Meet John McCaughrean, Political Candidate for Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District
Article - 11 minute read
A fourth-generation U.S. veteran, a father, and a proud blue-collar worker, John McCaughrean is running as a Republican for Kansas’ Third Congressional District, currently held by Democrat Sharice Davids.
McCaughrean was in the Army for ten years as an Intelligence Analyst doing two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. During his first 14-month deployment (February 2007 to April 2008), he had learned about the first casualty in his Calvary Troop—a best friend of his who he would give the eulogy for. He would go on to lose 9 more in his 1/4 Calvary Squadron and another 120 would be killed in action in his 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kansas.
“It changes the core of you after that,” McCaughrean said. “That’s one of the things that I saw in this race with Kansas House Third, is you got Sharice Davids who is an Army brat and all that. Then you have Amanda Adkins who, her dad served. So, Sharice’s mom served, and Amanda’s dad served, but a lot of that military mindset doesn’t seem to translate over. They didn’t walk in the boots they don’t understand, let alone they don’t understand the full value of losing a damn good friend. The number one job of Congress is a declaration of war, and they don’t have that at all.”
In his second tour, in Northwest Iraq, McCaughrean was recognized by NATO and highly thanked by his command team for his highly in depth briefing on the March 2010 elections to NATO and his Cavalry Squadron Command team, preparing them for zero casualties on election day.
McCaughrean was also stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany—assigned to V Corps where he briefed a 3-Star Command and Staff on Daily Intelligence briefings on the happenings of Afghanistan and surrounding regions for situational awareness. It was in Germany McCaughrean earned the Hessen Medal for Civil Courage.
McCaughrean has pointed out other potential problems he sees with both Davids and Adkins. Specifically, the fact that they’re both believers in climate change, the federal government doing more, and he believes neither are in touch with the real world—specifically blue-collar society.
“I grew up in a union family,” McCaughrean said. “My dad is a union border operator working on power generation for the past 40 years. He did his first six years working in the Navy as a nuclear engine operator, so he taught me a lot about power generation. How useless wind and solar truly are. How great nuclear power is and coal and steam.”
In the Primary election on August 2, McCaughrean will be up against Adkins for the Republican spot. On top of her lack of understanding “the important decisions of war,” McCaughrean talked about the issues of the VA. “Neither one of them fully understand the VA side. I had to call the VA administrations today, and when I called, I was on hold for over two hours. It’s ridiculous. They want all these benefits for you, but any kind of federal assistance is absolutely a joke. Do you want more federal government healthcare? Because Amanda worked for Cerner. Cerner was a top five Obamacare company. So, they got all kinds of money off issues of VP and that’s not who the Republican party is. We’re more about, at the most because the tenth amendment, states figuring it out, states funding it, or the private sector because the private sector can always do things better than the federal government.”
Referencing the Fox4 debate between Amanda Adkins and Sharice Davids in October 2020, McCaughrean pointed out that Adkins admitted to believing in manmade climate change and that the federal government should do more. “CO2 is 0.02 of atmospheric gas on a good day,” McCaughrean explained. “I just got done dealing with Mike Thompson on Thursday at the barn and he was saying that includes everything from the oceans, the volcanoes, it’s more 0.0001, so it's so small, it’s not even funny. The fact is that we actually need to increase CO2 to actually make for better vegetation, for better farming. The other thing, too, is that 0.04, which is the inflated number, so, 78 percent nitrogen, 20 percent oxygen, 0.04 percent CO2, they’ll show you the studies, you have to get rid of humidity in the air. What is humidity? Humidity is water. I’m a mechanic, your cooling system—50 percent of your cooling system to get rid of the heat in your engine is water. So, it’s such an altered science. Me and Amanda both agree on nuclear, but that’s where we defer from.”
McCaughrean also spoke on how Sharice wants to rely on wind and solar energy but explained that those forms of energy would not produce enough energy for the district and utility bills would increase tenfold. “My objective is, and this is where me and Amanda agree, one to two nuclear powerplants, one powerplant with two reactors or two powerplants with one reactor depending on maintenance costs because nuclear can run 94 percent of the time. It can run for a hundred years; it pays itself off in six. Flat ridge two powerplant—those wind turbines, if you’re lucky, will last 20 years and will take ten and a half years just to pay off the build cost. Let alone the operational costs with all the diesel trucks and grease that needs to go in those bearings, plus the teardown. Let alone the environmental impact with birds, the concrete in the ground, the farming land, all that stuff.”
Adkins, as McCaughrean pointed out, is more interested in implementing wind and solar energy despite the high costs and harmful environmental effects. He also pointed out that Louisiana runs on four nuclear powerplants and have an electric utility rate that is much lower than ours. He also talked about using coal, not only as an energy source, but using the ash from the coal powerplants in concrete to make it stronger for less taxpayer dollars for roads and buildings. A trash and steam powerplant would also be on McCaughrean’s agenda—the first for Kansas. “It reduces methane output by 70 percent because what it does is it burns, and it goes through three or four cycles before it goes out the smokestack. That way it can chill, cool itself off, collect the mounds of dust and ash. When you’re not using that trash and steam powerplant, you can take the ash out of it, put it in the asphalt. It makes the asphalt stronger. It saves on construction costs so there’s less taxpayer dollars.”
