Newly re-elected Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson isn’t supposed to be here.
After all, Washington’s political-media-donor clique had written off the businessman in a rematch against former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold in a state the pundits said tilts Democratic.
First, the website FiveThirtyEight gave Feingold an 85 percent chance to win. Then Washington-based political action committees stopped writing checks to “RonJohn.” And finally he was mocked by critics for sticking with Donald Trump.
But he didn’t drown his sorrows in beer. He celebrated his independence from Washington with a Milwaukee-made Miller Lite.
“Back here in D.C., I realized how thoroughly I was written off. At least prior to the election, people were giving lip service to the thought I’d have a chance. I always thought I did,” he said in an interview.
And win he did, beating Feingold 50.2 percent to 46.8 percent, a bigger margin that Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton, and getting the largest vote total of any Wisconsin Republican to ever run.
Despite being a one-term senator, Johnson said he ran as an outsider who portrayed Feingold as a political lifer.
“It definitely was an outside of Washington campaign. It was also outside the professional political consultant class. It was breaking away from that and just running a campaign like a business person would trying to market a product. And I was the product,” he said.
“We didn’t get D.C. help and in the end that was the winning formula. I was able to pretty well take over the messaging direction of the campaign,” Johnson said.
Instead of big Washington polling and public relations and ad firms, he cobbled together a fiesty state staff and relied on a “one-man focus group … myself.” He featured local residents in ads and cheered the endorsement of the Tavern League of Wisconsin as a breakout moment memorialized in a YouTube video of him shot-gunning a pint of Miller Lite.
“We had Feingold offering free tuition, to pay off student loans, and I still won the 18-24-year-old demographic. I’m sure it’s because of beer drinking,” he said.
Now as a big-shot Senate chairman, running the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, the more independent Johnson is ready for action. First up will be pushing for better border security and a rejection of burdensome regulations shoveled on to the nation by President Obama, aides said.
Much of his agenda has already been passed in Senate committees or by the whole chamber, only to face Obama opposition. As a result, said an aide, “we are not starting over but continuing to pursue our agenda.”
Just this week, for example, he urged the incoming Trump administration to dump new regulations on the e-cigarette industry that threaten to shutter 15,000 small businesses.
He also will push to revive his “Right to Try” proposal that would give the terminally ill access to experimental treatments.
Many of his agenda items jive with Trump’s, and Johnson plans to recommend that the president-elect use his executive powers to take action fast.
But aides said that Johnson, who has pledged to leave after his second six-year term, will be his own man.
“The campaign was a very liberating experience for him,” an aide said. “He doesn’t owe anybody. He’s the anti-politician.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
