The campaign volunteers work the crowd, passing out literature up and down the parade route, wearing dark blue T-shirts proclaiming “I roll with Sean.”
As the parade and campaign for Sean Duffy to become the first freshman congressman from Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District in 41 years rolls along, a lot of people miss the reference to Duffy’s storied past. These days Duffy is getting a lot of attention talking about smaller government and fiscal responsibility as the Republican Party’s lead candidate to replace Democrat Dave Obey in Congress, but he entered the race having already made a name for himself in some unique ways.
“I roll with Sean” refers to Duffy’s talent as a logroller. As a lumberjack athlete featured on ESPN, he is a two-time world champion in the 90-foot speed climb and a three-time champion in the 60-foot climb.
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Then he was cast on MTV’s reality show The Real World, where he met his wife, Rachel, and gained some national fame as a TV personality.
But The Real World TV program experience was 18 years ago, Duffy points out. Today he is very much involved in the “real” real world as the father of six young children and as the district attorney in Ashland County.
He gathered those six children around him as reasons why he entered the race for Congress at a recent press conference in Chippewa Falls.
“After the stimulus bill was signed, I knew I had six really important reasons why I needed to run for Congress: my six children,” said Duffy. “The debt my children, and the children of Wisconsin, are unfairly being saddled with from Congress’ spending spree greatly concerns me as father, and also as an American.”
He laid the stimulus package at the feet of Dave Obey, the powerful Democrat who decided not to run again.
“The reason I got into this race is that Dave Obey wrote and got through Congress a massive stimulus package,” he said. “I knew I had to do something. I had to get involved.”
And so, as the children held up signs pleading that their piggy banks be saved, Duffy spelled out what he would do to restore fiscal responsibility: He would freeze government spending at 2008 levels, cancel unspent stimulus funds to reduce the deficit, end all bailouts, commit to passing a budget every year, kill the cap-and-trade bill and stop tax increases.
Duffy pointed out that the national debt is now $13 trillion, or $43,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.
“We can’t keep spending and passing the bill off to our next generation,” he said.
The stimulus package was supposed to keep unemployment from going over eight percent. The fact that it is 9.5 percent now is proof that it didn’t work, Duffy said.
“Government spending does not create jobs,” he said. “The private sector creates sustainable jobs.
“We used to have a government that was a referee in the marketplace. Now it’s a player in the marketplace,” he said.
Duffy opposes much that was done after markets started to crash in the fall of 2008 and unemployment began to soar. Had the government not bailed out banks, brokerage houses and auto companies or spent billions in the stimulus package, he said, “I think the economy would have already started to heal itself. In the long run, it’s made us a weaker economy.”
Duffy said he might have been convinced to spend some government money on infrastructure spending, but the bill that passed was far too big.
Instead, the government should have focused on what really builds an economy, like a better business climate, less government regulation and more competition, he said.
“To compete, we have to have a competitive tax code,” he said.
Duffy has criticized the health care bill passed into law, saying it did not address the main purpose of health care reform, to control costs. Instead, it increased government control and put in place a system that cannot be sustained without rationing.
Duffy has called for lower taxes, with such measures as making overtime tax-free and reducing the tax rates for individuals and businesses.
Duffy has declined to draw a distinction between himself and his opponent in the Republican primary, Dan Mielke, saying he just wants to talk about where he stands on the issues.
Duffy has received the Republican Party’s endorsement as its preferred candidate, which has brought party resources to bear to support his campaign.
The Duffy campaign, which has had some national exposure with articles in East Coast newspapers, keeps rolling along. Duffy talks less about Dave Obey now that the veteran congressman has bowed out.
But Duffy is still talking about a fresh start for the 7th Congressional District.
Editor's Note: The Herald is profiling the two Republican candidates for the 7th Congressional District who are running in the Sept. 14 primary. The story on Dan Mielke will run on Chippewa.com Monday. Both stories ran in Sunday's print edition of the Herald.
