PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Detroit native John Deaton is running for the U.S. Senate as a "champion for other underdogs."

 

"I have a unique background," he said. "I was born and raised in one of the worst neighborhoods in America, a place called Highland Park, Detroit. Single mother, welfare, food stamps, dad abandoned us in this really bad area, and surrounded by violence all my life."

 

The Republican party candidate traveled to Pittsfield from Worcester County last Saturday for a meet and greet at Mazzeo's Ristorante. iBerkshires sat down with him before the event.

 

He outlined the poverty, violence and abuse that encompassed his upbringing and how he defied the odds, eventually becoming a judge advocate at a Marine Corps Air Station. This is detailed in his memoir "Food Stamp Warrior."

 

Deaton, who lived in Rhode Island before moving to Massachusetts in January, has practiced law in the surrounding states for more than 20 years, representing mesothelioma and cancer victims against Fortune 100 companies.

 

He will face off in the Republican primary on Sept. 3 against tech investor Ian Cain of Quincy and technology engineer and conspiracy theorist Robert J. Antonellis, but his focus is on the state's Democratic senior senator. He wants to challenge incumbent Elizabeth Warren's "extreme politics" with this bid.

 

"It's her approach. She's great at one thing, fighting against things and issues and people," he said. "For example, she's great at fighting against the rich and the wealthy but that's not the same as fighting for things. It's not the same as fighting for poor people and middle-class people and working families.

 

He added that Warren's approach is "fundamentally flawed, as you don't need to tear people down to uplift others. Her "far left" policies are also not palatable for the candidate, who wants to secure the border, end catch and release, and fight to reform the asylum process while expanding legal immigration.

 

"You can't just allow people, millions and millions of people, to come in when you don't have the money and the infrastructure set up," Deaton said. "And this state is paying the price for that extreme, far-left position. We are going bankrupt. It's going to cost between [$1 billion] and $2 billion for the migrants in the commonwealth."

 

He also disagrees with Warren's support of the Green New Deal, a set of environmental and energy proposals. He recognizes that climate change is an issue but "you can't put that kind of arbitrary deadlines on American companies when climate change is a global thing."

 

"You can't handicap American business and entrepreneurs while China, India, Russia, anyone else around the world, gets to not be subject to the same kind of restrictions," he said.

 

"You just can't do that. All you're doing is disadvantaging America."

 

Her support of student loan forgiveness also raises red flags for the candidate, as "the plan that she supports, 750,000 families with an income of over $320,000 per year benefits from the plan." For Deaton, this is "political gimmickry" and does not help the people.

 

"You wanna know what the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is today, for personal bankruptcy? Medical debt. Something I know about because I represent people who have cancer — 66 percent of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by medical debt so what I'm saying is, if you were focused on helping people, you would help them with that," he said, explaining that people can choose to go to college but don't choose to have cancer (of which he is a survivor.)

 

Deaton added that loan forgiveness does not address the root of the problem, which is higher education.  

 

"All that's going to do is cause the education institutions to jack up tuition more because, oh, the government will bail people out," he said.

 

"It's going to cause people now to take out student loans, thinking, 'Well, they bailed those people out, they'll bail me out too,' and then they start taking loans that maybe they shouldn't take. It's a flawed system that doesn't mean that I don't favor programs that will help people."

 

As a father to three daughters, the Republican candidate is pro-choice and "incapable of supporting laws that inhibit women's rights."

 

"I agree with [Warren,] that it is an issue as a father," he said.

 

"And you know, it's funny, people are going to think that I'm at a disadvantage because I'm a white man talking to a woman. No, I'm a father of three daughters. You want to see someone who's gonna fight for women? Send a father of three daughters."

 

When asked how he responds to anti-abortion views within the political party, Deaton simply stated that he has a backbone and would say, "I don't have a loyalty to a party or a person or a cause." He explained that he will have one test when it comes to issues: is it good for Massachusetts and America?

 

"I'm going to show people what a real fighter looks like now and maybe that's the Marine in me talking," he said.

 

He also believes in term limits and feels that U.S. senators should get 12 years to bring change before giving another person a chance.

 

Deaton explained that his mother — his hero — was born into generational poverty and had a sixth-grade education.  When she caught him crying because he wanted to finish high school and go to college, she put her arms around him and said, "That's not for people like us. I'm sorry, son."

 

"My mother was stabbed when I was 6, in front of me. All my family, high school dropouts," he said. "My first day of high school, I had a .38 shoved in my mouth and so the next day, I was a high school dropout and desperately wanted to go to college, but obviously couldn't attend that school."

 

After that, he found a private high school that gave him a shot when he worked to pay the tuition. Following high school, he was accepted to Boston's New England School of Law and realized he was the American dream.

 

He enlisted in the Marine Corps and was selected to represent Massachusetts over students from surrounding law schools, including Harvard, for the 1994 Judge Advocate contract.

 

He also served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Arizona and then became an evidence and trial advocacy instructor at the Naval Justice School and Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

 

Deaton medically retired in 2002 after suffering a non-combat injury and received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Navy Marine Corps Commendation Medal for his service.

 

The candidate said that when you look at the Senate, you don't see people like himself who overcame poverty and still struggled to pay bills into their late 40s even though they were doing everything right.

 

"I've become successful, I have money, I'm a good father and represent everything possible in a great country if you're willing to work for it and you're given the opportunity, which I was," he said.

 

"And I see that dream dying. I look on the news or pay attention, I don't recognize the country and where we're headed, the division that we have, and I felt compelled to sort of get in the race."