year. People are going to the gas pump and are buying $4 a gallon gasoline. I understand this week it’s in the $3.50 range, so I guess we’re supposed to assume that’s cheap. And our health insurance; I’m self-employed, so I buy my own health insurance. Every year I get two letters from my health insurance company. One is telling me that my rates are going up and the other is telling me that my benefits are down. They don’t say it that way. They say, “We’ve changed the language in this section to be the following.” Invariably, it’s less coverage. These issues are important to me. I’m not a politician. I mean, my web site says, “Send a working man to Washington.” Like I was telling you, I’m working today; I just stopped by here on my way back from a job. So as a working man, I deal with health insurance issues. I deal with watching our retirement accounts lose value. Not only from the market being down-- I understand the ups and downs of that-- but the dollar is at historic lows compared to other currencies. And I wonder just how much lower it’s going to go. It’s like, if you have a dollar and you do nothing with it but put it in your pocket, and then a month or two later it’s only worth 93 cents, and it just keeps going down. When’s it going to stop? I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve seen over the past several years what I think the wrong answers were, and that’s what we’ve been pursuing. The wrong answers. So I basically want to go to Congress and I want to address these issues; I want to address health care, I want to address our economy, I want to address our energy situation. These are all things, especially regarding energy, where I think my background will be very helpful. In a nutshell, that’s why I’m running.



JM: Republican incumbent Tom Cole is a familiar face to many Oklahomans, first winning the District 4 seat in 2002 and successfully defending it from then on. How will your own campaign work to bring your familiarity up to that of Cole’s level?



BC: Well, certainly Mr. Cole was well-known throughout the state of Oklahoma even before he ran. I know he’d been the former head of the Republican party here and had served as Secretary of State. What I’m doing is seeing the grass-roots people. The people in the coffee shops, on their lunch breaks. Just driving into town and going door-to-door. Now keep in mind this is a 16-county district. It’s Ada, Ardmore, Lawton, and many small towns. What I’m trying to do is let people know that I’m one of them. I’ve never been on the public bill, so to speak. I’ve never had a job where I was paid by the United States government, or by the United States taxpayer, or by the Oklahoma taxpayer. Every dime I’ve made has been through working for somebody else, private industry. And most people are in the same position. But I get out, I meet them. We talk about the problems we have. And we feel, “we” being the people in this district that I’ve talked to, that while it’s all fine and well to have somebody that’s well-known representing your interests, if you don’t feel like things are any better now then they were, then your interests aren’t being represented properly. And I know Mr. Cole has a lot of responsibilities with the NRCC, with helping Republican incumbents getting re-elected. That doesn’t help the guy in Ada, or the farmer in Paul’s Valley.



JM: How do you respond to claims that you don’t have the necessary experience for the job, seeing as you have no previous political background?



BC: Well, the first thing I’d say is that Congress has a single-digit approval rating. So not having any congressional experience is not a negative. As far as governing experience, I’ve worked a lot in government relations, I’ve worked with a lot of people in office. And for the most part they’re just everyday people, who focus on doing a job or public service. Now some are lawyers or professional people, and some have never had a job outside of government. With those people, I wonder if they have a true perspective. But for the most part, they’re people that have come out here, have lived and dealt with these problems, and want to go out and do something about them.



JM: Pretty much the biggest issue currently on the political landscape is the very partisaned battle dealing with America’s energy crisis. Lines seem drawn between Republicans seeking increased domestic drilling for oil, while Democrats want to pursue alternative energy methods. As a self-described “Democrat Oil Man,” you would seem to be a unique combination of the two. How does your vision of handling our energy crisis compare to those offered from Democrats and Republicans?



