Sean Duffy, Ashland County district attorney, said he will give the voters in the 7th Congressional District something that he said they have not seen in a very long time – an attractive option at the ballot to long-time incumbent Democrat Dave Obey.

Duffy, along with Dan Mielke of Rudolf, is one of two Republican challengers to Obey.

Duffy’s campaign has attracted more than 1,600 donors with receipts of $286,358, including $220,000 to wage a campaign, which means television and radio time.

Duffy’s campaign also has caught media attention on the national level, often with recognition as a legitimate challenger to Obey, and he recently received an endorsement from former vice presidential candidate and Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

“I am very pleased with the kind of traction we are having in the district but also because of the traction we are getting here. Folks are paying attention around the country,” said Duffy.

“There is a level of excitement in Wisconsin for new leadership and new ideas. But because of Dave Obey’s role as the chairman of appropriations, he sits at the seat of spending, and because of that I think there is a level of excitement, at least for fiscal conservatives, that he has a strong challenger and he can be defeated.”

Regarding his primary challenger, Mielke, Duffy said he has much stronger “traction” than Mielke. Duffy challenges the impression that Mielke has vast financial resources because the Federal Election Commission reports receipts of $399,457 for Mielke.

According to Duffy, Mielke has claimed a very large in-kind contribution that Duffy calls a form of “shell game” that represents only the “market value” of a robocall service charged back to Mielke’s campaign.

Without offering specifics of his in-kind contribution, Mielke responded that the “market value” of a service to a campaign is a legitimate contribution.

Duffy said if he wins the August primary, he will mount a strong campaign whether the Republican Party, which has shown lackluster support in the past for challengers to Obey, throws enthusiasm behind him or not.

“Some people will say, ‘Is the Republican party going to get involved and help you be successful here?’ I don’t know,” said Duffy. “All I know is I am going to do this and I can do this, building a team in Northern Wisconsin and in this district. I am not looking at my game plan to get support from the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., or in the state. Now if they come and help me, that’s great, but that is not part of my plan to be successful.”

And if he is the man, Duffy said, he is willing to debate Obey in every county in the district, but he said Obey, as of late, has not shown a stomach for taking challenging questions, even from the electorate.

“At what point do people get a chance to say, ‘Congressman, I want to ask you questions about what is going on in Washington, D.C. What are we doing with healthcare? What are we doing with spending?’”

Stimulus

For Duffy, one of the biggest targets on Obey’s back is the federal government stimulus bills passed under presidents George Bush and Barrack Obama.

“The government could have stepped in that scenario with banks to do something important,” he said, “but to capitalize banks that made bad decisions just promotes bad behavior. I think we should have stepped in and capitalized banks that behaved well and let those who performed poorly fail.

“I don’t believe in the philosophy of too big to fail, and that is what Dave Obey bought into.

“Now I think when banks make bad decisions, they are going to expect the government to step in and bail them out,” he said.

The “free market,” said Duffy, should be the primary agent at work in the economy and not the government.

“I believe in free markets,” he said. “I believe they work on the way up, so if you take advantage on the up side of these risky investments, you also better take advantage of the down side when you lose your pants. But government is stepping in and minimizing the risk on the down side and encouraging risky behavior.”

Duffy supports “smart regulations” for financial institutions but not so much regulations that styme any risk taking.

For Duffy, the stimulus bill passed in February 2009, $787 billion meant to create or sustain jobs, is not working.

“This is bill that does not do much to create jobs,” he said. “And if you recall, Dave Obey rammed that bill through Congress where they had less than 24 hours to review it before they voted on passing it.

“There was plenty of time to let the American people to see what was in that bill.”

Duffy said the philosophy of pumping dollars in the public side to invigorate the economy is flawed, and he challenges Obey’s contention, made by the Congressman in Rice Lake after the passage of the February 2009 stimulus bill, that “6,000 teacher jobs were just as important to the economy as 6,000 private-sector jobs.”

“The teacher jobs are good jobs, I believe in education, “ Duffy said, “but those salaries come from those in the community who have jobs and pay taxes, and if you don’t stimulate the private sector so they can pay their taxes which pay the teachers, the whole system breaks down.

“so to think we are just going up one step up the food chain and just take care of the teachers but not take care of the people who actually take care of the teacher’s salary, the taxpayer, it doesn’t work. It can’t work. You will keep them for a year or two, but if this thing doesn’t grow, they will have to be laid-off at some point because there is not enough tax base to support them, which is basic common sense.”

Jobs

Duffy said the key to job growth is less government intervention and more political stability.

“I look at it like this: Our economy works in cycles; it goes into peaks and cycles. I think if the government steps in and does some wild and crazy stuff in downturns, they can make the downturn far worse than if they just left the economy alone, and I think this is one of those scenarios with the stimulus package. This downturn, I think, is going to be prolonged because of government action.

“I think one of the problems for businesses, who are our job creators, they don’t know what is happening in the political environment. If they are going to hire a new employee, what is it going to cost? Well, they don’t know what is going to happen with healthcare.

“If I am going to expand my business, is Cap and Trade going to pass and what is my energy costs going to be? They are not going to know that either; they may not expand.

“They are concerned about what is going to happen with tax rates with the early 2000 tax rates set to expire several months from now. They are concerned about our national debt, about inflation which plays into their interest rate and financing. Because of this instability, our businesses are on lock-down. They are not expanding; they are not growing, and that is one of the causes of the extended jobless recovery. I believe in Wisconsin we can compete with anyone in the world, and if we have free and fair trade we can compete with everybody, but we can’t compete when you tie two hands behind our back and a foot. But if you set us free, I think we have one the best workforces, one of the smartest workforces, that can compete with anybody.

“We are really in a global economy right now. Jobs, and capital, and business expansion can go anywhere. They can go to China, to India, to Mexico and Vietnam. We have to ask why are these corporations going to move to Wisconsin, to America.

“Well, they are going to move here because of a favorable business climate. And if it is a favorable business climate they will come because we have the best workers. But if there is not a favorable business climate, they will go elsewhere because they can.”

One economic opportunity Duffy would like to explore is opening up the large iron ore deposits in the region.

“Not only could we mine it we could turn it into steel here and even fabricate here,” he said. “You look at a depressed area like Ashland with that kind of resource, it would be a multi-billion-dollar investment just to get it prepared to mine and to do it cleanly with a minimal impact on the environment.”

Duffy said, he has an agenda of how he would encourage economic growth if elected to Congress. His plans are detailed online at www.spooneradvocate.com.