Should McCaughrean win against Adkins in the primary election, he will be up against Davids in the general election on Tuesday, November 8, though McCaughrean says he is not worried about going up against the current Representative of District Three. “Actions speak louder than words. She may sound nice. She’s probably a nice woman. I imagine she has a nice wife and everything. But results matter. The bottom-line matters. Her and the Democrat party and their war on climate justice is a war on our wallets. Executive Order 13990 has been an absolute assault on gas prices, inflation has been hurting the poor and the middle-class. The collectivist mentality, the Democrats, especially the minorities, are getting tired of it. Look at the Black votes that are going on. They’re doing the whole Blexit movement started by Candace Owens. They’re getting tired of being on the Democrat plantation they’ve been on since the 1850s with the Confederacy. They’re tired of collectivism. That’s an absolute disaster with her.”
McCaughrean also pointed out that Davids, in 2016, was living in South Dakota running a company called ‘Hope and Coffee.’ The business went bankrupt and closed. She then came down to Kansas and ran for congress, winning in 2018. The judge Davids had, however, ordered Davids to give $20,000 back to investors of the business. According to McCaughrean, Davids hid behind the argument that the company and owners were to pay. The problem is there is only one owner—her. “That $20,000 flaw, to us, feels like we’re paying an extra $20,000 that we’re getting robbed out of,” McCaughrean said. “We want our $20,000 back.”
McCaughrean is running with three major political goals. The first being to ensure national security, believing in peace through strength to keep enemies from invading countries like Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as securing our own border. His second political goal is national fiscal sanity by reducing taxes and the costs of utilities through effective energy sources. This also includes the 3/4 rule—ensuring not to pay more than 75 percent of two years ago receipts so we can pay off about $750 billion in debt per year. As a veteran with a son that happens to be autistic, his third political goal is to promote and provide for such families, ensuring veterans and first responders “are truly being taken care of in all aspects of health, welfare, and security.” This political goal also works to bring more proficient doctors for autism, down syndrome, and more to Kansas City.
“Those who are cops, this is their Vietnam right now,” McCaughrean said. “The whole Black Lives Matter and stuff. They’re the Blue Line. One of the counties in Kansas Third, at times only has one officer patrolling that 600 square miles. They could be hours away. So, we need to make sure we’re getting them taken care of. I’m hearing from all the sheriff’s that we’re short on cops. They’re underpaid. They’re not being treated well. Honestly, there’s a point where it tears you down and you go, ‘You know, I’ve done my time, I’m getting out.’”
McCaughrean also explained his family’s ordeal with the Bonner Springs school system in regard to his ten-year-old son with autism. “The Bonner Springs School District is refusing to take care of him because they’re like, ‘We work with you, you need to work with us.’ Our son, because he’s autistic, his wiring, he doesn’t want to work with them anymore. They wanted him to go to Bonner Springs Elementary and on the second day he completely flipped out. He didn’t want to be a part of it. Completely freaking out and the school district didn’t want to take care of him. We get him into Delaware Ridge where he was at last year, and he’s perfectly fine. It was ridiculous. No awesome needs kid should be left behind. Let alone, put in a life skills program, because what are we going to do with life skills? You’ll do basic stuff, but how about push the child? Challenge them? I figure we got to do more for these kids because there are a lot of other areas like New York City where they have the private sector come in. Maybe we have one or two private buildings in the Kansas Third area. Maybe one in Southern Johnson and one in Northern Johnson or Wyandotte County where all these autistic and down syndrome kids can go. They can be taken care of and they can have staff right there that specialize in all this.”
With the redistricting of Kansas’ Third District to now have a slight favor for Republicans, it is still the bluest district in Kansas. However, McCaughrean does not shy away at this, sharing some views that he believes more left leaning voters can get behind.
For one, he is a fan of individual liberty, believing that so long as it’s above the age of 18, marijuana should be legalized. “Just don’t do it while you’re driving. Don’t do it when you’re doing something critical. You’re not going to get federal government benefits because federal government benefits mean you’re on the right path, you’re trying to go straight and make an effort to be an asset to society. However, if you want to get a job and you are able to hold a job and you want to do it on your own, go ahead.”
Another thing he spoke on was the LGBT community. “If you’re over the age of 18 and it doesn’t involve kids, it’s consensual, do whatever you want. We’re not putting taxpayer dollars toward it, and they always say, ‘Stop shoving your religion down our throats,’ well, to me, it seems like they’re religion. Respect civility. Respect is a two-way street. We understand that nature’s law, nature’s God, and the nuclear family has worked for millions of years. It’s common sense. Let’s keep it that way. But if you want to divert from that, you want to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, go do it on your own. You’re not getting taxpayer dollars for it. It’s your decision. I ask you to go through the psychiatrics of it, especially if you’re transgender because those puberty blockers that are reversable, if you saw the movie ‘What is a Woman?’ they’re not reversable. And once you cut that stuff off, it ain’t coming back the way it was.”
McCaughrean hopes to win no more than three terms (six years) in the third district. He says he is choosing to limit his time because he “truly believes in citizen government,” questioning that if he doesn’t set an example, then who will lead by example. This belief of term limits is shown, also, through his support for a Convention of States.
If you would like to help McCaughrean with his campaign, you can go to https://johnforkansas3.com/ where you can learn more about McCaughrean and sign up for free emails. You can also volunteer for door knocking and phone calling as well as donate so his campaign team can promote more for voters.