When Republican Mike Pompeo launched his candidacy for the 4th District congressional race in Kansas, he chose an airplane hangar for his venue and a business jet as his backdrop. Top executives from this city's aircraft manufacturers flanked his sides for the official announcement.
Democrat Raj Goyle has targeted his campaign to aircraft workers hard hit by thousands of layoffs in Wichita's aircraft industry since this economic downturn. Backed by union powerhouses like the AFL-CIO, the Goyle campaign has hammered on the aviation jobs issue in televised ads and at an aircraft worker rally.
In the race for the 4th District congressional seat, the candidates have been barnstorming the south-central Kansas district, portraying their vision as the answer to the embattled aircraft manufacturing industry.
Pompeo faces Goyle in November for a seat Republicans have held since Todd Tiahrt defeated Dan Glickman in 1994. Tiahrt chose not to seek re-election so he could run for the U.S. Senate, but lost the GOP primary to fellow Rep. Jerry Moran.
In this aircraft manufacturing city that prides itself as the "Air Capital of the World," people were furious when lawmakers in December 2008 reprimanded auto industry executives who flew on private jets to Washington to plead for billions in taxpayer money. The executives found other transportation for their follow-up trip there.
Then in January 2009, President Barrack Obama further alienated Kansas voters when he chastised CitiGroup for buying a corporate jet when it was getting bailout money. The company canceled the purchase of a jet it had ordered before the economic downturn.
Both candidates have distanced themselves from Obama and Washington lawmakers whom they contend have made owning a corporate airplane the unwitting symbol of executive greed amid a sagging stock market and massive layoffs.
"President Obama stood in front of America and made it embarrassing to fly around in a Wichita-built airplane," Pompeo said.
Though a Democrat, Goyle was equally critical: "I strongly disagree with President Obama's comments that he made about the use of business jets ... They were misinformed and certainly not appreciated here in the Air Capital of the World."
Their approaches for revitalizing the state's aviation industry are starkly different. Goyle, a state legislator, favors public-private partnerships and tax incentives to create jobs. Pompeo, a businessman, wants less government meddling in business which he contends will in itself create jobs.
Wichita has lost more than 13,000 aviation jobs since 2008. Just last month, another 1,000 layoffs were announced by two aircraft makers.
South-central Kansas is the home of facilities for Cessna Aircraft, Hawker Beechcraft, Bombardier, Boeing, Spirit Aerosystems as well as more than 150 parts suppliers.
This city's aviation heritage can be traced to early pioneers like Clyde Cessna, Lloyd Steerman, William Lear and Walter Beech who founded in Wichita the aircraft companies that make up the backbone of an aviation cluster that today accounts for a third of the state's economy.
Goyle has touted public-private partnerships like the one credited this summer for saving or creating 600 jobs at Bombardier's Learjet plant in Wichita. Goyle, who championed that legislation, has also cited it in the ongoing efforts to keep plane maker Hawker Beechcraft from moving the majority of its jobs to Louisiana.
Goyle has vowed that if elected he would work to close tax loopholes he contends drive U.S. companies to move jobs overseas by allowing subsidiaries of those companies to not pay U.S. taxes. He wants a tax code that instead gives companies incentives for creating jobs in the U.S.
"There are families in Wichita and south-central Kansas that have been machinists for decades, for generations," Goyle said. "Building airplanes is in our blood here in south-central Kansas. That is something you cannot buy simply by moving across the border."
Pompeo wants to repeal health care reform, saying it will drive up the cost of hiring a full time employee. He seeks to reduce the regulatory burden on aircraft companies and reform tax policy so people have an incentive to invest domestically.
"This isn't about labor versus management," Pompeo said. "This is about creating a competitive environment so people will grow jobs here in Kansas."
Pompeo touts his "real world" business experience in aviation as the former president of Thayer Aerospace, an aircraft parts supplier. He is now president of Sentry International, which makes equipment for oil fields. He takes credit for the 400 jobs at Thayer Aerospace and the 100 jobs at Sentry created during his tenure.
But Goyle has made a campaign issue of the jobs Pompeo's companies have also created in Mexico, China and elsewhere in an effort to portray his Republican rival as a "serial outsourcer" of jobs.
