Okla. guardsman wants to unseat incumbent rep. - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Okla. guardsman wants to unseat incumbent rep.

MOORE, Okla. — A guardsman preparing for deployment is hoping tea party conservatism will help him unseat an incumbent congressman for the Republican nomination to Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District.

But R.J. Harris, who leaves Aug. 15 for Fort Hood, Texas, then Afghanistan, acknowledged he would consider it — and accept — a moral victory in his race against Rep. Tom Cole “if we come out here on the 27th and do really well, anywhere over 30 percent.”

No Democratic Party candidate filed for the seat, which extends from southern Oklahoma City to the Texas border.

Harris, a chief warrant officer with the National Guard and a University of Oklahoma law student, said he considers Cole a liberal, primarily for his vote in 2008 for the $700 billion federal bank bailout program.

“Conservatives don’t vote for a bailout, it’s a form of soft socialism,” Harris said. “It can move the fruits of labor to the government.”

Cole disagreed.

“Look, it was a tough vote. I think we were headed for a depression, so did a Republican president and a Democratic Congress,” Cole said. “I don’t think banks collapsing is what the American people wanted. The reality was, that it was about to happen.”

Cole, a former Oklahoma state senator and secretary of state who headed a political consulting and polling firm before he was elected to Congress in 2002, is a past chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

“I’ll put my conservative credentials on the line. I’ve voted against tax increases every year,” Cole said.

Harris, who calls himself a constitutional conservative, said Cole’s vote for the bank bailout, which he called “tyranny,” prompted him to enter the race.

“When you see someone voting for tyranny, something had to be done,” Harris said. “I think what I brought to this race was a candidate who stands for the constitution, for individual liberty, state sovereignty and to provide for the common defense.”

Harris would not directly connect himself with the conservative tea party movement, saying he announced for the GOP nomination in January 2009, before it formed, but said he had no problem being aligned with it.

“I don’t mind being billed that way,” he said. “I don’t know of any direct support they’ve given me. The biggest help to candidates like me is to inspire and get educated voters out there that really know who to vote for and not to vote for.”

DISCUSS: HOUSE OF REP. RACE