Candidate Conversation: Jonathan Golnik

Here is the initial installment of conversations with Massachusetts Republicans seeking national office. Today, Jonathan Golnik, candidate for United States Congress, Massachusetts Fifth District.

Bob: A few days ago, Jonathan Golnik may have been considered one of the dumbest people on the planet as he was running for United States Congress as a Massachusetts Republican. What a difference a week makes!

Jonathan: Well Bob, you would have been surprised at who thought I was dumb and crazy. But I have always kept a very close hand on the pulse of politics and something was amiss here in MA, I felt it prior to President Obama’s election last year and after he was elected I decided to explore how he could run so strong in the Fifth district where I live and how someone like Niki Tsongas could run unopposed after such a narrow victory in her 2007 special election.

I went to Secretary of  State Galvin’s offices and pulled all the Fifth District election results since 1980 and to my great pleasure, I discovered that the Fifth District isn’t as liberal as one would expect. And as a matter of fact, the majority of the district was unaffiliated (independent) almost 55%. So combine that with people very unhappy with Governor Patrick and the fact that the three last state house speakers were indicted, I thought that to be a recipe for an opportunity.

Let’s not pile on Governor Patrick… yet.

Oh no, I won’t do that….

I remember having people look at me like I shot their mama when I told them I was a Republican. With the Scott Brown victory, what’s it like to be a Republican in Massachusetts today?

It is better this week than last week. I think it has energized the party. From strictly a selfish perspective it will help candidates like myself immeasurably. Republicans in MA who are running in national races struggle to raise money, struggle to be taken seriously. People see/saw us as a lost cause. Scott has proven that R’s in MA running for the national offices can run and win.

I don’t want to get you in any trouble with the Massachusetts Republican Party… but let’s get you in trouble with the party. Have they reached out to you at all?

I first approached the MA GOP in February of 2009 because I wanted to enquire if anyone was planning to run for the seat. At the time, they replied promptly and told me that it was too early. I then contacted them in August after I made a trip to Washington DC to discuss with the RNC and NRCC the Fifth district. I met with the Executive Director of the MA GOP and was encouraged to run if no one else was planning to; however, I was also told that the MA GOP didn’t get too involved and in the event of a primary would not get involved until post primary. I was given access to support via voter vault and any campaign classes they might run.

Ah… voter vault. That’s an issue for a private discussion.

What are the issues in your district, what isn’t Niki Tsongas doing to address them (if she can at all), and what do you wish to accomplish in the US Congress for Massachusetts?

Bob, there are two levels to this question. From the macro level I believe the democratic leadership has misread the 2008 election results. They believe people voted fro an agenda and to be honest, I believe people were (unfortunately) voting against the republicans. This has lead to a conceit from Washington that they somehow know better than we (the people) do. This is what led to this healthcare package being force fed to us.

It appears that this effort has been stymied, for know, but that being said and what I don’t believe is being mentioned that the biggest problem with the healthcare package is that we have wasted 10 months on it… when we could have been focusing on creating quality jobs for people of this country and the Fifth District. On a micro level, Representative Tsongas simply is not engaged. She is never in the district and she votes 98% of the time with the leadership. That is not consistent with the views of the people for the Fifth, in my opinion. The three issues that I think this election turns on are jobs, healthcare and deficit spending. With jobs being the most pressing because we currently find ourselves in a jobs crisis as we speak.

Do you think the stimulus is working in the Fifth? In my neck of the woods in Central Mass, I saw lots of pretty signs on Route 2, but it still took months to repair one road through Athol. Seems to me whatever work is being stimulated is being milked for all it’s worth.

I do not think it is working. We were told that the stimulus was necessary to avert a disaster and that it would keep unemployment under 8% and we are at 10%. Don’t get me wrong, there are jobs that need to be protected like those that provide for safety, police, fire dept, and teachers for our kids. What will happen when the funds from the stimulus dry up? Will we see a push for stimulus 2? We can’t afford it.

The engine of job creation are the small to midsized businesses and they are reluctant to hire now because everything coming out of the White House is a job killer, healthcare, cap and trade, rolling off of the bush tax cuts… you want to create jobs now, and I believe that could be done by giving a 10,000 dollar tax credit for every worker a business hires… that sounds like a lot of money but the $622 million that was sent here for the stimulus created 12,400 jobs… that is $50,000 cost per job. That makes $10,000 look cheap as it is 20% and these jobs are in the private sector.

President Obama has spent most of the last half of his first year bashing Republicans who believe his is the wrong approach. Aside from the initial star factor when meeting him, do you think you can work with him?

Bob, you know people say the Republican Party is the party of ‘NO’ and I follow up by saying we are the party of ‘No” to bad ideas. I think we get bogged down with these partisan issues and to some extent, simply because an idea comes from across the aisle. It is immediately dismissed, unfortunately the people who suffer are the citizens of the country. If I end up in Washington I will work with anyone person or party who can help me find solutions to the challenges faced by the people of the Fifth District. If President Obama has solutions to our challenges then I would be derelict in my duty not to work with him.

Lightning Round…

Do you believe in Global Warming/Climate Change?

I believe that we should leave this country a better place for our children and grandchildren and consistent with that we should leave our country/world cleaner, I do think that certain groups underestimate the ability of the environment to heal itself and overestimate man/woman’s ability to damage. I have become more of a skeptic given the recent release of the emails that seem to show manipulation of statistics.

Do you think Niki Tsongas knows if al Qaeda is still in Afghanistan?

I don’t think she does, al Qaeda is still in Afghanistan, along with other enemies of our nation.

If you win the Republican nomination and get to debate her (you did say you think she’s out of touch with her constituents), do you plan on any trick questions to her, like which Red Sox player has the bloody sock?

As much as I would like to, I will stick to the issues and themes I believe effect the people of the Fifth. I was asked the three most important issues and I said jobs, jobs, jobs not necessarily in that order. I do have a good senses of humor and hope that the constituents of the Fifth District can see that side of me.

I was on a health care special on BET and asked two congresspersons about the one thing left out of the health care bill that if addressed would immediately drive down costs. What do you think that omission is?

Allowing individuals to buy insurance across state lines; this will force insurance companies to compete for business by lowering premiums and still maintaining quality. We have the best healthcare in the world unfortunately it is the most expensive.

I was looking for tort reform, but competition as you stated would also lower costs.

Last question. When you go to a Republican candidate school in Massachusetts, you’re told to focus on “smaller government, family values”, blah blah.

Why are you running, sacrificing time with your family, opening up yourself to public scrutiny? What can you do for the Fifth and what can you promise?

I just wanted to say with regard to tort reform that is also very important as the projected cost savings from such will be $54,000,000,000 over 10 years not to mention the exponential savings that will accrue when doctors don’t practice ‘defensive’ medicine. Also we could allow individuals to take healthcare expense as a write off like businesses do.

Why am I running? For the simple reason that I do not like the direction our country is heading. And at the risk of sounding old fashion, I want to make sure that this country is better place for children and grandchildren with more opportunity than we have had. I am not a ‘politician’ in that I have never run for office. I think that is a strength. I have not spent my life making every decision calculated. I am not perfect but I have nothing to hide.

I promise this: no one will agree with me on everything, but they will know where I stand, and I will be honest and work hard fro everyone in the district Those that vote for me, those that vote against me and those that don’t vote

Mr. Golnik, thank you for your time and the best of luck during your primary. Should you win, and given the name recognition of the incumbent which will give your race of national exposure, hopefully you’ll have time to check in with us again.