Dan Barnett

Daniel Jeffrey “Dan” Barnett (born April 13, 1935) is a former American politician who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as the 41st Governor of Kansas from 1983 to 1991, and the United States Representative from Kansas's 3rd district from 1967 to 1983. He was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in 2000.

Early life and early career
Daniel Jeffrey Barnett was born on April 13, 1935 in Kansas City, Kansas to Jeff Barnett, a banker and military veteran and his wife Margaret, a registered nurse. He eventually followed in his father’s footsteps, entering into business and banking by graduating from the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston in 1955 with his MBA. He worked as a banker in neighboring Kansas City, Missouri for the next twelve years. During this time he also began his political career by serving as the finance chairman of the Wyandotte County Republican Central Committee.

He became a popular figure within the local and state Republican Parties which put in the sights of party officials who encouraged him to run for office. He declined for many years until he agreed to run for the Wyandotte and Johnson Counties-based 3rd congressional district in 1966 at the age of thirty-two.

United States House of Representatives
Barnett handily defeated his Democratic opponent by 53%–46%. He would be reelected seven more times until his retirement from Congress in 1983. During his time in the House of Representatives, he served on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and was heavily involved in U.S.-Soviet relations often showing himself to be extremely reluctant about giving into Soviet demands. As a member of the committee he also opposed the meeting between the leaders of the United States and the People’s Republic of China when it was announced on July 15, 1971. He released a statement that said in part, “As a member of the United States Congress and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee I am deeply troubled that the President is willing to normalize relations with a brutal regime that disrespects human rights and shows its politics to be contrary to America’s values and her interests.” Despite his initial opposition and fervent anti-communist beliefs, Congressman Barnett became more willing to work with China and praised the country’s capitalistic economic reforms that began in 1978.

By 1980, Barnett had become Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and was one of the earliest supporters of the rollback of the detente policy with the Soviet Union, supporting escalating an arms race with the USSR while engaging in talks with its leadership. In regards to domestic policy, Barnett supported reducing the size and role of government and supported states’ rights as well as fiscal conservatism. Representing a moderate district and being well respected as one of the great conservative thinkers in regards to foreign policy, Barnett was one of the best congressmen in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation and maintaining civility. Barnett was a moderate conservative during his time in the House and was highly respected by both his Republican and Democratic colleagues. Barnett declined to stand for reelection in 1982, stating that his time as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee “doing the important work of the nation in regards to foreign policy and national security” had streered his focus away from truly representing the interests of Kansas’ 3rd and that he needed “time at home to regain perspective”.

Governor of Kansas
Not long after announcing his retirement from Congress, Barnett announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 1982 Kansas gubernatorial election. During the primary and throughout the general election, Barnett reinvented his moderate reputation into that of a folksy populist with the slogan, “Barnett for Governor. Doing It Right and Putting People First”. He won the primary and defeated Democratic nominee, Kansas Secretary of Commerce and Housing Joan Addams in the general election by a landslide victory of 61%–38% through a coalition of socially conservative rural voters and fiscally conservative urban bankers. Many of his former colleagues in Congress found his push to be excepted as a as one put it “a fire-breathing crusader for traditional values and Judeo-Christian ethics instead of for fiscal conservative values and limited government.” as inauthentic and “just not Dan”.

Upon assuming the governorship in January 1983, he began working on reducing the size of the state government by eliminating various offices of various agencies and signed a budget that year that greatly reduced what the Governor referred to as “extremely wasteful state spending”. He also banned the use of state funds for embryonic stem cell research the next year, calling it grossly unethical. In 1985, he started a program called "Tell the Governor". Claiming that it was important to break down the barriers, he went all over Kansas, telling everyone that they had five minutes with the governor. On recounting his experience with Tell the Governor, Barnett said "What I remember most about it was, first, it keeps you in touch. It keeps you in touch with reality." Governor Barnett stated that the demand for appearances was overwhelming, and he continuously over scheduled. Barnett ran for reelection in the 1986 gubernatorial election, however he was challenged in the Republican primary by Ron Colfer, the owner of Free State Brewing Company in Wichita who attacked the Governor as insufficiently and inauthentically conservative. He narrowly defeated Colfer in the primary.

In the 1986 general election, Governor Barnett faced Democratic nominee, Topeka Mayor Harold “Hal” Baker and his primary challenger, businessman Ron Colfer who ran as an Independent. He won the election with 51% of the vote, Mayor Baker came in second with 40% of the vote, and Colfer garnered 9% of the vote from socially conservative members of the Christian Right that supported Colfer because he supported school prayer, abstinence-only sexual education, and making pornography illegal in Kansas. Barnett was reelected largely due to his economic policies such as lowering taxes, reducing spending, and supporting farm and agriculture subsidies as well as for increasing trust and transparency in the state government. In his second term, he continued his "Tell the Governor“ program and also took on infrastructure and attempted to rejuvenate the highways in 1987 by calling a special legislative session, but the idea was only supported by the Democratic minority and not his own party. It was not until 1989 that Barnett was able to pass an eight billion dollar plan for the highways. He left office on January 14, 1991 after being term-limited, meaning he was unable to run for a third term.

