On a gorgeous summer afternoon, U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson graciously allocated time from his schedule to meet me at Pistol Pete’s Restaurant and Bar, 16755W.LisbonRoadinBrookfield, Wis. Like many Conservatives in Southeastern Wisconsin, I wanted to find out where this guy from Oshkosh came from to rocket to the leading position in the race to win the Wisconsin GOP primary to take on our incumbent, highly progressive Senator Russ Feingold.
Born in Mankato, Minnesota, Johnson attended the University of Minnesota and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He graduated with no debt due to a myriad of jobs he worked as a teenager and throughout college. He married Jane, his wife of 32 years, after graduation. They had met as seniors in high school. They have been blessed with three children, Carey, Jenna and Ben.
During his first post-college job at Josten’s, a Minneapolis manufacturer of graduation and scholastic products, Johnson pursued an MBA degree which he did not complete. He moved to Oshkosh in 1979 to start a business with his brother-in law, Pat Curler, a plastic sheeting business with one specific application in food packaging. After trading 12 hour shifts for the first year, PACUR LLC, expanded with employees and found a new, wider application of its plastic products to medical device packaging. This new product application launched PACUR into a new arena involving salespeople and international shipments. Johnson took on the role of managing the sales as well as the financial aspects of the business. He eventually purchased the business, and today PACUR employs more than 100 people and exports more plastic product to China than to anywhere else in the world. Johnson likes to say, “we don’t export jobs, we export plastic.”
“Customer Service is everything. It’s what sets us apart from all of the others trying to do what we do,” Johnson stated. This nice, concise statement of his business philosophy gave me pause to wonder how he would apply this philosophy to his job as U.S. Senator if elected.
“Why did you decide to throw yourself into this Senate race? Have you always been active in the Republican Party?” I asked Johnson.
“I am a news junkie,” began Johnson. He reads the Wall Street Journal every day. Over the last few election cycles Johnson’s involvement in the political process did increase but was confined to a few donations to some candidates but very little involvement in the GOP.
“The initial trigger point was the election of Barack Obama and the fact that one Party controls the federal government,” stating how, “the Government takeover of healthcare was the straw that broke this camel’s back in terms of making a decision to enter the race. Forcing citizens to purchase healthcare and levying a fine if people don’t participate is the greatest assault on personal freedoms during my lifetime,” said Johnson.
Johnson’s first child, Carey, was born with a heart defect which required the full use of cutting-edge technology by fully committed physicians willing to do whatever it took to save her and give her a life. “These doctors were so committed and so competent and so willing to help us that when the administration began to demonize doctors as greedy villains I had had enough. I needed to get more involved right then.
“There is a full-fledged attack by this administration and the liberal Democrats on the producers of America, both in healthcare and throughout the private sector. This bill they passed obviously leads to a single-payer system. The cost estimates could be just one-tenth of what they will actually turn out to be. These costs will destroy our healthcare system, which is the best in the world. This bill will destroy medical innovation. Where do medical and pharmaceutical advances come from? America!”
Asked by the Oshkosh Tea Party organizers to give a speech about government regulation from a business leader’s perspective for their October, 2009 event, Johnson delivered the speech we published in the last edition of Reality News. People that heard Johnson and knew him started to suggest that he might be a strong GOP candidate to unseat Russ Feingold. Johnson’s previous political experience is limited to his involvement in the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce. Johnson is truly a political outsider. Johnson also spoke at the Madison Tax Day Tea Party on the Capitol Square.
When asked about the global warming fraud that has been promulgated over the last two decades, Johnson replied, “I always say this when asked this question: If not for the climate change which has been occurring naturally for the last 10,000 years we’d be doing everything here on 200 feet of ice.” Point well taken but obviously made simply to point out that the Earth’s natural cycles play a large role in climate change. Johnson also points out that America has the technology to pursue new, cleaner forms of nuclear energy that will reduce our dependence on foreign countries as well as protect the environment. Roadblocks created by Federal overregulation have stymied this advancement. Johnson summed up his desire to serve Wisconsin as its next US Senator quite succinctly: “We can bring America back. I have not given up hope!”