BC: I’m glad you mentioned that I’m a Democrat Oil Man. I’ve mentioned it before; Robert S. Kerr was a Democrat Oil Man from Ada, and he did all right. He represented our interests well. If I can represent our interests on anywhere near the same level of effectiveness as U.S. Senator Robert Kerr, then I will consider myself very successful. Now, I know that [Congress] considers [the energy crisis] a partisan issue; I don’t consider it that way. When you reach a crisis level like we’ve reached with energy, I think it quits becoming a Republican-Democrat issue and becomes and American issue. I agree that we do have to increase our domestic oil production. I know some members of our party, at least on the more left side of our party, are trying to keep us from going into Alaska and don’t want us to drill along the outer continental shelf. I don’t necessarily agree with that. I agree with it in principle, but when you’ve reached a crisis-mode, you have to have all options on the table. And I would say to them, “Look. Our goal is to eventually become energy-independent, where the United States can create all the energy that it will ever need. We’re not going to get there with just oil and gas; we’ve got to look at alternative energy methods.” Oil and gas should go from being our primary source of energy, to our source of energy for now with a transition to something else in the future. But the biggest problem we face, I think -- and I think this will solve a lot of the issues with it -- is our dependency on foreign oil and specifically Middle Eastern oil. Supposedly we could buy Middle Eastern oil cheaper, ship it over here cheaper, and use it cheaper than it is to drill our own. Well, I no longer think that’s true. We have military that has to be involved in the Middle East. I think that any time you bring a military into the Middle East into an oil country, especially the United States military, it’s going to keep the price unstable. Just by the very nature that conflict can erupt at any time. Of course, some people say that conflict will erupt if we’re not there, and that’s true too. But if you’ll notice, on Wall Street and in the commodities market, it really fluctuates there. So we feel the brunt of it any time we have forces over there.

What we need to do, in my opinion: We have to look at the outer continental shelf, we have to look at drilling shale oil in the Rockies, in which there may be decades worth of oil available there. The technology needs to improve a little bit before we can actually get it out profitably, but we have to look at that. Now environmentalists are concerned, are we gonna have a bunch of oil rigs popping up everywhere, like on the North Slope of Alaska or out in the Gulf. Technology has advanced to the point now where you can drill multiple, multiple wells from one location. In the old days, and the “old days” being really just a decade ago, when you had to drill a well, you drilled straight down. You go over here a little ways, you drill straight down, and so on. But now, with horizontal drilling you can go in almost anywhere and go through the formation, and get much, much better returns than you would the other way. Even with the oil platforms in the Gulf; you may be able to drill ten or twelve different directions from just one well. So that in itself is an environmental protection. You don’t have these things sprouting up everywhere. And also it goes for Alaska as well. The second part of that is that I would certainly back watching our environmental regulations. Any company that drills has to be responsible for any spills. Now there haven’t been any spills in a long time, along our intercontinental shelf. In Alaska you have to go back to Exxon Valdez. But we have to make sure that if they’re going to be drilling in these restricted areas, anyone who does it must assume full responsibility, and not talk their way out of it with the court later.

The other part of this is that every recoverable barrel of oil we get by going into these restricted areas should be a replacement for a barrel of oil in the Middle East. If we come in and Exxon says, “You open this up for us and in ten years we can get 10 million barrels of oil per day in this restricted outer continental shelf,” then I would want to see a plan where 10 million barrels of oil a day would be reduced from the Middle East. If we can eventually replace foreign oil with oil here in the Gulf and the outer continental shelf and in Alaska, then I would consider that a plus, and I don’t care what party you’re in. We’re being dictated to less by Middle Eastern influences, and it’d be all American at that point.



JM: What is your view of America’s current economic condition, and how does it compare to that of Oklahoma’s?



