(Shippensburg) — In a partially secluded corner of a bustling diner, former Coast Guard Captain Art Halvorson assures voters that his campaign against Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Briar) for the 9th District House seat is, in fact, going very well.

“The easiest way to tell is by watching my opponent, see what he’s doing,” Halvorson says. “The harder he works, the more successful I know I’m being.”

He takes a sip of his coffee. “And he’s working pretty hard. He’s spending a lot of money.”

Halvorson feels that the biggest success of his campaign so far was his ability to, essentially, hit the ground running. In just one year, he says he went from “zero to 60” and he’s been able to match Shuster and even exceed him on point after point. Shuster’s current constituents, according to Halvorson, also seem to be feeling that Halvorson could be a success.

“The constituents are on many different levels,” Halvorson says. “Some of them simply have no stomach for Shuster, they’re ready for a change. Just, regardless of who the candidate is, who the opponent is, they just want Shuster out of there.” On a different part of the spectrum, the small business owner says there are also candidates who are aware of Shuster’s beliefs and ideas and are ready to hear someone else’s. “Most people, at a very gut level, feel like it’s time,” he adds, in regards to ending what he has referred to as the “Shuster dynasty.”

Halvorson says that his strategy is to show the people of the 9th District Shuster’s record and to let them know who he really is. He continually referred to the Congressman as a “big government guy” in a Jeffersonian area where the people are independent-minded and much more about small government. While Shuster does vote pro-life and pro-guns, Halvorson says he’s never really advocated for them.

All of this together means that Shuster cannot and does not accurately represent the 9th District, says Halvorson.

Recently, Shuster scored the 1,000 signatures he needed to be the first candidate on the ballot for PA-9. Halvorson brushed this off.

“We’re basically there now,” he says, though he didn’t have an exact number. “That’s not gonna win him the election, that just gets him on the ballot. I’m gonna be on the ballot too, so it’s no problem.”

Halvorson and Shuster also had a mini-battle over the airwaves. Halvorson released his radio ad accusing Shuster of “inventing new ways to tax us” through his support of a proposal that would place black boxes in everyone’s vehicles, track their mileage and tax them for it. Shuster fired back with a “Negative Nancy” radio ad aimed at Halvorson that called him out for lying about Shuster and running a negative campaign when he said that he wouldn’t.

“He’s trying to talk about the federal fuels tax, I’m trying to talk about the vehicle mileage tax,” Halvorson says, adding that Shuster is attempting to confuse people by changing terms, namely on his Halvorson Fact Checker web site.

“I’m running on his record,” Halvorson says. “And I’m forcing him to run on his record. His record is negative, so his conclusion: it’s a negative campaign.”

In response to critics who claim that Halvorson cannot represent the 9th District because he doesn’t know the area as well as someone who has lived there longer, the candidate says he and his family have been coming to Bedford County and the southern area of the district since the early 1980s. “I have been familiar with this region for my entire military career,” he says.

“I come from a blue collar working class family, and so my values almost directly one-for-one reflect the values of this community.” He maintains that Shuster merely wears the values and doesn’t truly believe them.

Halvorson also had an official response to the amateur survey put out by the third PA-9 candidate, Travis Schooley, where Halvorson’s name wasn’t even among the choices that those surveyed could choose. “Unless it’s validated by an official third party pollster, it needs to be ignored,” he says.

When asked if he would still be up to doing a debate with Shuster, Halvorson replies, “I’ve been asking to debate for a year, or since last year.”

A couple of things on Halvorson’s list for his campaign in the near future: he wants to finish up his petitions so he can get on the ballot. Later in the day he has an interview with a radio program in Altoona and another one on Monday morning. He appears a few times a month on the Kelly Spinner show in Franklin and tries to maintain a strong presence in local newspapers through press releases, letters and op-eds. The campaign also goes door-to-door with materials to directly engage voters, which Halvorson says is the essence of his grassroots strategy.