Interview: Gary Trauner runs for US House

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

By Lucille Rice

PJH: What is the current tone of the race and what do you feel is your current position in it?

GT: When I started this thing out and I announced [my candidacy] in January. If anybody has said to me you're competing in a horse race with a month to go, I'd probably be pretty happy and I think that's where we are. So I think we've done a good job, I think that I am getting my message out, telling the people of the state of Wyoming what I think we should do and why I think I'm the person to do that and I think that people are responding. So relatively speaking, I think it's gone pretty well. Plus I've had a great time meeting people knocking on over 15,000 doors.

PJH: Are there any polls out there?

GT: We did some internal polling a ways back that shows that we are basically neck in neck. There hasn't been a lot of national polling on this race. We have an idea of where we are but the hard part is to know where you are without a lot of polling going on. I feel great, people are responding incredibly, I think people are pumped up but you know, who knows?

PJH: It is getting close to election time and the race is heating up. This is a race that the nation should be polling as it will help determine which party will take over Congress. Wyoming has had Republican representation in the House since Dick Cheney won his first term in 1978. What do you think would happen if Democrats were to take over Congress? Why did Dick Cheney suggest at a Cubin fundraiser that this would compromise the nation's security and economy?

GT: I think that we need to take an objective look at where we are from an economic and national security perspective right now. Economically, we've got the biggest growth in government, the biggest deficit and the biggest debt that we've ever had. So I think that you have to look at her votes and the Congress right now and say: I don't think that's really been very helpful. By the same token, corporate profits as a share of our GDP is as high as it's been in 40 years and average worker's wages as a share of the economy are the lowest they've been in I think, if I'm correct, since the Census Bureau started tracking this in 1947. So the fact that the economy has grown, it's grown for a very thin slice of people and that's corporations and big companies and the people that run them, basically. So five years into a recovery when average workers wages are down and gas prices are up and the cost of health care and education is up, and people are more likely to lose their jobs, I don't see the economy as steam rolling on. On the national security front, I think go to the experts. The government just came out with the latest national intelligence estimate, the NIE, where all of the intelligence agencies, I believe there may be 16 of them, have gotten together to look at where we stand and they're saying: you know what, things aren't going that well. We're not doing a good job of fighting the quote unquote "war on terror", things aren't going that well in Iraq. That's not me, that's the experts from this country speaking. Also, Foreign Policy magazine earlier this year got a group of international experts together, from all of the administrations, from all across the [political] spectrum, they purposely tried to balance it in terms of moderate, conservative, liberal, whatever you want to call it and astonishingly enough, 84% to 86% of those folks believe that we are on the wrong track and that we're not fighting the quote unquote war on terror the right way, etc. So this isn't me talking, these are the experts talking. This is the other thing that amazes me; I can change parties any time I want. I am a Democrat. If I became a Republican tomorrow, would that mean that I would better serve and know more about national security than I did the day before as a Democrat? Of course not, this isn't about the party; this is about good people asking hard questions, making good decisions and doing the right thing regardless of party. That's the biggest problem we got up in D.C today: blind allegiance to party.

PJH: Two main issues concerning the nation's national security are the war in Iraq and illegal immigration. What is the next step in Iraq?

GT: The role of Congress is to provide oversight. It is not to prosecute the war, that is role of the executive branch. This is the first war of this century if not longer where we haven't had any real meaningful oversight in hearings to ask the hard questions and that's what we need to do. I think that there are actually pretty simple questions, maybe not easy answers but simple questions that we need to ask. What are our goals and objectives right now? What does victory really mean? What's the plan to get there and what is the exit strategy once we achieve that plan? My job if I got there would be to do what Congress isn't doing today which is to ask those questions, hold people's feet to the fire, hold them accountable, and make sure we have a plan because the best way that we can support our troops is to be able to have good answers for those few questions. Anybody, by the way, who uses what I consider to be cheap political slogans like "stay the course" and "cut and run". In my view, they are the ones doing the disservice to our national security and to our troops by subjecting those who are at risk over there because they are the ones who aren't actually willing to have the hard discussions. Clearly, the war has not gone as planned, I don't think anybody can argue that. So we need to have a hard discussion and just using simple slogans doesn't answer the debate it just polarizes things and that's the last thing we can afford. I think we need to stabilize the country. I'm not a fan of saying that we just up and leave tomorrow; we can't afford chaos over there. I also think that we need to have some different strategies and that we're probably in the midst of a civil war and having our troops patrolling the streets of Baghdad in the midst of a civil was doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'm not in the camp if there had to be one of those but I also think that we need to come up with some fresh ideas.

