Graves campaign shaped by roots in regional issues

By LYNN HORSLEY
The Kansas City Star

Sam Graves didn’t set out to be a politician.
He got a degree in plant science from the University of Missouri and joined his family on the Tarkio farm, growing corn and soybeans and raising cattle. But he says he got so mad about tax increases and wasteful spending that he ran for the state legislature and then for Congress.

Now, as Graves, 44, seeks his fifth term as the Republican congressman from Missouri’s 6th District, he says he’s running for the same reason as when he started.

“Washington has a spending problem,” he says. “You fight that. It’s a constant battle.”

Much of the campaign battle, in fact, comes down to whether voters think Graves is working for solutions or is part of the problem.

His opponent, Kay Barnes, says Graves is in lockstep with a highly unpopular Republican administration and it’s time for new representation.

Graves insists that he has remained independent on issues of importance to his constituents: supporting public schools, taking a strong stance against illegal immigration and pushing for energy independence.

“I don’t represent the Congress,” he says. “I represent my district.”

Former Kansas City Councilwoman Bonnie Sue Cooper, a Northland Republican, describes Graves as a conservative but with an easygoing, down-to-earth manner that helps him fit right in at coffee shops like the Corner Cafe in Riverside.

“He’s real comfortable in a setting such as that,” she said. “He’s a really friendly kind of person.”

John Dillingham, a Northland civic leader who traditionally has been a Democrat, says Graves also bends over backward to help the country folks who are the backbone of the district.

Dillingham says his family has long had a farm in the Missouri River bottoms of Holt County, not far from Graves’ in Atchison County. When the river rose two years ago and broke through the rock levee, it flooded acres of the Dillingham property.
He says he called Graves’ office, and the levee got fixed.

“I’ve never seen the U.S. government move as quickly,” Dillingham said. “How can I walk out on a guy like that?”

One priority on which Graves earns kudos locally is education. When Bush and the Republican Party repeatedly pressured him to support vouchers to let children attend private schools, he told them no.

“This district isn’t a school-voucher district,” Graves said. It’s something he said he believes he knows because he and his wife, Lesley, are products of the public schools, and Lesley has taught elementary-school children for years in Tarkio.
As one of his key accomplishments, he cites his sponsorship as a freshman congressman of an amendment to spend 95 cents of every No Child Left Behind education dollar in the classroom.

It’s that type of support that has prompted the National Education Association to recommend Graves in the 6th District race.
“The NEA doesn’t often support Republicans,” said Charles Smith, vice president of the Missouri NEA. “But he always puts children and schools ahead of party.”

Keri Martensen, who teaches computer applications in the Park Hill School District, says Graves wants to hold teachers accountable but is working to change the No Child mandates that punish high-performing schools.

She said Graves also appeals to her as a “regular guy” who shares the small-town virtues she grew up with in Iowa.
“He has similar values — low taxes, low government,” she said.

Mayors in Kearney and St. Joseph praise Graves for helping with their infrastructure requests and for preventing an Air National Guard unit from moving. In the metro area, he has helped secure funding for major roadways and for Synergy Services, a Northland agency that works with abused children.

Graves sees frivolous earmarks as one of Washington’s biggest problems. He voted against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, which he ridicules for providing huge tax breaks for the motion-picture and wooden-arrow industries.

“I believe every earmark ought to be broken out,” he said. “We need earmark reform.”

By Lynn Horsley, The Kansas City Star, 10/15/2008