Posted: October 31, 2008
If leadership is based on experience then why has the combined experience of both parties lead us to the bottom of the barrel? Why have we lost over 4000 soldiers? Why have we not found Osama? Why is ground zero a puss filled scab instead of a tower of power? Why is New Orleans not new? Why are we stuck in two wars at once? Why is our economic system broken? Why is the American dream a nightmare?
The current administration has taken 8 years to experiment. We need a government that cares about our future! No experience necessary!
Here are some of the Republican stars. Let’s see if their political experience helps them to be the salvation of the Good Old Part.
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GOV. PIYUSH BOBBY JINDAL
Piyush “Bobby” Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is the current Republican governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Prior to his election as governor, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana’s 1st congressional district, to which he was elected in 2004 to succeed current U.S. Senator David Vitter. Jindal was re-elected to Congress in the 2006 election with 88 percent of the vote.
On October 20, 2007, Jindal was elected governor of Louisiana, winning a four-way race with 54% of the vote. At age 36, Jindal became the youngest current governor in the United States. He also became the first non-white to serve as governor of Louisiana since P. B. S. Pinchback during Reconstruction, and the first elected Indian American governor in U.S. history.
Piyush Jindal was born on June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Punjabi Indian immigrants Amar and Raj Jindal, who had recently arrived for Raj to attend graduate school at Louisiana State University. His father Amar left India and his ancestral family village of Khanpura in 1970. His mother, Raj Jindal, is an information technology director for the Louisiana Department of Labor. According to family lore, Jindal adopted the name “Bobby” from the character Bobby Brady after watching The Brady Bunch television series at age four. He has been known by that name ever since—as a civil servant, politician, student, and writer—though legally his name remains Piyush Jindal.
Jindal was a Hindu, but converted to Catholicism in high school. He has also offered his religious testimony before Baptist and Pentecostal congregations.He attended public school at Baton Rouge Magnet High School and graduated when he was 17. Following high school, Jindal attended Brown University, graduating with honors in biology and public policy. Although he had thought of a career in medicine or law and was accepted by Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School, he chose to pursue a political career. He received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.
After Oxford, he joined McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, where he advised Fortune 500 companies. In 1996 Jindal married Supriya Jolly (born 1972). The couple have three children: Selia Elizabeth, Shaan Robert, and Slade Ryan.
Government Service
In 1995 Republican U.S. Representative Jim McCrery (for whom Jindal had once worked as a summer intern) introduced Jindal to Republican Governor Mike Foster. In 1996 Foster appointed Jindal to be secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, an agency which then represented about 40 percent of the state budget. During his tenure as secretary, Louisiana’s Medicaid program went from bankruptcy with a $400 million deficit into three years of surpluses totaling $220 million. Jindal was criticized during the 2007 campaign by the Louisiana AFL-CIO for having closed some local clinics to balance the budget.[9] In 1998, Jindal was appointed executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, a 17-member panel charged with devising plans to reform Medicare.
In 1999, at the request of the Louisiana Governor’s Office and the Louisiana State Legislature, Jindal volunteered his time to study how Louisiana might use its $4.4 billion tobacco settlement. In that same year Jindal was appointed to become the youngest-ever president of the University of Louisiana System. In March 2001 he was nominated by President George W. Bush to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation. He was later unanimously confirmed by a bipartisan vote of the United States Senate and began serving on July 9, 2001. In that position, he served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He resigned from that post on February 21, 2003, to return to Louisiana and run for governor.
Legislative Pay Raise Controversy
On June 27, 2008, Louisiana’s Secretary of State confirmed that a recall petition had been filed against Governor Jindal. Ryan and Kourtney Fournier filed the petition in response to Jindal’s refusal to veto a bill that would more than double the current state legislative pay. The petitioners had 180 days to collect the signatures of over 900,000 registered voters to force a recall election on the ballot. If accomplished, a simple majority would have been needed to remove the Governor. During his campaign for Governor, Jindal had pledged to prevent legislative pay raises that would take effect during the current term. Jindal responded by saying that he is opposed to the pay increase but that he had pledged to let the legislature govern themselves.
