SCOTT

Scott with Roger Harris, of Woonsocket, left, and Michael Evora, director of the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, before the start of a civil rights forum.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — Jonathan Scott says he knows that people call him a dreamer.

What else would you label a 39-year-old Republican political neophyte running for U.S. House with virtually no money, no fancy Washington, D.C.-based consultants and no campaign television commercials?

Even his own party hierarchy, Scott acknowledges, doesn’t believe that he has a chance at ousting Democrat Patrick J. Kennedy, possessor of one of the most illustrious surnames in American politics.

Kennedy has become best known this year for his struggle with alcohol and prescription drug abuse; he sought substance abuse treatment after he crashed his car into a concrete barrier near the U.S. Capitol earlier this year. But Scott says he isn’t going to use that incident against Kennedy as he stumps the 1st District, seeking votes in the run-up to the Nov. 7 election.

“I’ve never said he is a bad guy,” Scott says in an interview as he sips a diet cola at a Providence restaurant. “I just think I can do better and I don’t think he is effective as he says he is.

“Mr. Kennedy is a millionaire, he wasn’t born in Rhode Island, he has never worked in Rhode Island,” says Scott. “I think we need someone in Congress who has been through the daily economic struggles that face Rhode Islanders every day.”

“Mr. Kennedy has been there for 12 years and it’s time for a change,” says Scott. “The Founding Fathers never intended for people to be in the House forever. They saw this as a chamber of the common people, where the average person, the farmer, the worker could go to Congress for a couple of terms and serve and go back home.”

A burly, personable man who sailed the oceans as a “blue-water” sailor for five years, Scott has worked as a high school and college wrestling and lacrosse coach and as a group home counselor for a state Department of Children, Youth and Families contractor.

He was educated at Moses Brown School, in Providence, where he later coached, and at the University of Rhode Island, where he got an early taste of politics in student government and lobbied at the State House for more state money for URI. He later worked on John Chafee’s senate campaigns.

Raised in Middletown and on Providence’s East Side, Scott is the son of a woman who once skated in the Ice Capades and later became a nurse, and a stepfather who was a business owner and technical writer. He now lives on the East Side and attends St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

His underdog status does not daunt him, he says, but he wishes that Kennedy would engage him more and agree to more television debates and candidate forums around the 1st District, which stretches from Newport’s waterfront mansions, up the East Bay and into the old textile factory communities of the Blackstone Valley, including Pawtucket and Woonsocket.

Yet, Scott says he understands — from a purely tactical political viewpoint — why Kennedy is not giving him more opportunity. An axiom of modern American politics is that a well-entrenched incumbent never gives his challenger easy access to media exposure, especially if that challenger is little-known and cannot raise enough money to purchase expensive television spots.

This is Scott’s first run for any office. Asked why he didn’t start with a more winnable race — say for state representative or City Council — Scott says he likes the “bully pulpit” he enjoys as a candidate for Congress.

“You want the biggest pulpit you can get,” says Scott, who defeated Ed Leather, a retired Foreign Service officer, in the Sept. 12 GOP primary. “Who better personifies the Democratic Party machine in this country but the Kennedy family?”

As inspiration, Scott points to other elections where underdog Republicans have won. Among those he cites are from the 1980s — Susan Farmer’s victory as secretary of state, Claudine Schneider’s congressional victories in the 2nd District and especially Ronald K. Machtley’s upset in 1988 of 28-year Democratic incumbent Fernand St. Germain in the 1st District.

“I really respect what Mr. Machtley did,” says Scott.

Scott has eclectic political views. He says doesn’t like labels but comes across as a moderate Republican on social issues and an economic conservative with what he acknowledges is a libertarian streak.

A supporter of the 1973 Rowe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, Scott also says that he is against late-term abortions and believes that minors should obtain parental consent before undergoing the procedure.

“I don’t believe the government belongs in the bedroom or in business,” said Scott. He says he is against the GOP-sponsored constitutional amendment, supported by President Bush, that would ban same-sex marriage.

Marriage, says Scott, is a state issue. He says that allowing same-sex couples access to civil unions may be the best way to deal with the issue.

“I’m definitely a low-tax guy,” says Scott. “I believe that Rhode Islanders know how to best spend their own money, certainly better than the government.

“The purpose of government is to give people opportunity, a hand up rather than a handout,” says Scott.

He believes that the Republican majority in Congress has fallen into the big spending and “bring home the bacon” trap of a group that has been in power too long. “‘I’m really against the spending we see in Washington,” said Scott.

Scott is single and has never married, but in 1997 he adopted a teenager, Chris, from the group home he had been running at the time. His son is now 24 and has a job and “is doing well.”

His biggest campaign expenses, Scott says, have gone for gas for campaign vehicles and “resoling my shoes.”

“We have a grass-roots campaign and I’m proud of it,” says Scott. “Can you imagine the number of politicians who would be deer in the headlights without all staff and consultants and campaign money? What if they had to get up on the old soapbox and explain themselves to the voters?”