Yesterday morning former US Senate candidate Christopher Reed announced his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives in Iowa’s 2^nd Congressional District. While his bid to unseat US Senator Tom Harking fell short, his experience from that campaign will most definitely benefit him in this new race. Wednesday afternoon I had an opportunity to discuss some of the issues that his campaign will focus on.

The biggest difference between Reed and his Democratic opponent is the fact that Reed wants to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America whereas incumbent Democrat Dave Loebsack cares not one whit for this founding document. The evidence of Loebsacks disregard for our nations founding principles was clearly on display during the August recess when he blatantly told constituents that he was supporting a bill that he admitted would be unconstitutional.

The bill in question is the health care bill being touted by Democratic leadership in Congress. Reed takes exception to the blatant expansion of government that this bill would entail. And that expansion of government is in direct violation of the US Constitution. Reed believes that the correct way to reform health care in our nation is for the government to get out of the way and let the market do the innovating. One of the methods he proposes to do this is to eliminate the policy of forbidding cross border purchasing of health insurance. Currently consumers can only purchase insurance from providers within their own state. So if there is a health plan that is cheaper in one state, you are out of luck if you don’t live there. By eliminating this policy it would create more competition amongst the insurance industry therefore driving costs down as providers begin to compete for customers. Furthermore to create competition we must encourage the purchase of health insurance by individuals rather than tying it to a person’s place of employment.

The topic of Cap and Trade was another subject that was inevitable to be discussed. In his view this legislation is just as dangerous as and quite possibly more dangerous than the health care bill currently being shoved done our throats. He believes that passage of this bill would stifle economic growth by driving costs up for businesses and ultimately drive manufacturing from our soil. One of the primary reasons behind this belief is that other emerging industrial nations such as China and India would not follow suit making it cheaper to manufacture overseas. In his opinion the best way to solve America’s dependence on foreign oil is through a policy of inclusiveness. Essentially American should invest in a variety of energy sources to determine the most practical form for our nation. Furthermore he doesn’t believe that the various forms of energy production should be subsidized, if they are going to succeed, they need to do so on their own. Although he has stated that it would be proper for the government to help get the development of these energy forms off the ground.

He was particularly harsh on President Obama’s foreign policy. In fact when questioned about it he stated that he didn’t know Obama had one. He pointed to the escalating violence in Afghanistan as evidence of Obama’s foreign policy failures. He stated that all Obama’s apology tour did was embolden America’s enemies to step up attacks. He believes that Obama has been ignoring the recommendations of the generals on the ground demonstrates Obama’s poor leadership abilities. Essentially he is saying that Obama’s foreign policy is all style and no substance.

As I talked with Christopher for almost an hour one thing struck. Through his experiences in his campaign for the US Senate he has learned valuable lessons that can and are being applied to this campaign. He is more knowledgeable of the issues and is a more polished speaker. For those of you out there that are counting on the rookie candidate that faced Tom Harkin in 2008 I think you will be quite surprised at the amount of growth this young man has gone through. It will not be so easy to defeat this patriot this year.