On June 30, 2008, Governor Jindal reversed his earlier position by vetoing the pay raise legislation, stating that he made a mistake by staying out of the pay raise issue. In response, the petitioners dropped their recall effort.
Speculation Over Vice Presidential Nomination
Jindal at a John McCain campaign event in Kenner, Louisiana, June 2008
On February 8, 2008, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh mentioned on his syndicated show that Jindal could be a possible choice for the Republican vice presidential nomination in 2008. He said that Jindal might be perceived as an asset to McCain’s campaign because he has support in the conservative base of the Republican Party and his youth offsets Sen. McCain’s age. If McCain had won the presidency, he would have been the oldest president ever inaugurated to a first term. Heightening the speculation, McCain invited Jindal, Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and McCain’s former rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee to meet with at McCain’s home in Arizona on Friday, May 23, 2008, according to a Republican familiar with the decision; Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty, all of whom were already well acquainted with McCain, declined because of prior commitments. The meeting may have served a different purpose, such as consideration of Jindal for the opportunity to speak at the 2008 Republican National Convention, in a similar fashion to Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, cementing a place for him in the party and opening the gate for a future run for the presidency. Speculation was fueled by simultaneous July 21, 2008, reports that Sen. McCain was making a sudden visit to Louisiana to again meet with Gov. Jindal and that Sen. McCain was readying to name his running mate within a week. However, on July 23, 2008, Jindal said he would not be the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008. Jindal added that he “never talked to the senator [McCain] about the vice presidency or his thoughts on selecting the vice president.” Ultimately, on Friday, August 29, 2008, McCain chose Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Positions On Selected Social And Political Issues
Bobby Jindal has a 100% pro-life voting record according to the National Right to Life Committee. He opposes abortion without exception. He does not condemn medical procedures meant to save the life of a pregnant woman that would indirectly cause the termination of the pregnancy. Jindalal also supports the use of emergency contraception in the case of rape. He opposes embryonic stem cell research and voted against increasing federal funding to expand embryonic stem cell lines.
As a private citizen, Jindal voted for the “Stelly Tax plan”, a referendum named for former state Representative Vic Stelly of Lake Charles, which swapped some sales taxes for higher income taxes. Whether or not the “Stelly Plan” is giving the desired results is still hotly debated statewide. Early Republican challenger Steve Scalise challenged Jindal on his vote for this tax plan before Scalise dropped out of the congressional race in 2004. As Governor, Jindal initially opposed reforms to the Stelly plan that would result in over $300 million in tax cuts. He later agreed to the tax cut after the legislature appeared headed to eliminating the entire personal income tax which Jindal also opposed. Talk show host Moon Griffon subsequently refused to air radio ads paid for by the organization Believe in Louisiana crediting Jindal for Stelly reforms saying “Now, they are taking credit for the biggest income tax cut in the history of Louisiana and I felt like it was a lie. To be real blunt, very misleading and it was an outright lie because he had fought hard against it”.
Jindal voted yes on making the PATRIOT Act permanent, voted in favor of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, supported a constitutional amendment banning flag burning, and voted for the Real ID Act of 2005. Jindal has an A rating from Gun Owners of America.
He was a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee. In 2006, Jindal voted with the Republican Caucus 97 percent of the time during the 109th Congress.
Jindal also supports co-payments in Medicaid.
In 2006, Jindal sponsored the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act (H.R. 4761), a bill to eliminate the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling over the U.S. outer continental shelf, which prompted the watchdog group Republicans for Environmental Protection to issue him “an environmental harm demerit”. Jindal’s 2006 rating from that organization was -4, among the lowest in Congress. The nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters also censured Jindal for securing passage of H.R. 4761 in the House of Representatives; the group rated his environmental performance that year at seven percent, citing anti-environment votes on 11 out of 12 critical issues. Jindal’s lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters is seven percent. Despite claims that Jindal’s bill was successful, H.R. 4761 was replaced by S 3711 (known as the Domenici-Landrieu Fair Share Plan). The original Senate version was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush.
In 2007, Jindal led the Louisiana delegation in Congressional earmark funding. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, in 2007, Jindal’s earmark funding was 14th among all Congressmen. As Governor in 2008, Jindal used his line item veto to strike $16 million in earmarks from the state budget while allowing $30 million in legislator added spending.
