Who's Running Against Paul Ryan?

In a few minutes the History Channel is airing a program about hippies and the counter culture. I have to watch to see if any of my old friends or I made any of the segments. Until then I wanted to take a little time to see who the Democrats are running against Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District Representative Paul Ryan. As I pictured a couple of posts back, a neighbor had a 'Stop Ryan' yard sign, but didn't have a sign for the candidate.

Ryan's opposition in this year's election is a man named John Heckenlively from Racine, WI. I found a couple of articles in the Racine Journal Times that gave information about Heck' here and here. I will summarize with excerpts from both articles.

Mr. Heckenlively, why are you running?

"If nobody wants to run, well, I'll jump in."

What do you do for a living?

"I am currently unemployed, but am the secretary of the 1st Congressional District Democratic Party."

What do you consider to be Paul Ryan's weaknesses?

"Ryan does not represent the district. There is the Wisconsin side where he comes across as the friendly neighborhood guy. Then he goes back to Washington and he becomes the extreme conservative Paul Ryan who sides with Republicans 95 percent of the time."

What are some of the issues that you espouse?

"Unemployment benefits should be extended until the economy improves. I also support the overall health care reform bill. But ultimately the answer is eliminating the current health insurance industry and starting a universal single payer health care system, which would save hundreds of billions of dollars in administrative costs. I also believe government needs to spend within its means, but I recognize there are situations such as the current economic crisis, where the government may have to deficit spend to get out of the crisis."

Thank you, Mr. Heckenlively!

Ma'am, can you pick the Democrat's 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin candidate out of this line up?

Uhhh, I think... No, it's that one. No, no, I guess I can't.