Derrick Van Orden is trying for the second time to become the representative of the Third Congressional District, trying to defeat State Senator Brad Pfaff to replace Ron Kind.

“Brad Pfaff and Ron Kind before him tried to paint me as this radical,” said Van Orden. “The reason you hear that from them is because they have no platform tor run on. Brad Pfaff is a career politician who has never had a job outside of politics his entire life.

“We have the highest inflation in 40 years; that’s because of the radical leftist spending that’s been taking place in Washington, D.C. Brad Pfaff is on record saying that he supports the radical leftist spending that’s taking place in Washington, D.C.”

“The border is wide open. We’ve had over 100,000 American citizens die of fentanyl overdoses. Brad Pfaff supports Biden 100 percent, so why? That is a radical positon. What theyr’e doing is trying to paint me with a broad brush of saying that I’m someone that I’m not, and the reason they’re doing that is because they literally have no political platform to run on. That’s the only thing they’ve got.”

#1 issue “the economy, straight up and down. We need to stop this radical spending; we have to do that. We’ve talked to a bunch of farmers, we’ve been to I don’t know how many hundreds of business, and every single one of them is saying these input costs are killing them.”

“Everything is predicated on energy. … The Biden administration is trying t skip ahead a generation. If we could have all renewable energy right now I’d be all for it, but if you look at what’s taking place the economy is crashing because we’re a carbon based economy. The transition to these renewables has to be done in a mature and thoughtful way. You can’t just shut off energy production in the United States.”

“I have absolutely proven in my time over the military living and working on five of the seven continents during my five combat tours that I am capable of working with anyone that is going to put the mission above themselves, and the mission is America. I will absolutely work with [U.S. Rep.] Mark Pocan if he’s willing to put the state of Wisconsin and the United States above his own personal political ambitions. We have to get back to the point where we do that. I can’t stress this enough — I have put the mission, which is America, above my own well being for my entire adult life, and there’s no reason to stop doing that in Congress. As a matter of fact we need more of that in Congress. I will work with anybody from any party as long as they’re willing to put America above their own personal political wants and needs.”