Bob Schaffer: Republican has a thirst to be 'where the debate is'

By Ed Sealover, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 4, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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2007: The Schaffers - back row, Emily, Bob, Maureen; front, Jenny, Mary, Justin and Sarah.

1989: Schaffer brought Ukrainian Easter eggs to his fellow senators. Schaffer's mother was a Ukrainian immigrant.

Bob Schaffer in his kindergarten picture.

Bob Schaffer is a man who has never had trouble finding his voice.

While serving in Congress from 1997 to 2002, he was a member of the "theme team," whose job was to speak often about Republican Party values. He threw out one-minute barbs to start the day. He unleashed hourlong monologues while practically alone in the chamber at 11 p.m. He spoke on the floor 424 times in six years.

It wasn't just that the Fort Collins businessman had words and sounds coming out of his mouth. He had a point of view - a low-tax, limited-government, conservative voice - and there was never a question where Bob Schaffer stood.

He referred to Democrats as "liberals" or called their policies "liberal baloney" 96 times in floor debate. Universal health care was "fascism." A lack of competition for government-owned schools would lead the country in the direction of Russia's "communist legacy," he warned.

Both supporters and opponents say Schaffer was not someone who went to the microphone just to hear himself speak - not in the state Senate, not in Congress, not on the Colorado Board of Education. He doesn't have a dog in every fight, but when he does, his bark is loud and clear.

The 46-year-old father of five says his motivation is simple: "It's a desire to be where the debate is."

That statement, more than any quip or arrow-to-the-heart zinger he's fired during two decades of public service, explains why Schaffer is clawing to hold one more office: Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat.

"I think Bob's running at exactly the right time because I think if there's anything that people want right now, it's that they don't want mellow members of Congress," said U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican whom Schaffer calls his closest friend from his time in Washington, D.C. "When Bob was here, Bob forced Congress to do its work."

Always in the game

Being vocal and being in the debate are traits that always have defined Schaffer. He was the student government president at Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati. Later, his first job in Colorado was writing speeches for Republicans in the state Senate.

He had that gig for only 11/2 years before the Republican senator who represented Fort Collins resigned, leaving a seat the party needed to fill by appointment. Schaffer was 25 and had lived in the state less than two years, but suddenly he was a state senator.

And he was on his way.

In the state Senate, he grew a reputation as a voracious reader who discovered the LexisNexis information system early, printed out magazine articles and passed them out to everyone in his caucus. Schaffer was a "quality speaker," former Senate President Tom Norton said, but not one who gave his opinion on every two-bit resolution.

Once in Congress, though, speaking his mind became a defined part of Schaffer's job. As a theme-team member, he sometimes gave five-minute afternoon talks on party positions and, at other times, delivered hour-long lectures at the end of each day aimed mainly at amnesiacs watching C-Span.

But Schaffer's most pointed words often came in his one- minute morning speeches, delivered as daggers directed at the hearts of Democrats.

He spoke for tax cuts, missile defense and term limits (which he imposed upon himself), and he railed against abortion and bloated budgets. He pushed for school choice and less federal government involvement in education.

During the heat of the Clinton sex scandal, Schaffer told his then- 9-year-old son from the microphone: "Treat women and girls with dignity and respect."

That style brought him both great praise and loathing.

Former state Sen. MaryAnne Tebedo, a Colorado Springs Republican who sat next to him in the chambers, said Schaffer drew universal respect for the thorough research he put into his bills and speeches. Fellow Colorado Board of Education member Peggy Littleton, a Republican, called him a coalition-builder and a "great listener."

"He's really good at pulling out discussion to get other people's points of view before making a decision," Littleton said.

But former Sen. Jana Mendez, D-Boulder, remembered the time that Schaffer, upset at a health department display in the Capitol lobby advocating condom usage and safe sex, tore it down because he found it inappropriate for kids. That 1993 incident exemplifies why Mendez said Schaffer could not work with Democrats and even alienated Republicans at times.

"He just really had his ideas and he wouldn't let new facts interfere with his ideas," Mendez said. "We'd all go out and socialize, but never him. He never lunched together with us, never crossed the aisle."

Such descriptions fall at odds with the picture of Schaffer the husband and father - a man who his wife, Maureen, said she fell for in high school because he was funny and sincere.

He is a practical joker with his children, ranging from 8 to 21. He develops elaborate and eagerly anticipated treasure hunts on which he sends his youngest daughters and their friends on their birthdays, she said.

Schaffer loves animals and has found excuses to give pets to his kids so they could have more in the house, she said. When he gave his three oldest kids iguanas one year, he built a massive ecosystem with plants and logs and fish and newts in it.

The Senate hopeful is a man of motion and action. He loves hiking. He takes the kids to public ceremonies each Veterans Day. He talks to his children around the dinner table about issues, fostering in them a love of country and of learning, his wife said.

