Tromping through an Alaskan forest to hunt bear and leaning into a blizzard to track bighorn sheep are activities that have helped Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.) hone character traits that have helped him achieve big goals.
Patience. And persistence.
Sometimes, the freshman Republican lawmaker has discovered while in a tree stand or hunting blind, it’s the waiting that leads to the best successes.
Crank waited 21 years, for example, for a hunting license that granted permission to go after the sheep. And after 12 days in the snow, he finally experienced that long-awaited hunting victory.
In getting into politics, it came down to waiting again.
He first took aim at the seat representing Colorado’s 5th Congressional District in 2006. But in that Republican primary contest, attorney Doug Lamborn emerged as the victor.
Rep. Lamborn went on to represent the district for 18 years.
Meanwhile, Crank waited.
Lamborn, he saw, was a popular congressman. So Crank decided not to run again until the incumbent announced he won’t seek reelection.
Crank bided his time hosting a conservative talk radio show and discussing public policy issues that mattered to his 60,000 listeners at KVOR-AM, a Colorado Springs-based station.
And 18 years after his initial shot at Congress, the waiting finally was over. Lamborn said he wouldn’t seek another term.
So Crank got into the hunt for the congressional seat again.
Outdoorsman to the Core
Evidence of the congressman’s passion for being outdoors peers back at visitors to his new office on Capitol Hill.“I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad and my brother, and actually my sisters, a little bit,” Crank told The Epoch Times.
“I’ve spent amazing quality time with my kids being out in the woods and walking fields with them.”
Now, he’s focused on serving constituents well after the departure of his beloved predecessor.
Lamborn was known for being a staunch ally of Israel, especially in supporting its missile defense.
“He had a theological and ideological commitment for Israel’s survival,” said Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth.
Lamborn also introduced legislation to prohibit U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority that was financially rewarding terrorists and their families. And he led the bipartisan Israel Allies Caucus in Congress.
So Crank “has some rather large shoes to fill,” Stern said.
Crank agreed—“big shoes” not just on issues affecting Israel, but “on a whole host of issues that he did a great job on.”
At Last
During the 18 years he waited to run again for Congress, Crank had time to consider how to best communicate with constituents.“The biggest thing I learned was to be a happy warrior,” he said.
It’s important, he said, to smile and deliver messages about policies in a way that’s relatable to everyday people.
He admitted that he “wasn’t as much of a happy warrior” when he first ran in 2006.
But he saw the power of positivity in former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.).
“No matter what, he was always kind of smiling and connecting with people,” Crank said.
“You just can’t be angry all the time, trying to deliver an angry message, because people want to hear a message from somebody that they like and connect with,” he said.
When he ran in 2006, he probably didn’t always come across as pleasant, he admitted.
“It wasn’t like I was mean and yelling at them, but you can learn to say things with a smile on your face,” he said.
When encountering people who said negative things while he was campaigning, he eventually realized, “They’re not attacking you personally.”
Now, he’s focused on spreading a positive message, “not so much about cutting government or cutting the size of government,” but more ”about removing barriers that government creates to [block] people and their ability to reach their full potential.
“It’s my job as a member of Congress to try and remove barriers that government imposes to your happiness and my happiness, whether that’s high taxes or overregulation or whatever.”
Crank also learned the importance of discussing government policies in a way people can comprehend, “to be a storyteller,” he said.
Adopting that strategy could help his GOP colleagues gain support for the policies they’d like to advance, he said.
For example, when it comes to defending the right to keep and bear arms, conservatives shouldn’t just preach that gun ownership “saves people’s lives who are in desperate situations,” he said.
Instead, they could tell a story, maybe one of a woman with a restraining order against her husband who needed a gun to defend herself.
Advancing the Trump Agenda
Crank, 58, sees himself as a Republican of the same mind as former President Ronald Reagan, sharing that commitment to promoting a “strong national defense” and shrinking the federal government.The federal government goes wrong tackling issues such as “green energy,” urging Americans to buy electric vehicles and solar systems, Crank said.
“[That’s] government kind of forcing us into making false choices, rather than the free market doing it.”
He blames former President Joe Biden’s environmental agenda for driving inflation and hopes to help tame inflation and bring down rising prices as part of his work in the 119th Congress.
As conservative colleagues in Congress have touted cuts in government spending, Crank said he’s warned House GOP leadership that “the one place where we could fail is if we aren’t aggressive enough on spending cuts.”
Cuts have to be deep enough to ensure that in four years, the federal debt isn’t “way higher than it is today,” he said. And tax cuts should be “paid for” and not made in a way that adds to the federal deficit.
A deficit occurs when the federal government’s spending exceeds its revenues. As of March 17, the federal government has spent $1.15 trillion more than it has collected this fiscal year, according to the U.S. Treasury.
The federal government’s budget has operated at a deficit each year since 2001.
When talking about how to trim spending, President Donald Trump has opposed cuts to Medicaid. Crank predicts that Medicaid, indeed, will be reformed so that it costs the federal government less.
Hunting Again
On Crank’s congressional office wall hang trophy mounts from his hunting expeditions. There’s a mule deer he shot in Fort Carson, Colorado, and a pronghorn antelope brought down in the state’s Indian Canyon.In a frame is a picture of Crank with a bear he took down in a part of Alaska so remote that it can only be reached by plane. The sheep gazes out from atop a pedestal.
And now, every day on Capitol Hill, the congressman is hunting again.
Now, the quarry he aims to bring down is the size and spending of the federal government.
