Brad Watts is taking 18 credits this semester – a work load that would send most college students scrambling – and has a 3.4 GPA.
He’s also running for Maine’s House of Representatives against an incumbent whose party hasn’t lost the seat since 1954.
The 26 year-old USM student only needed one word when asked if he expected to win: “yes.”
“You don’t tell Brad Watts that he can’t do something, ’cause then Brad Watts is gonna do it,” he said, smiling. “I’m just bad like that. I’m a cocky fellow.”
Watts said some students don’t take him seriously when he tells them he is running for the House of Representatives. He said some were confused and thought he was running for the student senate at USM. Watts is running to represent District 133, which covers part of Saco.
He said he knows some people don’t want a leader older than them. He first encountered this while on duty in Iraq as the vehicle commander for a medevac ambulance. “I was 20 years old and in charge of patrols,” said Watts. He said some people didn’t respect him but only “at first.” Watts said he became more respected as they saw his leadership ability.
Watts join the military after getting his GED so he could go to college. “I was originally supposed to be a supply guy. I was gonna go, get an education, and I ended up in 2nd Recon in Iraq,” said Watts, who didn’t intend to join the Marines at first. A door mix-up and a recruiter telling him he couldn’t resulted in Watts becoming a Marine. “I wanted to go in the Navy to be a corpsman and I walked in the wrong office, and the recruiter told me I wasn’t cut out to be in the Marine Corps.” Watts wanted to prove the recruiter wrong and enlisted in the Marines in 2001.
He went to Iraq as part of the “Quick Reaction Force” in Fallujah from August 2004 to April 2005. They did medical evacuations and apprehended high value targets. He said his battalion detained “eight or nine of top 20 most wanted in that area.”
Since returning from Iraq, Watts has been doing veterans advocacy for the past three years, but said legislatures wouldn’t help. “I don’t feel as a citizen that my elected officials are doing anything for me as a returning veteran,” he said. “They love to take my picture with me on Veterans Day, but the very next day when I’m getting evicted from my house or I’m getting thrown out and I’m on the streets, they don’t care about me.”
People told him the only way he could make changes is to replace those elected officials, so Watts filed his papers to run for the Maine House of Representatives last summer.
Currently the youngest member in the House of Representatives is Henry Beck of Waterville, who was 22 years old and a student at Colby College when elected. He said if a candidate is well versed in the issues then people of all ages and parties will respect them. “They have to be held to the same standards,” said Beck of young politicians.
Beck also had experience on the Waterville City Council before being elected and said he thinks people look for that type of experience before voting for someone.
Beck still had another semester left when he joined the House. “I had to make my spring semester work for first session,” said Beck, who had to leave class and drive directly to Augusta for his last semester.
Watts knows he is facing a tough challenge and doesn’t have experience running a campaign. “What I feel is more important is I know what I’m gonna do when I get there,” said Watts. He has already started writing up bills he wants to push the day he gets in office.
Watts has strong words for some elected officials who he said don’t listen to what the people want. “People in Augusta don’t hear what we’re saying. We can scream out here all day long but unless we put a camera in front of their face, they don’t care,” he said. “Our elected officials think they’re better than us. They think they can spend our money better than us. They think they are our mommy and daddy. I’m a 26 year-old man. I can spend my money better than anyone else can.”
Watts will likely be running against incumbent democrat Donald E. Pilon who has held the seat since 2004. “I’m still trying to keep my head above water and hoping that I don’t get sniped out in the primary,” said Watts. He said that another republican could come out and run against him since he doesn’t always fit within party lines.
Watts chose not to accept the $6,000 in taxpayers’ money that he is eligible to receive through Maine’s Clean Elections Act to finance the campaign. He sees it as “welfare for politicians.” Watts had told his mother he would never accept welfare as an adult, after growing up with his mother on it. “The people right now don’t have money and I don’t feel right asking for that much,” said Watts.
Watts said his campaign has raised almost $2,000, but one mailer in his district costs $1,870.
He cuts many costs of running a campaign by doing much of the work himself. “I put the elbow grease in. I’m a Marine – I’m not afraid to work hard,” said Watts. He makes his own fliers and bumper stickers and has found people dedicated enough to help him out.
He can’t afford to mail information out like his opponent, so he came up with a creative way to deliver fliers. Watts and a group of volunteers will run from house to house, dropping off fliers. They even split up into teams and race to finish more quickly.
“If it becomes about money, I could be looking at a bad situation,” said Watts, who doesn’t think that campaigns should come down to money. “It’s rich democrats and it’s rich republicans and they’re working together to crush the poor.”
Watts said he still had one advantage over Pilon. “He’s not a charismatic person. He’s not the kind of person you’d want to go out and have a beer with,” said Watts.
He said he wants to have more town hall meetings so people can meet the candidates and “see the contrast. See the smile versus the Grinch that stole Christmas.”
“My big strategy is just to get out and meet everybody. Everybody I meet seems to like what I have to say and it doesn’t matter what party they are,” said Watts. He said if he’s able to meet 5,000 people “then the people’s candidate for Maine wins.”
Watts will be speaking on March 19 at 1:30 p.m. in the Talbot Lecture Hall in Portland.