Michael Cortney
Michael Cortney (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Washington's 3rd Congressional District. He lost in the primary on August 7, 2018.
Cortney completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Cortney graduated from Kimball County High School in 1974. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1974 to 1978.[1]
Elections
2018
General election
Incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler defeated Carolyn Long in the general election for U.S. House Washington District 3 on November 6, 2018.
General election
General election for U.S. House Washington District 3
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) | 52.7 | 161,819 |
 | Carolyn Long (D) | 47.3 | 145,407 | |
| Total votes: 307,226 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Top-two primary
The following candidates ran in the primary for U.S. House Washington District 3 on August 7, 2018.
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House Washington District 3
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) | 42.1 | 68,961 |
| ✔ | | Carolyn Long (D) | 35.3 | 57,798 |
 | David McDevitt (D) | 8.0 | 13,124 | |
 | Earl Bowerman (R) | 5.5 | 9,018 | |
 | Dorothy Gasque (D) | 4.9 | 7,983 | |
 | Michael Cortney (R) | 3.4 | 5,528 | |
 | Martin Hash (D) | 0.9 | 1,498 | |
| Total votes: 163,910 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Peter Harrison (D)
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
- See also: Ballotpedia's candidate surveys
Michael Cortney participated in Ballotpedia's candidate survey on July 5, 2018. The survey questions appear in bold, and Michael Cortney's responses follow below.[2]
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
| “ | One of my priorities would be to get the money out of politics, and out of our elections. It is one the number one contributor to the divide in our country. Global warming will also be a priority because our children’s future depends on it. |
” |
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about? Why?
| “ | I am passionate when it comes to fighting for your children’s future.
I have also been very passionate in fighting for justice for the Palestinian people, who suffer a great deal because of our policies.Cite error: Invalid |
” |
Ballotpedia also asked the candidate a series of optional questions. Michael Cortney answered the following:
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow and why?
| “ | The person that I look up to most in my life is Joseph Campbell. Because of a drinking and gambling problem I had in my youth, I found myself at the bottom of the abyss, he like Dante’s Virgil led me to the doorsteps of heaven. He has had a profound influence in my life.[4] | ” |
| “ | I have spent most of my adult life passionately studying the world’s religions, it’s philosophers, and its symbolism. At the core of all of this is the idea of the Golden rule. The idea that what separates us from the animals, is our capacity for love and compassion. My politics flow from that center.[4] | ” |
| “ | I believe that the best qualities representative can have is a genuine interest in people he represents. A representative who has conquered their ego and isn’t afraid to stand up and represent what’s right. A person with a strong moral center who doesn’t operate out of their fears and desires. The person who is authentic.[4] | ” |
| “ | I take pride in being an honest and authentic person. I have a genuine interest in making a better future for our children. That means being a person who can bring people to the middle, and get things done[4] | ” |
| “ | A representative should be a person who actually represents the soul of their constituents. People in my district overwhelmingly support the Second Amendment, but they also overwhelmingly support a three-day waiting period. Our elections seem to be based on a winner takes all, and we are very evenly divided country on a lot of issues. A representative should represent all the people not just the side that won.[4] | ” |
| “ | Someone who was honest, and cares about people.[4] | ” |
| “ | I can still picture me standing on the playground at school at the age of 8 and hearing that John F. Kennedy had been shot.[4] | ” |
| “ | My first job was mowing lawns with my brother, which we did for a couple years.[4] | ” |
| “ | Bragging to my future wife about how dependable my truck was, and on our first date after dinner we went out to the truck and it wouldn’t start.[4] | ” |
| “ | 4th July Guys just like watching stuff blow up.[4] | ” |
| “ | The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, because it had such a huge impact in my life.[4] | ” |
| “ | The story of Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach. The story about a fool would go on to become one of King Arthur’s great Knights. In Parzival, the Wasteland Principal refers to a world of inauthentic people living in an inauthentic land. It refers to medieval Europe under the thumb of the Catholic Pope. Saying something wrong in these days could lead to someone being terribly burned. It would lead to a land of people who couldn’t say what they thought or what they believed. It would lead to a spiritually bankrupt Europe. In the story, Parzival heals the Fisher King, and he does this by doing what he wasn’t supposed to do as a Knight, and that was to ask questions. He heals the Fisher King by asking him what ails him. The idea here is that if you take an individual, and you raise him to be a self-responsible adult that what blossoms out of that natural grace, was better than a supernatural grace imposed upon them. In the story of Parzival, we see much of what would become the foundation of America. The ideas that a person should marry who they love, and not who their parents told them to. You find the ideas of personal liberty, at the end of the story, the Grail cup calls for the king to rule in his people’s name, and not in his name. Many of our forefathers were Deist, and believe that God could be better experienced through natural grace.[4] | ” |
| “ | My Oculus - I have been a Gamer going back to the Pong games in 1975[4] | ” |
| “ | Yes "Turn of the Century"[4] | ” |
| “ | I have a very compulsive nature that’s just part of my personality, and I just had to learn to put that energy into positive things such as my hobbies, and not into negative things such as drinking and gambling.[4] | ” |
Ballotpedia biographical submission form
The candidate completed Ballotpedia's biographical information submission form:
| “ | What is your political philosophy?
Compassionate Conservative - To fight for our children’s future, and to get money out of our politics Is there anything you would like to add? I find when I talked to other people that most of us are kind in the middle when it comes to our politics. I think our representatives should reflect that.[4] |
” |
| —Michael Cortney[1] | ||
See also
- United States House of Representatives
- Washington's 3rd Congressional District election, 2018
- Washington's 3rd Congressional District
External links
- Search Google News for this topic
- United States House of Representatives
- Campaign website
- Campaign Facebook page
- Twitter feed
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted on Ballotpedia’s biographical information submission form on July 5, 2018.
- ↑ Note: The candidate's answers have been reproduced here verbatim without edits or corrections by Ballotpedia.
- ↑ Ballotpedia's candidate survey, "Michael Cortney's responses," July 5, 2018
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
