The Robinson congressional campaign exists because we are certain that our qualifications and abilities can improve the lives of all people in District 4, Oregon, and our Nation.
On September 12, the first filing day, Art filed to run in the Republican primary election for Congress in 2020. He has won this primary in 5 consecutive elections. We do not know who his specific opponents will be this time. We have filed because Art is far better qualified to fill this office than all other Oregonians who have now publically expressed an interest in doing so.
Elections are about qualifications and electability. As these campaigns have passed, Art’s electability has substantially risen. In 2018, he
significantly increased his general election lead in all 5 of the rural counties of District 4 (Douglass, Linn, Curry, Coos, and Josephine Counties) in which he receives far more votes than DeFazio, and he made progress in overcoming the lies that Peter DeFazio has circulated about him in Lane and Benton counties – even though most Oregon Republican candidates did more poorly 2018.
This primary should focus on Art’s qualifications for office. Many voters just want to “get rid of DeFazio.” Some of these have voted for DeFazio in the past, but they are tired of watching Pete lie his way back into office every two years. He has, in pursuit of his own personal self-interests for over 30 years, done substantial harm to Oregonians. Yet, he continues to successfully conceal this from many voters.
DeFazio has almost no qualifications for Congressional office. Other than learning the ins and outs of shenanigans in Washington, Pete has accomplished very little else. Each of Art’s specific qualifications for office will be detailed on Facebook and the campaign website, along with articles about campaign events.
For reference, not in order of importance which varies with individual voters, these are:
- Economic. The Robinson family, including Art, have been entrepreneurs in Oregon for nearly 40 years. He knows first-hand the impediments to freedom and enterprise created by the dead hand of government and the ways in which these can be alleviated.
- Education. Art taught undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California at San Diego and, in research, he taught students at Caltech, UCSD, and Stanford. Art has taught more than 100,000 K-12 students who have used the Robinson K-12 curriculum for home schooling and as a supplement to public schooling in the past 25 years. He knows how to improve our schools.
- Energy. Art has researched and written the monthly publication Access to Energy for 26 years and numerous articles about energy, present and future, in many national publications. Inexpensive and abundant energy is crucial to our industrial competition with other countries and the well-being of all Americans.
- Defense. Art worked for many years on the technological and political issues of civilian and military nuclear defense during the Cold War. Working with 8,000 volunteers whom he organized, receptive members of Congress, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and even personally writing the Republican national platform plank on nuclear civil defense in 1988. He is expert in this subject. The potential use of nuclear weapons by terrorists or in war is still the most crucial defense issue for our nation.
- Ethics. Our national ethics and social policies must begin by recognizing that everything we value arises from the existential importance of human life. The killing of innocent people of any ages beginning with conception undermines all other human endeavors. Art has worked for 50 years in efforts to help his fellow Americans to understand this.
- Climate. Art wrote, with his coworkers, the single most influential definitive review of the science of carbon dioxide effects on climate 30 years ago. He later led a project that circulated a mail, written petition signed by more than 31,000 American scientists and engineers in opposition to the political efforts to curtail hydrocarbon energy at the expense of the lives of all people, including the billions who still seek to lift themselves from poverty and tyranny with hydrocarbon fueled machines. Nuclear energy is the key to our future, but hydrocarbon energy, with its side-product of carbon dioxide, which accelerates the growth of plants and animals, is key in the present. Art knows how to revise governmental policies to aid in this necessity, while simultaneously improving the natural environment.
- Medical Care. Having worked intensively in medical research for 51 years, Art knows the governmental impediments that stand between Americans and the best medical care, and he knows ways in which these policies can be easily improved.
- Science and Engineering. There are currently almost no scientists or engineers in the U.S. Congress The high positions in the government of our principal competitor, China, are more than 50% occupied by scientists and engineers. We must bring knowledge of science and engineering into our Congress. Art is and has been an accomplished scientist for 56 years.
- District 4 Economy. Having lived and worked in District 4 for 38 years and gained many friends and associates here, Art knows the many ways in which misguided government policies have harmed our economy, especially our timber industry. Beginning 28 years ago, he has worked locally to slow these policies. In Congress, he could stop them.
- Humility. While he has great depth of experience in the all of areas mentioned above – and more, Art has many colleagues of great knowledge and experience in each. He has pledged that, if elected, he will fill his office with experts in these areas instead of the usual political assistants, who primarily work to keep a congressman in office. He has discussed this with experts in District 4 and throughout our nation. They are ready to serve.
By electing Art, we can together pump real knowledge into the Capital building, factually educate many congress members, and accomplish much more than the usual 1 vote in 435 cast in ignorance and self-interest merely to keep the member in office.
Imagine a congressional office with its desks occupied with real workers from the timber industry, climate science, energy, medicine, and other crucial subjects, who work all of the time to disseminate knowledge into the minds of all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 in the Senate! This is a unique program, never before attempted by a national politician. At his age of 77 and in perfect health, there is no risk that Art will slip into the mold of most career politicians and work for perpetual re-election. He is automatically term limited.