PJH: On illegal immigration: How do you further explain your suggestion to work with other nations to make living conditions there better in order to stop the illegal immigration problem at the source?

GT: I think the long-term answer is to get the root cause and the root cause is that folks are coming over here because they want to make more money; they want a better way of life. Now think of the message that we send to illegal immigrants, it's incredible: We don't want you here, but if you come, we'll give you a job. That's crazy, that's insane. (So the way to deal with that), I think NAFTA has been one of the biggest problems in causing this issue. The way you deal with it is you have what's called 'fair trade', not 'free trade'. You try your best to level the playing field. What I mean by that is: if you sign a free trade agreement where someone makes this shirt for 20 cents a day in a foreign country but they don't have any labor protections, no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws, no safety regulations in the workplace. There are no environmental regulations to stop pollution, no anti-corruption laws, no oversight and regulatory laws in order to enforce the law. We've done that in this country because we know what it takes to protect to our workers, to protect the rule of law and to have a good society. We're passed all that sort of sweatshop, child labor kind of stuff. If we don't try to make other countries level the playing by [creating safe and fair work environments abroad] doing that, it's a race to the bottom. Those folks don't get any better off down there, people either get paid less down here because of competitive pressures or they lose their jobs here because jobs are outsourced. So it's lose lose for everybody except for large companies that bigger profit margins. I'm a businessman. I've spent my entire career building companies and I am not anti business, I am not anti profit, I am actually pro, but we shouldn't set our public policy solely so that companies can make more money. Public policy should be for people and then the businesses should be able to work within that framework. So I think: fair trade, not free trade. I also think that we should pay them minimum wage because I hear that there are jobs here that these folks need to come do because Americans won't do them and again I think Americans won't do them for sub standard pay, with no safety regulations with no benefits treated like slaves. You're right, Americans won't do that, again, we're passed that. So let's pay people fairly and I think you know what, you will find that there are Americans that want to do these jobs too.

PJH: What if fair trade does not solve the problem? What if companies down there choose to work with other nations that may not take the same 'fair trade' initiatives; the working conditions South of the Border might remain the status quo and due to their close proximity of the U.S and the better way of life available here, there will still be a flow of illegal immigration. What other options are there to tackle the issue of illegal immigration?

GT: Clearly we need to secure our borders.

PJH: The fence?

GT: I think barriers are appropriate in areas of dense population like Tijuana, San Diego, El Paso and places in Arizona and New Mexico where it is appropriate to have barriers to slow folks down. I think the reality of a 2,000 mile long fence across our entire southern border, I don't know that that is really going to solve the entire problem. I think another real way to solve the problem is cracking down on employers. If you reduce demand, you reduce supply. It is illegal in this country to hire undocumented employees yet of course obviously lots of people do it because that's why they're coming over here, like I said, you know, they're getting jobs, we tell them we don't want them but they're getting jobs. If I run a small business here in Jackson if someone came to me and said, you know what, if you knowingly hired undocumented workers, you'd go to jail or maybe we would fine your business so much money that you'd be in danger of going out of business, you can be darn well sure that neither I or anyone in my company would hire an illegal alien. There is no question, they wouldn't do it. So you reduce that and I think that's where perhaps folks in Congress conquered the game but they're paying attention to special interest that help keep them in power as opposed to doing what's right for the people.

PJH: Which brings us back to partisan politics

GT: Not just partisan politics, the fact of the matter is special interests give money to both sides and I think really it's the fact that there's big money there and people get pulled into the big money and they hold it to the folks that help keep them in power and they forget who they represent and they forget who pays their salary and frankly, unfortunately it is not just limited to one side or the other, it's both.

PJH: How would you keep it real with Wyomingites while working in Washington and continue the precedent of community outreach that you set forth with door-to-door campaigning?

