Washington 6th District legislative candidate Aaron Croft is like many of this year’s candidates in that he spent most or all of his career in the armed services. He talked with SPR's Doug Nadvornick.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Aaron Croft: I'm 22-year military veteran. I was a combat search-and-rescue special operations helicopter pilot. I have experience anywhere from tactical mission planning to mission execution level, working in the lower echelons, on the working group, the task force, the tiger team, whatever you want to call it. I've done eight deployments to places like Afghanistan, Iraq. I've probably got about two years total in Afghanistan, along with close to a year in other places, plus the countless other trips, work trips.
I did my staff tour at Air Combat Command, where I was the branch chief for personnel recovery in charge of, basically, the organization training and equipping of thousands of men and women, plus the nearly 200 aircraft that we had in our inventory. Plus, a heavy hand in the replacement of our aging helicopter fleet. So that's helping out with a program that was in the billions of dollars. Then I ran a budget that was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So I have experience down at that low level, at that middle management level where you are running big, big chunks of things, and then I finished my career off at the U.S. Embassy in Romania.
I was the deputy defense attache, the air attache, so a diplomat. Romania borders Ukraine to the south, so our embassy, which was supposed to be kind of a sleepy sunset tour, turned into a very insane busy tour with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It turned into a revolving door of Congressional delegations and secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, everybody you can imagine, including the vice president, coming through our embassy and I was the guy in the room briefing them on the military situation.
DN: So all that stuff that you did, how do you think it would make you a good elected official?
AC: So, I'm not a politician, don't have any background in that, which I think everybody can agree is a good thing and a lot of people start out that way. But I have had an entire career where I went through that normal progression of just being the worker bee to being the person in charge of the worker bees, being in charge of the person who's briefing the decision makers and helping them.
Throughout my entire career, it was never about, I'll claim to be the smartest person in the room, but I'm really, really good at building those teams. I was really good at surrounding myself with those people, with the smartest people in the room, and that's exactly what you do as a state representative. You're not the smartest person in the room. If you think you are, then it's time I think for you to move on to something else and then you know, so it's not just the working with groups and task forces.
The thing I learned throughout my career over and over again that was reinforced was the fact that people are what make the difference.
DN: Croft says he’s been a political independent for nearly 20 years because he thinks both major political parties are out for themselves.
AC: I watched a party that used to be concerned with fiscal conservatism and being good stewards go from what it was back in the day to we just passed the second largest, most expensive bill that has ever been done and it's hurting working people. All of the benefits, all of the cuts, went to the top 10% and the top 1% even more. Everybody technically gets a break. But when you take into account the cuts that went to Medicaid and SNAP and all this, they're seeing a net loss, so that's hurting people.
Then on the Democrat side. I see them saying all of the right things, but a lack of firm leadership enables them to get steamrollered at every time and the people lose out. Then, on top of that, there are just simple cases where it feels like Democrats are saying the right things, but their actions prove that they're basically looking out for their donors or the party, their donors and corporations. Then, if there's some white space left over, they think about, okay, what do we do for the people?
So that kind of turned me off as I was coming out of the Republican Party, I couldn't go into the Democratic Party because I just don't agree that they're doing everything that they can.
DN: Do you feel like you're closer to one than the other? Because it seems to me that you're probably closer to being a Democrat than a Republican.
AC: I have progressive ideals for sure. I am an independent through and through and it's my time in the military that did it.
Everybody out there that thinks, oh, military equals MAGA, not even close. Not even close. I think the best leaders I ever saw in the military also agreed with me. They were independents and they made their focus taking care of the people and those were the best units I was ever a part of. Those are the best teams I was ever a part of. So yeah, my focus is on taking care of the people.
This myth of trickle-down economics which is so big on the right, we've had over four decades to see how that trickle-down happens and it's trickled up.
DN: Croft says his idea of being a state representative means being accessible and fully committed to the job.
AC: I want to have engagement to the point where people know who I am and I'm readily identifiable walking down the street, because I want them to know that they can approach me and tell me, either what you're doing is hitting the mark or you're out there in left field and we need you to be back here.
I want people to be comfortable with me and I want to be present enough that it's not like this nebulous, hey, I shot an email out into the ether and maybe I'm gonna get a canned response from a legislative aide or something like that.
I want people to know who I am, that I stand for them, that I fight for them and I think that's through regular engagement, regular town halls. I want to have many councils, on healthcare, on housing, on infrastructure, on jobs and small business councils, all these councils that are made up of regular people that live here.
Hopefully we'll be able to entice the healthcare doctors and insurance and all the other different workers as well, but then the consumer who is feeling all of the effects of decisions made out of their hands. That stuff can inform the decisions I make and I think that's where you start to build trust in government again and that's what I want to do is build trust. But you have to show people that you're willing to take what they say into account.
The kind of representative I want to be is somebody that people know when he opens his mouth and says something, you can take that to the bank.