By Shannon Fiecke, Correspondent 

For the second election in a row, Democrats have put up a candidate Klinewith a military background to go against John Kline, a retired Marine colonel from Lakeville who is in his third term Sarviin Congress.

Although Kline is thought to have the edge in the 2nd Congressional District — he safely trounced FBI whistler Coleen Rowley two years ago — the district isn’t Republicans’ for the taking, having gone to Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2006. 

Kline’s opponent this year is the city administrator of Victoria and former Watertown Mayor Steve Sarvi, who has served 20 years in the military, including peacekeeping in Kosovo and 16 months in Iraq.

While Kline has outraised Sarvi nearly 4 to 1 in campaign funds, according to MinnPost.com, Sarvi has ran a strong grass-roots campaign, evidenced by his lawn sign presence and the flurry of letters to area newspapers.

Both candidates have varied, but significant military experiences, but differ much on national issues, from taxes to health care policy.

 Kline, a member of the House Armed Forces Committee, carried the “nuclear football” as a presidential military aide during his military career and commanded Marine aviation forces in Somalia. 

In Congress, Kline pushed through a program to help re-integrate returning soldiers, which is modeled after a successful Minnesota National Guard initiative. Another effort he’s proud of was helping pass a measure to protect the pensions of employees whose companies were going through bankruptcy. That action was prompted by a Northwest Airlines situation.

Sarvi has been the city administrator in three Minnesota cities and has served with the Army Reserves, the full-time Army and the National Guard. As a civil military affairs officer in Iraq, he supervised the building of schools, the upgrading of roads and distribution of water-storage tanks and irrigation pumps.

In Lanesboro and Victoria, Sarvi instituted business-retention projects, and helped create the Lanesboro Chamber of Commerce. In Watertown, his work led to the redevelopment of the downtown area and the building of a baseball complex paid for by park-dedication funds rather than city taxes, his biography states.

Housing crisis

The candidates agree on the ugliness, but necessity of the $700 billion federal bailout package approved by Congress and think greed and a lack of congressional oversight contributed to the crisis.

Kline attributes part of the blame for the crisis to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for making subprime loans and the ACORN organization for protesting banks that refused to make loans to people who couldn’t afford them.

Although both parties have been negligent, Kline said Democrats in the Senate, led by Chris Dodd, blocked reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac passed by the House. 

 “There’s plenty of blame to go around,” said Sarvi, from people treating homes like ATMs to businesses pushing loans on those who couldn’t afford them.

However, Sarvi said it’s his understanding that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac never got into the subprime market. He doesn’t think poor people or ACORN is to blame. “Businesses don’t loan money unless they think they’re going to earn money or at least have an asset,” he said. Earmarks

Sarvi has been critical of Kline’s refusal to take earmarks, saying the stance is hurting worthy transportation projects in the 2nd Congressional District. Kline, who took earmarks in the past, said projects should be based on their merit, not political clout of representatives. He said he’s part of a growing pool of politicians who are trying to end the earmarks system by refusing to take them. Sarvi said there is a difference between valid and pet projects, and politics always plays a part in what transportation projects are ultimately funded, no matter their ranking, including at the state level.

 Iraq

Regarding Iraq, Sarvi said he personally supported the initial invasion based on arguments that later turned out to be false.

If he had been in Congress, he said he would have asked what happens after the U.S. won the ground invasion, and he would have listened to leaders who said a stronger force was needed going in.

Sarvi said the surge is incomplete because the Iraqi government hasn’t fully come together. He believes more needs to be done to build loyalty between Iraqis and their government by having Iraqi forces take more of the lead and cost for reconstruction projects.

Sarvi disagrees with Democrats’ push for an exit timetable, but thinks the U.S. should firmly say it is leaving, and begin to draw out in a responsible manner that will force the Iraqi government to come together more quickly and Iraqi security forces to step up.

Kline said the decision to go to Iraq was the right one at the time.

“We don’t get to make these decisions with five years of hindsight,” he said.

The surge has been successful and progress is being made on many fronts in Iraq, including politically, he said.

The number of troops is starting to come down and will continue to decline, he said.

More and more work is being done by Iraqis, he said, and as quickly as their forces can assume responsibilities, U.S. troops will be drawn down area by area.

“I think it will happen regardless of who wins the presidential election,” Kline said, although he’s worried about an artificial timeline.

Kline told an audience in Chanhassen that the U.S. is engaged in a long-term fight with challenges in Afghanistan and problems in the Horn of Africa, and the armed forces must be properly equipped.

Health care

Health care is an area where the candidates differ, with Kline firmly opposed to any type of single- payer system and Sarvi uncommitted on what should happen. In a recent debate, Kline said he’s afraid the country will be forced down the path of Canadian-style health care by the same government that bungled the Hurricane Katrina response. Sarvi countered that a single-payer system is good enough for veterans, who are largely pleased with their health care.  Sarvi said the government needs to view health care as a right. He’s not about to say what option is the best to improve access, but believes there are a lot of them. He thinks the answer should be a private-public partnership, and may involve a hybrid of different world systems. The solution must be portable, preventive in nature and eliminate middle-man costs, Sarvi said. Kline said he’s been a champion of association health plans, which would allow small businesses to pool together to provide insurance.

He supports allowing individuals to purchase health care or insurance tax-free, and said he prefers to have individuals involved in private markets so patients and doctors have more say about their health than government bureaucrats.

Kline said putting everyone into a government-run health care system would lead to rationing, like what happens in Canada with MRIs.  

Taxes

Sarvi wouldn’t extend President Bush’s tax cuts and said he wants to stop reductions for the rich and provide them to the middle class instead.

“We’ve got to get money in the hands of people who know how to use it — and that’s the middle class,” he told an audience recently in Chanhassen.

Kline said Democrats in Congress pushed a $683 billion tax increase. Eliminating all former tax cuts would reinstate the marriage penalty and halve the per child tax credit, he said.

 “In a struggling economy, the very worst thing you can do is raise taxes, especially taxes on small business,” he said. Kline supports a freeze on federal spending, which he thinks would force departments to weed out inefficiencies. Sarvi doesn’t support a cap on spending, because he thinks it would hamstring Congress in a time of crisis, but said each segment of the budget must be combed to eliminate duplication and cut what’s not working well. The last eight years have seen a rapid expansion in the size of the federal government, funded in large part by other countries, he said. Kline admits that Republicans in Congress became part of the problem of overspending. He believes ending earmarks is one step to help end that. 

“Republican and Democrats found they couldn’t say no to more spending and more earmarks and projects,” he said. “Both parties need to address that issue; I do think Republicans have better chance of doing that than Democrats. Most of my Republicans colleagues have looked around and said, ‘How did we let that happen, that’s not of our view of what government should be doing.’”

 Shannon Fiecke can be reached at (952) 345-6679 or sfiecke@swpub.com.