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Hello, my name is Leslie and I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.

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This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, why not today?

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I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often said, why not today?

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I am based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, DC.

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And thanks for joining us today.

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I'm super excited to have Merritt Hale as my guest today.

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And before we hear from Merritt, I always like to talk about connections and you never

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know where you're going to meet somebody that's going to lead you to the person to connect

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with you in your life.

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I was just actually getting my hands done earlier and sat next to a lady and stuck up

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a conversation and we had all these things in common and you just never know.

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So it's just being friendly and talking to people and building those connections.

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So I'm really excited that we have Merritt Hale here today.

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And I know Merritt because of his mother.

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His mother is actually a Mary Kay consultant on my team and we were just trying to decide

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how long ago it was.

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It was a while ago.

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Merritt is only 28 years old and he's got some exciting things going on.

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I was talking to his mom the other day and she was telling me what was happening.

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I'm like, I would love to hear his story and what courage means to him and why he said

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why not today.

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So before we start, why don't you introduce yourself Merritt, tell us a little about you

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and a fun fact that people might not ever know about you.

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Absolutely.

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Well, thank you very much for having me, Leslie.

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My name is Merritt Hale.

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The big thing I'm doing with my life right now is running for Congress in Virginia's

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sixth congressional district.

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I grew up in Virginia, born and raised my whole life.

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I went to the University of Virginia, served as a naval officer for four years.

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I got out, worked as a systems engineer supporting the intelligence community before running

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for Congress.

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And let's see, one fun fact I guess would be that I was a cheerleader in college.

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Really?

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Interesting fact.

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And I don't think I knew you went to UU.

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I actually went to Virginia Tech.

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So rivals there.

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Yeah, and I don't know if I knew that you were in the Navy.

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So that's kind of cool too.

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You know, your mom and I have kind of known each other, but lost touch and not talk that

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often, kind of loose track.

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And as we were talking about when we started, like you were a little kid with your mom started

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Mary Kay.

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It's kind of fun to watch people grow up.

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All of a sudden it's like, we're not getting old, but you guys are.

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So before we kind of hear your story and what you're doing running for Congress, like that's

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super exciting.

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And I so admire you at 28 years old.

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You're the second person we've had on a podcast running for an office, which I, as I said,

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really admire because that is definitely not me.

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So for you, what does courage mean to you?

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Being able to do the hard things in the face of adversity.

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And I think a lot of that comes from knowing what your core beliefs are and being able to

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stand by those beliefs when the world challenges you with whatever inevitable life circumstances

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the world will throw at you.

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And you're fairly young and you've had some hard things happen with your dad.

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That's definitely not an easy thing.

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I've heard from your mom, so that was definitely a hard journey and having to be courageous.

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And I'm sure being doing hard things and courageous things to help your mom and support her.

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What's happened with your dad?

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Absolutely.

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So let's talk about what have you done in your life that took courage.

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So right now you're running for Congress.

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So talk about that.

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Tell us the story behind that.

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Yes, absolutely.

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So as I said, I got out of the Navy.

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I was working as an assistant engineer and I never pictured myself getting into politics.

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What got me into it was my dad, which you alluded to.

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He was diagnosed with degenerative brain disease, Alzheimer's, and he passed away on December

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24th, which was Christmas Eve of this year.

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It was incredibly hard on my mom and myself, my family, my sister.

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And obviously losing a loved one is never easy and he was a massive impact on my life.

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He was a great father, like the best you could hope for.

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But what made the situation even worse for our family was having to deal with the VA

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and all the other government bureaucracies surrounding the healthcare system.

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And that's what inspired me to run for Congress was I didn't want any family to have to go

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through what my family went through.

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When you're losing a loved one and going through those challenges in life, you don't

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want extra burdens from the government and systems that are supposed to be taking care

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of those loved ones.

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They shouldn't be a hindrance.

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They shouldn't be something additional on top of that stress.

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So that's what got me into it.

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But obviously running for Congress is a small commitment.

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It can be very nasty and people take very personal attacks at you.

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Thankfully, we haven't had much of that yet, but there's always the potential and you have

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to really choose what's important to you and do that self-reflection.

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So tell me, so was it like, okay, one day you just woke up and thought, I'm going to

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run for Congress?

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Or what was the motivating factor?

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I love people's stories.

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What motivated you to say, okay, I'm going to do this?

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Yeah.

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So as I said, I've always followed politics, but being up close and personal and seeing

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the effect that it can have on people's lives is what really motivated me to do it.

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So the idea was in my head.

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To me, my faith is very important to me.

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And I felt that tug, like this is kind of a calling.

