William Larsen

Sylvia Smith's Comments

Syliva Smith asked me why I was challenging Souder when the Odds were statistically against me. She wrote an article on the odds of defeating an incumbent. My comments are in Red.


"Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, will be on the ballot with William Larsen, who challenged Souder in the past two elections. In the 2004 GOP primary, Larsen got 20 percent of the vote."

What Sylvia did not mention was in 2002 I received 3% of the vote and in 2004 I actually received 21%, a seven fold increase with a passage of two years. Statistically what does this mean? What caused this massive increase in support over two years? Is the increase statistically significant? We will find out on May 2.

Larsen said challenging Souder might appear to be slim odds, but he’s faced other uphill battles in his life and won, including surviving a life-threatening accident on a Navy ship, finding an error in his company’s 401(k) plan, convincing civil engineers that their calculations were wrong and developing his first patent.

“What really are the odds?” he said. “In every problem I have solved, the odds were against me. The only reason why I accomplished what I did was because I found the root cause and came up with the correct corrective action.”

Incumbents tend to treat their challengers as annoyances – if that – rather than strong opposition. In general, a sitting member of Congress won’t debate a primary opponent.

• Are you tired of seeing the National Debt Limit increase year after year?
• Are you tired of paying high gasoline prices while our representatives pass legislation spending $45 billion on energy? What are we getting for this $45 Billion in just one year?
• Immigration is a mess, jobs are being out sourced and pensions are going belly up and they do nothing.
• They seem to have time to pass an earmark for a bridge to an island that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars where few people live, but do not have time to solve any real problems.
  
• Medicare was projected to be unable to pay projected costs past 2024, but then they pass a Rx drug program for seniors who would never pay into the program through payroll taxes and now Medicare is projected to be unable to pay projected costs pays 2019.
• They pass the Child No Left Behind Act and makes things worse. It is time to get Washington out of Education.
• Every U.S. Representative and Senator should be required to do their own Federal Income Taxes without professional help.
• Every U.S. Representative and Senator should be required to show they know the difference between cash flow accounting and accrual accounting and to pass a basic math test.
• Instead of creating new programs, why not fix, change or repeal existing programs?
  

posted by William Larsen @ 10:02 AM