ELY— Cyle Cramer was born in a family that struggled financially, but he found a path out of poverty, and he now hopes to take the values he learned during those difficult years and bring them to our nation’s capital. Cramer, who lives near Chisago City, north of the Twin Cities, was in Ely last week as part of a one-day northeastern Minnesota visit as he begins to build name recognition in a challenge to sitting Eighth District Rep. Pete Stauber.
About 30 area residents turned out here last week to hear from Cramer, an Army National Guard veteran and attorney who is vying for the DFL endorsement to represent the sprawling district, which extends across the bulk of northern and central Minnesota, extending from the Canadian border to the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities.
Cramer said he provides a contrast to the region’s current representative, who is frequently criticized for his unwillingness to meet with constituents with different perspectives. Cramer said he’s open to listening and working with people from a wide range of viewpoints and said he would be committed to holding town halls and listening sessions in the district, something that Stauber has refused to do.
Cramer says he has made it his mission to hold powerful elites accountable and believes that Stauber’s unwillingness to stand up to the corruption in the Trump White House has undermined the country’s democracy. “The America I grew up in cared about certain values,” Cramer states on his website, and he argues that the Democratic Party has remained truer to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution, such as establishing justice, securing the blessings of liberty, and promoting the general welfare.
“On the other hand, the present-day Republican Party does a great job paying lip service to these ideals, but in practice the Republican Party fails to live up to them,” notes Cramer. “President Donald Trump’s entire life as a media personality relied on self-promotion and showboating. As President he didn’t change. He can’t take criticism. Any Republican who dares to stand up to him is swiftly replaced by one bankrolled to fall in line.”
Cramer said he thinks Stauber’s close connection to Trump and Trump’s MAGA movement will be Stauber’s biggest liability in the next election, now less than 11 months away. Recent off-year elections have consistently shown Democratic candidates outperforming recent elections and Cramer is hopeful that the expected “blue wave,” fueled by growing disenchantment with President Trump and his agenda, will make Stauber vulnerable in the upcoming mid-terms.
While his bid is just getting underway, he has already won an endorsement from the political arm of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters. He’s taken a strong position for protecting the popular wilderness area, including prohibiting copper-nickel mining within the watershed of the wilderness, and that would put him on the opposite side of Stauber, who has introduced legislation that would allow for permitting new copper-nickel mines with limited review, at least on the federal level. Cramer notes that the current outdoors-based economy supports about 17,000 jobs in the region and about a billion dollars in annual income.
When asked, Cramer acknowledged that he’s never actually visited the Boundary Waters but said he has visited Lake Kabetogama and learned his environmental ethic as a Boy Scout.
On health care, Cramer said he would work to expand the qualifications for critical access hospitals, to allow more rural hospitals to qualify for the higher Medicare reimbursements under the program. He would also work to expand Medicare’s ability to negotiate lower drug prices. While he says he supports a single-payer Medicare for All program, he would focus on programs that can bring down the cost of health care coverage and have the potential to be implemented in the near-term.