Getting to Know Christian Fong
- Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 4:13
- Iowa, Top Story
- 1,521 views
- 23 comments
Yesterday afternoon, Christian Fong was the guest on Steve Deace’s afternoon drive-time show on WHO Radio. Fong, an employee for Cedar Rapids based insurance giant AEGON, announced his candidacy for governor just one week ago.
Fong is unknown in many Republican circles; this is especially true outside of his home town of Cedar Rapids. His appearance yesterday on Deace in the Afternoon was his first live interview with a statewide audience. Sitting down to an interview with Steve Deace is not an easy task for any candidate, but Fong managed to get through the interview without any major confrontations with the outspoken radio talk show host.
However, as a listener trying to learn more about Mr. Fong, the interview left me with far more questions than answers. It’s not that Deace failed to ask questions of Fong, it was that Fong was very elusive with his answers when asked a direct question.
The first question that Deace asked was about his contribution to Act Blue, a very liberal political action committee that raises money for Democrats. Fong said that his contribution was actually to a Democrat candidate who was using Act Blue as their on-line fundraising apparatus. Fong obviously regrets his contributions to Democratic legislators. He explained that the contributions were given to friends with whom he served with on various commissions.
Fong said that the reason why he would no longer make contributions to legislators like Reps. Tyler Olson and Elesha Gayman is because some of their votes violated his core beliefs. However, Fong contributed to both Gayman and Olson after they voted to extend civil rights to gays and lesbians and after they voted for the anti-bullying bill, which classified homosexuals as a protected class of people. Both of those pieces of legislation helped paved the way for the Supreme Court’s ruling this spring that allowed gay marriage to occur in Iowa. Deace failed to ask Fong directly about marriage.
Fong’s answer to Deace regarding his political contributions is also interesting because Fong claimed that he had never voted for a pro-choice candidate in his life. It seems odd that a person who would claim to never have voted for a pro-choice candidate would make contributions to two of them. When asked if he voted for Jim Leach, Fong ducked the question and said that his political activity was centered on going door-to-door and hosting fundraisers for local candidates, but he failed to mention who he was campaigning for.
Deace also asked Fong about the flood recovery in Linn County. Fong admitted to supporting the local option sales tax that was passed in March. Fong said he still gets teary-eyed when he thinks back to everything his community has gone through. He said the local option sales tax would help get his neighbors back in their homes. He also said that a family who was victimized by last year’s floods lived with him for eight months. Fong also opted not to comment directly about the seven projects in Linn County that recently received $30 million in I-Jobs grants. However, he did speak out against the governor’s $830 million I-Jobs plan.
Fong’s evasiveness on various issues will do him no favors in his gubernatorial campaign. Since he has never served in elected office, Fong doesn’t have any voting record that voters can look to. That means interviews like the one he did with Steve Deace are even more important. While he has an impressive background and great family story, he has to be able to build trust with the voters on a number of issues.
The one piece of information that we were able to learn from his appearance on Steve Deace’s show is that Steve Grubbs’ Victory Enterprises in Davenport is involved in Fong’s campaign. VE was not involved in a gubernatorial campaign in 2006, but was involved in Steve Sukup’s 2002 campaign. VE is currently involved in Ron Corbett’s campaign for mayor of Cedar Rapids, and the organization that VE helps build for Corbett’s campaign could help Fong with his primary campaign in his home county.
VE is also involved in another mayoral campaign in Iowa this year – the one in Waukee. However, in this instance, VE is coordinating the campaign against current Waukee councilman Isaiah McGee. McGee, who serves with Fong on the Generation Iowa commission, is a current central committee member of the Republican Party of Iowa. His opponent (VE’s client) is a registered Democrat.
About the Author
Craig Robinson has written 504 stories on this site.
Craig Robinson serves as the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheIowaRepublican.com. Prior to founding Iowa's largest conservative news site, Robinson served as the Political Director of the Republican Party of Iowa during the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. In that capacity, Robinson planned and organized the largest political event in 2007, the Iowa Straw Poll, in Ames, Iowa. Robinson also organized the 2008 Republican caucuses in Iowa, and was later dispatched to Nevada to help with the caucuses there. Robinson cut his teeth in Iowa politics during the 2000 caucus campaign of businessman Steve Forbes and has been involved with most major campaigns in the state since then. His extensive political background and rolodex give him a unique perspective from which to monitor the political pulse of Iowa.
23 Comments on “Getting to Know Christian Fong”
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I listened to this interview as well. Steve was on point with his questions. I think Fong was dodging the questions better than a lot of seasoned “politicians” for president even. Steve Deace asked fair questions from a fiscally conservative prospective that should have showcased Fong’s strengths but his anwers Fong gave were either too evasive or flat out unacceptable. He is not a fiscal conservative…but gave the “I’m a hundred percent pro-life” soundbyte. This guy insults our intelligence along with all of the other pseudo-candidates. Lie to the religious right for a vote…the truth shall set you free.
I’m starting an office pool on whether there will be more Fong hit pieces on Deace’s show or on this site.
i don’t think this was a “hit” piece. he worked against the cedar rapids tea party by advocating to raise taxes. that will cost him the fiscal conservative voters. if he helped work for pro-abortion candidates, that will cost him the religious voters.
the only thing left are the moderates and you can ask McCain how well that works.
They need to clear the way for BVP, so the attacks on Fong won’t stop, justified or not.
Color me confused here, but what part of the interview of this article could be called a hit piece? What question asked or raised is unfair?
