LYNN — Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), says he doesn’t have the words to describe how critical it is for the Democrats to win the presidency this November.
“I don’t think I have the words to say how I feel about that,” said Moulton Monday morning during a meeting with the Item editorial board. “On a scale of 1 to 10, this is a 30.
“Abraham Lincoln talked about the better angels of our nature,” said Moulton, “and he was right.” Donald Trump, he said, “invokes the worst angels of our nature.”
Moulton, who was briefly a candidate for the presidency (and who will run for his fourth term as the 6th District representative) spoke on the day after former vice president Joseph Biden’s decisive victory in Saturday’s South Carolina primary resulted in former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg dropping out of the race. Later Monday, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar did the same. Both threw their support to Biden.
“I think the vice president has tremendous momentum, and that he is a unifying leader who can bring this party to victory,” Moulton said.
However, he issued the following caveat.
“He has to have the full wind at his back to do it,” Moulton said. “(Michael) Bloomberg with all his money will be tough. But I stand firmly behind Joe Biden.”
Moulton said the problem with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, aside from being tagged with the label of “socialist,” is that with him topping the ticket, down-ballot candidates will have a tougher time.
“I don’t think it’s a good story if the person we nominate isn’t even a Democrat,” Moulton said. Sanders is an Independent who ran as a Democrat both in 2016 and this time around.
Moulton said he learned quite a bit in his brief run for the presidency. The biggest lesson he learned is that timing is important.
“John F. Kennedy once said you can never get in too early,” Moulton said. “I should have heeded that advice more.”
He also said he shouldn’t have “pooh-poohed” the idea of running almost until the time he’d announced.
“I had a lot of people come up to me, people who had committed to someone else, and say to me, ‘had I known you were running, I’d have supported you.'”
Still, he doesn’t regret throwing his hat into the ring.
“I think Trump is going to be hard to beat,” he said. “I thought that a young combat veteran (Moulton is a former U.S. Marine who served four tours of duty in Iraq) would be the perfect foil for him.”
He also said he ran because the country is desperate for good leadership.
“When people are in a tough spot, that’s when leadership matters the most,” he said.
Of the many issues Moulton has with the president, few of them rankled him more than when Trump downplayed injuries suffered by U.S. troops during the retaliatory strike on their base by Iran after the president ordered Iranian Gen. Qusem Soleimani killed late last year. The bombing did not cause any deaths, but several soldiers ended up with traumatic brain injuries as a result. Trump minimized the injuries as simple headaches.
“That was infuriating,” Moulton said, adding that it illustrates Trump’s “disdain for troops and his utter disregard for himself as a man.”
Moulton takes pride in many accomplishments, but none more than his work on behalf of soldiers who have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“I’m the first presidential candidate who talked about PTSD,” Moulton said. “It’s my goal to make sure everybody in the military gets help.
“We have bipartisan support that every combat veteran gets seen by a mental health professional within 21 days (of them returning from combat).”
Moulton doesn’t think the country is ready for the type of universal healthcare Sanders espouses.
“First of all,” he said, “anything he proposes would have to get past people like me (in Congress). Medicare for all, right now, would not pass in a Democratic House.”
However, he said, “I believe healthcare is a fundamental human right … but I don’t personally care for the Medicare-for-all approach.”
Moulton said there is something to be said for the capitalist system, even when it comes to health care.
“There does need to be a public option to all these private insurance companies, just so there’s competition,” he said. “You always want competition. If you have a choice, it’s better.”
On the eve of Super Tuesday, where 14 state primaries (including Massachusetts) and the American Samoa caucuses will take place, amounting to 1,357 pledged delegates — 33.8 percent of the nationwide total — Moulton delivered the following admonition: “Take a stake in Democracy. This matters. It matters certainly more than it ever has in my lifetime.”