NewWest.Net/Politics
Trauner Announces Bid for Wyoming’s At-Large House Seat
By Brodie Farquhar, 10-15-07
 |
|
 | |
|
Gary Trauner, a Wilson businessman who lost a squeaker of a race last year against Representative Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, announced Monday he was going to run again for Wyoming’s at-large seat in the House of Representatives.
Trauner lost last year’s race by a mere 1,012 votes. He distinguished himself through his approach to campaigning, going door-to-door across Wyoming to 15,000 homes—a style that was in marked contrast to Cubin’s campaign style. Cubin once famously said she’d “rather eat roadkill” than go door-to-door.
At his announcement today in Casper, Trauner said he’d been mulling over whether he should run again as the Democratic candidate when a recent incident pushed him into running again.
“I had gone to the grocery store when I heard my name called,” Trauner said. A gentleman having coffee in the grocery store pointed to a newspaper and asked Trauner if he’d read about the growing controversy over expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which Congress had approved, President Bush had vetoed and had that veto sustained by a Republican minority.
Trauner said the gentleman having coffee was upset with the partisan politics, and said “I’ve been a Republican all my life, but don’t we deserve something better?”
Trauner, after long discussions with his wife, decided the answer was “Yes.”
“I’m running again for the same reasons I ran before,” Trauner said. Critical issues like health, energy and immigration haven’t advanced in the past year, he said. “Wyoming deserves better.”
He emphasized the need to encourage small business, responsible development of energy while protecting Wyoming’s special places, and a desire for both better and smaller government.
Why announce now, more than a year before the 2008 November election?
Trauner said he and his wife had recently reached the decision he should run again, and simply figured the rest of Wyoming should know too. He deferred answering how much money he’s raised for the 2008 campaign, saying it would be filed on the Federal Election Commission web site Monday evening.
“Money is simply a tool to get your message out,” he said, but noted he’s been receiving contributions without asking.
Last year, Trauner was very competitive with Cubin on raising money for his campaign.
Asked if he would run a campaign any differently than last year, Trauner said, “you live and learn during a campaign. I guess my goal would be to meet more Wyoming people.”
He pointed to new, black cowboy boots he was wearing and grinned, “I wore my last pair out.”
In the last race, the Cubin campaign made an issue out of Trauner being from New York. In response to that Monday, Trauner noted that he still won about half of the state’s vote. “When people talk about that, they can’t talk about anything else,” he said, noting that Wyoming’s congressional delegation doesn’t have anyone who was born in Wyoming.
“My kids were born here,” he added, saying that was a primary reason he’s running for office again.
On energy, Trauner noted a recent conference in Jackson that pointed at the need for balanced energy development that protects the environment.
“I think Wyoming should be a national and world leader,” Trauner said, adding that the leadership should not only be with natural gas, oil and coal, but with alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and switch grass.
On Iraq, Trauner said: “I think we need common sense and recognize we’re in a tough place with no easy answers,” he said.
Asked if his campaign would “go negative” as the Cubin campaign was toward him last year, Trauner said there’s a difference between going negative and “holding officials accountable for what they’ve done and haven’t done.”
That being said, Trauner noted that if the only way he could win was with a negative campaign, “it wouldn’t be worth it.”
Trauner said he has no control over whether Cubin runs again, or who he’ll face in the general election next year.
Cubin was first elected to Congress in 1994, and is now serving her seventh two-year term. While Cubin hasn’t officially announced her plans for next year, she has said she intends to seek another term.
She faces a primary challenge from Swede Nelson of Cheyenne and Kenn Gilchrist of Casper. State Representative Colin Simpson has also indicated he might challenge her for the House seat.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Trauner says critical issues like health, energy and immigration haven’t advanced in the past year, he said. “Wyoming deserves better.”
Immigration last year was a perfect stalemate because “comprehensive’ was going to shove 12 million illegal aliens down our throat in an amnesty scheme. Xenophobia you say, well my grandfather was Mexican from Warez.
SSI and Medicare are already breaking the bank and democrats want to buy our vote by giving us stuff more “free stuff”. I don’t want or need any because collectively we cant afford it, monetarily of socially. Which reminds me of a little story.
Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"
"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen and so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.
"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did. At last it came time to bake the bread.
"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."
"Excess profits!" cried the cow
"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck
"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain.
And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
Then a government agent came. He said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."
"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.
"Exactly," said the agent. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand."
But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread, because she joined the "party" and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared ... so long as there was free bread that "the rich" were paying for.