GT: It's a tough question, and I'll tell you the single most prevalent question I've gotten knocking on doors is: how do I know you're not going to become one of them. It's a tough one to answer because I'm not there yet. But I do turn it around and ask people: when is the last time you saw someone running for Congress in your small town in Wyoming knocking on your door asking for your thoughts and ideas and that should be some indication of who I am. Secondly, my family lives here. I have two young boys 13 and 7. They're Wyoming boys, they're gonna stay here, at least initially and the fact of the matter is, I'd rather have them stay here because that's why we're here, why my wife and I moved to Wyoming in the first place, to have native born kids and raise a family. So if my kids live here, my heart is going to be here. But really the answer to that question is that there's no magic bullet. We need to find representatives, we as a state need to find folks who care and who have this sort of intestinal fortitude to know what's right and wrong, that's the key, there's no easy answer. But I would argue that what I've done in the last 10 months is a pretty good indication of who I am and what I'm going to do. If you don't like meeting folks and talking about what matters to them and being in their town just hanging out, that would probably last about 2 weeks and you would be like: that's it, I'm done.

PJH: There is the perception of a credibility gap between what the Congress and the President are saying and what they are actually doing. Your race may come down to people becoming aware of that credibility gap and voting against it. Are people aware of this gap?

GT: Yes, I have been getting that more and more. And that is where the question "How do I know you're not going to become one of them" comes from, because people are fed up. And every once in a while I'll get someone who says, "oh, you're just another politician" and that actually hurts me because I think, this is what the folks that have come before me have done to us, they have made our people cynical about the role of government and about the role of our representation in that government and it doesn't have to be that way. People do probably have to go out and take a little but of a leap of faith, there is some risk here for someone new, there always is. But I would argue that the real risk is business as usual in terms of blind partisanship and personal attack ads and policies that aren't working, that's really the risk. And I tell people, you know what, give me two years. Give me two years to earn your trust and deserve your respect and to show you that this can be done, because that's how long a term is and if I can't prove that to you in two years, you'll have alternatives down the road but it's not working the way it is and people know that on both sides it's not working the way it should, I think we've seen. Now, are people hearing about it? I get people coming up to me all the time and saying: thank you for not going negative, thank you for running a positive campaign, thank you for doing this. And I will tell you that I had a reporter from a TV station in Wyoming who said to me: don't feel like, especially if the other side might be doing this, don't you feel like you have to mudsling to win? I didn't even hesitate for a second, if I have to mudsling to win, I don't want to win, it's that simple. Because I've got to live with myself and my family, and my kids and my wife and I've got my integrity and that is the exact reason why I'm doing this, is to win without mudslinging, it's to show people there's a different way. Now the key is to get this message out to folks.

PJH: On Monday there was a bomb threat at the Colter Elementary School here in Jackson. As an active leader in education as Chairman of the Teton School District #1 Board of Trustees, what have you seen that has been done to prepare for emergencies such as the recent bomb threat?

GT: We do have emergency plans and emergency planning. We are trying to make our schools more secure in terms of little basic security like locking the doors to the schools so people can't come in without having an appointment or without having someone granting them access, to better awareness and better planning for emergencies. We need to be proactive about this, we clearly cannot stop every incident from happening and I would argue that the Amish incident for example, that person had no history or any problems was a family man, actually, I think, relatively liked in his community; clearly had some internal demons that he was fighting and nobody would have expected that he would have gone into that school and done that. So you can never completely stop or anticipate every single thing that could possibly happen. Schools are, generally speaking, incredibly safe. They're probably one of the safest places, if not the safest place in our society today. We need to be vigilant and we need to have plans and we need to make sure that we do everything we can proactively to protect our children, hopefully without making our schools prisons, and I think that's the trade-off.

PJH: Do you think that there is something that can be done on the legislative level? If you violence in schools is a societal problem, can we tackle it from the legislative level?

GT: It's hard to legislate morality, it's hard to legislate good behavior. If you've got someone out there who's unhappy and has demons or whatever and is going to try to perpetrate an illegal act, it is going to be hard to legislate to catch that. I think the answer is vigilance, security, reasonable steps to create security. From a federal legislation perspective, I don't have anything in mind right now. I'm a fan of local control in schools. It's probably more community based, I would argue than it would be federally based. Schools in Wyoming are funded by the state. I think that those are probably more appropriate levels to talk about what needs to be done from that perspective. Now that doesn't mean that we can't look from the federal level at the problem of school violence but I don't want to do anything precipitously I know that we, as a Trustee in this district, we've taken lots of steps to do everything we can to make our kids safe. From counseling to security to proactive steps and I think, you know, we just keep working at that, there's no magic bullet.

PJH: Let's talk about natural resources. Two main things, really. You speak in your campaign about a new energy plan and that due to its plentiful resources, Wyoming should be at the forefront of the creation of an independent energy plan. How do you plan to put Wyoming in the lead of such efforts if you are elected in November?