BC: When the oil business is good in Oklahoma, the economy tends to be good. Historically that’s been the case. Now, in the 70s when I was still in high school, we were having a nice little mini oil boom. But there wasn’t a lot of anything else in Oklahoma; everything was related to that, to the point that when we had the Penn Square Bank failings in the early 80s and other bank failures after that, the oil business just went south and everything went with it. Half of downtown Oklahoma City was vacant. That may be an exaggeration, but I don’t think so. I remember Oklahoma City back then; looking at it now, it’s two different cities. We were so tied in to being an oil and gas economy that we didn’t survive well during the lean periods. Right now, because unemployment’s going up, because you see organizations --especially financial organizations-- laying off lots of people, because you’re having mortgage company failures due to home mortgages that were made with lax rules for people to get more and more loans. Those people weren’t ready for an adjusted rate kick-in to come in, and a lot of people now are basically giving their keys back. Okay. That’s a big hit; not just for that person, but for the company and the economy also. We’re shielded from a lot of that here in Oklahoma because our oil and natural gas business is currently doing so well, and because we’ve diversified a lot since the 70s. We now have a lot more going for us than just that. Look at the American Indian tribes for example, and the Chickasaw Nation in particular. I would think that their personal economy, as with that of the Choctaws, is in a boom. And so they’re not feeling the brunt of what’s going on elsewhere. Economists and people who think they’re economists say that Oklahoma and Texas, because of the way things are going in energy states (which we are), are shielded from a lot of what’s going on elsewhere. And to an extent, that’s true. We’re not feeling it like a lot of people are. We’re not having the same mortgage issues, we’re not having the same joblessness issues. So from our point of view, I guess a lot of people aren’t making the economy a big issue, but nation-wide it is.

And anything you do as a congressman, certainly you’ve got to think of the 4th District and the people in the state of Oklahoma. But we have to shore up our dollar. One thing we can quit doing is corporate Welfare. I mean, the Federal Reserve took Bear Sterns and gave them millions and millions of dollars. From where? It’s not like we’ve got a bunch of gold sitting at Fort Knox that backs this any more. Every time, when Wall Street was having trouble and the stock market started sliding down, you can see where the Federal Reserve kicked in more cash. Okay, what’s backing that cash? That’s why your dollar’s dropping to 93 cents in a couple of weeks’ time. The more money you pump out, the less value each dollar has. We’ve got to find solutions other than rescuing Wall Street millionaires whose companies are doing poorly because they make bad investments, and think more in terms of -- you know, you hear a lot about the Reagan “Trickle-Down.” I just never have seen it that way. I’ve always felt you need to take care of the worker. Make sure that the people that actually produce these products and do the work have health care, have health insurance they can afford, have housing needs met. And then everything else works. Republicans would have you believe, “Take care of the millionaires and let it trickle down.” But it doesn’t trickle; somebody’s catching it before it gets down to the rest of us.



JM: If elected into the House, what changes would you like to see regarding health care?



BC: I have various ideas about that. Now I understand that the possibility has been discussed of single-payer health care back when Clinton first came to office in the early 90s. I don’t think the time was right, I don’t think the economy was prepared for that. And it may still not be. However, we have to do something different than what we’re doing. It’s like I mentioned earlier; over the last eight years watching Congress and the presidential administration, I think I’ve learned what not to do. What we shouldn’t do is give health companies just a leeway to -- You could have health insurance with this company. You may have an expensive operation. This company may say, “Well, we’ll cover it, but you’re going to have to pay an X-number deductible.” Somebody else who just didn’t happen to be at that company may be told, “No, that’s too expensive. We don’t cover that.” We have to have much more consistency in coverage with people. Cancer doesn’t just pick a certain group of people to attack. Certain groups of people aren’t the only ones who get the flu or pneumonia. Everybody is potentially at risk. My personal goal would be to see a single-payer type health care program for people, from birth to the age of 18; for all children under the age of 18. The idea being that even families with insurance, the deductible or their share of the costs may be high enough that a medical procedure that their child might need to actually give them health for life, with respect to a particular issue, they might not do it because they just don’t have the dollars for the deductible. Even if their insurance is going to cover say 70 percent, 50 percent, 80 percent, whatever the case may be. Any medical treatment that any child under the age of 18 needs should not be determined by whether or not you have the dollars in your pocket to pay for it. If we have healthy children, they’ll become healthy adults. Healthy adults are not a burden on our health care system. Healthy adults are not a burden on businesses who have to pay for sick days and everything; they’d have people there who are at work every day.