Spare us your losing Neo-con right-wing tripe and save it for that rag, PJH, and their whole partisan agenda. Someone once told you, "Heck, Daryl you can really turn a phrase and tell it like it is." And you took that to mean you're actually some masterful writer of well-reasoned opinion.
Well, good opinion is still based on truth and Bush making our grandchildren pay for his stupid war -- when "al-Qaeda" is now supposedly on its last leg in Iraq and all we're doing is playing ref and getting our brave young boys killed -- is breaking the bank faster than sailors blowing their wads while on leave in Thailand.
Giving the children of the working poor and those in the middle-class teetering on the edge of insolvency paid health insurance is just plain smart domestic policy. What you and your Republican cronies who call S-CHIP “socialism” -- while carrying the insurance industry's water -- fail to get is that your objections are not based on any real cost-benefit analysis but just plain old class snobbery.
Children are our future. Rich kids, poor kids, all kids And them and their kids are going to have to be healthy as horses to compete against China, Japan and the rising EU while paying off the massive national defecit wrought by this obscene, illegal and immoral war in Iwreck.
Also, healthy kids are more studious kids who become more productive adults.
So take your shallow propaganda and feed it to the sheeple who still read your column in the echo-chambers of fascist corporatism.
I grew up on welfare and 3 of 5 of the siblings in my family have a third generation on handouts. It took me into my twenties until I realized that health care was a service, not a birthright, and it was worth getting into my pocket to pay for.
Yes, help those that can't help themselves, but don't teach dependency to those who have the ability to fend for themselves, it is a bad lesson. It is also bad economics.
I grew up on a small family ranch, and had to help with chores and housework etc from the time I was old enough to take on some responsibility.
What this country really needs is a sense of personal responsibility, not more being taken care of.
Why are you trying to argue by changing the subject?
Your arguments are directed at adults when the subject is expanding a social program for kids. That is a classic fallacy of reasoning, which means all your arguments so far presented are irrelevant.
Have you right-wingers no conception of what logic is anymore? Or are you cynically arguing besides the point in the hopes of misleading people to your point of view?
Maybe you just don't realize how irrational you're being and well now present well-reasoned and relevant arguments for your side?
By the way, it is very lame and cowardly to attack others when you do not use your real name.
By the way, I look at all aspects of Gary Trauner's life and philosophies and find him to be a fine individual and very worthy of support.
Under both the House and Senate bills, that would change. The Senate's version of SCHIP would allow the Administration to grant waivers for states to cover families at 400 percent of the federal poverty level--$82,600 in annual earnings for a family of four. The Bush Administration has recently denied New York's request to expand its SCHIP program to cover children in families up to that income level, but the Senate legislation would allow such a waiver if a more liberal political Administration decided to grant it.
In the House bill, there is no explicit income eligibility limit, and the states are strongly encouraged to enroll as many families as possible through a special bonus program to boost enrollment. If eligibility is set at 400 percent of the federal poverty level, approximately 70,000 American families would be eligible for SCHIP--a program originally designed as a form of welfare assistance for low-income persons--while also being subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is intended to target rich individuals and families.
Expanding SCHIP coverage to more and more children will separate family coverage from child coverage because of the need for different doctors and providers. This is unnecessary: Children could be more easily added to their parents' insurance plan. The Congressional Budget Office reports that 50 percent of children whose families earn between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level have private health insurance, and of those between 200 percent and 300 percent of the federal poverty level, 77 percent of children have private health insurance, A growing body of professional literature shows that when government health insurance expands, up to 60 percent of existing private coverage is "crowded out." That means that for every 100 persons covered under a government program expansion, 60 people have lost, or given up, private health insurance coverage, This malignant crowd-out effect amplifies as government coverage expands up the income scale.
If Congress and state officials permit SCHIP eligibility to expand to children living in families at 400 percent of the federal poverty level, fully 71 percent of American children would be eligible for either Medicaid or SCHIP The next generation of children would grow up knowing or receiving nothing but government health care.
This will entice me and many others to take my children out of our employer insurance program and into the government one so I can put some of your tax dollars into my pocket!
Daryl L. Hunter
While the richest 1% grew in wealth and income more in 2006 than at any time in the history of our country pushing their combined income up to more than half of all money made in the US during 2006. At the same time the lower 50% of wage earners in the US had a combined income that fell by nearly a 1% to 13.5% of all the money that was made in the US during 2006.