Jindal supports the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
On June 25, 2008, Jindal signed the “Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill“, authorizing the chemical castration of those convicted of certain sex offenses.
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ADAM F. PUTNAM
Adam F. Putnam (born July 31, 1974) is an American politician who has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2001, representing Florida’s 12th congressional district.
Early Life And Education
Putnam was born in Bartow, Florida. He graduated from Bartow High School and attended the University of Florida, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in food and resource economics.
U.S. Congress
In February 2006, Putnam became a member of the House leadership, assuming the role of chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the fifth-ranking Republican position in the House. In November 2006, Putnam was elected by his colleagues as House Republican Conference Chairman, the third-highest ranking position.
Putnam describes himself as one of Congress’s leading supporters of developmental education for children from low-income families and is the author of the Head Start Accountability Bill. Putnam is also the co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus.
Putnam is currently the third-youngest member of Congress. He was the youngest member of Congress when he took office in 2001 at age 26, just one year after becoming constitutionally eligible. In 2005, Patrick McHenry, a year younger than Putnam and Southern Republican, was elected to Congress.
Committee Assignments
- Financial Services Committee
- Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises - This is the main committee of the U.S House which is supposed to oversee the economic systems that have failed over the past months.
Controversy
Adam Putnam accused Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of arrogance in requesting an Air Force Three for flights back to her district.
“Just a month into the new Democratic majority, we are talking about the costs of an arrogance of office,” said Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam of Florida at a briefing for reporters Tuesday. “The same week she is talking about fiscal responsibility, she is requesting a jumbo jet to taxi her back and forth from her district, something that is a major deviation from the previous speaker. Certainly, it is the interest of someone who is in the presidential succession to have access to a secure aircraft, but this is not a routine military charter flight. This is Air Force Three.”
However, the House of Representatives‘ Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Livingood had requested the plane for House Speaker Pelosi’s security.
“I regret that an issue that is exclusively considered and decided in a security context has evolved into a political issue,” Bill Livingood said in a news release.
The White House issued a press release supporting Livingood and Pelosi.
“This is a silly story and I think it’s been unfair to the speaker,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a morning briefing with reporters. “We think it’s important that the speaker of the House enjoy the same kind of security that we arranged for Speaker Hastert in the wake of September 11th. And like I said, I think that there’s been a lot of over-hyped reporting on this,” Snow said.
The Tampa Tribune described him as “unapologetic” about making comments on what turned out to be a false story about Pelosi.
Putnam now acknowledges he had no personal knowledge of any Pelosi request. He said he was commenting on an anonymously sourced story in The Washington Times and additional coverage from CNN. “This was a classic case where the media got out in front of us,” Putnam said. “Did we jump on it? Yes.” And he is unapologetic about that. He calls the Pelosi plane story, whatever its legitimacy, “the first break [Republicans] have had from the media in driving our message since before the Mark Foley story broke.”
Putnam also garnered attention when he stated “white rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” cost Republicans their Congressional majority in the 2006 elections. The report noted that…
“Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks. But Putnam’s chief of staff insists that the remarks were taken out of context…Putnam’s chief of staff, John Hambel, said his boss has used the word “redneck” only in the context of sharing polling data from last week’s elections. Hambel said Putnam was listing off different constituencies and ended with saying: “Heck, we even had rednecks who go to church who didn’t come out to vote.
Elder Statesman
Adam Putnam has endured a number of nicknames throughout his short career, including President George W. Bush’s constant reference to him as “Red” due to his red hair. His colleagues in the House have also made reference to his hair, including Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas who addressed him as “this Howdy Doody-looking Nimrod” during a floor debate over the Republicans’ plan to cut funding for Medicare and other senior services. He is also derided as “The Elder Statesman” due to his fast rise in the House Republican leadership, despite his relative youth.
Gonzales Ouster
After the numerous calls by Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Putnam became the top Republican in either House to call for the ouster of former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “For the good of the nation, I think it is time for fresh leadership at the Department of Justice,” Putnam said.
This move was met with surprise by many Republicans, who were remaining silent on the Gonzales issue. However, Putnam mentioned that there remained severe discontent within the GOP circle over Gonzales and as the Chairman of the House Republican Conference, he thought it was important to send this message out.
