Does Ann Wagner want our kids to grow up to be like Donald Trump?

Looks like I might be the real 'family values' candidate in our race for Congress

Welcome to my new Substack, “Tales From The Trail.” Thanks for your patience as I’ve embarked upon my career change.

I’m Ray Hartmann and I’m a Democrat running for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District. I’m challenging Rep. Ann Wagner, a six-term Republican who once fancied herself a moderate. No more: She’s all in with Donald Trump and MAGA now.

As the Substack’s new name suggests, this iteration will provide a personal journal of notable moments from the campaign trail. And I’ll weigh in on news topics affecting Congress and our district as often as possible.

Let’s begin with the two biggest issues that separate the Congresswoman and me: Women’ reproductive freedom and health across America; and the threat to democracy posed by Trump.

Wagner vs. Women

Wagner has centered her entire political career on opposing the rights of women to control their bodies and make the most private healthcare decisions of their lives without government interference. I’ve publicly advocated for women’s rights as a columnist and TV commentator longer than she has opposed them.

It’s a binary choice, just as it is in the presidential race. I would vote in Congress to restore the Roe v. Wade protection that the U.S. Supreme Court ripped away from women across the nation in 2022.

Ann Wagner would fight to keep women under the yolk of big government.

The Wagner Manifesto on Presidents

As for the choice between Biden and Trump, allow me to get lofty if I might:

“The women of this country are ready for a leader who will not only set a positive agenda for our country, but also set a positive example for our children.”

I’m proud of these words. I did a fine job of borrowing them from someone else. As a former speechwriter, it’s what we do.

In this case, I lifted the sentiment from none other than Ann Wagner, who set forth with eloquence her vision of what a president should be in 2000. She said it in praise of then-presidential candidate George W. Bush, whose state campaign she chaired.

Wagner’s statement was her manifesto as to what a President should be. It tracked with her persona – then as chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party – of a
”family values” conservative.

Of course, it also smacked President Bill Clinton over his Monica Lewinsky scandal. Remember the angst over whether networks needed to put an “R” rating on the evening news? It was disgusting conduct by a now former president.

To which Donald Trump today says, “Hold my beer.”

Wagner vs. Wagner

As you might know, I’m not a fan of Trump. I consider him both reprehensible and predatory.

Actually, I meant to say Trump is both “reprehensible” and “predatory.” That name-calling was also lifted from Wagner, who went ballistic in October 2016 demanding Trump step down from the Republican presidential ticket four weeks before the 2016 election.

Today, the Congresswoman has completed an impressive triple-back somersault. She has morphed to proclaiming her servility to Trump in a February statement in which she paraphrased his epic, “Only I can fix it.”

As a membership requirement in the Trump Party, Wagner is required to participate in Kool-Aid chugging contests that – as an erstwhile country-club Republican – don’t suit her all that well. But one can only assume it’s because she now considers Trump “a positive example for our children.”

She has also concluded that becoming a convicted felon ain’t no thing. It’s the prudish “criminal justice system” that is dragging down our country.

And, as Republicans remind us, we don’t put our political opponents in prison in America. That’s why Donald Trump proclaimed today that he had never said “Lock her up!” about Hilary Clinton. That’s a good one.

Still waiting for a “That’s right, sir!” from our Congresswoman’s social media account.

Wagner vs. America’s criminal-justice system

Here’s what Wagner did post on Twitter last week about a jury of Trump’s peers finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on all 34 counts that had been charged:

“Today’s verdict is shameful and will be overturned on appeal.” Damn you, jury!

Just who do these 12 everyday Americans think they are to sit in judgment of this great man? Jury of his peers? Donald Trump has no peers.

Ironically, the crimes for which Trump was convicted were put into motion at the precise moment in 2016 that Wagner was demanding he leave the presidential ticket on their predicate – in the name of her advocacy for sex-trafficking victims. For her, it’s now a shaky “I never told you so” moment.

I believe it also leaves me as the only “family values” candidate in the race for Congress in the 2nd District. To me, Donald Trump is the least “positive example for our children” who ever ran for the Presidency, much less held it.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is one of the finest examples. Even his worst critics cannot deny he is a loving father and husband who has manifested the best of family values, courage and dignity through horrible tragedy.

I’ll take that any day over today’s Republican Party propaganda, parroted by Wagner. It goes like this:

Kids, there are good people and bad people in this world. When good guys like Donald Trump break laws, it’s the ones trying to punish him who must be the bad guys.

In their telling, Trump therefore sets a positive example for children. Really?

Maybe for the children of mobsters.

I do hope there’s an Ann Wagner quote to make sense of all this. I might need to borrow it.