MN8 GOP challenger stakes out early message

Minnesota politicsStewart Mills is the MN8 GOP challenger to U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) in next year’s election. He’s a political newcomer who comes from a family that’s run a chain of popular fleet supply stores in Minnesota for generations.

Devin Henry interviewed Mills in MinnPost, providing a somewhat clearer picture of Mills’ message and views entering the 2014 election. Here is an excerpt from that interview:

In my campaign, I have something that I call the four pillars:

  • The first pillar is … Obamacare.
  • The other was a Main Street tax policy that was from the ground up. The 8th District is a Main Street economy, and I don’t believe that Washington D.C. creates jobs. If we’re going to create and sustain the jobs that our part of Minnesota needs, it’s going to be coming from Main Street businesses, from the ground up, businesses that are taxed at the personal level. If we want a sustainable economy, we have to look toward our Main Street businesses because the 8th District is not a place of big corporations.
  • Respect for the Constitution is my third pillar. Certainly I’m a hunter, I’m somebody who uses firearms recreationally, I’m a shooter, I shoot competitively, that is my golf. I know how guns work. I know that one gun is not morally superior or inferior to the next, and I also have read the Constitution, I believe that we should uphold and abide by the Constitution.
  • Finally my fourth pillar is our national debt. $17 trillion is way too much. But the very fact that we keep kicking the can down the road and adding to our debt is endangering the future of our nation and our children’s future. We are passing on along to them a fiscal mess. Part of my hunting camp doctrine I’m running underneath is when you go to hunting camp or you go to a campsite in our part of Minnesota, there’s usually a sign that says leave it better than when you found it. I believe that we should do that.

This is a very similar message to that of former Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8), which proved successful in the Tea Party surge of 2010 but fell short in 2012 against Nolan. Nevertheless, it was interesting to read the rest of the interview, where the presumptive new MN8 GOP challenger Mills acknowledged his support for *some* health care reforms, and how he appears to be distancing himself from the Tea Party label.

Meantime, Mills stated position on nonferrous mining in northeastern Minnesota is virtually the same as Nolan’s.

 

Eighth district politicos, dig in.

Comments

  1. Dan Anderson says

    Another wealthy business owner who pays low wages—And wants to develop more low paying jobs in the 8th district!

  2. David Gray says

    I have friends who work for Mills Fleet Farm. They have nothing but good things to say about the business.

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