By Karen Shuey kshuey@readingeagle.com @KarenShueyRE on Twitter
Feb 26, 2020
Kathy Barnette likes to think she has built a solid reputation for providing thoughtful and meaningful commentary on the political landscape.
The Montgomery County woman, who makes regular appearances on “Fox & Friends,” has been content watching the action from the sidelines.
In fact, she acknowledges that she has never really cared for politicians. She said most legislators are consumed with gaining power, maintaining power and expanding power for their own personal achievement. Rarely, she said, are they focused on finding ways to make the lives of the people they represent better.
But the prospect of having Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, in the White House has given her a new perspective.
“I felt compelled, quite frankly, to get involved understanding that we need someone to save us from what I believe is a very aggressive agenda from the Democrats,” the conservative Republican said. “I take seriously that adage from Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
So she has decided to throw her hat into the ring for the Republican nomination to represent the 4th Congressional District, which includes all of Montgomery County and a few communities in southeastern Berks County.
Barnette is the only candidate seeking the GOP nomination in the April 28 primary.
She then will challenge incumbent Democrat Madeleine Dean in the fall.
Barnette said that unlike Dean, who served as a state lawmaker for six years before running for Congress, she considers herself to an outsider. She said she represents all that is good about this country and is an example of what hard work can produce.
“I’m was a little black girl who grew up on a pig farm in Alabama — beneath the bottom rung of the economic ladder,” she said. “And to go from that to being the first in my family to graduate college, spending 10 years in the U.S. Army Reserves, working for two companies in corporate American and then actively competing in the marketplace of ideas whether on Fox News or on the street corner.”
Barnette has also become a prominent member of the prolife movement. She has written about being a product of a rape and the struggles her mother had to encounter as a 12-year-old with a newborn.
“My life has value,” she wrote in an opinion piece published by Fox News last summer. “I have worth that extended beyond the circumstances of my conception, I have multiple degrees. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve spoken before millions. And, I just landed my first book deal with the No. 1 conservative publisher in the nation.”
Barnette said those experiences have motivated her to work to secure and preserve the country for the next generation.
“I believe the future of our country is being threatened by a very radical socialist agenda the Democratic Party is forcing upon us,” she said. “I want to join with other Republicans, take back Congress, fire Nancy Pelosi and restore common sense to Washington.”
Barnette said she is a strong supporter of the policies championed by President Donald Trump. The 48-year-old said she believes Trump is working to make families and communities safe, grow the economy, make health care more affordable, protect our environment and create the best and most diverse education system in the world.
“I’ve never tried to convince people to like this president,” she said. “The only thing I’ve ever tried to convince people is to understand when someone is working in their favor, and then to have the good sense to get out of the way to allow them to work in their favor.”
House representatives serve a two-year term and receive an annual salary of $174,000.