Why an Ivy League-educated former clown is running for Congress
Steve Lough says he is offended by assertions that Washington operates like a circus filled with clowns. As someone who spent most of his life working as a clown, Lough thinks Washington would probably be better off if clowns did have a say in the country's governance.
At 52, after 31 years as a professional clown, he's throwing his hat into the ring, running in the Democratic primary in South Carolina's 5th Congressional District.
"I was looking at that and was like, well who is going to help the working people? And I was like, well you know everybody talks about how Trump is a clown -- you know Trump had been in a year, almost at this point -- everybody's talking about how it's a clown car," Lough said in an interview.
"'The cabinet's a clown car and and Congress is a circus. Who's in the clown car this week?' And I was like if you guys had any idea how well run the circus is -- because I used to do set up and tear down and all the other extra jobs to make money, right? And so, I was personally insulted."
"I've got a lot of great clown friends. They are some of the best people in the entire world. And if you guys want to meet any of them I'll introduce you to all of them," Lough continued. "Clowns are the most, they're one of the most, at least my friends are, that are good, are long-suffering," he continued. "They care about children's welfare. They care about entertaining all of the audience -- it doesn't matter, rich, poor. If you laugh, you're welcome. And if you don't laugh, then we consider it our problem. We need to figure out how to get you to laugh."
Lough, a 1987 Dartmouth College graduate -- he says his mom just wanted her children to go to school and do whatever made them happy afterwards -- decided to make the bid for Congress when he was laid off in December 2017 from a job he'd had for 10 years, doing anti-bullying shows at elementary schools through the McDonald's Corporation. After that, Lough moved with his wife from North Carolina, where he had been working as a clown, back to South Carolina's 5th Congressional District and into his mom's old house, giving them time to figure out life's next steps.
Lough, who for years worked for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, had long been interested in politics. He says he volunteered for Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns. And he's long shared his political views on Facebook, particularly on the two issues about which he is most passionate -- providing universal health care access and preventing gun violence. For him, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012 was a turning point, and he started reading as much as he could about guns and gun violence. One day after he was laid off last year, one of Lough's friends suggested he just run for Congress, since he has so many opinions on things.
"And somebody said 'well hell, why don't you just run for Congress?'"
So, he is.
Getting elected won't be easy. The Republican-leaning county is represented by GOP Rep. Ralph Norman, who won in a special election after President Trump tapped the county's former congressman, Mick Mulvaney, to head up the Office of Management and Budget. To make it to the November election, Lough has to beat fellow Democrat Archie Parnell, an attorney who has worked for the Department of Justice and Goldman Sachs, in the June 12 primary.
Lough explained he's already had opposition from the "machine," as he calls it -- the Democratic establishment. In a sense, that's why he's running -- he feels like both the Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger are too well-heeled financially to represent people well.
Lough said he was "getting hammered here by one of the other candidates," although he wouldn't name names.
"They were telling me to quit and there were some big shots telling me to get the hell out of the race and make way," he said.
But his Japanese father-in-law -- a father figure to Lough, whose own father died three months before his birth -- made him promise not to quit.
"He made me promise him on Skype that I would not quit, that I would fight for these people," Lough said. "And my father-in-law, he told me -- my wife's translating -- he said you've got to think like a samurai, right? There's a good death and there's a bad death. If you have a good death fighting for the right reasons, that's a good death. So it doesn't matter whether you win or lose this fight, but it matters how you fight this fight. And so he told me to fight."
Asked how he thinks any Democrat can win in South Carolina's 5th Congressional District, let alone someone like him without much name recognition, Lough had a simple answer.
"Well, I don't think they've ever met anybody like me before," he said.
Lough thinks his ability to relate to anyone, and treat them equally -- things he learned from his decades as a clown -- set him apart.
"One thing that I bring to the table is I think people aren't threatened by a clown, right?" Lough said. "I mean there's the whole coulrophobia thing -- fear of clowns. But I'm not wearing my nose and all that stuff. So people kind of dismiss you a little bit. Like 'Hey, clowney, stop clowning around!' So you're kind of non-threatening, right? And I can tell you from working in the circus, I worked right beside and sweated with people that spoke 26 different languages, setting up and tearing down."
"If you want to fight with a clown, then I'll give you a fight with a clown," Lough added. "And I'm going to fight for people who aren't even going to vote in this election. ...Those people deserve representation too. All the people who have given up, all the people who think politics doesn't matter, I'm fighting for them, too."