Gazette Times (Corvallis)

By Rachel Beck

The Benton County Republican Women hosted two candidates for U.S. Congress on Monday. Though only one will end up with the party's nomination, both Scott Bruun and Fred Thompson were warmly received.

Bruun and Thompson are running to be the GOP nominee for Oregon's 5th Congressional District seat. Democrat Kurt Schrader currently holds the position, which comes up for election this November.

Thompson, 60, and Bruun, 43, each presented their views on various issues and fielded questions from an audience of about 50 people.

Thompson, a retired business executive from Salem, has never held a political office. He said Monday that he considers himself a private person but felt compelled to step into politics because he is concerned about America, particularly national security.

The Army veteran, who is a proponent of profiling, said he already has connections in Congress to get things done. In his career background, which includes years as an executive at Georgia-Pacific, he said he worked with officials from U.S. and foreign governments.

In response to a question from an audience member, Thompson said lower taxes and energy costs are necessary to bring manufacturing and other jobs back to Oregon. Environmental regulations have hurt the state's economy, he said, and no industry has been able to replace that loss.

"This is a natural resource state," he said. "We need to get back to our roots."

He also vowed that if elected, he would not answer to special interests or bow to political correctness.

"I am a straight arrow," he said. "What you see is what you get."

Bruun, of West Linn, is vice president of investor relations at Miller & Zimmerly, a Portland real estate investment and venture capital firm. He's a state representative for the 37th District, which includes West Linn and Tualatin.

"I'm not so much a Republican as I'm a member of the resistance in the Oregon Legislature," he said.

He's opposed to the Obama administration's health care plans.

"Those plans would exacerbate every single thing that's wrong with health care right now without fixing anything," he said. Worse, he said, it would change the relationship between individual citizens and government.

"I'm running for Congress to improve people's lives and to put our nation on the right course," he said.

The way to do that, he said, is to instill a "bottom-up" mindset of personal empowerment, encourage companies to do business in the United States and reward companies for success.

Major tax reform, including simplifying the tax code and closing loopholes, is necessary to grow jobs, he said.

As the meeting wrapped up, moderator and past president Stella Guenther asked one last question:

"Can we take you both?"