The trickle down economics of Reagan, Bush Sr and Monkey Boy has created a rich capitalists wet dream, while sticking the other America with a tanking economy, sky rocketing expenses and the biggest national debt ever known in the history of mankind. It sounds like a horror story but unfortunately IT'S TRUE. The inflation index is a doctored joke and has been for most of the Bush administration.
My parents bought their first house for 25k and saved that money up over a five year period on one blue collar income in the 70s. I challenge any Neo-Con who thinks they pulled them self up by their bootstraps to save up enough for a starter home with today's middle class wages and living expenses. It's not because those liberals all think they have to have a cell phone and be on the internets and can't keep themselves out of debt.
No! things are tough today because the rich feed on the middle class and the poor. Now, more than ever. Republican politicians have sold their soul for a few scraps from the table where their owners are gorging themselves on our future.
Enter Limbaugh, Fox, Beck and the hordes of shrieking pundits and propaganda tools that are needed to convince enough of the middle class that these Republicans Politicians and the Vampires who own them are doing something that is in the best interest of the masses and should be supported no matter how criminally insane or hostile to the Constitution they are.
Oh my, now I've done it. I hear the NSA knocking on my door already. AT&T;is recording my IP and writing it to the NSA's database that has all of our life stories in it. No pathetic right to own a gun is going to stop a football team of armored Marshals carrying assault rifles after they decide you're a threat to their political agenda.
You Neo-Cons sold all the rights and freedoms you claim to hold sacred for a smirking promise that Bush won't let homosexuals marry each other or allow kids to use birth control.
Are you telling us middle class libs do not have cell phones and the internet? I'll jsut bet you live in a decent house, have a decent car...or two, take vacations, have both land and cell phones, computers, plenty to eat, warmth in the winter and coolness in the summer. Count your blessings, you will feel better.
It is sad to see an American with such hate. We are the luckiest people in the world, and we do have all of the rights and freedoms we have always had. More actually, if you check your history book you will note that young men were once draftered into war in this country. Now we have an all volunteer armed services.
The general readership needs to take note of the great disagreement between so many well-respected and very conservative Republican leaders on the one hand and some of the usual right-wing posters to this site on the other. Most of the usual right-wing posters here truly do not represent the views of "normal" westerners or even "normal" conservative Republicans and the positions of so many prominent national Republican leaders on the SCHIP issue attest to this fact. Most of the usual right-wing posters here represent extreme, many times poorly educated, strange fringe viewpoints; if that were actually not the case, their viewpoints would better fit the views of mainstream conservative Republicans, which they very clearly do not.
Also, Daryl L. Hunter, would you please stop posting your name as an advertising link to your business website? NewWest clearly and quite properly has a policy to prevent unpaid spam advertising from being posted and thus "mooching" off the site. Your advertisement gets through the filter; but, there is still no reason for you to evade the rules and policies that apply to everyone else. I do not and would never even consider "mooching" off NewWest to post links to my businesses. Craig Moore, with whom I argue constantly, clearly must be respected for having the good manners and breeding not to "mooch" off NewWest to post links to his business. Please join us in not doing so yourself.
Finally, no, in answer to the predictable retort, I am not from New York or New York City, have never lived, for more than the duration of a business trip, west of Fargo. I simply do business in many places and know New York from consulting work and an infrequent visit.
Since I would qualify for SCHIP, you wouldn't have a problem with me dropping my two sons off my health insurance so that I could mooch off the good will of you, Tim, Mike, and Aristotle?
I can't, for the life of me, understand why so many put their own self interest ahead of the financial well being of the country. SSI will soon be bankrupt, Medicare is unsustainable and every day congress wants to throw more fuel on the treasury fire.
I have fallen way short of my dreams but I'm not going to blame it on the rich - I failed in a country that is the easiest in the world to succeed in, that is my fault because I like to play to much.
Tim did you fail because the rich made you fail, or did you play too much also?
Orin Hatch is a good example of why so many conservatives are mad at our Republican legislators, mad conservatives is why the Dems took congress in 2006, they weren't acting like Republicans.
------------
Gary Trauner bumping into Captain Bob or some such likeminded RINO in a grocery store and receiving kudos hardly represents the consensuses of Wyoming Republicans. Captain Bob headed up Republicans for Trauner in 2006 and Captain Bob is the most liberal guy in Jackson, an atheist that wants to legalize pot, and walk out on Israel, etc.
If you look at Barbara Cubin's Voting Record and you will see that it in line with a conservative state. She has represented Wyoming well.
I don't think there is much question but what Fruedentahl is going to run against John Barrasso. I think he thought he was selecting the weakest of the candidates when he chose him and one he could beat easily. Hehehe, John is showing himslef to be a real workhorse for the state of Wyoming.
