"I wore my red tie today," he said to the Lantern editorial staff with a grin.
Stivers, the Republican candidate for Ohio's 15th Congressional District, which covers western Franklin County and Madison and Union counties, is an Ohio State graduate. He completed both his undergraduate degrees in economics and international relations, as well as his master's in business at OSU.
"I was a student here and I know that OSU students are what make Columbus great," Stivers said. "I want to work to make sure I am the OSU representative."
Stivers has been an Ohio state senator for the past six years. After Republican congresswoman Deborah Pryce announced in August 2007 that she would not seek another term, Stivers initially declined to run for her seat.
He changed his mind last November and has since been fund-raising and campaigning.
"Washington is broken," Stivers said. "Republicans all blame Democrats and Democrats all blame Republicans. We need a moderate agenda."
Stivers prides himself on his work with both political parties while in Congress.
"I helped to sponsor a bill with Ray Miller, the Democratic minority leader, that helps people with disabilities," he said. "I've also worked with Gov. Strickland, who is a Democrat, to budget bills that have helped freeze college tuitions."
Deep partisanship is the biggest obstacle for politicians, Stivers said.
"We've got to start talking to each other, learning from each other and moving forward," he said.
Stivers plans on working with both parties to focus on three main issues: jobs, energy independence and college affordability.
"We're in big trouble here in Ohio and nationally," he said. "We need to get the economy moving again, so you can get jobs."
Innovation is important to his employment plan, Stivers said, and he hopes to increase the number of math and science technical high schools in Ohio.
"Good ideas and intellect are hard to outsource," he said. "Everything starts with good ideas."
Higher-skilled workers as well as lifelong workers are important to economic independence as well, Stivers said. One way he wants to encourage economic independence is through workforce development.
"Right now, workforce development programs are so disjointed and don't make sense," he said. "We need to fix them and make sure that displaced workers automatically get workforce development. Job training is key."
Stivers' focus on energy independence is also part of his plan to create more jobs.
"One of my plans is to raise miles per gallon on every fleet by two miles a gallon a year for the next six years," he said. "So that's 12 miles per gallon in that time."
Stivers' plan to creating jobs is partly designed to benefit college students. First, he plans to help them pay for the education needed to attain these jobs.
"I have a multi-tiered approach to this," he said. "I support refundable tax credit and I'm looking to expand student loans and expand access to loans."
Stivers, whose military service helped pay his OSU loans, said he would like to expand employment repayment programs to such as Teach for America. These programs allow students' work to pay directly for their loans.
Another part of college affordability that concerns Stivers is the cost of textbooks.
"I know that this drives students crazy," he said. "You pay $80 for a book and you get about $10 or $12 back when you return it."
Stivers also proposes using the Freedom of Information Act to let students know in advance what textbooks they will need. Students can often order their books online at a lower price, but sometimes do not find out what books they need until the first day of class, he said.
Stivers said he will continue to reach out to OSU in the remaining weeks until the election.
"OSU is very important to the campaign. It's a decent chunk of voters," he said. "We've got a Buckeyes for Stivers student organization and we're looking to get more members. I'm speaking to the Politics, Society and Law group tonight and going to the OSU Republicans meeting."
He said he was willing to go to the OSU Democrats meeting as well, "but I don't think they'd let me in," he said.
As the election nears, there is one thing that remains on Stivers' mind:
"I'm pretty excited about going to the Michigan game," he said. "And about kicking Michigan's tail."
Stivers' position on the Iraq war
Stivers has 23 years of service in the National Guard and served for nearly a year in Iraq.
"I know what soldiers go through, so I will think things through more," Stivers said. "Congress is the one who can declare war and I'm the one who will ask the tough questions."
Stivers believes that the recent troop surges have worked, but supports troop withdrawals of 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers.
"I oppose a time-table," he said. "But I want to get soldiers home as soon as possible."
Stivers' response to Kilroy's attacks
The Kilroy campaign calls attention to Stivers' seven-year career at Bank One. According to The Dispatch, Kilroy has called Stivers "a career banking lobbyist" and said that he promotes "the kind of lax governmental oversight that [he] blames for the meltdown of some of the country's largest financial institutions."
Stivers does not deny his work for Bank One, but insists it was a positive organization.
"I'm proud of the work I've done [with Bank One] and proud to have worked for an organization that helped make jobs here in Ohio," Stivers said.
Megan Savage can be reached at savage.119@osu.edu.
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