Jonathan P. Scott is running for the 1st Congressional District seat.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

WASHINGTON — Jonathan P. Scott’s plan to challenge the workings of government is at least as ambitious as his goal of unseating Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy.

Scott, who will turn 42 on Election Day, is running for Congress as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican with a strong libertarian streak. He portrays himself as a working-class candidate who makes a modest living as a developer of nonprofit organizations.

Scott is a second-time candidate against Kennedy. In his first run for public office two years ago, Scott won the Republican primary for the 1st Congressional District. In the general election, Kennedy defeated him by about 68 percent to 23 percent in 2006. (A third candidate drew single-digit support.) Scott, who has had no financial support from the Republican Party, said he spent about $20,000 on his last campaign, mostly from family and friends. He has set a fundraising target of $500,000 this year and said he can raise adequate money because the electorate is in a mood to turn out some incumbents. He’s the only announced Republican challenger to Kennedy.

In his announcement statement, Scott signaled that he would campaign against Kennedy as a Washington insider. He also sounded a note of sympathy for the congressman, whose father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is under treatment for brain cancer.

Elective politics “should be about having a voice,” he said, not just “deep pockets.”

Scott ran unsuccessfully in this year’s Rhode Island primary as a delegate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the senator from Arizona. But he takes heart from the surprisingly strong candidacy of libertarian Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, and the historic run of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois.

Asked for an example of his own libertarianism, Scott said, “I’m a big believer in the Second Amendment,” opposed to “the vast majority” of restrictions on the ownership of firearms. “Convicted violent felons should not be able to own a gun,” Scott said, so he supports a four-day waiting period for the purchase of a firearm, along with mandatory checks on the buyer’s criminal record.

That kind of gun control “makes perfect sense to me,” Scott said. “Registration of guns does not make sense to me.”

A self-described “free-market guy,” Scott said he would divert the entire system of federal aid to public schools into vouchers that would be remitted “directly back to families” to pay for the schooling of their choice.

That’s “a pretty big change” from the status quo, Scott acknowledged. “It’s not time for evolution” of public policy, “It’s time for revolution.”

Scott said he is committed to a complete overhaul of the nation’s energy policy, with “everything on the table,” from wind power to increased use of nuclear power and from exploration for untapped domestic sources of oil to a program to boost U.S. oil refinery capacity. He said he would have supported the construction of a new liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River, but had concerns about the proposed LNG facility in Providence. (Both plants have failed to secure the necessary federal regulatory permits.)

On the war in Iraq, Scott said he believes that, like Kennedy, he probably would have supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Kennedy has since turned against the war.

Scott said, “we need to finish the job there and leave,” as soon as the United States can help to set up Iraqi police and defense forces strong enough to protect their nation. It’s impossible to predict how large a U.S. troop commitment that will require — and for how long, Scott said, adding that he would have supported the so-called “surge” in troop strength that President Bush ordered last year to improve security in Iraq.

Scott grew up in Providence, where he attended Moses Brown School, and Middletown and is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. He took an early interest in politics by lobbying the General Assembly for more funds for URI. Scott also did some campaigning for the late Sen. John H. Chafee.

He returned to his secondary school for a time to coach wrestling and lacrosse. He spent several years as an ocean sailor. He has also been a group home counselor. Currently, Scott said he is chairman of the board of the Providence-based Ocean State Policy Research Institute, a nonprofit group.

Scott pledged a campaign and a platform similar to his 2006 run. “This will be a campaign of the people, by the people and for the people,” he said. But he said he does expect one aspect of this run to be different.

“You might have heard that this is the year of change?” he said with a laugh. “We expect a change in the result.”Jonathan P. Scott

PARTY: Republican

OFFICE SOUGHT: U.S. Representative, 1st Congressional District

PREVIOUS OFFICE: none

AGE: 41

RESIDENCE: Providence

PROFESSION: Developer of nonprofit organizations

EDUCATION: University of Rhode Island

FAMILY: Single, one adopted son

jmulligan@belo-dc.com