GT: I think this goes to the trick to if you're going to be Wyoming's sole representative. We only get one out of 435 in Congress so your odds are not very good in terms of having a huge say. So I think that you need to have two tricks: you need to be a leader, and you need to be able to work with folks across party politics, across philosophical lines to actually get things done. To take the issues that you brought to the table as a leader and then actually work with them to get things accomplished. And that is clearly one of the big reasons I am running too, is I think we've been underrepresented over the last 12 years. And again a lot of these questions are tough issues and there's no magic bullet but in the business world, I help companies get started, I'm a start up guy and I write their business plans and I do their offering documents for the inaudible, I help get general control of the place then I help run the company. When you do start ups it's a risky thing. 70% of startups fail between the first 4-5 years. So, one of the inaudible I have the ability to do is not only lead the company but when things aren't going the way they planned and I would argue that in 90 % or maybe more of businesses, especially start ups, things don't go the way you wrote your business plan, there are always things that are different, that change, you need to have the ability to adjust, to listen to different kinds of groups, to sift through all the information, to figure out what the right thing to do is and work with other people to get it done. And I've done that successfully my entire career with big public companies and with small companies. But those are the traits you need in Congress to actually get things passed. I think that we are the breadbasket of energy or we're part of it at least and we've got an abundance of natural resources so clearly fossil fuels aren't going away tomorrow so we need to responsibly develop the resources that we have. That's important, absolutely. But we also need to look at new technologies for those resources; IGCC is a classic example for coal, Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, which is essentially cleaner coal. And we should take a lead in that, this is Wyoming, we should take a lead in developing those technologies and using those technologies to process those resources. I think that, much like high tech was the leader in the economy in the last 20, 30 years or so and no one really foresaw that coming up. I think one of the real drivers in the economy in the future in the next 20 to 50 years is going to be sustainable energy technology because you've got China and India coming on live with a third of the world's population, inaudible two countries industrializing faster than two countries ever have with an insatiable appetite for energy and the folks that have the expertise, have the patents and have the knowledge to sell, develop, and run those energy technologies of the future are going to be part of the winners of the economy. So that's critical for us here in Wyoming, it means we need to bring stuff to our schools, Wyoming should be a world leader in all sorts of energy research. You know I talked to a company in Laramie called Wilco and what they do is basically help map underground coal bed methane geology to better help CBM companies determine how they're going to find gas, how much water they need to pump in order to get the gas out, and to be more efficient in what they do. These guys are a start up company, they're doing incredible stuff, they're just getting going, companies like that should be based here in Wyoming because this is what we're about and then be able to export that technology around the world. I think that's what we need to do and I think we need leaders in our representation that understand that.

PJH: So efficiency is key in your new energy plan?

GT: Well clearly if you can make people operate efficiently it's more profitable for those companies there's less environmental damage and we get more energy out of the ground, it's win win for everybody. SO yeah, that's part of it.

PJH: Along the lines of natural resources, what are your views on the potential conflict between wildlife habitat and mineral extraction in Wyoming?

GT: We need to find a balance. Governor Ed Herschler said "development on our own terms", and there are clearly places where it is appropriate in this state for mineral extraction but there are also clearly places in this state where it is not appropriate for developing and I think a lot of people, when you go around the state you realize and even here, one of the main reason that people live in this state is for all the recreational opportunities that it affords us in our open spaces and our public lands and that's everything from hunting and fishing, biking, just finding solitude and open space to get away from stuff and we need to ensure that we don't lose sight during this boom in terms of short term desire for not only private companies to make money but for the state to meet the benefits of this boom without destroying the reason we live here. And there are places like the Wyoming Range, and I think there are places in the Red desert like the inaudible and Adobe town there may be places along the inaudible park that clearly I think it's probably inappropriate to drill. We have a huge number of drilling permits that we're not going to be able to get to for years so I don't think there's any rush to go out and permit more when you don't even have the man power or the machines to get there and we need to make sure that we protect the places that are special and you know what it takes: political will, it takes common sense it takes for people to be able to stand up sometimes to pressures from both sides to do what you think is right.

PJH: Would you be in favor of keeping the tax cuts that President Bush has enacted or revoking them?