Vice Presidency
Former Governor Barnett was chosen as the vice presidential running mate of Republican presidential nominee, Senator Pat Weil of Iowa on August 20, 1992. They won a decisive victory of 55%–44% over their Democratic opponents. He was inaugurated alongside Weil on January 20, 1993. At the beginning of the first term, they developed a written agreement outlining their relationship. Barnett said he would not model his vice presidency on any of the ones before him, but instead would seek to provide advice and counsel on every critical decision President Weil would make. Vice President Barnett, a staunch fiscal conservative since his days in the House of Representatives was crucial in shaping the Weil administration’s economic policy. He convinced the President to focus on reducing the deficit and lowering corporate taxes while also pushing for a constitutional amendment to require a federal balanced budget. Despite his own personal opposition on the basis that it expanded presidential power too much, he supported the Weil administration’s decision to push for another constitutional amendment to give the President the ability to do a line-item veto on legislation. In December, after talks within the White House and with the military a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which ultimately due to Barnett allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual preferences a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. President Weil had initially wanted to ban any gay person from serving in any branch of the Armed Forces but the Vice President was able to moderate the administration’s position.

Barnett played a key role in gaining congressional support for several major pieces of Weil legislation, and was a main factor in convincing figures on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement which was signed into law on January 1, 1994. Towards the end of their first term, they also passed The Welfare Reform Act which was signed into law on August 22, 1996 and fulfilled a campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it". The law implemented work requirements for welfare recipients, required state professional and occupational licenses be withheld from illegal immigrants, and encouraged a two-parent family model. During Weil and Barnett’s 1996 reelection campaign, they continued to focus on a balanced budget requirement while moving towards tax cuts for small businesses, families and seniors. Barnett proposed that they support term limits for legislators, social security reform, tort reform, and welfare reform to increase “trust and efficiency within the federal government”. However, social security reform, term limits, and tort reform were not implemented.

On September 21, 1996, Weil signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman, allowing individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. He was supported by Vice President Barnett and the Republican Party used this as rallying point for the conservative base in the 1996 presidential election. It was deemed unconstitutional in 2017. The Weil–Barnett ticket was reelected by a slim margin of 51%–49%. Barnett was also key in the creation of the Weil tax cuts that where passed in 1998, expiring in 2004. The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of the Weil administration. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year.

2000 Presidential Campaign
Vice President Barnett announced his candidacy and began active campaigning for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination on April 6, 1999. Barnett faced an early challenge by popular Tennessee Governor Bob Goode, a telegenic conservative in his early forties who was the only candidate to oppose Barnett and was considered a "fresh face" for the White House and the “JFK of the GOP”. Barnett challenged Governor Goode to a series of debates which took the form of "town hall" meetings. Goode went on the offensive during the debate, attacking the Vice President for being a “flip-flopper” who is “a moderate Washington elite one day and a good old conservative hometown boy the next”. Goode’s attacks had some success, leading to a drop in the polls for Barnett. However, with an endorsement from President Weil whose popularity was around 60% Barnett was able to rebound and win 2–1 over Goode in President Weil’s homestate of Iowa. Barnett went on to capture the New Hampshire primary 53-47%, which had been a must-win state for Goode. He then swept all of the primaries on Super Tuesday while Goode finished second in each state. On March 9, 2000, after failing to win any of the first 20 primaries and caucuses in the election process, Governor Goode withdrew his campaign and endorsed Vice President Barnett.

On August 13, 2000, Barnett announced that he had selected Governor Goode as his vice presidential running mate. Many pundits saw Barnett’s choice of Goode as an attempt to appeal to both party unity and to a younger generation of Republicans. Soon after at the 2000 Republican National Convention, Barnett and Goode were officially nominated by the Republican Party. The Barnett–Goode ticket faced Democratic nominee, Senator Tom Stanton of New York. During the campaign, he attacked Senator Stanton for being “a New York liberal” who was “out of step with the American people on the issues”. Barnett also attempted to capitalize on his predecessor’s economy and critized Stanton over gun control and taxation. He was often criticized for seemingly attempting to sow division between what he called “Heartland conservatives” and “New York liberals”. Barnett was also criticized for being “vanilla” and simply “piggybacking off the success of the Weil administration”. Barnett was defeated by Stanton, losing both the popular vote and the electoral college, with Stanton taking 283 electoral votes to Barnett’s 255 and the popular vote by 51%–49% on November 7, 2000. Barnett conceded the following day and left the White House on January 20, 2001. He has remained involved in public life and gave one of the eulogies at the funeral of former First Lady Barbara Weil at the Patrick Weil Presidential Library in Knoxville, Iowa in 2011. '''