Bobbi Mlynar really captures the key points in this well-written and well- researched article that appeared in the Emporia gazette today.
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2010/may/13/campaign-coffee-and-questions/
Here is the link for the full version
Campaign, coffee, and questions
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A small group of area residents were at Bruff’s Bar and Grill Tuesday morning for an informal question-and-answer session with Rob Wasinger of Cottonwood Falls, who is running for the First District congressional seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran.
Moran is giving up his seat to run for the U.S. Senate job that will be vacated by Sen. Sam Brownback at the end of this term.
Wasinger has been knocking on doors in Emporia to talk with voters and estimated he had contacted 500 to 600 so far. The face-to-face campaign is necessary to get his message to the voters and listen to their opinions.
“I got a lot of people running against me in the field,” Wasinger said.
Most of them have only announced their candidacies, with only three listed as having filed officially.
As of Wednesday, the Kansas Secretary of State’s office showed Sue Holloway Boldra, Marck Cobb and Tim Huelskamp, all Republicans, have filed for the Big First seat.
Wasinger grew up in Hays, where he attended public schools, mowed lawns, carried newspapers and worked as a dishwasher at local restaurants until his sophomore year in high school. Then, a teacher suggested he apply for admission to a boarding school on the East Coast, according to Wasinger’s website. The website does not name the school.
He was accepted and given a full scholarship, with room and board, plus plane tickets to travel back and forth to Kansas.
After boarding school, he was accepted at Harvard University and, using grants and scholarships, graduated with a degree in economics.
Wasinger has worked for several politicians since he graduated from Harvard University.
When he returned to Kansas with his new wife, Meghan, he worked as a constituent services representative for Gov. Bill Graves until 1995, when he joined Moran’s staff. The following year, he went to work for Brownback’s senatorial campaign and, after the election, worked for Brownback in Washington, D.C. By 2003, he had been named legislative director and soon after, he became chief of staff.
About a year ago, the Wasingers and their nine children returned to Kansas and bought a house in Cottonwood Falls.
Wasinger identifies himself as a conservative Republican.
“My main message is economic growth and prosperity,” Wasinger said. “… I’m kind of a less-government guy. Build the roads, defend the homeland, get out of our lives.”
He told the group that he is a proponent of the 10th Amendment, the last of the Bill of Rights, which states that powers not granted by the Constitution to the national government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or the people.
Rights lost
Wasinger objected to government intrusion into private business, such as smoking bans and obesity task forces.
“All these bad ‘nanny’ states (leaders) don’t apply these laws to themselves,” he said, pointing out that the Kansas smoking ban exempts state-owned casinos.
He asked Bruff’s owner Gary Burgess whether Emporia’s smoking ban had affected business.
“We laid off — well, we didn’t lay ’em off — we fired seven people,” Burgess said.
Receipts are down about $240,000 for the year the ban has been in effect, he said.
Wasinger said that state leaders should have focused on solving budget problems.
“Instead of doing that, they pass all these moral issues,” he said.
Wasinger said he believes that government intrudes too far into citizens’ lives when it withholds federal highway funds for states that do not enact certain laws, such as seat belt use, drinking age and speed limits.
“And the federal government is routinely tying up all these things,” Wasinger said, explaining that the monies withheld have been paid in by American taxpayers. “We pay every time we pump gas.”
Wasinger said he believes that decisions should be left to the smallest basic unit of government, and that taxpayers are tiring of Democrats and Republicans who use “every excuse” to manipulate the people. He is encouraged that some incumbents already are going down to defeat in primary elections.
“I think there’s a real chance to send that limited government message across the country,” he said. “… That’s not what government’s there for.”
Doug White, among those who attended, told Wasinger, “It’s déjà vu all over again. We hear this every four years, every six years.”
Wasinger said that people are paying more attention to the actions of Congress and that that elections are showing the actions have consequences.
Patriot Act
White asked Wasinger’s opinion of the Patriot Act, approved on a 99-1 vote soon after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Wasinger said he had been in Washington, D.C., when the attacks occurred and had seen the jet gliding into the Pentagon.
“(There were) some good ideas in it, but I think it went too far, in terms of civil surveillance,” Wasinger said.
He said he favored scaling back the Act.
Immigration
Wasinger predicted that the immigration issue could come up before the elections later this year. He said that President Ronald Reagan’s amnesty policy for immigrants in the 1980s did not work, nor was the Bush-McCain-Kennedy immigration proposal workable.
He said the first stage to resolving the illegal immigration problem would be to secure the borders and reconfigure the entire visa process. He would support allowing enough agriculture and other necessary workers to fulfill the needs of the country.
He estimated that about 500,000 seasonal farm workers are needed annually by farmers. He would require the workers to return to their homes when the work is done.
Full resolution would be more difficult.
“At the end of the day, it’s impossible to put people on the plane and send them back,” he said.
Wasinger did not object to a law recently passed in Arizona to ferret out illegal immigrants by checking documentation.
“All they’re doing is enforcing laws already on the books,” Wasinger said. “We’ve got to get serious about securing the borders.”
Wasinger also took time to explain some of the differences between his views and those of Emporian Jim Barnett, a state senator who ran for governor in the last gubernatorial election and who also is campaigning for Moran’s seat.
“He’s kind of a big-government liberal Republican who tries to regulate every part of our lives,” Wasinger said. “… That’s not what we send people to Washington to do.”
More information about Wasinger and his policy statements may be had by calling (620) 273-8400 or visiting www.RobWasinger.com.
“If there’s something you care about you don’t see, just give me a call,” Wasinger said.
