Story by Liz Chen and Molly Weisner
Self-proclaimed capitalist and North Carolina 9th Congressional District Democratic candidate Daniel “Dan” Kent McCready grew up in Charlotte. He was educated in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school system. He went to Duke University for undergraduate school and, afterward, he joined the Marine Corps.
While in the military, McCready served in Iraq and led a platoon of 65 marines in 2007 and 2008. He was honorably discharged as a captain. His experiences in Iraq, he believes, inform the public as to why he’s running – to unify the state of North Carolina regardless of political parties.
“We came from all over this country, but we never cared about where you came from or who your parents were; we never cared about the color of skin or even your political party,” McCready said in an interview. “We were all on the same team. That’s the spirit that our country is all about, and that’s the spirit (that has been) forgotten up in Washington.”
McCready earned his MBA from Harvard Business School on the GI Bill, then began working at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. He also started This Land, an online retailer that supports more than 50 American craftspeople.
He is devoted to clean energy and co-founded Double Time Capital, a solar energy company in Charlotte that helps build solar farms in North Carolina.
“I believe very strongly in business as a force for good so to build out clean energy jobs,” McCready said. “And if I have the honor of serving, I’ll be a leader working with all parties to bring people together and expand on the number of clean energy jobs that we have in North Carolina.”
McCready faced criticism after vowing in a campaign ad to “get tough with China until they agree to fair trade deals.” The criticism stems from his investment with Strata Solar, a solar company that outsources to China.
Though, when it comes to clean energy, McCready believes the Green New Deal, a legislative initiative laid out by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey to fight economic inequality and climate change, is “aspirational.”
“I don’t think that the solution (to the economy) is these sort of aspirational green new deals,” McCready said in the interview. “The solution is actually to use business as a force for good and work across the aisle to build clean energy and create clean energy jobs, like I’ve done here in North Carolina.”
On Monday, McCready released his first TV advertisement, titled “Country First.” The ad opens with scenes from McCready’s life and describes his plans to lower prescription drug costs, reduce taxes for the middle class and bolster support for public education.
“As a Marine, you don’t back down from fighting for what’s right,” McCready says in the ad. “Same’s true building a business…and raising kids.”
At a meet-and-greet in Waxhaw, North Carolina, on April 18, McCready said that he comes at certain issues as a businessman. In response to a question about how to balance government budgets, McCready said he views it as a business professional, citing his experience with managing financials at his own company.
McCready also said at the same event that he is opposed to passing a tax bill that pushes the majority of benefits to the wealthy.
He supports a “No Budget, No Pay” act that would withhold salaries from members of Congress until they agree on a budget resolution. He adds the possibility of running certain aspects of government like a business.
During his campaign, McCready has branded himself as a centrist, emphasizing the need to work with both sides and regard issues outside of partisan lenses. His personal message on his campaign website expresses a “Country Over Party” sentiment.
“If we’ve seen one thing, I think, over the last couple of years, we’ve seen [that] we are not going to change this country until we get some leaders up in Washington who are going to put our country before any political party, and are going to put people before the same old broken parts in politics,” McCready said at the same meet-and-greet.
But on certain issues, McCready has crossed the aisle. For example, the candidate said that he supports a balanced budget amendment, which has been historically a strong rallying point for Republicans.
In terms of gun policy, McCready said he supports the Second Amendment as a gun owner himself, though he’s called for measures, like background checks, to make gun ownership a watertight process.
On immigration, McCready recognizes the need to secure the border, but he has not called for abolition of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or cuts to immigration agency funding, as some other Democrats have. Instead, McCready called for using technology to help fortify the border, said in an interview in May on WFAE.
Democrats have also supported the Green New Deal, which McCready has said is not the best strategy to create new jobs in energy-related fields.
McCready’s endorsements also appear to come from a variety of groups; his campaign site organizes them by party affiliation, gender, faith, military status and civic leadership. He said at the meet-and-greet that one of the things he was most proud of was the number of Republicans supporting his campaign.
“It’s about serving independents, Democrats, Republicans” McCready said. “It’s about serving all of us.”
However, in walking a middle line between parties, some have criticized McCready for being non-committal on some topics — the impeachment of President Donald Trump being one of them.
The National Republican Congressional Committee said in a Washington Post article that they “look forward to partnering with (McCready’s competitor, Republican Sen. Dan Bishop) and his team to ensure socialist rubber-stamp Dan McCready is forced to finally take positions on his party’s radical ideas.”
Bishop has criticized his opponent, calling McCready a socialist who “went through two elections without telling anyone where he stood on anything.”
In spite of that, McCready maintains that he’s a capitalist, not a socialist.
“I think [Bishop is] afraid to run against a capitalist who’s built a business from scratch and helped create 700 [solar energy] jobs here in North Carolina and help make our state number two in the country in solar power,” McCready said in the interview. “Even as (Bishop) spends time championing legislation that has cost us thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity as his signature legislative achievement.”
McCready is talking about House Bill 2 (also known as the “bathroom bill”); Bishop was the author and main sponsor of HB2, which discriminated against the North Carolina LGBTQ+ community and sparked intense controversy across the state.
According to the Associated Press analysis, HB2 would cost the state of North Carolina more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a decade — though another analysis put actual lost income from the act, which was repealed and replaced, at some $500 million.
The NRCC also claimed that McCready “accepts” help from liberal dark money group, Patriot Majority USA, even though McCready tweeted in September of 2018 that, “Dark money has no place in our politics.”
“It is disappointing but not surprising that career politician Dan Bishop and his dark money special interest allies are so afraid of my experience as a businessman that they have resorted to spreading outright lies,” McCready said in a statement to UNC this week.
However, the NRCC’s phrasing is misleading, purposefully painting McCready as a hypocrite.
Though Patriot Majority USA did spent nearly $1 million in opposition of Mark Harris — McCready’s previous opponent in the fraudulent election — PM USA is an independent group, and because they did not directly donate to McCready’s campaign, the campaign was unable to control how the money was spent, even though it indirectly “helped” McCready.
Find a profile of Dan Bishop here.