Most of all, Bob Schaffer the family-values conservative, is a true family man, Maureen Schaffer said.

"Most of his free time, he likes to spend with the family," she said. "He's great with kids . . . He likes to do things. He doesn't just want to sit and watch TV."

Lessons learned

Schaffer is the son of a Ukrainian mother who immigrated to the U.S. at age 10 and later met his father. The understanding he's gained about her family's struggle to flee communist oppression for freedom has greatly influenced his philosophy, he said.

He now describes himself as a "pro-economic-growth, small-bureaucracy reformer," a change from his 1996 congressional race when he dubbed himself "the real conservative."

Some of Schaffer's critics point to this semantic switch and accuse him of trying to moderate himself and duck what they call his extremism. This is a man, they note, who cast one of just five votes against a $300 million child-abuse prevention program in Congress and one of just three state senators to oppose a protester buffer zone outside abortion clinics.

Schaffer, who was a senior vice president for Denver-based Aspect Energy until he left in January to concentrate on the campaign, concedes that both he and some of his principles have changed and matured over time. Not only would he liked to have addressed some subjects more than he did - particularly agriculture in the state Senate and foreign affairs in Congress - but he said he would have used different words than he did at times.

Some people will focus on statements made in debates 10 years ago without looking at the different challenges Schaffer has addressed as a businessman and education board member over the past six years, he said.

"I made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot of lessons the hard way, made a few speeches out there that I wish I could take back and do over again," he said. "I'm a lifelong learner, and I try to teach that value to my kids."

But he still believes his campaign will attract all voters in favor of freedom and economic growth. And he still holds onto his five-tiered value system: power of the individual; essentialness of the family; importance of maintaining a refereed private sector; rights that come from God rather than the state; and the belief that weakness threatens freedom.

"For me, there's one general question I ask on every single political decision I make: Is this leading me in the direction to the country my grandparents came to or is this leading me in the general political direction of the country my grandparents fled?" Schaffer said.

sealoverd@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

25 things you might not know about Bob Schaffer

1 He was born and raised in Cincinnati, where he graduated from high school and got his bachelor's degree from the nearby University of Dayton.

2 His parents disagree on how he got his middle name. His father insists that it came from the fact that he met Bob's mother at Warren High School in Warren, Mich., but Bob's mother said she just liked the name.

3 In addition to being student government president at Archbishop Moeller High School, he played wide receiver for the school's famed football team.

4 His college and post-collegiate jobs included cannery worker at a salmon plant, lifeguard, farm hand, referee, umpire and apartment complex night clerk.

5 He proposed to his high school sweetheart, the former Maureen Menke, on top of Pikes Peak. Schaffer tried to highlight this in a May television ad but displayed a picture of Alaska's Mount McKinley instead.

6 He moved to Colorado just a month before their February 1986 wedding. Maureen had taken a job in Fort Collins after graduating from the University of Dayton in 1985 and he followed her out here.

7 He was just 25 when appointed to the state Senate, 32 when he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor and 34 when elected to Congress.

8 While in the legislature, Schaffer owned and operated Northern Front Range Marketing and Distribution, a small business that distributed promotional materials.

9 In 1993, the devout Catholic got to shake the hand of visiting Pope John Paul II when Secret Service officers mistook him for U.S. Rep. Dan Schaefer and put him in a reception line with the state's congressional delegation.

10 After leaving Congress in 2003 due to term limits, Schaffer received the Benemerenti Medal, which is given to people who have exhibited long and exceptional service to the Catholic Church, from Pope John Paul II.

11 He sponsored a controversial 1995 state Senate tribute to the Metro State College Republicans after the group refused to sign a pledge saying it wouldn't discriminate against homosexuals. He wanted to honor it for not abandoning its principles under coercion, he said.

12 He was elected president of both his freshman and sophomore Republican classes in Congress.

13 During his six years in Washington, D.C., he did not rent a house like most members of Congress. Instead, he slept in his office.

14 One of the ways that Schaffer enjoyed joking with his new staff members in Congress was by calling them, disguising his voice as that of a constituent and trying to get them to solve outlandish problems.

15 In 1998, Schaffer held a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., during which he served his unsuspecting guests Rocky Mountain oysters before explaining what they were. Asked about the reaction, he quipped: "Everybody had a ball."

16 The son of a Ukrainian immigrant named Florence Bednar, Schaffer often spoke on the House floor about Ukraine's efforts at democracy and helped to establish the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.

17 In his three races for the U.S. House, he never pulled in less than 57 percent of the 4th Congressional District vote.

18 He was just one of two members of the Colorado Board of Education who voted this year against appealing a district court's decision to throw out a controversial school-funding property tax rate freeze.

