In announcing his candidacy for governor, 32-year-old Christian Fong has managed to shake up an already contentious Republican battle to unseat Gov. Chet Culver.

christian fongWith no formal political experience, Fong’s positions on the issues are still a mystery to most voters. Unlike his GOP competition, who have endured numerous campaigns and been thoroughly vetted, Fong is a virtual unknown to those living outside his hometown of Cedar Rapids.

But over a series of months, Fong has repeatedly posted on Hawkeye Review, a blog run by Linn County GOP chair Tim Palmer. His posts there may represent the only window currently available into Fong’s political thinking, and some of his thoughts may be controversial to Iowa’s conservative Republican base.

Fong first came to the attention of GOP activists when he spoke out publicly against a Democratic tax proposal that included ending federal deductibility. Addressing a legislative committee, Fong said this “tax-on-a-tax plan will cost us jobs. Not just a handful of jobs, but hundreds of jobs, and not just in Linn County, but also across the state. A recession is the worst time imaginable to raise taxes.”

However, his position on the issue is not as cut and dried as it may appear. In a post a few days earlier, Fong said he agreed with the idea of ending federal deductibility, he simply disagreed with how Democrats would handle the influx of money that would result.

Instead, this is my income tax proposal:

Eliminate deductibility of federal taxes, and lower all marginal state income tax rates to the point that no working Iowan of any income level will see their taxes rise.

Another issue sure to be a factor in the GOP primary is the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. How to overturn that decision has already caused friction between two Republican candidates, Bob Vander Plaats and Christopher Rants.

In discussing the ruling, Fong wrote it would be “rightly be characterized as an attack on marriage, and also on Iowa’s families and Iowa’s communities.” But he warned against conservatives being “baited into a negative-toned or knee-jerk reaction by those that make their living off of single-issue politics or special-interest fundraising.” While he supports overturning the decision, he said the “frantic calls for a marriage amendment… are counter factual to the realities of how the constitutional process works.”

And, since I’m not making any friends with this paragraph, let me suggest that turning a moral issue into a political chip is both disrespectful to the people involved and trivializes an important debate. We all have deep feelings on this, which is why it is too important to be jammed through in a state of panic.

Instead of “raging against the decision,” Fong would rather see his party “advance a positive, optimistic plan that is not just pro-marriage, but pro-family,” including making family counseling tax deductible, giving community-college based job training for the unemployed and government funded catastrophic family health care coverage for those who are out of work.

After all, medical emergencies are the number one reason families face personal bankruptcy, and financial stress is one of the top causes of divorce.

Fong calls for the state to revamp the tax code to “eliminate the loopholes and special interest credits that enable some to pay none, and mind-boggling complexity that turn honest folks into tax criminals.” He said Culver’s I-JOBS program, which borrows more than $800 million to pay for infrastructure repair and flood recovery, will simply extend budgetary pain and “delay the inevitable.”

The State of Iowa must either grow by raising taxes and fees, or shrink by cutting spending.

During debate of the bonding proposal, Fong said the legislature should borrow to pay for the “fantastic, new Iowa Economy projects that are going to pay off in big ways” that are included in the I-JOBS program, as long as they are “not stapled to pork.”

Fong has blogged repeatedly about his party’s need to over come the “I’m right, you’re wrong, so there!” style of politics.

Most of us know someone who suffers from this same condition. What are the symptoms? You’ll know it by a retreat into non-sensical, single-issue ideology: Jobs lost? “Must be high taxes.” School enrollment down? “High taxes.” Uncle Ned’s business failed? “High taxes!!” Wide ties back in fashion? Softball league dropped their playoff? Fender bender on Highway 30? “A thousand times, high taxes! High taxes!!”

Come on! Life is complex. A paradigm built on issue-based politics, or sound-bite style logic, is inadequate to win in the marketplace of ideas, and a lousy way to try to win an election. If you hear a journalist, a politician, or your next door neighbor constantly harping on something as the root of all evil, you have found philosophical paralysis. It’s time to move on.

Fong’s blog posts at the Hawkeye Review have been compiled for easy access here. He also spoke Wednesday with O.Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa and answered questions about his entrance into the race, including the fact that he donated money to several Democratic legislative candidates.