GT: Everyone says that they don't want to raise taxes I would argue that we've had in essence the largest tax increase in the history of this country much of which has incurred over the last six years. Every child born in this country today, in fact almost every person owes 30,000 dollars to countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Japan because we've got over 8 trillion dollars in debt, the vast majority of which has been added since 2000 as a matter of fact I believe that we've added more debt since 2000 than we created in the entire history of our country combined from 1776 up until 2000. So it is completely irresponsible to run our government the way we run it. By the way you can't really forgive that debt, if you look at the fourteenth amendment, it says that the debt of the United States shall not be questioned so we can't say we're just not going to pay China, it is actually constitutional to repay them. Secondly, if you look at the founding fathers, if you look at the preamble to the Constitution, which I think is the most important sentence ever written for our country, "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union", and it talks about not only security and justice and the right to general welfare, but it says that we need to call for the inaudible to future generations and we are putting our current economic security at risk, we are putting our kids, our future at risk, it's a national security issue because China.....inaudible...responsibly running our government from a financial perspective, that's all I want to do is balance the budget and run it responsibly. You only have two choices whether it's your family life at home or as a business or as our government essentially and those three choices are: you need to cut your expenses or you raise your revenues or some combination of both. Clearly we need to cut our expenses and we need to do that by reducing earmarks, specifically involving the 'Bridge to Nowhere' from Ketchikan, Alaska to an island that has less than 50 people on it, that was, I think in the 400,000 dollar range. Let's not kid each other, every special interest project like that either results in higher taxes, or higher borrowing against future generations and our economic security. The last energy bill we passed had multi billion dollars in give aways and tax credits to corporations that have been the most profitable companies in the history of our planet. Every dollar that's given away, every tax credit, every give away is an extra dollar either in taxes or of borrowings against our future so when people talk about not raising our taxes, I don't think they're being completely straight with people in this country I think the fact of the matter is we're spending more than we need to, we have higher taxes and borrowing than we need and we've in essence given people a huge tax increase to begin with. So the question is: how do we do this the right way? I would say that again, cut expenses, reduce earmarks. There are estimates that the IRS could collect and additional, literally I think 300 to 360 billion dollars a year by having the ability to enforce the tax cut we need. We need to give those sources the ability to do that. We need to bring in money that is duly to our country from individuals or corporations. We need to make sure we collect that. We need to look at reducing spending on programs that might be duplicative or whatever. By the same token, if you landed on this planet from Mars ten years ago and kind of looked at the discussion about our economy, you would think that the single biggest issue in this country, economically had been that the wealthiest people in this country don't have enough money that's where our entire policy has been focused to this point and I think that's wrong. So we need to reform our tax system to have an equitable system that doesn't make anyone pay a penny more than they need to but that responsibly finds our government and Barbara Cubin signed a contract with America called 'the balanced budget' and she was quoted in the Casper Star-Tribune when she decided to run for a fourth term because she originally I believe said three, and the quote was: I want to stay on because I want to balance the budget so I guess part of this would be asking my opponent, Given that, how does she decide she wants to balance the budget given the fact that we've had 420 billion dollars in debt over the past six years and we're still running, even though it's getting slightly better, we're still running 250 billion dollar debts. There's no easy answer.

PJH: Do you support term limits for leaders of the House?

GT: You know, I think the founding fathers believed in citizen legislation, I know they did. They didn't want people to have lifetime jobs in Congress. And clearly people have made it their career. Term limits are tough because we might lose good people I have no intention of making it a lifelong career.

PJH: Do you agree that global warming is a serious threat? If so, how should react to it?

GT: I believe climate change is a serious threat and I think that we need to take steps to reduce emissions of the fuels or pollutants that contribute to that. There is generally a scientific consensus on this. People try and say that there is controversy but in the peer reviewed scientific community, there is no controversy. You may have some folks that are paid by energy companies that say different things but in the scientific community that has been studying this, there's not a lot of controversy. And even if it wasn't totally human caused, the fact of the matter is, it's an issue and we need to deal with it. I think we can turn it to our advantage because it will spur innovation, it will spur development and it will spur economic growth so let's not take the shorter view that somehow having to react to a problem is actually in itself a problem, let's say: you know what, no, it gives us opportunities.

PJH: What is your position on abortion and gay marriage?