And at the same time, I’d like to see Medicare shored up, so to speak. I see the ads for AARP about extra insurance that is a supplement to Medicare. Medicare shouldn’t need a supplement. When you reach retirement age or when you become disabled, we should have a program in place that’s a single payer, so that there is no supplement needed. And let those decisions as to what you need be made between a doctor and a patient, not a business manager in a back room trying to make a bonus for the year. Now as far as the great people in between, between the children with the single-payer and the Medicare -- Well, these are people who are out working. They have jobs where they can have health insurance. Maybe at that point, with healthy children and a successful Medicare program, maybe at that point it’s not a far jump to a single-payer system that would cover everyone. But I would want to start by shoring up Medicare and providing some sort of single-payer coverage for children.



JM: Focus on the conflicts in the Middle East seem to be shifting slowly from Iraq back to Afghanistan. Would you support an increased military presence in Afghanistan? Do you support a continued military presence in Iraq?



BC: With respect to Afghanistan, personally I would say let’s shift them from Iraq to Afghanistan. As a matter of fact that was my thinking years ago. And I know I wasn’t a public figure, so there’s nobody who can say “Hey!” But I had these arguments with people, primarily because my stepson was in the invasion force in 2003. So we were certainly very involved in this; it had a very personal meaning to us. And even then we were thinking, “If Bin Laden is behind 9-11, then we should use all of our efforts to go after him and his henchmen. I know we’ve got several of them. I don’t know how many times they’ve said: “We’ve got the number-two guy in Al Qaeda.” I’d say a dozen. A dozen Number-Two’s. We need Number-One. That would help. But at the same time, like in Afghanistan for example, when we first went in there, we defeated the Taliban. Or at least it sure appeared to be, because we put in a government. And now things have kind of risen back up over there. I think a lot of that is because we were doing that under the “Rumsfeld method” of going in with just enough people, so that if everything goes just right we’ll kind of get the job done. America’s military shouldn’t be put in that position. America’s military should go in there in full force and get the job done quickly and definitively. They weren’t given the opportunity to do that by the men in coats and ties in the White House. So I would suggest -- and Iraq has talked about this, a kind of timetable. The president is finally now kind of talking about this. All I can say is that it’s about time. But as far as going to Afghanistan, sure. Let’s bring Bin Laden in. Let’s neutralize him. Now, some people say, “Well, we’ve kept him on the run. He is neutralized.” No. He lives his life on the run; that’s now his mode of operation. We’re not gaining any advantage by having him still out there. So we can go into Afghanistan, but let’s perform the objective. The objective should be to get him, to cut off the head of Al Qaeda.

After that, the objective should be to let Iraq be self-sufficient. Let Iraq control their own destiny. From there, if they need future help, they can hire Blackwater themselves. They can spend their dollars; they’re getting lots of money from oil. Afghanistan is apparently getting lots of money from opium. We’ve apparently allowed them to go back and do that even though it’s illegal and it works its way back here.

I’m not criticizing the president across the board on this, because that’s a very difficult situation to be in, to decide what’s the best mode of action. But I would say after over five years since the invasion of Iraq, it’s time for us to actually plan for withdrawal, to plan for peace. And to have a plan, whether it’s with the U.N., or whether it’s with Great Britain and other nations, as to what we will do in the future. Back in the 90s, when Saddam Hussein would get out of control, whether it was with the first Bush or Clinton, they’d just pop a cruise missile into a palace occasionally. No American lives were in danger and we messed up one of his buildings. And you know what? He wouldn’t cause us trouble for a while. And whenever he reared up, we would do it again. We should remind people that we have the greatest weaponry, the greatest technology and the greatest military, and that we’re not afraid to use them as long as we use them wisely.



JM: One of your major platforms is a call to preserve the American Constitution. How do you feel the Constitution has been mistreated, and what steps would you take to rectify the mistreatment?