Coffe Swirls~ Any question where a moderate is asked to take a stance is considered unfair…they don’t want to commit one way or the other.
Apparently, Mr. Hawk thinks that even justified criticism is unfair to Fong. Probably because Mr. Hawk didn’t join this little disfunctional family until the day Fong announced and has been here defending the indefensible ever since. If I were a gambler, I’d say Mr. Hawk is either a close friend or family member of Mr. Fong’s, or possibly Ed Jr. himself.
The questions Deace asked Fong were very fair, and they should have been easy for Fong to answer, but they weren’t. Fong’s performance was very Obama-esque. He sounds good, but he doesn’t say anything because he’s trying to be all things to all people.
So he’s 100% pro-life, but he’s never voted for a pro-choice candidate. But he wouldn’t answer the question of whether or not he voted for Jim Leach. And he actually gave money to pro-choice candidates.
He’s all for fiscal resonsibility, except for that he supported taxing his hardest hit neighbor who are trying to rebuild their own homes.
He runs a non-profit flood recovery organization, but he’d rather have government raise taxes to pay for flood relief than have non-profit flood relief organizations step up and do it, despite the fact that private non-profits are capable of handling money much more efficiently than government.
This guys is a walking, talking contradiction.
I do not think I can vote for Fong.
WHEN ARE GOP CANDIDATES GOING TO LEARN TO AVOID STEVE DEACE’S SHOW??????????????????????????????????
BVP goes on and talks about his plans to be impeached. Fong goes on with someone who is bound to hate his guts.
Who is advising these people? Steve Deace is not a Republican and he doesn’t give a damn about the GOP.
But, at least the Deace interview let us know what a hypocrite Fong is. Deace is useful for that.
If a candidate cannot confidently answer a few expected questions from Deace, would you expect the candidate to be able to handle working with Gronstal?
I suspect that Lydia is either BVP or Steve Deace.
Way to go for the ad hominem fallacies rather than address the points raised. Oh, that’s right, you can’t answer those points, so this is all you’ve got left.
It’s up to Fong to address them, not an apologist. Fong may answer all of these questions in time, but to not answer them on the radio really stole any momentum that he may have had.
“Way to go for the ad hominem fallacies rather than address the points raised. Oh, that’s right, you can’t answer those points, so this is all you’ve got left.”
- Let me get this straight. You accuse me of being Ed Failor, Jr., then I accuse you of being BVP, and I’m the one who’s making “ad hominem” attacks? lmao. That’s some top notch reasoning you’re employing there.
Cut Fong some slack. He jumped in the deep end with his first big interview. He could have done something softball, like public radio or local TV news; but instead, he jumped in the shark-infested deep end that is Deace in the Afternoon.
He didn’t make a complete fool of himself, or vomit on air. That’s better than a lot of people would have done.
Mr. Hawk,
I actually provided some substantive critique that you refuse to address. Given that fact, and given other evidence, I made an educated guess.
You skipped over any substantive response to my critique and went straight to making uneducated guesses.
That’s the difference.
No, “he showed up on the day that Fong announced” is neither substantive, nor evidence of anything. There’s no difference, except you don’t want the rules you apply to others to apply to you.
“Cut Fong some slack. He jumped in the deep end with his first big interview” Tell Ross Paustian that! I am glad that this was his first big interview…exposed who he really was. He has no Fiscal or Social conservative foundation to embrace. His platform is Donated money to Eleysha Gayman and Tyler Olson (two very liberal democrats) ~proves he is not socially conservative , advocated for higher taxes on the hardest hit area of the state from the floods~proves he is not fiscally conservative! He will be an easy one to weed out in my book.
The substantive points about Fong that Mr. Hawk is ignoring (and he’s working really hard to do it) are:
“So he’s 100% pro-life, (and) he’s never voted for a pro-choice candidate. But he wouldn’t answer the question of whether or not he voted for Jim Leach. And he actually gave money to pro-choice candidates.
He’s all for fiscal resonsibility, except for that he supported taxing his hardest hit neighbors who are trying to rebuild their own homes.
He runs a non-profit flood recovery organization, but he’d rather have government raise taxes to pay for flood relief than have non-profit flood relief organizations step up and do it, despite the fact that private non-profits are capable of handling money much more efficiently than government.
This guys is a walking, talking contradiction.
“
Do you think that BVP has voted for a pro-choice republican or a Republican who hasn’t firm on the issue?
“isn’t firm”
Also, if you’re going to tar Fong for the local option sales tax, I seriously hope that you’re not a Huckabee supporter. I suspect, however, that you are.
So he basically says, “Hey, lets just ignore the millions of dollars we’re spending elsewhere in this city, and lets vote to have even more money taken from us.” And to promote this he talks about people needing to sacrifice for their neighbors. To take a little burden on themselves to get people out of FEMA trailors and back into their homes. Well lets see what other money is being spent in the city of Cedar Rapis…
5 million dollars for the public library
5 million dollars for the Paramount Theatre
5 million dollars for a public works building
5 million dollars for the Czech and Slovak Museum
10 million dollars to help steam heat customers convert to natural gas
So in just those projects alone we have 30 million dollars and not ONE CENT of it spent to help people get out of their FEMA trailors and back into their homes. Im guessing that if the people of Cedar Rapids had a say in where all that money was going to be spent, they might have come up with some different ideas.
So what do they get now, they get told that people are hurting and we have to do Something. Well Mr. Fong, what about that 30 million dollars? Why, when those projects were being thought up, wasn’t a finger lifted or voiced raised to help hurting people then?