Critics of House Speaker Paul Ryan believe he may be vulnerable in next week’s Wisconsin congressional primary, but the man who pulled off one of the biggest political upsets in U.S. history says whoever wins better be ready to turn their campaign promises into action.
Ryan is seeking a tenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He won re-election in 2014 with 63 percent of the vote. However, GOP primary challenger Paul Nehlen is taking a Donald Trump-like approach to the campaign, calling Ryan out of touch with his district and weak on critical issues like border security and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants.
That’s pretty much the same approach that Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., used to score a stunning upset over then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 congressional primary, and with this election season in far more upheaval than the one two years ago, Ryan critics believe a replay of the Brat-Cantor race is possible.
For his part Brat is staying out of the Ryan-Nehlen battle, just as he stays out of every primary fight.
“I don’t get in the endorsement business. I don’t endorse at the federal, state or local [level] because I don’t like elites picking winners. I want to pick the winners on their own,” said Brat, who is also the author of “American Underdog: Proof that Principles Matter.”
But does he see Ryan as being in the same position as Cantor was in 2014? Brat says Ryan is much better than Cantor about getting back home and being around the people in his community and he’s very approachable for other Republicans in the House. He says Ryan is rock solid on his economic theory but has been underwhelming in putting those ideas into policy.
“On the principles, Paul and I are very similar. He likes Hayek, and Von Mises and Milton Friedman and is a policy wonk,” said Brat. “The challenge for our side is to do better and follow our rhetoric.”
Brat says the frustration of American voters of all political stripes is boiling over this year because both parties have failed at their most important jobs.
“The whole Trump phenomenon is related to about 20 years of Democrats and Republicans’ failure to solve fiscal matters. We’ve racked up $19 trillion in debt and $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities,” said Brat.
The congressman says there is a similarity to Nehlen in that both of them made immigration major issues in their campaigns. Only Brat says the issue is far worse now than it was just two years ago.
“I ran on just illegal immigration. Now it’s morphed into the refugee crisis. We’ve had terrible reports of infiltration into the Washington, D.C. (transit) police department. We’re beyond the talking points. The newspapers are full of hard data,” said Brat.
But when given a chance to address the immigration problem just last year, Brat says House Republican leaders not only failed to act but actually made things far worse.
“In the omnibus, they not only skipped all the immigration moves, instead they increased HB2 visas by 400 percent. That’s a diametric move in the wrong direction, when Americans do have real concerns and they know we have big problems,” said Brat.
And he says immigration wasn’t the only maddening move by leadership against conservative efforts.
“We tried to save $30 billion out of a $535 billion deficit this year alone. We couldn’t make any headway. We’re called the right-wingers and the knuckle-draggers for trying to save $30 billion. That’s a teaspoonful of fiscal savings,” said Brat.
In reflecting on Brat’s campaign, it appears he used a milder form of populism than Nehlen is employing to attack Speaker Ryan, whereas Brat spoke more to core conservative principles. However, Brat says you don’t have to choose between those strategies.
“They don’t have to be divorced. There’s a populist urge for us to execute on what we run on,” said Brat.
He says the reason populist messages are resonating on both sides of the political aisle is because politicians on both sides never seem to do what they promise.
“There’s a populist surge because people know that we’re not being honest, we’re not following through on these promises. We’re going to get rid of Obamacare, we all say. Then we really don’t fight. I cam in two years ago and Obama did the unconstitutional amnesty. (Former House Speaker John) Boehner said we’re going to fight tooth and nail and we didn’t fight,” said Brat.
He says voters are begging Republicans to fight for them in issues that are impacting their lives and crippling their livelihoods.
“I’ve got horror stories about the Department of Labor. The overtime rule is putting people out of business. The fiduciary rule of clobbering people. These are major issues our leadership needs to fight on and the American people don’t think we’re fighting,” said Brat.
Most experts expect Ryan to win his primary on August 9, perhaps quite comfortably. Brat says that may well be the case but he cautions that the experts are not exactly on a winning streak, including his own race and the result of the Republican presidential race.
“They had [Cantor] up 30 and I ended up winning by ten. Same thing this year on the Trump phenomenon. All the experts it turns out aren’t too much of experts on anything. They own the microphones, I guess, but that’s about it. They’ve been wrong on everything,” said Brat.
