THE Cambridge Connection - Episode 30

And we’re going to have special guest Chris Doty, the Republican gubernatorial candidate for Massachusetts. And we’re going to talk about these things that consumers are dealing with in the state of Massachusetts. But this is not just a state problem. This is nationwide nationwide and becoming a global problem with supply chain and all the things that have been going wrong as a result of the pandemic. So again, we’re going to talk about these things and kind of get into these.

What are actual true kitchen table issues? And you counseling people, you deal with it all the time when you go through budgets. Absolutely. And I’m very excited to hear what Chris has to say. I’ve been doing some reading about him, obviously, knowing that he was coming on the show today.

And it’s going to be interesting hearing what he’s going to address today. And while we would love to talk about Easter egg hunts and Easter egg coloring, because that’s so much fun, we’ve got real things that we have to get to here. What do you mean real things? The Easter bunny? I’m not suggesting the Easter bunny is not real, but this is money, expenses, lifestyles, et cetera.

And the golden egg. Don’t forget the golden egg. Right. The golden egg. We have none of that.

Introducing guest Chris Doty

We’ll have to work towards that one. All right. We’re going to be right back with our special guest, Chris Doughty. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. Spring is here and it’s a great time to clean up your debts with a debt management plan from Cambridge Credit Counseling.

Reduce your credit card interest rates and lower your monthly payments. Call Cambridge Credit Counseling today. 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection.

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie. And we are honored to have special guest, Chris Doughty, who is candidate for the governor of Massachusetts. Chris, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much, Gordon and Tina Marie. Nice to meet you both.

Welcome, Chris. Welcome. So, Chris, before we get into some of the things we’re going to discuss about your candidacy, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your profile, your life, your business experience? Well, thanks so much. Just a brief bio on me.

I arrived here in Massachusetts in 1987 to go to Harvard Business School with my wife, Leslie. And we lived in Cambridge and in Boston and ended up settling in Rentham, where we raised six children and we’re currently grandparents of four. In the early 90s, I bought into a small manufacturing company outside of Boston that made metal parts out of powdered metals. , and making metal parts. In Rentham, we have one of our largest operations.

It’s about 300 employees. And we make auto parts, appliance parts, tractor parts. Most citizens of Massachusetts have one of our parts somewhere in their lives. Absolutely. I guess without auto parts, we’ve got a lot of problems, right?

Affordability and cost of living in Massachusetts

That’s right. All right. The Cambridge Connection, this show is about financial wisdom for our listeners, consumers, financial empowerment. And obviously, we are living in some times now where inflation is seemingly going the wrong way and we’re having a lot of challenges. And a lot of things that we do to help people are those kitchen table issues.

So can you talk a little bit about the things that you plan to bring as the governor of Massachusetts? Yeah. Well, thanks so much. You know, I have been saying that I will be the most aggressive governor in the country on making a state more affordable. Our state has just become so expensive for people to live here.

The working families, the senior citizens, and basically everyone. We are now the third highest cost of living. They predict that we might move into the number two spot the next year or so. Employees were number three, housing were number two, medical were almost number one most expensive in the country. So when you look at us, we are just one of the most expensive places.

Even my adult children had a hard time living here. And we lost a few, just couldn’t stay here. You know, as an employer of 300 employees of working families, these are mechanics, machinists, press operators. I hear it from them every day that it’s just becoming, people are just suffering with the cost of living here. Now, as governor, there’s some things I can do right away to help bring the cost down.

One is we can do simple things like suspending the gas tax. I realize it’s not a lot of money, but it’s several hundred dollars. We could do that on day one. We could start working on the regulations that are burdening our businesses that is being translated to a higher cost, because most businesses take their cost, they just add to it. And that’s what we’re all paying.

Right now, Massachusetts is considered the least business friendly state in America. We get an F minus for business affordability, and that’s being translated through to all of us. Yeah. I think we all feel it too. And if you’re just joining us, this is The Cambridge Connection.

We’re here with Chris Doty, running for governor of Massachusetts. And I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s all coming together now. You go to the grocery stores, you walk out with a couple of bags of groceries, and it’s just amazing how much money you’ve spent for not a lot of return on that investment. And one of the things I think that as citizens, to see politicians working on the messaging that they’re given and the things that they’re going to bring as far as if they get the position, I’ll tell you one of the refreshing things that I saw was that when asked about your opponents, you really don’t get into criticisms.

They don’t get into shaping how you feel about your opponent. What you do get into is what you will bring if you are in fact elected, and I think that’s very refreshing. Yeah, you know, I have a different vision for our state, a different plan for our state. So, you know, I’m running against what I would call progressives or progressive elites, and they have a different vision for our state, and I really want to be good at communicating my vision. So when people go to the voting box in November, they can say, okay, this is the Doty administration vision for our state, and this is the progressives’ vision for our state.

