The new congressman from Missouri’s 7th District is Republican Billy Long, who took the seat of GOP Rep. Roy Blunt after Blunt ran for the Senate in 2010. Read More

The new congressman from Missouri’s 7th District is Republican Billy Long, who took the seat of GOP Rep. Roy Blunt after Blunt ran for the Senate in 2010.

Long grew up in Springfield, Mo., where he developed an interest in Republican politics at an early age. When he was 9 years old, he told the Springfield News-Leader, he would ride his bike to pass out bumper stickers for a Greene County sheriff’s candidate who was the brother of a family friend. A few years later, he taught his dog a trick: He would ask, “Little Bear, would you rather be a Democrat or a dead dog?” The family pet responded by flopping over and sticking his feet in the air. While still a teenager, Long was given responsibility, along with his sister, for running his family’s miniature golf course. After briefly attending the University of Missouri to study business, he became interested in real estate and attended auction school, eventually starting a company that would conduct as many as 200 auctions a year. He moved into radio in 1999, spending six years as a morning-drive talk show host for an AM station covering all of southwest Missouri.

Long initially considered running for Congress in 1996, the year Blunt was elected, but decided he didn’t want to raise his two young daughters in Washington. However, after Blunt decided to seek the Senate seat held by retiring GOP incumbent Christopher (Kit) Bond last year, Long entered the race with the slogan “Fed Up.” He ran as a plain-talking conservative who would clamp down on federal spending and set Congress straight. And he billed his lack of experience in elected office as a plus. “We have enough political experience in Washington, D.C., to choke a horse,” he told the Associated Press. “That’s exactly the problem.” He prevailed in the GOP primary over seven other candidates, including two veteran state senators, with more than 37% of the vote.

In the fall, Long’s Democratic opponent was former gubernatorial aide Scott Eckersley, who sought to make an issue of racist remarks that Long was accused of making at a bar that featured strippers and illegal gambling tables—a claim that Long dismissed as a “flat-out lie” and “slanderous.” Long, meanwhile, campaigned in support of a constitutional amendment to limit the federal government’s taxation powers and of repeal of the Democrats’ health care law. He said he would oppose all earmarks added to spending bills. He wore a cowboy hat and inveighed against “elitist politicians.” Long won with 63% of the vote; Eckersley received 30%.