Our thoughts about the interview with Harley

After telling our readers about our interview with Harley, we decided that we would also share with you our opinions of it. 
 

The first thing we would like to point out is that Harley doesn't really come off as your typical politician. He looks and acts like any other person on the street. He has no sense of entitlement and he doesn't cloud his message with political clutter. When we walked into his auto shop late Tuesday night it was clear that he had had a long day but he never showed any signs that he wanted get the interview over with quickly. 

Harley didn’t shy away from our questions, nor did he take long in coming up with an answer for any of them. Instead, Harley answered our questions directly. He didn’t beat around the bush as many politicians do. He gave detailed answers to everything we asked him. The only question that seemed to catch him off guard was when we asked him to narrow down why he was running to three main reasons, but we think that would be a hard question for most people to answer.

With every answer he gave, Harley would use his own life examples to demonstrate the need for change. One instance that he did this was when he talked about the need to improve the roads out in the country. He lives near gravel roads so he knows first-hand that attention needs to be given to the streets. This goes for his campaigning techniques as well. Harley made a strong argument that he does not canvass door-to-door because he himself has always found that annoying as an Adair County resident. That's a risky move considering that his opponent has been going around door-to-door but Harley views it as an invasion of privacy so he won't do it.

When asked to give his opinion of Pickens, Harley had generally nice things to say about him as a person. His main concern is that Pickens will not see the job as a full-time commitment because he is already receiving a pension.

As we were driving up to the auto shop, we thought it was a bit strange that Harley, running as a Democrat, had a sign for Zachary Wyatt in the front yard. Wyatt is a Republican running against Rebecca McClanahan for state representative. We quickly learned that Harley’s daughter owns a graphic design business. Their policy is that if you purchase signs from their business, they will be prominently displayed, and it was no different for this Republican candidate. Harley stated that he supports McClanahan, but he does not intend to change his business policy simply to win the election. 

We were impressed with this decision and hope to find out more about the other candidates for commissioner and associate circuit judge in the future.

Keep on reading!