BC: First off, I think a lot of it goes back to two or three different things. One is that the Patriot Act was rushed through after 9-11. Most everyone on Capitol Hill that voted for it will tell you that they felt a lot of pressure to do so. Pressure to do something. If they didn’t vote for it, they were afraid they were going to be looked on as unpatriotic and everything like that. Which I think is a bunch of bull. It’s [a legislator’s] responsibility to read that and to vote it up or down based on [their] interpretation of what the bill does. Nevertheless, there were a lot of things in there that gave the Executive Branch a lot of flexibility and a lot of powers that they hadn’t had before. On top of that, I think the Executive Branch has taken liberties with signing statements and executive orders which go beyond what the Constitution allows them to do. There is such a thing as checks and balances provided for in the Constitution. Congress can tell the president when he’s gone too far. The president does have his own powers. The Supreme Court can tell Congress whether or not something they’re doing is constitutional. And the president can pick who he wants to put on the supreme court. It works in a circle, and it should work fine that way. But when one of the three branches tries to remove itself from the circle -- For example, we have the situation of Plane-Gate, Valery Plane. We’ve got Scooter Libby, who was basically indicted, charged, and convicted of being involved in this. And the president basically commutes his sentence. Even though everybody, even his own people, recommended jail time, the president decided not to. That’s a sitting president, with a sitting member of his White House staff. And he’s saying, “Look, they said you did wrong, but I’m gonna let you walk.” That’s basically what happened. I’m looking for a whole lot of pardons to happen before January 20th. And it’s not just our president here; a lot of presidents have previously done it. But I just think that a lot of pardons are going to have 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their return addresses.

As far as what I’d do, and this is one big difference I have with our current incumbent-- there were liberties taken with the Patriot Act, with the signing statements, with the signing orders, that many people from both sides were saying “You can’t do this.” And some of them were labeled immediately as being “unpatriotic,” and that they were “not backing America,” and all this stuff. Which was a bunch of bull. You are backing America, you’re defending the Constitution of the United States. I would have liked to have seen our congressman stand up and say, “Mr. President, these executive orders are excessive. These executive orders put in mind a totally different interpretation of constitutional law than what has been used by our predecessors. I think you’ve taken too many liberties with this; why don’t you step back, let’s look this over.” But nary a peep. I would liked to at least have heard some concerns about it. I think as we get closer to the election, you’ll start hearing some say, “Well sure, I had some concerns.”



JM: Like the bill recently passed that granted sweeping amnesty to telecommunication companies who allegedly spied on U.S. citizens.



BC: Yeah. Yeah. I would have had a real hard time signing that bill. The bottom line is that when they did it, they knew it was wrong. The thing about it is -- for example, the wiretapping that the Executive Branch ordered. The procedure was that you go through a judge. A judge will authorize it. They decide to go around that and not use a judge. My question is why? It’s not like we’ve got a bunch of judges here that are just going to run off to the National Enquirer or Post and immediately tell them everything that happened. If it’s a matter of national security, a judge is going to be aware of that. They want to protect our Constitution, too.

So the bottom line is, why go around it? Unless you’re doing something that you think a judge will say, “No, you can’t do that” to. And I think that’s kind of been the history of the last eight years. With FISA, I just can’t see that I would have voted to support that. I would have certainly voted to say, “These companies did this wrongly.” Now if they can show that they were coerced by the Executive Branch, that’s one thing. But they basically cooperated, knowing that what they were doing was illegal. And I have a real problem with that.



JM: You’ve previously identified yourself as a member of the Choctaw Nation. What role do you envision for American Indian tribes in the future, both for the state and for the nation?



BC: Well, I’d like to see them continue on a path of self-sustainability and self-sufficiency. I’ve always believed in the sovereignty of these tribes. They gave up their lands in the southeastern U.S. and were given these lands out here. A lot of people had a problem when they started having their own license tags, putting up their own smoke shops. And then of course casinos. Some people had concerns just because it was casinos, some people because they thought the tribes shouldn’t have casinos. I say more power to them. I have no problem with it, and I support them 100 percent. The only thing that has come up with the tribes that I’m not hugely in support of is when some of the tribes start talking about having casinos outside of their of their area, outside of their given national boundaries. By buying land and saying “It’s now tribal land; let’s put one there.” I don’t agree with that. Within the boundaries, I have no problem with them exercising their rights. That issue has come up a few times, and it will continue to come up. But I just don’t see how you can justify that. I think you should have free reign within your national boundaries with as little interference from the state and federal government as possible. But outside those boundaries, that’s somebody else’s.