And I hope I do a good job as a candidate articulating and explaining, you know, I come from the business world where we simplify, we deregulate, we make things more affordable. As you can imagine, as a businessman that makes auto parts in Massachusetts, this is my skill set, is making things more affordable. I’ve been doing it for three decades, I’m good at it, I’m good at finance, I’m good at solving these types of problems, and I don’t like to waste money. You know, in the business world, we can’t waste money. Every dollar counts.

The further I get into government, the more perplexing and bewildering it is how much waste and fraud and just overspending on things. We have such a spending problem. I want to get in and fix that the way I would my business, or I would turn around coming into a business that’s just being wasteful with their money. Well, Chris, just a statewide question, I’m sure you probably get this a lot, but how do you plan to add more jobs? You know, it’s interesting right now, we’re in an interesting business cycle because we have enough jobs.

We don’t have enough workers. There’s just not enough workers out there. There’s a lot of different ways to do it, but one is, if we can make the state more affordable for people, we can get younger families and working families to start considering coming back. So, you know, it’s sort of related to what we’re talking about, affordability. You know, I think reasonable and legal immigration can help right now, but I think most economists are saying that the next governor, which let’s say is eight to 12 years, will face a recession, and the next one could be a real doozy.

I would go into the office expecting a major recession during my term as governor. So I want to get the House in order. I want to pay off our debt, where our state has higher debt than any state in the country per capita. We got to fix that. We’ve got to get a business climate where decision makers and businesses consider Massachusetts for their businesses.

Right now, no one even considers us. You read the paper about semiconductor plants and auto part plants and, you know, all the factories that people need, Massachusetts isn’t even being considered right now. start paying down our debt, get us ready, and start creating a business climate where people start losing jobs here. Right now, I get calls about every two to three months from Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, inviting me to their state to consider moving my 300 jobs out of our state, and they all say the same things. They say, come down here, you can get more affordable electricity, you can get a better cost of living.

Campaign strategy and political landscape

Real estate. Yeah. Yeah, at lower cost. So I think if the citizens realize how vulnerable we are for a recession, they would be as worried as I am. So Chris, in your race to get to this position, how are you building your name versus a household name like Maury Healy?

Yeah, good question. It’s not easy. You know, she has a money-making machine, and it seems like she’s written up in the Globe every day. It will have to be more message and resume than marketing. She has a marketing machine, a money-making machine.

I probably won’t be able to compete on that. So it will have to just be the message and the resume. After all, it’s the executive branch. I’m an executive. I come from the executive background, and she’s a civil rights attorney.

And how many executive offices, either in business or in government, that are run by civil rights attorneys? So I’m hoping the resume and the message will resonate with the voters. I’ll tell you one thing, and just doing some research as a citizen, I think one of the things that resonated with me also was the fact that one-party rule is a dangerous path to go down. You know, I did a study on that. I took a look at ...

There’s only a few states that have gone as extreme as we would be in November if we elected Maury Healy or Sonia Chang-Diaz, and there’s only a few. And everyone can guess which they are. California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, New York. And you know, this will be really interesting because the citizens in November get to make a decision. Do you want to become more like those states?

Then you would vote for Maury Healy, because that’s what we would look like. Or do you want to look a little bit more like Tennessee or these other kind of pro-business states, North Carolina? Then you would vote for Chris Doty. So it’ll be a really interesting debate at the end between Maury Healy and Chris Doty, even presenting kind of single-party state, progressive, versus the businessman that wants to see the economy boom and bring in good jobs and make it more affordable. So I think it’ll be interesting where the voters land.

What do they see as the vision for our state? You know, I find it interesting that you had mentioned previously how your children have actually relocated out of the state. So I can imagine you would do what you can to get them back as well and, you know, make everything a little bit more financially affordable for all. It’s almost like you have a horse in the race, you know? I do.

And grandkids. Right. So that’s a bigger horse. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. All right, Chris, we’re going to take a quick break. Is it OK? Can you stay with us for our next conversation? Yes, I can.

Tina Marie’s counseling background

Thank you. OK. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back with Chris Doty, candidate for governor. Hey, all.

It’s Tina Marie. And you might know me as Gordon Oliver’s co-pilot for The Cambridge Connection. I’m here every Saturday morning. What you might not know is that I’ve known Gordie for a really long time. And as a certified credit counselor at Cambridge Credit Counseling for over 20 years, I am thrilled to join Gordie every week to share and chat about real people with real financial problems, along with many success stories both myself and all of the counselors at Cambridge Credit have been a part of.

We know it takes a village of support and inspiration if someone is struggling financially. So it’s nice to know if that person is you, that you’re not alone out there. m. right here on WHMP for The Cambridge Connection. Because Gordie and I, we are here to help you have a better relationship with your money and hopefully make you smile.