19 His family has three pets: a border collie/husky mix named Ed, a miniature American Eskimo named Roxi and a tarantula named Fuzzy. They also own a large fish-filled aquarium.

20 An avid hiker, he once backpacked across the state of Michigan for a month while in college.

21 He coached a Little League baseball team called the Mighty Mariners for eight years in Fort Collins before he was elected to Congress.

22 He is a second-degree taekwondo black belt, a distinction he earned while taking classes in Congress.

23 He likes practical jokes and plays yearly April Fools' Day jokes on his children, when Vaseline can be seen on door knobs and saran wrap on toilet paper around their Fort Collins home.

24 The three oldest Schaffer children all will become commissioned military officers when they graduate from college in the coming years. Emily is a senior at the Air Force Academy and Jennifer and Justin are both members of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Dayton.

25 His first congressional chief of staff was Susan Wadhams, the late wife of Dick Wadhams, who is his campaign manager this year.

Biography

Robert Warren Schaffer

* Party: Republican

* Age: 46

* Born: July 24, 1962

* Family: Wife, Maureen. Five children: twins Jennifer and Emily, 21; Justin, 19; Sarah, 12; Mary, 8

* Residence: Fort Collins

* Political biography: State Senate, 1987-96; U.S. House of Representatives, 1997-2002; Colorado Board of Education, 2006-present

* Web site:

www. bobschafferforsenate.com

• October 4, 2008

  6:04 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  AlanAardvark writes:

  Not that the Rocky hasn't been campaigning for Mark Udall and against Bob Schaffer all along, but today's dual articles about the candidates by Lynn Bartels and Ed Sealover represent a new low in laughably biased political "reporting" by this so-called newspaper. The articles try to paint Schaffer as partisan and Udall as conciliatory, which is far from the truth.

• October 4, 2008

  8:52 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  michaelwelsh writes:

  Interesting how the Rocky didn't ask Bob Schaffer how he felt in 2004 when the Republican leadership turned away from him to endorse Pete Coors in the US Senate race. What's changed since then for Schaffer and his party?

• October 4, 2008

  9:34 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  JohnSmith2 writes:

  http://web.archive.org/web/2001091301...

  The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans by Rep. Bob Schaffer

  This time it really matters.

  The Clinton/Gore regime is the most corrupt, incompetent administration ever to lead our nation, and their accomplices in the Congress are just as guilty as the tyrant who betrays the Constitution, deeds our most sensitive military secrets to the Chinese Red Army, and perjures himself before the country. Republicans are the only guardians of the American Republic, our Declaration of Independence and the rule of law. We are the stewards of liberty, and we have a moral duty to preserve the same America for which our parents gave their lives, and we must now deliver it to their grandchildren.
  [...]
  In Congress and in our State Legislatures, Republicans have reduced taxes. Democrats have fought to raise them. We're for limited government and stronger families. They're for bigger government and limited families. We believe individuals are powerful and important. They believe in collectivism. We say "honest hard work promotes economic justice." They say "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Republicans fight for civil society. Democrats are the tax collectors for the welfare state.

  Republicans are for strong national defense. Democrats send troops to Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Somalia. Republicans want to build a national anti-ballistic missile system. Democrats maintain an ABM treaty with a communist government that no longer exists.

  Republicans replace their own leaders for moral failure. Democrats promote theirs in such cases. We call a perjurer a criminal. They call one "Mr. President."

  Republicans are for free-market schools. Democrats are for government-owned monopoly schools. Republicans are pro-life. Democrats are for subsidized partial-birth abortions on demand. Republicans support racial equality. Democrats are for quotas. Republicans judge people on the content of their character. Democrats believe one's orientation or preferences are no basis for judgment.

  Republicans defend gun rights. Democrats point guns at 6-year-old Cuban kids. Republicans defend religious freedom. Democrats incinerate religious zealots and their children. Republicans enjoy free speech. Democrats enjoy desecrating the Virgin Mary's image at the public's expense. Republicans are for a clean environment. Democrats set big forest fires in New Mexico. Republicans promote liberty. Democrats promote liberalism.

  Republicans embrace the motto "In God We Trust." Democrats declared Ohio's motto "With God All Things Are Possible" illegal. Republicans honor the Right to Pursue Happiness. Democrats invented entitlements. Republicans want cheaper prescription drugs. Democrats want drug legalization.

• October 4, 2008

  12:36 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  socrates writes:

  "Bob Schaffer is a man who has never had trouble finding his voice."

  So true. He does, however, have trouble shutting up.

• October 4, 2008

  2:32 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  mytwosense writes:

  This man is a dangerous crackpot.

• October 6, 2008

  11:57 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  ifyem writes:

  The only way he'd get my vote is if he were on "Survivor"...

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