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Like I feel like this is where I'm being led to go to go serve.

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And then obviously you have to do your research, figure out if it's plausible if you can have

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enough money and the resources and the time.

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And as I said, just having, you have to have the support of your family and your loved ones

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because no one can do it by themselves.

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And it's going to take a toll on everyone around you that you're doing this.

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And you have to make sure that they're up for it with you.

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And once they gave me their blessing, I said, all right, that's all I need.

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I'm in it.

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Let's go do this and hopefully make an impact for people.

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So when did you make this decision?

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Right around after my father died, early January.

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And then what did that look like?

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How do you run for Congress?

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Like, what do you have to do?

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Yeah, there's no Google form that says this is how you run for Congress.

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They intentionally make it very hard.

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You know, the good old boy system is not meant.

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Congress is supposed to be representative of the people.

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No one's supposed to be able to do it, but it's become such a system where you have to

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pay thousands of dollars just to set up a campaign, much less to actually run it and

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do all the marketing and advertising you need to do for it.

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So you have to, we had to get 1500 signatures, 1000 technically, but they throw out some

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to get on the ballot.

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So we did good old fashioned door knocking and get out in the community, meet people.

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You have to set up all sorts of regulations with the FEC and the IRS and all the nice

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little government agencies to qualify and make sure you're following campaign finance.

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And that's all the technical stuff, but the fun part's been just meeting people, getting

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out in the community and really seeing what affects everyday people, what's important

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to them and how much of an impact you can have in your government.

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And so where is the district that you're running?

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Yes, it's a very long district, which is a lot of fun to drive with gas prices the way

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they are, but every 10 years they do redistricting, so it's the new six district.

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So it's Clark and Frederick counties, which are some of the northernmost counties in Virginia

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on the western side, all the way down to Roanoke, so the 81 corridor basically.

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And how many people are in that district?

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It's almost 800,000 I believe, about 540,000 of those are registered voters.

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Yeah, so it's quite a good number of people and I think a lot of people don't realize,

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especially in off-year primaries, it's only a few thousand people who come out and vote

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and out of those hundreds of thousand who actually get to choose who represents them.

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So it's crucial that people get involved because obviously you're not going to agree with everything

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any politician says, but you need to get involved and hold our elected officials accountable.

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And that's how our system's supposed to work.

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What does that look like to get on the ballot?

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So what have you done so far and what do you need to do?

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Yeah, so getting on the ballot, as I said, the biggest hurdle is getting those signatures.

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So you have to go out, we did get that, that took a lot of time.

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It sounds simple to get 15,000 signatures, but you have to make sure they're all registered.

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You have to make sure, yes, 15, sorry, 1500.

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That was like 1000s a lot.

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Yeah, yes it is.

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We have to make sure they're registered voters and you have to compare it contrasted to the

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registered voter list.

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And you have to make sure that they're legible, which is another fun thing.

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So did you travel up and down all the way and hit all different areas on 81?

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Because that's a lot of area.

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Or just constantly on your area.

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Yeah, so for door knocking, we focused a lot on the northern part just because it's easier

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as far as driving.

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But I've done a ton of campaigning throughout the entire district.

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I've been down in Roanoke and Battata and the central part of the district, Harrisonburg,

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and Rockingham, you learn all the places and all the other places very well.

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But I mean, I've lived in the area my entire life.

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I know the area, but it's a lot of travel.

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Yeah, so now that you're on the ballot now, is that correct?

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Yes.

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You voted in with primaries?

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Yes.

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So you're running against you?

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What does that look like?

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Yes, so I'm facing an incoming congressman.

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He was the representative of the old sixth district, which is now the new sixth district.

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He's been in there since 2018.

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He's been in politics for about 20 years.

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Career politician, nice guy, but it's me and him in the primary.

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Then the winner of that will move on to face the Democrat, Jennifer Lewis in the general

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election in November.

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Okay, and so when's the primary?

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June 21st.

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Okay, so you're coming up soon?

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Yes, but early voting.

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It's a good time.

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Hopefully we can share it.

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Absolutely, absolutely.

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Early voting has already started, so they changed up the rules a little bit with all the COVID

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regulations so people can already go out and cast their ballots.

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So it's a sprint to the finish here.

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Right.

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Oh, that's exciting.

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So in my eyes, you're super young to be running for Congress, but is that a true fact?

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Are people running that young or are you below the average age or above?

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Yeah, so obviously most people in Congress are a lot more old than I am.

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We'll put it that way.

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But there are younger people than me who are in Congress.

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Madison Cawthorn, who he just actually lost his second election, but he was younger than

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me, 25.

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Bo Heinz, I believe, he was just elected at 26.

