BY FREDA MIKLIN
GOVERNMENTAL REPORTER
On September 13, Greenwood Village City Council Member Paul Wiesner and his wife Heidi, along with Joy & James Hoffman, Ann & David Durham, and Susie & David Packer hosted a campaign event for Steve Monahan at the Wiesners’ home. Monahan, a U.S. Navy veteran, is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Jason Crow in Colorado Congressional District Six in the November election.
Introducing the candidate, Wiesner said, “This is a chance for us to actually do something.” He pointed to the very strong likelihood that the GOP will take over the House of Representatives after the November election.
Monahan told the crowd of 30 that he entered the U.S. Navy hoping to be a Navy Seal but ended up serving five years as a vocalist in the Navy band. After finishing college using the G.I. Bill, Monahan returned to the military and became a naval aviator, where he “served in basically every geopolitical theater on the planet. On every continent except Antarctica, we hunted enemy submarines. We conducted anti-narcotic and anti-human trafficking operations all over South America and Central America. We even fought ISIS. That was a true privilege in my life, getting rid of that level of evil.”
He continued, “Then, a year later, watching the response to Covid, watching us shut down the country, with no regard for what it was going to do to our children, what it was going to do to business all over America, I realized this was going to backfire in this country. I saw more and more vitriol and more and more problems. At that point, instead of just complaining about it, I knew that one day my kids would ask me what I did about it. I knew I had to do something. I knew I had to be able to say, I did this for my family, I did this for my neighbors, and ultimately, I did this for my country.”
Monahan went on, “There are people out there who just aren’t good at anything but service. I think I might be one of them and I can’t think of a better time to be called to service than right now…I want to bring integrity and common sense back to the Halls of Congress. It matters this time. It’s real. We have to get people back in Congress who don’t owe anybody anything except for the people who show up to vote and who hold their breath as they go through the checkout line at the grocery store. When you have to decide between what you buy at the grocery store and new tires on your car or whether to get your oil changed a couple thousand miles later than you normally would have, that’s a problem. That’s not normal in this country. We are not used to the infringement on prosperity.”
Pointing to the priority of all parents being their children, he said, “Are your children safe? Do your children have prosperity? Is there the opportunity for them in this country that you’ve always expected, and now seems to be dimming? That’s a problem. That’s something that we can’t take.”
The candidate concluded by pointing to the fentanyl crisis in Colorado, which he said was a result of drugs being sent with the knowledge of Communist governments across the world to Mexico, then coming across the border into this country, costing countless American lives.
fmiklin.villager@gmail.com