Rob was student body president at the University of Washington when I was an undergrad there, and I got to know him (as I recall), through my friend Ken Troske, who knew him from high school. The three of us all ended up at the University of Chicago for graduate school, with Ken and me in economics and Rob in the law school. Indeed, in the fall of 2005, five of us - Rob and Ken were married then but I was not - had a fine adventure when we drove together, in two cars, from Seattle to Chicago, stopping along the way to see Mount Rushmore.
Make no mistake, Rob is a politician through and through, but conditional on that, he is a good guy. Maybe even unconditional on that. :)
The idea that he is some sort of extreme right-winger, put forth by this democrat website, is utterly ridiculous. Indeed, based on the discussions we had back in the day, I was always a bit surprised that he ended up as a Republican. My take was always that he was smart, organized, ambitious and much more a manager and a technocrat than an ideologue.
I don't endorse politicians on the blog, but I wish Rob the best of luck in his campaign.
Hat tip: Ken Troske
Jeff and Ken, thank you both very much. Marilyn and I have fond memories of our road trip out to Chicago. In particular, we remember Jeff's car - originally his grandmother's, something like a 1962 Ford Falcon (?). That car had character, and a rust hole in the bottom under the floomat behind the front passenger seat. At one point in the trip, somewhere in eastern Montana or western Wyoming, Jeff drove over the top of some roadkill and the floormat covering the hole jumped up. Fortunately, the roadkill stayed on the road and didn't make the rest of the tripb with us. And Jeff's car (they don't make them like that any more!) served him well for at least a few more years, even though some would occcasionally mistake it for being abandoned, and try to harvest parts from it.
ReplyDeleteJeff, thanks again and congratulations on all your successes as a professor of Economics. I'm sure our UW econ profs, like Hadjimichalakis and Thornton, are also very proud of you, Dr. Troske and Dr. Matsusaka.
Best wishes,
Rob McKenna
UW Dept. of Economics 2010 Distinguished Alumnus ;-)
Rob, I'm pretty impressed with your memory! The car was a 1962 Plymouth Valiant. It lasted well into graduate school and did indeed have a hole in the floor, though it was in the front seat not the back.
ReplyDeleteOne of my cassette tapes still has a brief interlude where the music stops and is replaced by a discussion between Marilyn and Janine, which continues until they sort out that the cassette player is on record instead of play.