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AOC was elected, I believe, when she was 26 or 27.

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So yeah, there are definitely people younger than me.

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They call them the baby of the house.

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Yeah, well, I bet.

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But it's rare.

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Yeah.

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So I've actually had the privilege with being with Mary Kaye, to lobby on Capitol Hill on

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behalf of Mary Kaye, which has been really cool to have that opportunity.

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And we've met with Congressional offices and Senators Office.

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And honestly, who you meet with, I always say they're 12-year-olds, but they're 20-somethings

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right out of college is who you really talk to.

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So I'm sure it's a breath of fresh air to have somebody young in there.

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So I interviewed somebody, I don't know if you've listened to this episode, but you'll

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have to check it out.

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Maybe I'll connect you guys.

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Sarah White, who is running for representative in false church.

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And then there's somebody else I know that might be a good connection of just grassroots.

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It's another Mary Kaye consultant.

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Her husband ran for treasurer or something in their county.

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I'm not sure the exact title.

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What is, but it was, they live in Grundy, Virginia.

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Do you know where that is?

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Did you discover that part of Virginia?

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I'm not familiar off the top of my head with that.

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So it's still in Virginia, but it takes you all day to get there.

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So it's past Blacksburg, all the way down.

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I think you actually, I went through tennis back to West Virginia or Tennessee to get

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there.

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It's way down the end.

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And it's a very, very cool area.

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They've got howlers.

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And it was like one gas station and one hotel in the town, but he ran against an incumbent

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that had been in office forever.

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And it was knocking on doors and they had all the money, the incumbent had all the money

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and they didn't.

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And he won, but it was knocking on doors and nobody thought he'd win.

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And they basically told him, don't even bother making like a banner for election day because

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nobody's going to pay attention to that thing, but he won the election.

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So I did the good resource to talk to about somebody that's gone through and just knocked

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on doors and, you know, one person can make a difference and they tell one person and

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they tell them one person and it's just, you know, growing it that way.

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You just never know.

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100%.

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And that's one of the benefits of the modern age is we have social media and technology

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and the incumbencies aren't as entrenched as not so much the good old boy networks and

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the smoke filled rooms anymore.

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It's a lot easier to get your message out there and people can easily compare and contrast

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your different ideas.

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And I think that's a really good thing for our country.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So when you made the decision, like have you been all in or have you thought, what the

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heck am I doing?

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Yeah, no, I've been all in.

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I mean, once you commit to something of that level, you can't go in halfway.

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You've got to be all in.

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It's not fair to the people who you're going through this with and your supporters if you're

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not going all the way in.

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So that's not to say that aren't days that are very hard or disappointing.

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And they're obviously are days that you're riding high and feeling good, but you got

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to get through the lows and not get too high with the highs and just stay low ahead and

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keep going on forward with it.

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So is there anything that you've regretted not doing in your life that you're like, I

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wish I would have done that or I didn't mind you that or?

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Not on a massive scale.

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I mean, there's always like relationships with people that you wish you could have said

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something different or, you know, isolated events.

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But for the most part, as I said, I was very blessed to be raised with a very good family

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and parents who gave me the support structure I need.

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And to me, I said this in the military to my people, you can kind of start backwards

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with how you define the outlook of your life and to your point, what courage is.

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I'll get is what happens when you die and if you have that faith figure, God, whatever

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you want to call a religion, if that's what's important to you, like follow that code and

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you can't really go wrong.

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I mean, life's going to be scary and there's going to be bad things.

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But if it's in the for a greater purpose, then that's kind of self reassuring and that

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kind of gives you a clarity to go do what you need to do.

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Yeah, leave that legacy, make a difference.

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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Because we only, you know, none of us know if we're going to be gifted tomorrow.

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So you might as well make a difference today.

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No, we're not going to really talk about what happened yesterday because that's what we

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are missing and sad, but yeah, you just never know.

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And yeah, life is short.

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I mean, how old was your father when he passed away?

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He was 77.

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He was born in 1944.

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A lot older than you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So my dad passed away nine years ago and he was probably about the same age, but I'm

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a lot older than you.

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But yeah, it's never easy losing a parent.

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I don't care how old you are.

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You know, one of the things talking about regrets is, and I tell people often, like,

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do the thing, make the connection, spend the time that people you care about because just

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like you know, you never know when they're not going to be around.

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And your dad with his brain disease was like, was there physically, but not always mentally?

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Absolutely.

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And yeah, I mean, I think anyone you ask will say with some of the laws, they, they regret

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not doing more with them.

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I was fortunate that my dad and I had a close relationship.

