President Obama and Dr. Milton Wolf are second cousins, but that may be the end of the similarities as Wolf runs to the right of incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in the Kansas GOP primary.
The 42-year-old Wolf is a diagnostic radiologist. He admits he didn’t know he was related to Obama until 2008 and didn’t meet him until they were health care policy adversaries in 2010. Wolf says being related to a president would be a great experience if Obama weren’t so far left in his ideology.
“Of course, who wouldn’t be honored to have a president in your family and sit on the front row of history. We’re related, of course I remind people you cannot choose your family,” said Wolf. “Barack Obama is the worst president in our lifetimes if not in our history. He has been a disaster. It’s nothing personal but his policies have been disastrous in America.
“It’s mostly because he either doesn’t understand or has forgotten what America is all about. The American idea itself is about individual liberty, limited government and free market values. When we have embraced those we have become the most prosperous and powerful nation in history, and when we abandon those we suffer. We have suffered under Barack Obama,” he said.
Wolf is making no secret he would be a fierce opponent of President Obama in Washington. The home page of his campaign website reads, “Want to drive Barack Obama crazy? Send his very own fearless conservative cousin — ‘the next Ted Cruz’ — to the United States Senate!”
Wolf says he touts himself as the next Ted Cruz because he believes the freshman Texas senator is approaching his office the right way while Sen. Roberts is not.
“we need more senators like Ted Cruz, like Mike Lee, like Rand Paul. They stand by the Constitution fearlessly, unapologetically. They don’t need an election year conversion because they’re the real deal,” said Wolf. “Pat Roberts, in an amazing election year conversion, is following the leadership of Ted Cruz, who’s only been there for one year,” said Wolf. “That’s because Ted Cruz understand something that Pat Roberts has never quite figured out – that a United States senator should have something more powerful than just a vote. He should have a voice, and he should use that voice. He should stand up and fight for our Constitution and for that American idea itself.
“Instead, what we have in our establishment Republicans are these go along to get along Republicans. Pat Roberts voted for Barack Obama’s $600 million tax increase just a year ago. He’s voted to raise our debt ceiling 11 times. And Pat Roberts voted to put Kathleen Sebelius in charge of Obamacare. That’s not conservative, it’s not good for Kansas and it’s not good for America,” said Wolf.
Defenders of Roberts counter Wolf’s arguments by asserting Roberts spent many years of his Senate tenure in key intelligence committee positions that were not conducive to bold public statements. They also note he was one of only 18 Republicans to oppose the spending bill that ended last year’s partial government shutdown and that he was the first U.S. senator to publicly call for the resignation of Sebelius.
“He only bothered to say Kathleen Sebelius should resign three days after I announced my candidacy. The Kansas City Star reported on it and said, ‘If you think those two facts are unrelated, you probably think the Kansas Jayhawks are going to win the national championship this year in football,'” said Wolf, who says voters need to take a close look at Roberts’ voting record throughout his Senate tenure and not just leading up to elections.
“He claims to be in the top five conservatives in the Senate. That’s according to Heritage Action. What he doesn’t want you to know is his lifetime score from Heritage Action, which is a 67. Before I came along, in 2012 Pat Roberts had a 65 from Heritage Action. Before I came along, in 2012 Pat Roberts had a 55 from Club for Growth and a 54 from FreedomWorks. That is not a conservative. That is somebody who is going along to get along, and that’s been the problem with our Republican Party,” said Wolf.
So what qualifies Wolf for the Senate and what would his priorities be if elected?
“I confess I don’t have the Washington experience Pat Roberts has. I’ve never voted to raise your taxes. I’ve never spent trillions of dollars that aren’t mine and I’ve never paid $800 for a toilet seat. But what I have done is this. I have met payroll. I have balanced budgets. I have run a company and, far more importantly, I know every day what it’s like to have patients come to me and put their lives in my hands and ask me to make the humbling, sometimes gut-wrenching decisions that are the difference between life and death. That’s the kind of humility I think Washington lacks,” said Wolf.
His top legislative priority is PatientCare, his plan to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a system based on conservative principles.
“We need to fully repeal Obamacare, and we need to replace it with patient-centered, free market health care reform that’s being described as, by far, the best alternative to Obamacare,” said Wolf.
Wolf is not only running against a three-term incumbent, but the state’s other senator, Jerry Moran, runs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). That’s the group tasked with re-electing Republican senators and recruit candidates to run for Democratically-held seats. Wolf says Kansas is in no danger of falling to the Democrats, so the NRSC should stay out of the primary. He says if it doesn’t, it will show the group is not about electing conservatives but simply protecting incumbents.