Position On 2008 “Bailout”
On September 29, 2008, Putnam voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. He was one of only three Florida Republicans to do so. The bill failed. On October 3, 2008, he again voted for the updated Emergency Economic Stablization Act of 2008.
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ZACH WAMP
Zachary Paul “Zach” Wamp (born October 28, 1957) is a Republican politician representing the 3rd Congressional district of Tennessee since 1995. The district is based in Chattanooga and includes large parts of East Tennessee, including Oak Ridge.
Early Life, Education, And Early Career
Wamp was born in Fort Benning, Georgia. He attended the McCallie School, a boy’s boarding school in Chattanooga, from the age of 11 until he graduated in 1976. He studied industrial relations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977–78 and 1979–80 and attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in between (1978–79), but did not earn a degree from either.
After attending college, Wamp was a sales representative for Olan Mills, a photography company based in Chattanooga that primarily produces church directories, and later a commercial and industrial real estate broker. In 1989, he became vice president of Charter Real Estate Corp., where he sold more than $7 million in real estate during his first full year.
Wamp began in politics as precinct vice chairman for the 1983 Chattanooga mayoral campaign of Gene Roberts. He was later elected chairman of the Hamilton County, Tennessee Republican Party, then regional director for the state GOP. Wamp organized, directed, recruited, managed or chaired dozens of political campaigns.
Congressional Career
“Wamp ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1992 against nine-term Democrat Marilyn Lloyd. He narrowly lost by only two percentage points of the vote.”
“Lloyd did not run for reelection in 1994, and Wamp ran again. During the race, Wamp signed the Contract with America. He proposed a plan to pay Congressmen the same as Lieutenant Colonels, and linked his Democratic opponent to Bill Clinton. Wamp won with 52% of the vote, defeating Democrat Randy Button. He was re-elected in 1996 with 56% of the vote. In his next four re-election campaigns, he got 64% or more of the vote.”
“Wamp explored seeking a seat in the United States Senate to succeed Bill Frist, who had promised to serve no more than two terms. However, he decided against running for that seat in October 2004. A major factor was that Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker was also running for the seat (he was Frist’s principal 1994 primary opponent and the eventual 2006 winner); the Chattanooga area is generally considered to have too small a population and contributor base to provide adequate support to more than one major contender for a statewide office; and Corker had already raised considerable funds for his Senate campaign.”
“He serves on the Liberty Caucus (sometimes called the Liberty Committee), a group of liberty-minded congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle. Congressman Ron Paul hosts a luncheon for the Liberty Caucus every Thursday. Other members include Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Virgil Goode of Virginia, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Walter B. Jones of North Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.”
Political Positions
“Wamp is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, a post he has used to direct funding for his district’s decaying lock at the Chickamauga Dam. He also secured in the 2006 budget a $4 million appropriation for a methamphetamine task force that has expanded to all regions of Tennessee.’
“Wamp has vigorously supported the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the largest government-owned firms in the United States. Wamp has proposed legislation to allow the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.”
2005–2006 Campaign For Majority Whip
“In the wake of Tom DeLay’s indictment in September 2005, Wamp campaigned among his fellow Republican House members to become the majority whip, the number three position in the Republican House leadership. Representatives Ray LaHood and Gil Gutknecht agreed to co-chair his campaign for the position. But the incumbent, Roy Blunt, remained the majority whip (the position was won by John Boehner in February 2006).”
Personal Life
“During his 1994 election campaign, Wamp admitted that he had had a problem with cocaine but said that he had stopped using it years ago. After abusing alcohol and cocaine for several years in college and while holding a photography job based in Chattanooga, he checked himself into a drug rehabilitation clinic in 1984. In the clinic, he pledged to his family to turn his life around. As part of his experience at the clinic, he is now devoutly religious Southern Baptist. In the Congress, he has fought to make it easier for drug addicts enter drug rehabilitation as well as other measures to help addicts seek help.”
“In April 2003, the Associated Press reported that Wamp was one of six Congressman living in a Capitol Hill townhouse subsidized by The Family, a national Christian organization.”
