Who Will He Represent?

by Kerry Thomas

April 23, 2010

Why is Reid Ribble running for Congress in Wisconsin’s 8^th Congressional District? Who does he hope to represent if he’s elected?

Ribble lives in the 6^th District, not the 8^th. (see map) Oh, sure, he says he does business in the 8^th. I know quite a few people who do business in the 8^th but don’t live here. They’re not residents. They can’t vote here.

When I’m deciding where to shop, I try to do as much business as I can with the merchants who live in my community. They’re my neighbors, and I know them. They care more for the local community than does some chain store whose owners live outside my community. They actually have a vote in what happens locally.

If Ribble wants to run for Congress, he should run in the 6^th District where he lives.

Oh, but wait. Tom Petri represents the 6^th, and he’s a Republican, too. Not too conservative, but a Republican nevertheless. Ribble would upset the established career Republicans if he were to challenge Petri, a career politician who’s been in Congress for more than 30 years.

So, even though he doesn’t live here, Reid Ribble is running for the Republican nomination in the 8^th Congressional District because Democrat Steve Kagen currently represents this district. And Kagen’s vulnerable this year.

It’s sort of like Hillary Rodham Clinton running for the Senate in New York instead of Arkansas or Illinois, even though she’d never been a resident of New York.

In an editorial decrying “careerism” in Washington, Ribble wrote, “It’s time to vote [career politicians] out and not send just another carbon copy to replace them.”

I agree. We shouldn’t send just another carbon copy political insider to Washington. And Reid Ribble would be just another carbon copy. While his politics may be right-of-center, Reid Ribble is no conservative.

Ribble has already hired career political staffers and is consulting with career politicians, even as he decries “careerism.” He’s trying to pass himself off as someone who hasn’t soiled himself in the world of politics, despite his extensive lobbying efforts on behalf of the roofing Industry. (He’s lead the National Roofing Contractors Association, a lobbying organization that supported the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.)

If Ribble were actually serious about challenging “careerism” in Congress, he’d be running in the 6^th District, where he lives, against 30-year incumbent Republican Congressman Tom Petri. His actions speak louder than his hollow words.

I’m amazed by the number of people from outside the 8^th District who are trying to tell us who should represent us in Congress (including candidate Ribble).

The Western States Roofing Contractors Association, based in Mountain View, California, represents contractors west of the Rocky Mountains. They’re urging their members to support Ribble. Their newsletter says Ribble will be “one of their own.”

I guess they think Ribble will be representing them if he goes to Washington as a Congressman this time instead of as a lobbyist.

The DCCC held a big fundraiser for Steve Kagen – in Milwaukee. Not a good move on his part. Ribble kicked off his campaign with a fundraiser, too – in Chicago. Just 27% of Ribble’s financial support comes from the 8^th District, according to his latest FEC reports. The rest comes from places like Toledo, Ohio, Rosemont, Illinois, Vienna, West Virginia, Fresno, California, Dallas, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, Fort Lauderdale, Florida…the list goes on and on. All from outside the 8^th District, and much of it from outside Wisconsin.

Career politicians at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in Washington DC think we should vote for Ribble. They’ve identified him as one of their Young Guns, and are backing his candidacy. Interesting for someone who claims to have no political experience.

Of course, the NRCC hasn’t been very good at picking conservative candidates lately. Remember what happened in New York’s 23^rd Congressional District race last year? In that race, the not-so-conservative Republican candidate, Dierdre Scozzafava, abruptly suspended her campaign just three days before the election.

Within hours of dropping out of the race, Scozzafav endorsed the Democrat candidate, Bill Owens, leaving national Republicans who had endorsed her candidacy and supported her to the tune of over $1 million with egg on their faces.

The real Conservative candidate in that race, Doug Hoffman, made a valiant effort, but came up short. New York 23 is now represented by a liberal Democrat.

The same thing happened in Wisconsin’s 8^th in 2006. And 2008. The professional career politicians in the Republican Party backed a fellow career politician, a RINO Republican with a propensity for doing what was politically expedient. And so we wound up with a liberal Democrat representing us in Congress.

The NRCC is fast building a record of choosing losing candidates. Despite the millions of dollars they’ve spent in recent elections, their record isn’t very good. They’ve shown a preponderance of picking game players instead of principled conservative candidates.

The latest polling shows in a head to head matchup, Ribble would lose to Kagen. Despite outspending the other top three Republican candidates, Ribble is dead last, number 4 in a field of 4 Republicans. In fact, there is only one Republican candidate in this race who head to head polls show would beat Kagem, and that is (no surprise here) Terri McCormick.

Reid Ribble’s first move in this race was a politically-calculated one. Even though he lives in Wisconsin’s 6^th congressional district, he calculated he would have a better chance of being elected if he ran against Democrat Steve Kagen in the 8^th district instead. If Ribble was actually serious about getting rid of career politicians, he would have run against Republican Tom Petri, a 30+ year career politician. But if he had done that, Ribble would not have gotten any support from the professional politicians in the Republican Party. So Reid Ribble went along to get along, playing the game.

Voters are tired of the game players. We want principled conservative candidates to represent us n Congress.

So the question remains. Why is Reid Ribble running in Wisconsin’s 8^th Congressional District? And, more importantly, with more than 70% of his support coming from outside the 8^th District, who does he really hope to represent?