Household budgets and energy costs

Right, Gordie? Couldn’t have said it better myself, Tina Marie. Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection. I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie, and special guest, Chris Doughty, who’s running for governor of Massachusetts.

Chris, I wish we had hours to talk to you because we have so many issues to unpack. But one of the things that, again, we’ve talked about the show being about financial wisdom. And Tina Marie is a certified counselor. And one of the things that she does helping consumers that are having financial struggles and difficulties is working through the budget. And there are certain categories right now, and you do nationwide.

Help, so this is not just in Massachusetts, but inflation has caused groceries to go up, gas, as we’ve talked about, energy problems and energy costs in the household. Tina, can you talk to that for a minute? Oh, absolutely. Almost every phone call I receive, every person I counsel, you know, you’re looking at their grocery bill, and of course, with the inflation, they’re spending hundreds of dollars more a month just on groceries. Paychecks aren’t going up, but obviously inflation is.

12 per gallon just a year ago. 14 a gallon. So it is, it’s causing, you know, many concern for many households. Many households are struggling. What do you propose to help this, to help the situation in Massachusetts, Chris?

Well, Tamarie, I love that question, and it breaks my heart. You know, I’m in the same position with my own employees and with people in my community, in my church community. I hear the same things. So there’s an interesting contrast, because I proposed several weeks ago that we suspend the gas tax right after we had that dramatic spike in gas prices. And within minutes, the state legislature and, or the leadership in the state legislature, and also my opponent, Maura Healey, came out within minutes and said, you know, we shouldn’t rely on fossil fuels.

You know, we should buy Teslas. And it was so tone-deaf, because $20, $30 matters. It really does. Absolutely, it does. $20, $30, every time you fill up, matters.

And how could they say, oh, they even used this word. They said, oh, that’s a gimmick, or that’s a stunt. Buy a Tesla was the answer, huh? That was the answer. Buy a Tesla.

I was like, how tone-deaf? Yeah, yeah, go buy a Tesla. And that was the answer, is that we shouldn’t rely on fossil fuels. So, you know, I hope people realize that right now, some of the state leadership and my opponents are just, they’re not out here with you and I, kind of dealing with people at the kitchen tables, trying to run the numbers, where five, 10, 15, $20 does matter. You add that up every week.

So as governor, there’s so many things I could do in this area, because we tax, we regulate, we impose so much on our businesses and our citizens. Let me just give you one example, okay? And this is a longer term one, but it is so important, is energy right now. So we have the third highest energy prices in America. It’s forecasted to go to number one or two in the next couple of years.

We keep turning off our supply, and then we keep saying, oh, we want to go to electric vehicles, and we want to go to electric homes. And we’re literally running out of supply in Massachusetts. That is driving up the prices. Businesses like mine aren’t going to make it. In fact, if we go up probably another 20%, even my own company taps out.

And I was in Lemonster, I was in Jolio, talking to business owners that are large energy users, but also large employers. And they said the same thing, is that we’re out also, we’re leaving. Maura Healey goes on the news, she says, I’ll be the most aggressive governor in America on climate change. That sends chills down my back, and it should set chills down the back of every citizen, saying we cannot drive out every user of electricity out of our state because we need it. So I am very pro-energy.

I’ll bring that spirit and that direction to our state and say, we are going to do our part for climate change, but we have to keep our jobs here. And it has to be affordable for people to live here and to pay their bills and to heat their homes. You know, Chris, the climate for many years now has been so polarized. And when we’re trying to figure out solutions and you as a leader, right, looking to become the leader as the governor of the state, it is refreshing to hear that we have to have dialogue about it. And unfortunately, looking towards leadership to work together on issues, there has to be some common ground, some compromise, because to your point, on the ground, and from this conversation and just some research I’ve done, I know you have the pulse of the ground.

And just like Tina Marie said, when you go through a budget and next month, if I journalize my spending and I’m tracking how much is being spent on these issues that we have to survive on, one being energy, the news is not great. And to see that we have the political landscape just so worried about messaging rather than solutions that actually impact us right now, it’s very refreshing to hear the things that you are actually leaning on as far as policies to bring to the state. One thing that you did say, Chris, that just kind of touched me because of the types of consumers I speak with daily is if it’s $15 less, it’s $15 less. I mean, $15 is $15. It matters to a lot of people, to a lot of people.

Running mate and campaign support

Now, Chris, let me ask you about your running mate. Who do you got running with you and what’s the story behind all that? Well, thanks. Her name is Kate Campanelli. She was a rep in the Worcester 17th District for many years, a successful legislator and a lifelong Worcester resident, fourth generation for Worcester, parents with deep roots in Worcester.

