When he wasn’t in season as Nicholls State University’s starting quarterback, Craig McCulloch would wake up every morning at 4:35 a.m. to go work in the oil fields of Louisiana’s bayous, digging up pipes and doing whatever else the “low guy on the totem poll” was told to do.
“I’ve worked hard all my life, and I was going to get a college education because I didn’t want to be in the mud and the muck of the oil fields like I was or building cages at the zoo, that sort of thing,” McCulloch said. “I know what the value of a dollar is and I’m going to do what I have to do.”
After three years at Nicholls, McCulloch transferred to LSU’s Health Sciences Center in New Orleans to attend physical therapy school. He opened a clinic in 1984 and has been operating his own small business for 30 years.
McCulloch prides himself on his entrepreneurial experience as well as his nature as a Washington-outsider, an asset many of his fellow candidates have also prominently trumpeted in their campaigns.
“I’m not making stuff up,” McCulloch said. “I’m a small business guy. I think people want that. The career politicians haven’t been real successful as far as what they’ve done, you know, the way the country’s going right now.”
McCulloch is a supporter of congressional term limits, and he plans to stay in Washington no more than 10 years, should he be elected.
McCulloch credits Congress’ $1.1 trillion spending bill in January as bringing him “up off the couch” and inspiring him to run.
“You can’t keep spending into oblivion, kicking the can down the road,” McCulloch said. “It’s falling back on our kids and grandkids.”
McCulloch said the harvesting of more domestic oil and gas opportunities could potentially provide a solution to the current international dilemma of Russia’s presence in the Crimean peninsula.
McCulloch said part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power in the region is his monopoly on such natural resources and advocated for the United States to deliver its own oil and gas to Ukraine.
“We could open up the oil and gas here and start shipping it over there,” McCulloch said. “That would put a stop to a lot of that because [Putin] wouldn’t have such control over those people.”
On social issues, McCulloch said he was opposed to abortion and expressed strong views on the subject of gay marriage as well.
“Gay marriage — I can answer that in five words,” McCulloch said. “One man, one woman, period.”
McCulloch is a staunch defender of the Second Amendment and said one of the best ways to ensure gun safety was to properly train children how to deal with firearms.
“My dad taught me how to use a gun before I was in elementary school,” McCulloch said. “And that’s what I think a lot of it needs to be done is education with the kids at home.”
McCulloch said his many professional encounters through his clinic have taught him the skills necessary to work on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
However, the strong conservative acknowledged there was “give and take on both sides.”
“I have certain principles that I abide by and I won’t compromise on those,” McCulloch said.

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Craig McCulloch