JM: Getting back to your campaign, which do you feel is your strongest demographic? How will you appeal to other demographics in Oklahoma?



BC: Well, that’s a good question. I’ll tell you, having not run a race like this before, I haven’t spent a lot of time on demographics, other than just trying to go out and communicate with people. But I’ll tell you where I’m getting a lot of feedback from; I’m getting a lot of feedback from older folks, especially veterans. Everywhere I go, I run into some veterans who are having some issues with the V.A. Not so much with what the V.A.’s doing, but with what they’re afraid is going to happen to the V.A. They’re afraid there’s going to continue to be cuts, and that they won’t get the coverage that they need in the future. I get a lot of feedback from educators as well, who are worried about our public school systems and whether they’re going to be properly funded. I know a lot of that’s a state issue, but it’s happening all around the country. We’ve got a major deficit; we continue to cut taxes. Along with cutting taxes and having a higher deficit, other programs start losing their funding. Then there are roads and bridges problems; Oklahoma’s are horrible, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s all over the country we have these issues. The debate vouchers for private schools versus public school funding has come up a lot. And I’ve told them that this is why your state elections for the House and State Senate are so important. I also tell them my position on it; I support public education. Our greatest leaders have come from public education, and I just don’t see that it’s been funded anywhere near the level it should be. We have to take a look at that Certainly the veterans groups, the educators are a big demographic. After that, it’s just everyday people. Anybody that’s paid $4 for a gallon of gas is a demographic that’s very concerned about this election. So it’s hard to pick one group.



JM: What’s next for you on the campaign trail? Any major events planned?



BC: Well, we have several things planned. On September 20 there’s going to be an event in Paul’s Valley, a bi-partisan candidate forum. I think it will be much like what was held at the Farm Bureau, except there’s going to be questions given to the candidates ahead of time, and then they can come up and speak. I’m hoping the incumbent will be there. I would love to have an opportunity to talk to the same group of people as he at the same time. And if they want to have a debate, I’m ready.



JM: So you are willing to participate in a debate?



BC: I would love for us to have a debate. That’s the best thing for the people; they get to see where I’m coming from, where he’s coming from. And they’re able to make the clear choices.

We going to be visiting some of the older folks. We’re going to a lot of senior citizen centers between now and election day. As far as specifics, you’ll see more advertising from us, and radio. There’s also going to be a lot more showing up at coffee shops at six o’clock in the morning on work days to see the working people. Like I say, I’m working myself, so there’s been a lot of conflicts up to this point, but I’ve pretty much got it arranged where I’m working almost primarily out of Pauls Valley now. It’s given me a lot of flexibility with seeing the people within the 16-county district.



JM: What’s been the response you’ve received by people you’ve talked to during your campaign? Have you been received warmly?



BC: Yeah. Yeah, I would say many warm responses. I mean, they weren’t jumping out and saying, “Hey, you’re my guy!” or anything, but they see that there are problems in Washington. You’d have to have your eyes closed and your ears plugged not to notice it. And I think for the most part, people want to see change. They’re just not sure what change is gonna bring. Is McCain gonna bring the change they want? Most people out here don’t think he will. Is Obama gonna bring the change they want? I think people see that there’s going to be change, but there’s still people asking “What kind of change is it gonna be?” But the status quo isn’t working, and I think people are looking at alternative candidates, Republican and Democrat alike, and also independent candidates. We need to do something different. Everybody says things changed after 9-11. I say that I think politics have changed after 9-11, also. I think that there have been liberties taken with the Constitution; I think there’s been too little backbone shown by Congress on either side of the aisle. And I think that we need people in there who come from the real world and see these problems every day, and say “No. We’ve got to do things differently.” And that’s what I represent, and that’s what I’m hearing from people on both sides of the argument.