2006 Campaign
“When he was elected to the House in 1994, Wamp pledged to serve just twelve years (six terms) in the House, meaning that he would leave the House in 2007. However, shortly after winning reelection to a sixth term in 2004, Wamp announced he would run again in 2006 after all, citing his status as Tennessee’s only member of the powerful Appropriations Committee. The pledge was ‘a mistake,’ he told the Associated Press in 2004.”
“Wamp faced Brent Benedict, a computer programmer and consultant. During the campaign, Benedict made an issue of Wamp’s breaking his term limit pledge saying that he would hold himself to six terms if elected. Despite this, Wamp was easily reelected.”
“Following the loss of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, Wamp reflected on the defeat saying, ‘For the first six years of the 12 years, we were focused on policy and principles, and politics was secondary. The second six years, politics became primary: raising money, going negative, consolidating power.’”
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JOHN THUNE
“John Randolph Thune (born January 7, 1961) is the Republican junior U.S. Senator from the state of South Dakota. Born and raised in South Dakota, Thune attended college at Biola University in California before returning to his home state to obtain a graduate degree at the University of South Dakota. He worked as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator James Abdnor and served in the Reagan Administration in the Small Business Administration, before winning election to the House of Representatives in 1996. After three terms in the House, he unsuccessfully challenged Democrat Tim Johnson in the U.S. Senate race in 2002, losing by a mere 524 votes (0.15%). Thune was elected to the Senate two years later, defeating the incumbent Democrat and serving Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle, in a historic race that received national media attention.”
Early life and family
“John Randolph Thune was born in Murdo, South Dakota to Yvonne Patricia Bodine and Harold Richard Thune. Thune’s paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Norway who partnered with his brother to start Thune Hardware stores in Mitchell and Murdo, South Dakota. He was raised in the small-town of Murdo, South Dakota. An evangelical Christian, Thune graduated with a B.A. degree in Business from Biola University, an Evangelical Christian college near Los Angeles in 1983. Thune received an MBA from the University of South Dakota in 1984. He married the former Kimberley Weems of Doland, South Dakota, in 1984; both are committed Evangelical Christians. They have two daughters, Brittany and Larissa.”
Political career
“A member of the Republican Party, Thune worked as a legislative assistant for U.S. Senator James Abdnor. Under President Reagan, Thune worked at the Small Business Administration. Thune was appointed Railroad Director of South Dakota by Governor George S. Mickelson and served from 1991-1993. Between 1993 and 1996, he worked as a member of the South Dakota Municipal League.”
House of Representatives
“In 1996, Thune was elected to South Dakota’s lone seat in the United States House of Representatives; he won reelection in 1998 and in 2000 was reelected with over 70% of the vote. Thune supported and promised to serve no more than three terms in the House. Keeping his pledge, Thune instead ran for the United States Senate, challenging Senator Tim Johnson in 2002, and losing by 524 votes (0.15%). Between 2002-2004 Thune worked as a lobbyist for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad.”
2004 Senate race
“In 2004, he again ran for the Senate, this time challenging incumbent Tom Daschle, at the time the United States Senate Minority Leader and leader of the Senate Democrats.”
“The race was the most expensive Senate race in 2004, with $30 million spent, and the most expensive in South Dakota history. It was widely followed in the national media. Thune – along with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, President of the United States George W. Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney – painted Daschle as the ‘chief obstructionist’ of Bush’s agenda: ‘Thune was able to criticize ‘Daschle for serving incompatible masters,’ and portray him, as Frist did when he came to South Dakota to campaign for Thune, as a partisan obstructionist and political heir to liberal icon and former Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.”
“Daschle’s critics charged the Democrat with using filibusters to block confirmation of several of Bush’s nominees to the federal judiciary, and being out of step with the views of South Dakota voters on other political and social issues: ‘The GOP had targeted Daschle, the Senate minority leader, claiming he had been the chief obstruction to President Bush on such issues as tax cuts, judicial nominees and the war in Iraq.’ Thune emphasized social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage, and flag burning to highlight the differences between his views and Daschle’s, stating, “Two-thirds of the people in South Dakota are in favor of protecting marriage through a Federal Marriage Amendment. You know, two-thirds of the people in South Dakota, probably higher than that, are in favor of an amendment to protect the American flag. You know, the Second Amendment, gun owners’ rights, abortion – those are not wedge issues in South Dakota.”
