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Name: Jeff Phillips
Office sought: 6th Congressional District. Phillips is one of six candidates in the Republican primary, including incumbent Rep. Howard Coble.
Party: Republican
Age: 47
Family: Married, two daughters.
Address: Mountain Brook Road, Greensboro
Occupation: Financial advisor, owner of Phillips Wealth Management
Education: Studied computer science and business and the University of Central Oklahoma. He left the university nine hours short of a degree to pursue a business opportunity. Attended High School in Oklahoma City.
Political experience: This is Phillips’ first run for office.
Community involvement: Past president of the Greensboro Optimist Club, past board member of the Greensboro Children’s museum, active member and past member of the board of directors for Day Star Christian Fellowship, Co-founder of MOVE: Men Of Vision and Excellence.
Online: jeffphillipsforcongress.com

This is the latest in a series of meet-the-candidate interviews posted on this blog. I’m focusing this spring on those who will face primaries. I spoke to Phillips at his office on Battleground Avenue.

I began by asking Phillips why he was running for Congress.

“Bottom line – I think I share the views of a lot of people in this district and in America,” he said. “Just being disappointed, discouraged if you will, frustrated, uncertain, I could think of a lot of other words, even angry at the state of affairs in Washington.”

I asked what specifically he was frustrated with.

“I do feel like we were told one thing by President Obama’s campaign. He talked about change, he talked about bipartisanship and a coming together and crossing the isle. But he has done very little to indicate to me…that he’s doing what he said he would do,” Phillips said.

So why run against Coble, who wouldn’t exactly be counted among Obama’s allies?

“This is not about him…He has served his district and, I believe, this nation well and we ought to respect that fact and be thankful for all he’s done. So the answer to your question is no, it’s not about any one person. This is about being compelled to step into something that I feel like the time is now for me to stop talking and at least offer myself to the people of District 6,” Phillips said.

Phillips’ name has not been circulating a potential contender very long and he registered to run in the closing days of the filing period. I asked when he made his decision:

He said he’s been thinking about running for public office for some time.

“Common wisdom would suggest, well Jeff, you know, start at the local level … The reasons why and what took me so long to come to a final decision had more to do with some hesitation about those questions,” Phillips said. “I guess I don’t think in those terms about the best path to that higher level office. I just think in terms of what can I, Jeff Phillips, do today in my mind and my heart to have the most impact on behalf of the most people.”

I asked Phillips what made him stand out among Coble’s potential challengers.

“When people learn more about who I am, and what my life looks like, and my dedication to my community and my family, I think I’m going to be familiar to them. I think I’ll be someone they can look to and say, ‘he can relate to me,’” Phillips said. “I hope they’ll believe I can be a great listener. You’re not married 28 years, I can assure you, without knowing how to give and take, listen well and lead with some respect.”

Click below to listen to more of that conversation.

Like many other candidates, Phillips said that jobs would be the dominant issue during the campaign.

“One of the things that I’ve talked a lot about lately … is a regionalization of sorts in terms of how our communities in District 6 have previously focused on job growth…It seems to me the lines have been drawn community by community,” Phillips said. He said that he’d like to leverage a position in Congress to prod local cities and counties to work more together.

Phillips also said that he would be opposed to tax increases, particularly on small business owners.

Click below to listen to Phillips talks more about his ideas for job creation.

When asked about health care and the current Congressional debate, Phillips said: “I’m certainly opposed to a government mandated health care system.”

He said that he had a great deal of concern about the uninsured but said that federal mandates are not the way to go. I asked him to reconcile those two positions.

“I think the reconciliation of the two is you don’t make a full-scale, all-out, government-mandated, nationalized health care system…Everybody shouldn’t fall under that type of program,” he said. One approach that may work, he said, would be a creation of a high risk pool much like one North Carolina recently created.

To hear more of his conversation about health care, click below.