And so I think she brings so much. She brings legislative experience. There’s a lot of discussion regarding schools and what’s going on with the ideology being taught to children. And so she and I have a different vision and we’re gonna lay out a completely different vision than our opponents on what to do with children in the school and getting back to the basics and getting out of teaching our kids this ideology that many parents don’t want taught in schools. And she comes from Central Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, so I think she’s got just a strong background and she’s a wonderful, intense campaigner.

So I’m so glad to have her with me. Sounds wonderful. Yeah, again, this has been a really refreshing conversation. I’m so glad to hear that someone like yourself is bringing these issues to the table and highlighting a certain approach that some people have to consider because we can agree all of us are struggling right now with costs going up and we need solutions. So it’s very refreshing to hear the direction that you’re taking with your running mate.

So before we wrap this conversation up, how can people support your campaign? How can they find you? And what would you like to leave them with today? Well, I really appreciate that question. You can imagine as a candidate because everybody’s watching.

The elections aren’t just in November. They’re right now. You sort of pick your candidate, those that you want, you believe in their vision, you start backing them. We see that there are those that are progressive that wanna see the state kind of go into this progressive kind of woke, electric vehicles for everyone direction. And they’re backing that vision.

And we need people that have, they’re more worried about the kitchen table issues and personal finances to back us. And so we hope they will. And I think we’re getting good traction, but we just need more support. com. It’s F-O-R-M-A.

We have daily emails of where I’ll be. So people can come meet me and meet Kate. We’re gonna go around the state and try and shake a 7 million hands between now and November. I hope everyone gets a chance to look me in the eyes and size me up. And same with Kate.

Would we be good? Now, let me end with this thought. There are two questions. One is who can win the election, but the other one is who will be the best governor? And that’s the important question.

That’s the one I spent the most time on is who really will be a good governor? Who’s going to work hard? Who’s going to solve these problems? Who’s got the energy and the speed and the tempo to get a lot of things done quickly? Well, again, incredible messaging.

And for all of our listeners, whether you’re in the state of Massachusetts or throughout the country, this is the time where you have to be engaged. You have to do your research. On this show to bring you on, Chris, to share your message and why you’re looking to be governor and how it’s going to change people’s lives has been really a great conversation. And we’re so thankful that you could join us today because this is such important information for people to do their homework and make sure they make the choice based on research, not just talking points. And to hear you elaborate on the direction you want to take the state, it’s just been incredible to have you on today.

Well, likewise, Gordon and Tina Marie, it’s so nice to meet you. I think the work you guys do is so important because education on finances, it’s critical for human happiness and human growth and development and happy families and well-developed children. It’s so essential for self-reliance. I commend you both for the work you do and hope I can support you and endorse you anyway along the campaign. Thank you, Chris.

We appreciate, Chris. Thank you so much. All right. This is Gordon Oliver, The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back.

Campaign ad and show closing

Are you tired of the high cost of living in Massachusetts? Instead of running a U-Haul to move, check out Republican Chris Doty for governor. Chris Doty is a true fiscal conservative who will work hard to make Massachusetts more affordable for you and your family. For far too long, our own children and loved ones have moved away because it is too costly to live in Massachusetts. As the only person in the governor’s race who has created jobs, met a payroll and manufactured affordable products, Chris Doty has the experience we need in the corner office.

Chris will work tirelessly to ensure that our economy fully rebounds, continues to grow and keeps more money in your household. Chris Doty will fight to protect our businesses and recruit high paying quality jobs to relocate here. You can count on Chris. com to learn more. Paid for by the Doty Committee.

My name is Chris Doty and I approve this message. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. This is The Cambridge Connection. Another 28 minutes has gone by.

Tina Marie, pretty interesting show. Very valuable insights. Very valuable. I’m thinking about getting a Tesla. You are.

Why don’t you look into how much the charging station is for your home? Look at that. So just a couple of things real quick before we close down. The general election for governor, there’s one candidate who’s an independent, which is Diana Plass. The Democratic primary for governor of Massachusetts is Josh Caldwell, Sonia Chang-Diaz, Maura Healey and Orlando Silva.

And we offer everyone to come on the show and talk about what they’re going to bring if they are elected as governor. And for the Republican candidates, we have obviously Chris Doty and his opponent, Jeff Deal, for the Republican primary. So we’d love to have these candidates on because this is great information for citizens to hear real conversation about the decision that they’re going to make on who’s going to run the state. Very valuable information. The invitation’s out there.

So as we do with every show, I’m going to close with a quote, no doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations. This is from Theodore Bickell. So if you’re just joining us, this is the close of the show. I want to give a huge thank you to our producers, Leah and Lisa. As you can see, we have great experts to come on this show to help you with financial wisdom and financial empowerment.

30 AM. com and click on podcasts so you can find us where you listen to your favorite shows. Once again, be part of the conversation. org or feel free to call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE.