WASHINGTON — Radio host Jason Lewis told listeners Monday he will not run for office next year.
Lewis had said he was thinking about running for U.S. Senate against Al Franken, and he was considered a potential candidate for the GOP nomination in the 6th District next year. But even though "this is the most serious I’ve been about running for public office since I actually ran for public office all the way back as a youthful indiscretion in 1990," he said it wasn't the right thing for him and his family.
He also said he decided not to run because of his more fundamental concerns about the state of politics in general.
From a Late Debate transcript of his show:
"... The truth is that for all the talk on talk radio, for all of the talk about changing the country, there is an amalgamation of special interests in this country to whom Big Government has been good, whether it’s Big Government of the Right or the Left. They don’t want to change.
They jump from political office to political office. They’re career politicians. Worse than that, they’re career staffers that go from one – you know – from Tim Pawlenty to whoever else they can get to pay them. We are governed in so many ways my a mercenary of public bureaucrats, of staffers, of congressional staffers, of committee staffers, and they don’t care about ideology. ...
The biggest lie is that there’s a polarization of the body politic. Special interests have homogenized the parties. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them except in degree; except as to how fast the country will be bankrupt – not whether or not we’re going to be bankrupt – Detroit comes to mind."
As of now, businessman Mike McFadden is the only Republican to challenge Franken, although state Sen. Julianne Ortman is considering a run. Three Republicans — former state Rep. Tom Emmer, Anoka County Commissioner Rhonda Sivarajah and state Sen. John Pederson — are running in the 6th.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.