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IowaPolitics.com: Ensign in Iowa to raise national profile, 'not running for president'
6/2/2009

By Lynn Campbell
IowaPolitics.com

Nevada Sen. John Ensign flatly denied Monday in an interview with IowaPolitics.com that he is a potential presidential contender in 2012.

"I'm not running for president," said Ensign, who's chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "What I'm doing is raising my profile. I believe we need new voices and fresh voices in the Republican Party who can articulate a message of our core Republican principles."

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Ensign said he chose to bring his message to Iowa for a couple of reasons: "The main reason is because I was invited," he said. "Secondly, when you do come to Iowa, it gets a lot of press. I have raised my national profile because we do need more spokespeople across the country to bring our party back to majority status."

Ensign said his chairmanship of the NRSC has taken him across the country to places like the Northeast, California, Illinois and Florida.

Republican principles promoted by Ensign today include Ronald Reagan's vision of personal responsibility and limited government. "People make better decisions with their money than the government does," he said.

Ensign also talked about encouraging people to make healthy choices and having lower health insurance premiums for those who don't smoke or quit smoking, those at the proper body weight or who lose weight, and those who control their cholesterol and hypertension.

"Another example is on education," Ensign said. "Right now, people don't have the freedom to choose. We need more choices in education such as charter schools, public school choice and scholarships for the lower income. ... The public employee union has dominated education in this country where they just keep asking for more money to be put into a bad situation without requiring them to reform the system."

Ensign said he planned to cover those topics, as well as energy and the budget, at a 7 p.m. speech in Sioux City as part of the American Future Fund's conservative lecture series. He said President Obama is doing serious, long-term damage to the economy "by running up huge deficits, adding trillions of dollars to our national debt."


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