Posted at QandO - Free Markets, Free People:

I had the opportunity to hear from two of the candidates running for the Republican House Conference Chairman - Jack Kingston and Dan Lungren.Both had definitive ideas on how they saw their job in that particular office and the difference was a fairly stark.Kingston essentially defined his as being more of a technical job than a policy job. In fact I asked him if he might distill his job description as "enabling better communication" by the members of the Republican House and he agreed. In effect, he views the function of the RHCC as providing members with the tools (web pages, blogs, contacts, etc) necessary for them to communicate their ideas to a broader audience.Lungren, otoh, saw his position as one of almost a liason to leadership for the back bench members. He felt it was vitally important that leadership be exposed to the ideas which come from the rest of the members and saw it as his job to communicate those ideas and challenge leadership with them. To me, that is a critical difference, and I much prefer the Lungren approach to the Kingston approach. Don’t get me wrong, I think was Rep. Kingston is proposing is very important and should be done. However it is only part of the job. I think Rep. Lungren defines the rest of the job which is critical to Republican minority success.Both Kingston and Lungren made excellent points, beside the obvious, concerning "earmarks". Said Lungren, the reason earmarks are so dangerous is they are used to ’leverage larger and larger funds which, on their own, would probably not pass’. Kingston pointed out that earmarks weren’t the only problem to be addressed and in fact probably a larger problem was the tax loopholes also inserted in bills much the same way earmarks are. He felt they should be as transparent as earmarks. Both were kind enough to give us all the time we wanted, and as Jon notes below, you can hear both interviews at NZ Bear’s. However the one that most impressed me, again primarily because of how he defined the job, was Dan Lungren and it is he who I endorse for RHCC.Link to candidate page with audio of calls.

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