Getting Ahead of the Curve: Why My Record Shows Conservative Leadership, Not Disloyalty
Politics has a way of rewriting history to suit the moment. Let me take a minute to put the facts on the table, because many of you have asked, and because Washington’s 3rd District deserves clarity, not gossip.
Why I Stepped Back in 2016
In 2016, I resigned my role as the State Committeeman for Pacific County.
Not because I was disengaged.
Not because I was drifting away from Republican principles.
But because I could see the fracture inside the party years before most people wanted to admit it.
The party, nationally and locally, was splitting into two distinct camps. Instead of working together to win elections, factions were preparing to fight each other. At the same time, I was building Urubua, a company experiencing rapid growth, and I chose to focus on something productive rather than pour time into internal warfare that I knew would end badly for everyone involved.
It turns out that prediction was accurate.
The 2018 Vote Everyone Likes to Talk About
I have been asked many times about my 2018 vote for the Democratic congressional candidate and for Maria Cantwell. Here is the truth.
I believed Jamie Herrera Beutler was a weak, ineffective representative for a district as economically important and as strategically conservative as ours. My reasoning was simple. Remove a non-performing incumbent in a safe cycle, then replace her with a strong Republican the next time around. It was a long-term play to strengthen, not weaken, the party.
Fast-forward less than two years. Jamie voted twice to impeach President Trump, and the America First wing of the party voted her out.
So let us be honest.
I was not off-course. I was early.
On Vaccines and 2021: Picking the Battles You Can Win
In 2021, I publicly supported vaccination. Here is why.
Cora and I had just purchased Oysterville Sea Farms. The business was closed due to COVID restrictions. My employees were out of work. Our retail and wholesale operations were frozen. I was faced with a simple, unforgiving reality.
I could not fight the government and win, not on this issue and not at that moment. Not when every regulatory agency, every health department, and every licensing body had the legal authority to shut us down indefinitely.
Leadership means choosing the battles that matter and the battles you can actually win. This was not one of them.
My job was to get my people back to work, keep the business alive, and protect the livelihoods of the families depending on us. That is not politics. That is responsibility.
It was a practical, pro-business decision grounded in conservative realism, not ideological surrender.
The Pacific County GOP Implosion: 2022–2023
If you want proof that I read the situation clearly years before it blew up, look at what happened locally.
By 2022, the Pacific County Republican Party had become a cautionary tale, fractured between entrenched “mainstream” leadership and an increasingly frustrated MAGA and America First bloc. The division was total. Meetings devolved. Candidates were attacked by their own precinct officers. The party was losing donors, volunteers, and influence.
By 2023, the entire leadership structure collapsed and was replaced wholesale.
That breakdown did not come out of nowhere. It was the inevitable result of the same internal split I saw forming in 2016. Stepping back was not abandonment. It was foresight.
What This Actually Says About Me
It is easy to cherry-pick old posts or votes and frame them as inconsistency. That ignores the broader pattern.
I identify weakness early.
I make decisions for long-term stability, not short-term applause.
I am conservative in the literal sense. I believe in strength, order, stability, and prosperity.
I care far more about results than rhetoric.
A strong Republican Party requires strategy, discipline, and leaders who make decisions with a 10- to 20-year horizon, not people chasing heat on Facebook.
Where I Stand Today
I am a committed conservative Republican, fiscally, economically, and philosophically.
I believe in:
Lowering costs through productivity, not subsidies.
Building local economies instead of importing dependency.
Small business as the backbone of the American middle class.
Community-driven prosperity over government-driven control.
Security, stable families, and upward economic mobility.
Nothing about that has changed.
And Here Is the Key Point
If you want a representative who simply echoes the loudest voice in the room, I am not your candidate.
If you want a representative who sees around corners, calls the shot before it is obvious, and has spent 35 years building, fixing, and leading real businesses rather than playing politics, then you know exactly why I am running.
Sometimes leadership means stepping away from the noise.
- Sometimes it means making the call early.
- Sometimes it means telling your own party what it needs to hear long before it wants to hear it.
That is who I have always been.
And that is the kind of leadership I will bring to Congress.
