Who?
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
LISTEN: Laslo & Cramer
Ask a Pol asks:
Do you think it'd be bad for the Republican Party for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to run against incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D=GA) for the Georgia Senate seat?
Key Cramer:
“It's hard for me to imagine she’d be the best candidate we could put up. That's for sure,” Sen. Kevin Cramer tells Ask a Pol. ”We've been hurt by bad candidates.”*
*after a week of blistering coverage, on Friday night MTG announced she’s not running for Senate.
ICYMI — Laslo used this interview for this feature
Caught our ear:
“Being a conservative icon in a gerrymandered congressional district in Georgia is not the same thing as appealing to the diversity of the entire state,” Cramer tells us.
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Kevin Cramer
SCENE: Sen. Kevin Cramer and Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo are exiting the first floor of the US Senate after both joked with a friendly Capitol Hill Police officer who guards the entrance.
Matt Laslo: “Oh, yeah, he's great. You know he used to play football for Temple?”
Kevin Cramer: “Oh, did he really? I didn’t know that. I know he's got a landscaping business on the side.”
ML: “Yeah, I come from four generations the landscapers.”
KC: “Oh, my gosh.”
ML: “I’ve been his unpaid consultant for years.”
KC: “So you guys are related. I love it.”
ML: “Right?”
KC: “That’s awesome.”
ML: “We play in the dirt.”
KC: “That’s way cool, yeah.”
ML: “Do you know MTG much?'“
KC: “Do I what?”
ML: “Do you know Marjorie Taylor Greene much?”
KC: “I don't, I don't, you know I wrote…”
ML: “Yeah? Because you guys didn't serve together?”
KC: “No, we did not. I wrote an op-ed about her, in [Newsweek].”
ML: “Oh did you?”
KC: “Yeah, back when she was making all those crazy claims about alien juice lighting fires with lasers, and the basic thrust of my op-ed was, the tent — our tent’s not this big.”
They laugh.
KC: “That's basically what…”
Reporter: “Mind if I ask you a question?”
Laslo cuts off rude rookie…
ML: “Wait.”
Laslo turns to senator.
ML: “Real quick, do you — so knowing that, do you think it'd be bad for the party for her to run against [Sen. Jon] Ossoff for the Georgia Senate seat?”
What should we ask Congress this week?
KC: “Well, I don't — let's go this way, it's hard for me to imagine, I don't know Georgia that well, but it's hard for me to imagine she’d be the best candidate we could put up. That's for sure.”
ML: “Yeah? Because your party's been hurt in the past?”
KC: “Well, we've been hurt by bad candidates, and we're in, we're in a cycle, Senate cycle where people like Brian Kemp and John Sununu and I might even throw in a guy like, what's his name, Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, where some people like that would give us a chance to expand our majority in the Senate. But if we can't appeal to their patriotism to run, we were missing opportunities.”
ML: “Yeah?”
KC: “You know, being a conservative icon in a gerrymandered congressional district in Georgia is not the same thing as appealing to the diversity of the entire state.”
ML: “Yeah? This week she does have a piece of legislation on the floor in the House to rename it the Gulf of America. Is that a top priority?”
Cramer smirks.
ML: “Thank you, sir.”
Share this post