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But obviously, like hindsight being 20, 20, there's always the I wish I'd done, you know,

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something else more, but that'll always be there.

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And you just got to live true to yourself.

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Exactly.

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So what encouragement would you give to somebody else to do something courageous or be brave

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or say, why not today?

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I would say, know what you want and go get it.

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Know what's important to you.

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If you want to be the best painter and that's what defines who you are, go do it.

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Don't let anyone tell you not to.

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If you want to go be a preacher, astronaut, it doesn't matter.

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It's what's important.

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It's what's in your heart.

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You set your own course in life.

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Circumstances matter.

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But the person you are is irrelevant to those circumstances.

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You can always overcome what's around you and the most important things of person's

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character.

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So that's how we should get each other.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Absolutely.

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I'm actually reading a book and I wish I knew the author had it in front of me, but

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basically talking about your calling, what your calling is.

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So whether it's, she said a painter or a politician or a preacher, you know, whatever your calling

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is, that God has that calling for you and yet this book has a really good analogy.

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Like there's a whole puzzle put together and God has all our pieces out there.

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When we don't, we aren't true to our calling.

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Then that piece kind of falls apart in the whole scheme of things.

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And so, you know, when you're called and it's, you know, it's that nudge, just that God

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wink.

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It's the do the thing that's scary and we rarely regret do the thing that's scary.

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And I say this often on podcasts.

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I always tell people like, think about the outcome like, yeah, it's hard and it can be

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scary, but think about the day that you win the election and how exciting that's going

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to be.

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And I might be there cheering you on.

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Celebrate it with you.

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Absolutely.

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I think you're right.

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It's usually the things we don't do that we regret more than the things we do end up

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doing.

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Because even if you fail on what you're doing, yeah, exactly.

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Even if you fail on what you're doing, you're going to get something out of that experience

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and the journey there.

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But you don't gain a lot from sitting on the sidelines.

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Absolutely not.

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Yeah.

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So I've referenced many times a book that I read right before I started doing the podcast

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and it's called from Daniel Pink called Regrets.

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And just talking about we rarely regret the things that we do.

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It's more the things that we don't do.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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So I did this in honor of my father, who as I said passed away nine years ago and I

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started this podcast in his honor and he always said why not today and he was a problem

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solver.

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And so I always try to connect back and I interviewed somebody that like I never met

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your dad.

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I'm like a lot of people haven't.

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But when I do the interview, I try to kind of connect back to what I've heard your story.

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And I think one connection is the dad thing that we both have that connection with our

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dads.

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But also my dad didn't run for a big office but helped in the local community.

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And he was always a problem solver and he saw problems like okay, there's a way to solve

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this and I can definitely see that in you.

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And a very positive, faith filled young man that's just ready to tackle the world.

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And I think that's who my dad was.

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And it's fun to watch and I'm excited to cheer you on and watch.

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So tell us how can people find you?

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How can we support you?

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People I have people all over the listeners podcast.

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I'm actually, because my business is now virtual, I'm not home and nor at my house

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very often.

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I'm actually down near Roanoke right now, Smith Mountain Lake, which I know is not your

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district.

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I looked it up.

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It's right, but it's closed.

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Less than an hour from Roanoke.

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So tell us how people can find you and connect with you and support you.

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Absolutely.

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So if you go to MerrittHaleForCongress.com, I have a unique name, M-E-R-R-I-T-T-H-A-L-E.

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So not many other things will pop up, but MerrittHaleForCongress.

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You can check out my website.

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I try and lay out my values and my beliefs there.

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If anyone has any questions, they can feel free to reach out to me.

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On my website, I also have a Facebook and a Twitter at MerrittHale.

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And I would appreciate any of your listeners if they want to go check it out, follow along,

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maybe send a small donation if they believe in my message.

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I'd be incredibly humbled by that.

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Okay.

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So, and I will share how to contact you with show notes and stuff with the information.

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So yeah, as far as finding this podcast, we're on Spotify.

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We're on iTunes.

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I am working on a website.

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We're not quite there yet.

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We're going to have some fun merchandise.

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I just met with somebody today.

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We're going to have some cups and some t-shirts on why not today.

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And I really want to start a movement.

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Encouraging people just to say why not today?

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So thank you, Merritt, for joining me.

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It's been fun to kind of hear your story and we can't wait to cheer you on and hear the

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results.

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00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:31,240
And this podcast will air on Saturday, which is the 28th of May.

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So a good time to have this as it is Memorial Day weekend and you were in the military.

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So appropriate that it's at that time of the year.

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So thank you again.

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And I'm excited to have people hear your story.

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Actually, thank you so much for having me, Leslie.

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You are welcome.