On Tuesday, Republican Ken McFeeters qualified to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District Six. McFeeters is challenging five-term incumbent Gary Palmer in the Republican primary.
Ken McFeeters is an independent insurance agent who lives and works in the Hoover-Birmingham area.
Alabama Today spoke on the phone with McFeeters on Thursday while he was out campaigning.
“I got involved in politics initially because of some issues that came up in the insurance business that I am in,” McFeeters said.
Over time, McFeeters said that his concern about the country’s direction increased.
“I have had some concerns for a while,” McFeeters told Alabama Today. “The last couple of years has been insane.”
“Gary Palmer says all the Republican talking points, but I don’t feel that he is leading,” said McFeeters on why he would run against an entrenched incumbent.
“I met with Gary for two hours hoping that he would talk me out of it (running),” McFeeters said.
McFeeters said that he was not satisfied with Palmer’s answers on the issues he cares about, including Palmer’s answers on COVID-19 vaccines for infants, the war in Ukraine, and some of the shutdowns.
That conversation convinced McFeeters to run.
McFeeters believes the federal government needs some fiscal discipline, as evidenced by the $33 trillion national debt.
“It is insanity,” McFeeters said. “Gary voted for the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion bill.”
McFeeters said on the issue of the COVID lockdowns, “Gary said under the circumstances, it would have been worse not to. How could it have been worse.”
McFeeters also questioned the wisdom of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
“My sister was injured by the vaccine with micro clots,” McFeeters said. “Gary said that he thinks he got myocarditis from the shot. And his letter says that everybody should get shots.”
“They are injecting it into infants,” McFeeters said. “They put it on the schedule, so unless you opt-out, it is given to every child.”
We asked McFeeters about his view on the GOP house member’s inability to agree on a Speaker of the House.
“It is discouraging,” McFeeters said. “I was disappointed. I was hoping that Jim Jordan would get it.”
McFeeters said it was a bad look for House Republicans that they could not come together and select a Speaker of the House after the Hamas attacks on Israel.
McFeeters speculated that the 20 members who opposed Rep. Jordan are controlled by corporate interests in Washington, D.C., that do not want Jordan to be speaker.
“It seems like we are living at an insane time,” McFeeters said.
McFeeters expressed fears that corporate elites have gained too much power in federal and state governments and that Congress and the legislatures serve them rather than the people.
“Both sides call the other side fascist,” McFeeters said of the left and the right. “But if you look up the history of the term fascism, it was invented by Benito Mussolini in the twenties. He said that it represented the merger of state and corporate power. That seems like what we have been living with.”
He discussed the education system.
“I want to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and get the federal government out of education,” McFeeters said. “When it was created around 1980, our educational system was number two in the world. Now, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars, depending on what rankings you use, we are somewhere between 25 and 28.”
McFeeters expressed concerns that the educational system is not teaching students how to be critical thinkers but instead just making them into good workers for corporate interests.
McFeeters referenced the border issue as another area in which corporate interests supply big corporations with willing workers without regard for the people of the United States.
“When Republicans were in there, they didn’t do anything either,” McFeeters said of the GOP’s inability to pass an immigration bill even in those times when they controlled both houses of Congress and held the presidency.
McFeeters said that he is enjoying being out on the campaign trail.
“Everywhere I go, everybody agrees with me,” McFeeters said.
McFeeters said the informed voters who go to Republican group meetings, read, and actively study the issues generally agree with him on most issues. His concern is with the voters who aren’t paying attention and will be swayed by the media.
McFeeters is not optimistic about his chances of beating a five-term incumbent in Palmer.
“I don’t think I will win because not enough people are awake yet,” McFeeters said.
The major party primaries are on March 5.
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