By April Guilmer
Londonderry Times
April 8, 2010

Though a lifelong Republican, Congressional candidate Bob Bestani said he is more interested in addressing critical issues than following a particular party line.

Bestani, a resident of Newmarket, stopped by the Londonderry Times to discuss his campaign and his reasons for seeking his first political seat. He is running for the 1st District Congressional seat at currently held by Carol Shea-Porter, a Democrat.

“To sum it all up, my political philosophy is that government is important,” Bestani said. “Government is serious business. But government is also singularly bad at providing goods and services.

That philosophy, he noted isn’t limited to a political party, though Bestani noted he was “a Republican due to philosophical and historic reasons.”

“There truly isn’t a partisan bone in my body,” he said. “I believe market solutions are better than partisan.” It comes down to a market solution vs. a government solution. I’ve found that there are a good number of Independents and Democrats supporting me.

“Politics in America has become tribal and I find it reprehensible,” Bestani added. I don’t want to be Washington’s representative to the state. I want to be the state’s representative to Washington.”

Currently, a visiting scholar at the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at Stanford University, Bestani most recently served as Director General of Private Sector Finance at the Asian Development Bank. He previously held upper management and consulting positions at PricewaterHouseCoopers and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Married for 36 years, Bestani has two adult children.

Basically, I’ve been active in politics since age 17 but I never thought I’d run for Congress,” Bestani said last week. After I retired I began teaching at Stanford. Then the financial crisis happened. I was just amazed that no one in Washington was explaining things to anyone.”

As the nation’s economy tanked, Bestani began lecturing on the topic at Stanford and Harvard, and eventually brought his expertise to his hometown , where he appeared on public access television.

“There were many requests for me to lecture. It seemed that nobody in Congress which questions to ask. As I lectured, many suggested I run for office,” Bestani said. “ The more I thought about it the more it made sense.”

He sees three issues currently dominating the national agenda; economics and finance, energy and national security and foreign policy. He’s fluent in all three, thanks to his expertise and experience.

Regarding national security, Bestani noted that he was working at the U.S. Treasury when the first Gulf War began, though he supported that war, when the second Gulf War came about, he recalled “screaming at the television.

“Invading Iraq was the stupidest blunder I’ve ever seen” said Bestani, who speaks fluent Arabic and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and Asia.

When it comes to the nation’s financial situation, Bestani said, it is fiendishly complex. I think we very much need financial re-regulations. They’re beginning to talk about it but really are not even scratching the surface.”

A better solution he said, would be to get all the nation’s financial institutions working together.

“We need to pull together and collaborate. It’s of critical importance until we get the financial situation back to normal,” Bestani said.

He isn’t in favor of the federal stimulus program either.

“The track record hasn’t been promising. Ever since the New Deal, every stimulus package we’ve had has done virtually nothing to help the economy,” Bestani said.

Investing in infrastructure is a better solution, he said, noting the high number of red flagged bridges in the Granite State alone, and the dearth of current stimulus projects that focus on infrastructure. “We really need to create a national infrastructure bank.”

Likewise, Bestani said he was skeptical of President Obama’s healthcare bill, which he fears will bankrupt the country over the next 20 years.

“Its very sad that we have up to 40 million people in this country that are not insured, that can not be insured. But to put them all in the system all of a sudden will drive up costs even faster – it’s a simple example of supply and demand,” Bestani said.