Mr. Johnson Goes to Washington

'I try to forget I had a good life," Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson wistfully quips about his career before being elected in 2010—or as good a life as could be had running a business in the midst of an unrelenting regulatory and rhetorical assault from Washington.

Mr. Johnson jumped into the fire two years ago when he toppled progressive Democrat Russ Feingold in one of the year's marquee Senate races. He met with Journal editors this week to discuss what he has learned during his first two years in office and what he hopes to accomplish in the next four. Here's a hint: A lot will depend on this presidential election.

The plain-spoken Oshkosh businessman stands out in the Senate, and not merely because he's unaffected. As Mr. Johnson pointed out in one campaign ad, the Senate in 2010 included 57 lawyers (Mr. Feingold was one) but zero manufacturers and just one accountant. With Mr. Johnson, the Senate gained a manufacturer and an accountant.

The Republican helped start a plastics-manufacturing business with his brother-in-law in 1979, when he was 24 years old. Over the course of three decades, the company grew into one of the world's largest producers of medical-device packaging. It was easier, he says, to build a business when there weren't "30 years of additional rules and regulations that have been piled upon our economy."

Two years ago, the father of three decided to run for the Senate because he was "panicked about the country" and terrified by what ObamaCare would do to small businesses, medical innovation and the next generation. On the campaign trail, he hammered the point that "you've got two paths: growing government and debt or growing the private sector and creating long-term self-sustaining jobs."

We in Wisconsin are going to save the country. We have four of the most influential leaders in the NEW Republican Party.

Ron Johnson, Reince Priebus, Scott Walker, and Paul Ryan all are doing their part to save American from financial ruin. I only hope enough voters still have enough sense to elect Romney/Ryan and give us a Republican senate.

If we get a Republican senate, it will be people like Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Jim Inhofe, Jim DeMint who hold the RINO McConnell’s feet to the fire.

Scott Walker has shown the way with his brave leadership. When he took office two years ago, we were facing a $3.6 billion deficit. Just last week, the state put $109 million into our rainy day fund because the changes Walker made with Act 10 have righted the state’s budget and put the public employee unions in their place.

Reince took over the RNC with $26 million in leftover bills from the disaster who was Michael Steele. RNC ended Sept. with over $82 million in the warchest for the final battle to win November.

Wisconsin will go for Romney/Ryan. The polls show it a dead heat, but the Walker recall election in June left the unions here in shambles and depressed. They threw EVERYTHING they had at Walker. national unions poured millions into ads, they sent 1000’s of out of state operatives into Wisconsin to drag inner city and nursing home people to vote, They still got crushed 53-47 by Walker.

The biggest result of the recall election that no one nationally is talking about is that the state Republicans have now the most sophisticated get out the vote operation in the country. Our 25 ‘victory centers’ around the state are fully staffed with motivated volunteers and were trained in June and have been working ever since on this election. The Rats boast about having more locations, but Reince has spent a lot of money on technology to identify the voters we need to get to win in November.

The 2008 election had 2.9 million voters, the recall election in June had 2.5 million voters. I imagine this election will have about 2.7 million voters. If so and the people who voted for Walker vote for Romney, Obama will have to win 9 out of 10 of the extra 200,000 voters to beat Romney. I do not see that happening.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.