Some Thoughts on Ron Johnson

I first met Ron Johnson a few months ago at a Drinking Right gathering. I found Johnson to be different from career politicians (and if I ever, EVER hear that phrase again I'm gonna scream till they take me away to a rubber room). ANYWAY, the thing I found different about this candidate was he didn't talk. Say whut?? Seriously. He didn't "campaign" like most do. He listened. He'd ask a question and actually LISTEN to what folks had to say on the matter. (hear that Feingold?) He wasn't pushing an agenda or an idea...he truly seemed to want to hear what people were thinking, whether it be good or bad. Just a regular guy wanting to know what the people were really looking for.

Now, anyone who has been paying attention at all knows that the event that pushed Johnson into running for Senate was the passage of Obamacare. He's often relayed the story of his daughter having a congenital heart defect at birth and how the choices that he and his wife had were critical to her survival. I could really relate to that. So last week, for some odd reason I thought I would send him this post. Basically it's my story of a very similar scenario. So I shot that off via email to him, and figured his staffers would read it (or not) and that would be the end of it.

Not this time. I was at work a little after lunch last Wednesday - the same day I sent the email. The phone rang and I answered it because I was the ONLY person in the office that day. Someone asked for me and who d'ya think it was? Yup - Ron Johnson. He said staff did indeed look at the email and passed it on to him. He called just to chat about it and ask a few questions. We had a very pleasant conversation ending with me letting him know that I support him 100% in the senate race.

Why write about this? Is it a huge thing in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But what it demonstrated to me was that my initial impression of Ron Johnson was pretty spot on. It demonstrated that he is just a "regular guy" who is running for office for the reasons he cited. He wants to see a change in Washington and is one of the many "regular people" who have demonstrated their love for this country by stepping up to the plate, running for office and trying to get us headed back in the right direction.

If you live in Wisconsin and give a damn about this state and this country, cast your vote for Ron Johnson for U.S. Senate.