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Five Minutes with John Koster
It takes an hour and a half to drive to Arlington, Washington–that's where I was headed to meet John Koster this morning.
Koster was touring Cascade Valley Hospital—with fellow GOP candidate Dino Rossi, actually—and PubliCola was on the scene. (Rossi left pretty quickly after the event to the chagrin of the gaggle of reporters on hand.)
Koster campaign manager Larry Stickney told us earlier this week that Koster would sit down with us for a PubliColaTV interview. However, this morning Koster said he didn't have time for that. The candidate did find time to sit down with another member of the “liberal news media” right after the tour—NPR—but there was no video for us in the cards today.
I stuck around and Koster did sit down with me briefly to answer a few questions. Here are some snippets of our conversation:
In case you missed it, Koster recently completed a questionnaire for Campaign for Liberty (an organization founded by sometime presidential hopeful Ron Paul). I asked him about his “yes” answer to the question “Would you vote to eliminate the IRS”?”
His answer? Controlled spending would allow us to create a simplified tax code (Koster floated the possibility of the fair tax or a flat tax rate), which means no need for the IRS. “If you take a look at where we are today with $13.5 trillion in national debt, everything’s gotta be on the table.” But for the swing district, eliminating the IRS is an extreme measure. In fact, it's a dramatic stance for Koster himself, who came off as totally reasonable and intelligent in the brief time I had.
Is Social Security on the table? In our five minutes, I didn't have time to ask him about this, but it was on our list. Koster's incumbent opponent, Democrat Rick Larsen, has lashed out at Koster for his support of privatizing social security. On September 13, Larsen's camp issued a release quoting Koster as saying “individual retirement accounts will work.”
As for social issues (Koster is a hardline social conservaitve), I asked his take on the Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, which the Senate is taking up next week. He said if he had been in the house, which voted for a DADT repeal earlier this year, he would probably have voted against the repeal. “I don’t think this is the time. I would probably vote no,” he said.
Probably? Interesting. This from the man with arch-conservative Larry Stickney (Stickney has worked with the Washington Values Alliance, the Family Policy Institute of Washington, and he ran the R-71 campaign against Washington State’s domestic partner law) as his campaign manager. We followed up with Stickney, who said that we might be mincing words. "As far as I know, he's a 'no' on that. I've heard him say that on camera," Stickney said.
Koster is currently polling ahead of incumbent Democrat Rick Larsen (WA-2), and has raised $424,000 to Larsen's $1.1 million.
Koster was touring Cascade Valley Hospital—with fellow GOP candidate Dino Rossi, actually—and PubliCola was on the scene. (Rossi left pretty quickly after the event to the chagrin of the gaggle of reporters on hand.)
Koster campaign manager Larry Stickney told us earlier this week that Koster would sit down with us for a PubliColaTV interview. However, this morning Koster said he didn't have time for that. The candidate did find time to sit down with another member of the “liberal news media” right after the tour—NPR—but there was no video for us in the cards today.
I stuck around and Koster did sit down with me briefly to answer a few questions. Here are some snippets of our conversation:
In case you missed it, Koster recently completed a questionnaire for Campaign for Liberty (an organization founded by sometime presidential hopeful Ron Paul). I asked him about his “yes” answer to the question “Would you vote to eliminate the IRS”?”
His answer? Controlled spending would allow us to create a simplified tax code (Koster floated the possibility of the fair tax or a flat tax rate), which means no need for the IRS. “If you take a look at where we are today with $13.5 trillion in national debt, everything’s gotta be on the table.” But for the swing district, eliminating the IRS is an extreme measure. In fact, it's a dramatic stance for Koster himself, who came off as totally reasonable and intelligent in the brief time I had.
Is Social Security on the table? In our five minutes, I didn't have time to ask him about this, but it was on our list. Koster's incumbent opponent, Democrat Rick Larsen, has lashed out at Koster for his support of privatizing social security. On September 13, Larsen's camp issued a release quoting Koster as saying “individual retirement accounts will work.”
As for social issues (Koster is a hardline social conservaitve), I asked his take on the Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, which the Senate is taking up next week. He said if he had been in the house, which voted for a DADT repeal earlier this year, he would probably have voted against the repeal. “I don’t think this is the time. I would probably vote no,” he said.
Probably? Interesting. This from the man with arch-conservative Larry Stickney (Stickney has worked with the Washington Values Alliance, the Family Policy Institute of Washington, and he ran the R-71 campaign against Washington State’s domestic partner law) as his campaign manager. We followed up with Stickney, who said that we might be mincing words. "As far as I know, he's a 'no' on that. I've heard him say that on camera," Stickney said.
Koster is currently polling ahead of incumbent Democrat Rick Larsen (WA-2), and has raised $424,000 to Larsen's $1.1 million.
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