February 25, 2009 11:20 PM UTC

Meet David Canter

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• by: Steve Harvey

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

David Canter, one of the two Democratic candidates for Congress in CD-6, sat down recently to talk with me about why he is running, and what he feels qualifies him for the position. Here are some excerpts from that conversation:

SH: David, tell me why you decided to run for Congress.

DC: First and foremost what motivated me was the past eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, what some might call the “Cheney-Bush administration.” Under the Bush administration, our country lost sight of those qualities that made this country great, and it seemed to me as though we lost our way a little bit. I made a decision that, rather than sit on the sidelines and watch things happen, it was my time to get into the game and actually make a difference and make a change.

SH: What qualities do you bring to our political process?

DC: One of them is compassion. It breaks my heart to think of how we turned our backs, and I say how we as a country turned our backs, on the people of New Orleans following Katrina. It touches my heartstrings when I see children suffer, and I think we can do better. The qualities I bring are compassion and integrity. Focusing on the district that I am running in, District 6, there’s a recognition that I would be representing everybody in that district. I think under ten years of Tancredo, and the last three months of Congressman Coffman, we haven’t had representation. When I say “we,” I mean the people of my district have not had representation. They don’t care about the independents. They don’t care about the progressives. They don’t care about the Democrats. When I get to Washington D.C., I’m going to recognize that I represent everybody. I will lend an ear to everybody in my district, and a voice to those people who have been silenced for just far too long.

SH: What in your background do you think prepares you for the role of Congressman?

DC: I think that being a husband for 21 years, of being a father of 3 kids, of three teenagers, those life experiences give me certain insight into what’s going on in the world around us. Specifically, dealing with issues about education is…, if you were to ask me to rank my top priorities, they would be education, health care, and renewable energy. Education is the top issue for me. I look around and see where our kids are going in this country, and what they’re not doing…, in other words, we need to make education a priority, we need to change the dynamic and have people view education as an investment in our future, not merely as a cost. Far too many people look at education and say, “oh, it’s going to cost too much.” The last two measures that were voted down in Douglas County, I know that they were approved in Cherry Creek, but what some people did, unfortunately, was they said, “how much is it going to cost,”  and “I don’t feel like bearing that cost.” We need to readdress and reidentify what education is.

As an aside, I went to a presentation a few weeks back that was done by a Democratic business development group, and one of the advisors to the governor was there. He was talking about how wonderful things are here in the state of Colorado, with businesses coming in, providing additional incentives for businesses to organize here in the state of Colorado. Although we’re hurting here in the state, we don’t have it nearly as bad as some of the other states do. When we talk about the decrease in the housing market, comparing Colorado, which has an 8 to 9% decrease in the housing market, to California, which has a 30 to 50% decrease in the housing market; big differences. But one of the major pieces that’s missing here in the state of Colorado is education. This was coming from the economic advisor to the governor who, by the way, is not a Democrat, but is a Republican. And I agree with him. We need to readjust our thought processes as far as where education fits into the mix. I think that we need to provide incentives to kids to go to college, prepare our kids better for going to college…. The latest numbers that were coming out as far as the amount of time that teachers at the college level, professors at the college level, have to retrain their kids in remedial measures in terms of getting them ready to actually take college courses while they’re in college. They should not have to do that. Our kids should be better prepared to go to college in the first instance.

With the last stimulus package, I think there was an increase in the Pell grant funding to help our kids go to college. I think that’s a great start. Which, as an aside, of course Mike Coffman voted against the stimulus bill. I understand that he has his reasons, but they certainly don’t ring true to me, and I don’t think they ring true to the people of Congressional District 6, nor do I think they ring true to the people of the state of Colorado.

SH: What strategies do you favor for improving education in Colorado?

DC: In general terms, I think it’s got to go top to bottom. By top to bottom, I mean that we start with the educators. We need to provide incentives to teachers to make them really want to stay in that profession, and foster an environment where they are valued, not only monetarily, but by the community around them. And then from the bottom up, helping to provide…, and I know that Barack Obama has talked about this as well…, providing some type of incentives or encouragement, at the very least, of parental involvement at the pre-school levels. I am very blessed that I have three pretty bright kids. And I have been involved with my kids’ education from the get-go, from day one. When my wife wasn’t working, my wife would go to the schools and she would help volunteer in the classes and read to the kids, and then take some of the students aside to help them with their reading. Again, very involved. The part I found somewhat humorous was, whenever there were back-to-school nights, when my wife and I would show up in the classrooms, the teachers would look at my wife and me and joke about how often they see us. So I understand the important role that parents play in a child’s education.

With respect to the kids, I think that standardized testing is good, but I don’t think it’s the be all, end all as far as education; I think we need to have a more qualitative approach, and a more flexible approach….

I taught for two years at the University of California, Davis. I taught courses in public speaking and communication. And I loved every minute of it. I recognized that there were some students who were gifted in the course work that I was teaching, and there were some that were struggling. And I realized that you can’t just teach everybody the same way….

I think as far as teachers are concerned, that they’re probably the most overworked and underpaid and underappreciated class of professionals that we have. The teachers that I know are getting to school an hour before the kids do…, my kids get to school around 7:15…, and they typically stay an hour and a half to two hours afterward….

I’ll share with you a personal story. My wife received a call that she may lose her job. She called me crying, and she said “what are we going to do? What are we going to do if we lose my job?” What I told her is that we’re going to regroup, we’ll focus on what’s important, and we’ll move forward. I share that with you because that’s how I approach the economy right now. We need to focus on what’s important, and move on from there….

When my wife received this phone call, we had a family meeting about it. We had a conversation at our dinner table with my three kids about the economic crisis that’s confronting the country, as well as the economic crisis that was confronting our family. My number 2 son, Sam, who’s now 15, he’ll be 16 in April, he asked my wife and me whether it would make a difference if he got out and got a job and was able to contribute $500 a month to a household fund. As much as my wife and I appreciated the gesture, which was truly heartfelt, it dawned on me that we’ve now moved from a time when two incomes are not sufficient; you may need now to start putting the kids to work to off-set some of the costs to the family. I had that conversation with a friend of mine who is a police officer. He’s going through the same thing. He is trying to get his kids to go back to work so that they can help support the expenses that the family has, the only problem is that, where he lives, there are no jobs. So, it’s a very, very tough economic situation. Tough decisions have to be made. Going back to the qualities I bring to the table, as I said, are my real life experiences, my real life experience dealing with the economic crisis on the home front, and making those tough decisions, which I think will translate into decisions we have to make down the road as a district, and as a country.