As for Trauner, Wyoming needs another lib all in favor of universal welfare like we need another environmentalist group dictating to us.
Well, surprise, surprise, our whole congress is full of richies, Dems and Repubs. And guess what? They sustained a veto of an insurance program that would cover poor kids. Did they vote to get rid of corporate welfare? No? Well I'll be. I guess that's the democratic process of having to have a ton of money in order to have the "free speech" to get your campaign messages out among people who could vote for you. Call me cynical.
The poor kids already have SCHIP - they are just trying to expand the program past its logical limits as they do with all government socialism programs. That is why I am against them all, the government doesn't know when to say when.
I'm trying to be more polite; but, your response to Tim has been grating on me. First, you ask me whether I would "have a problem" with you dropping your "two sons off... health insurance" because you would qualify under SCHIP, which I would not since health care should not be a luxury and any program to give kids health care would be worth it in my mind. Then, you turn right around and imply that Tim is a failure and demanding that he confess whether his alleged failure is "because the rich" made him fail" or did he "play too much also?"
Daryl, I hate to break it too you; but, if you truly would qualify for SCHIP under any rules, current or proposed, there are lots of people, who started from scratch like us, who can buy and sell you many, many, many times and not touch anything past their operating float. Now, my point is that you are certainly entitled to feel as proud of yourself as you please and I am certainly not defending everything that Tim might say or do; but, you might not want to conclude that Tim is nothing but a failure without stopping to consider where you, yourself, might fit in the greater scheme of things.
Look at the family that the Dems used as a poster boy. They have a quarter or half million dollar house, and have the money to invest 160 grand in a land investment, but they cannot afford to insure their own kids. I have never had that kind of house, nor can I afford that kind of investment, but I am expected to help pay for insuring their kids since they are too "poor" to do so.
Somewhere we need to make folks assume some responsibility for themselves. As a nation we are heading down a road of let the "government" take care of my necessities I'll spend my money on fun stuff.
Tim’s level of vitriol for the rich - “No! Things are tough today because the rich feed on the middle class and the poor. Now, more than ever.” Led me to believe that he fell into the stereotype that blames others for their failures. I apologize for leaping too assumption based on stereotype.
Your explanation was quit muddled about how you would feel about me, and millions like me, that qualify for SCHIP but are currently covered elsewhere, dropping our current coverage to save money. Doesn’t that sound like a waste of government money and yet another government boondoggle? If I am paying with my taxes it wouldn’t make any sense to pay for it privately.
About the link – spam is gratuitous linking by those that don’t contribute thought, time and effort to a thread.
Was Bill Clinton lying when he said that the days of big government were over:(
Though, I do agree in a sense, no government program should provide any sort of service to an American that didn't pull themselves up from the bottom like every Real God fearing Republican did.
You yourself look like someone that has fought and struggled with poverty there in the Rockies of Idaho. I applaud the personal strength and wisdom it must of taken you to get where you are today. It takes a certain type of Patriot to hate the American that is struggling with what you your self have struggled with Daryl and for that I applaud you.
I really am jealous of the Ultra Conservative Mega Patriots that have the strength to offer America the tough love that it needs. All these lazy drug addicted Democrats need the tough love the Conservatives in Idaho have to offer us. We need your tough love Daryl, we really do.
Daryl is from California.
I am an enemy of freedom because I am a fiscal conservative? I guess it was your turn to take a leap at presumption.
John Kennedy once said; "Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!"
I think America's Democrat Socialism advocates have lost sight of that concept.
Well it sounds to me that Hillary has bought your vote out of the national treasury.
Mike, see what I mean about vitriol.
I am not happy with the rush toward socialism, but I am even more worried about the rush to buy the way to socialism with illegal campaign money and getting it from whereever it can be gotten.
There is a little thing connected with Hillary and Hsu that no one seems to be investigating. Hillary tried to push thru an earmark for 1 million for a Woodstock museum, the Woodstock promoters are the ones that bankrolled Hsu to the tune of 40 million. No one yet knows where Hsu came from or if he is even a legal alien. Hsu bankrolled Hillary to the tune of almost 1 million, and Tester for a big chunk. I have not found the actual vote list on the woodstock deal, but I bet Tester supported it.
Yellowstone Dynamics and Daryl L. Hunter's take on the world
(blog by Daryl L Hunter)
I now have a new home page.
Did you know Daryl won't answer the question: "How do you justify inflicting torture on folks under the banner of spreading freedom and democracy?"