Sarvi: ‘Iraq Changed My Perspective on a Lot of Things’

Steve Sarvi has a relatively solid claim to public service:  he’s served as the mayor of Watertown, has 13 years of combined city administration experience there as well as in Lanesboro and Victoria and recently completed a 16-month tour in Iraq with the Minnesota 34th Infantry, known as the “Red Bulls”. 

From that perspective, running for Congress might be the logical next step. 

I spoke with Sarvi over the weekend about the driving forces behind his campaign.  As he started to consider it, he says a combination of factors fed into his decision:  “It seemed there was a sea change moving away from neo-conservative and strong conservative policies toward getting together as country, getting back to being a great country, getting together to solve problems.  Iraq really changed my perspective on a lot of things, and our representative seemed a bit aloof, not really getting out to meet with people about important issues.”

“Our representative” refers to Republican John Kline, who currently holds Minnesota’s 2nd District’s seat in Congress.  DFL activists are excited about the prospect of Sarvi, an Iraq veteran, facing Kline, perhaps inoculating the challenger against some of the attacks Kline’s campaign executed in 2006 against candidate Coleen Rowley.  Kline, a strong supporter of Bush administration policy on Iraq and almost every other policy area, went after Rowley hard for perceived slights to his status as a Marine veteran and eventually won easily, 56 percent to 40 percent.

In a race between men with military backgrounds, the war in and subsequent occupation of Iraq is bound to be the central issue.  Sarvi says he is not angry about having been deployed to Iraq and is honored to have served, but he “strongly feels we have to start pulling soldiers out. The Iraqi people I worked with over there made it clear they felt we were occupiers — that’s their perception, and unless we start changing leaders, we’re going to keep going on the same road.”

Sarvi does not advocate an immediate withdrawal and is still mulling the idea of a solid timetable:  “Getting out is going to be harder than it was to get in, so it must be done correctly.  I feel very strongly that we gave gift of freedom to Iraqis, and they have to stand up and take that.  I worked alongside their security people; most want to do right thing, most don’t want us there anymore than we want to be there.  We have to make a good faith effort to get out.”  Only time will tell if a measured approach to getting out of Iraq will be both enough to rally the DFL faithful to the polls and deflect unavoidable attacks from the opposition.

Check back tomorrow for part two of my interview with Sarvi, in which you’ll learn a bit more about his thoughts and positions on domestic policy issues.