GT: My position on abortion is, and by the way, I want to make clear that knocking on 15,000 doors, in the scheme of the number of people that talk about these issues, incredibly few people ask me about both of these issues. It's not the issues that really matter to folks on an everyday basis. They care about health care, they care about the price of gas, they care about the war in Iraq, our deficit, people don't ask me these questions. Generally speaking, it's all about the right to privacy as far as I'm concerned. I think medical decisions, it's on my website, should be between the people, their families and their ethical medical representatives, you know, doctors. And I'll tell you one thing: for better or worse, we have been through, my family, some very difficult medical decisions, tough ones and anyone who's had to make an agonizing medical decision whether it's birth or death or anything in between, know that the last thing that they want, the very last thing that they want is the state knocking on their door telling them what they should or shouldn't do so to me it's a privacy issue. Gay marriage, I don't think that the founding fathers would look kindly on amending the constitution to limit people's rights. I think the constitution was actually written to give people rights. I think that society has every right to define marriage between a man and woman but society also shouldn't discriminate. And my point is, I don't really care what people do, if someone is dying in a hospital and they want to have their legal next of kin next to them, I don't care who that is, and I don't think that anybody should care. So my feeling is you know what marriage, men, women, great. But let's not discriminate against people and not allow them to have some of the benefits that they should be able to have.

PJH: Health care is an issue that you said Wyomingites are concerned with. Your website has some suggestions on how to get affordable health care and insurance to individuals. One of your suggestions is to expand community health clinics to be to treat those unable to afford regular care. Where would this money come from?

GT: It would have to be a combination of federal, state, local. This is the thing, the one point I think is really critical in the health care debate is that anyone who has got health insurance already, we essentially are providing 100 % coverage for everybody today. It's just controlling us, we don't control it because anyone who's got insurance, estimates are anywhere from 15-30% of people's insurance premiums go to paying for the uninsured. It goes to paying for people getting health care who can't afford it, who don't have coverage and can't pay for it. SO the fact of the matter is: we're paying for it anyway. And by the way, if you go buy a car at GM or a truck, estimates are that 1500 to 2000 dollars of every car or truck is health care price because GM has health care costs and they're pricing them to their cars and trucks, I mean, there's no free lunch. When a business has to pay higher expenses to cover health care for its employees, it's going to price that into its products. So the simple truth is, we're already paying for it anyway. The question is: are we going to manage it properly or are we not? And number two: do we think every single person in this country should have access and the right to have basic quality health care; it's really a pretty simple question. And I guess where you fall down on answering that question determines what you think the answers are and should be. But it's everything from government being a reinsurer of last resort, that's a possibility. Community health clinics are a possibility, voucher programs are a possibility, there are all sorts of possibilities here that don't necessarily look like quote unquote 'nationalized health care' or whatever that means, my opponent has accused me of that and I'm not really sire what she means, I assume that she means government sponsored health care and she's against the VA and she's against Medicare, the Veteran's Administration because those are clearly national health care programs. But you know what, my point is, let's get away from labels, let's get away from names, and let's search for solutions. And I don't think that these are easy answers but we need to be willing to consider all I care about is: let's get it right; I don't care what we call it. And so when I throw out some of those options, it's not that I think they're the end all be all or anyone one of them is the right answer or the wrong answer, but you know what, we spend 16-17% of our GDP on health care, it's going towards 20%, it's going to bankrupt our country and destroy our society if we don't do something about it.

PJH: What issues are you most looking forward to debating with Barbara Cubin on?

GT: There are so many issues facing our country today. It's not a question of looking forward to debating. We need representatives that are willing to take on all the issues and do it in a responsible way and do it without putting politics first and party first and be willing to listen to others and being responsive and doing it without blind ideology and so it's not a question of which issues, we'll talk about them all.

PJH: This will be the first time for a lot of people to see you and hear you other than those that met you on their doorsteps, what are they going to be most surprised to learn about Gary Trauner?

GT: That's a tough question; it's hard to talk about yourself in that way. I'm just a guy who's pretty knowledgeable and tells it straight and who's willing to listen to other folks and I think is willing to be reasonable and I hope that comes across. I like people and I think that comes across too. I get along well with folks, but what are they going to be most surprised about? I don't know. If you want to talk in terms of policy wise, I don't think I fit in a box, I'm a pro gun, pro business Democrat. If you talk to me, I don't know what label you would put on me, maybe I'm a Libertarian in some senses because I don't think government solves all problems and I think the right to privacy is critical but in other views I think covering everybody in health care is very important. On the same token, being able to build our economy is critical and when I talked about energy in terms of looking at it from an environmental perspective, I'm also looking at it from a business perspective and a national security perspective. I think that people will be surprised at the breadth of where I'm coming from.

- editor@planetjh.com

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