“In addition, Thune drove home his strong support for the war: in a nationally televised debate on NBC’s Meet the Press, Thune accused Daschle of “emboldening the enemy” by stating President Bush had “failed miserably” to avoid the Iraq war.”]
“When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7 points in January and February. By May, his lead fell to just 2 points and into the summer polls showed an effective tie. Throughout September, Daschle led Thune by margins of 2-5%; from October until the November 2 election, most polls showed Thune and Daschle tied 49-49 among likely voters.”
“On November 2, 2004, Thune defeated Daschle by 4,508 votes, winning 51% of the vote and became a well-known Republican figure in the U.S. Senate. Daschle’s loss was the first ousting of a serving Senate Majority or Minority Leader since 1952, when Arizona Senator Ernest McFarland lost his seat to Barry Goldwater.”
Senate service
“Thune was chosen to be the GOP’s Chief Deputy Whip. He also serves on the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry; Commerce, Science & Transportation; Small Business & Entrepreneurship; and Armed Services Committees. Senator Thune is also a ranking member on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support.“
“Soon after arriving in the Senate, Thune wrote language into a transportation bill expanding the pot of federal loan money for small railroads, enabling his former client to apply for $2.5 billion in government financing for its project.”
“As a U.S. Senator, Thune also took a leading role in formulating energy policy. He pushed for the final passage of a comprehensive energy bill, which finally overcame a series of Democratic filibusters and passed the Senate in 2005. Thune helped pass another energy bill in late 2007. Thune is a particular advocate of ethanol and wind energy, which are linked to South Dakota’s high levels of corn production and its windy prairies. Thune’s hometown of Murdo is considered one of the windiest towns in the nation.”
“Thune, along with South Dakota’s senior Senator Tim Johnson, was also faced with the challenge of keeping Ellsworth Air Force Base in Box Elder, South Dakota (near Rapid City) open after the Department of Defense announced plans to close the base as part of its 2005 round of base closures. The Pentagon announced that it planned to move all of Ellsworth’s B-1 bombers to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas. Ellsworth Air Force Base is one of South Dakota’s largest employers, and a critical component of the state’s economic well-being, making it necessary for the state’s political leaders to fight for its continued existence. Senator Thune, along with Senator Tim Johnson (D), lobbied Washington, specifically the Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission, to keep Ellsworth open. In their lobbying efforts, they argued that it made little sense to consolidate all of the nation’s B-1s in a single location due to the risk of a single attack or tornado taking out the fleet. Also, it was discovered that the Pentagon may have overlooked a lawsuit that possibly prevented B-1 pilots at Dyess from engaging in adequate training. While the fate of Dyess was still in the air, Thune declared that he had strong doubts about issues such as John Bolton’s nomination as United Nations ambassador, “I’ve said all along that I’m going to play whatever cards I have to get the best possible outcome I can for my base,” he is reported as saying. Ultimately, the BRAC Commission voted 8-1 to reverse the Pentagon’s recommendation to close Ellsworth.”
Political views
“The American Conservative Union gave Senator Thune a rating of “100″ in 2006. Thune has described his religious faith as the most important aspect of his political career: “Having a Christian worldview shapes my decision-making with respect to all aspects of my life. I always respect people in public life who are principled, and those principles have to be connected to something. And my faith is what serves as the anchor and directs my actions.” In June 2006, Thune reaffirmed his strong support to amend the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage: “The Federal Marriage Amendment debate simply is an opportunity for us to affirm our support for marriage…It is an important debate to have in this country. Thune also believes in creationism.”
“In a 2005 interview with Christianity Today, Thune supported invading Iraq, expressing a hope that this would result in greater religious freedom: ‘Liberating Iraq from decades of tyranny and dictatorship, bringing about political freedom, will create an atmosphere of where religious freedom will come to Iraq. And that opens the door, obviously, for the Christian faith there as well.’”
“Before the selection of Sarah Palin, Thune was mentioned as a possible Vice Presidential pick for Republican Presumptive Nominee John McCain in some circles due to his strong Conservative policies. Thune himself has publicly played down this speculation. He has been mentioned as a possible prospect for a presidential run in 2012.”