Bob Kasten

Bob Kasten
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United States Senator from Wisconsin
In office January 3, 1981 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Gaylord Nelson
Succeeded by	Russ Feingold
Member of the United States House of Representatives		In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1979
Preceded by	Glenn R. Davis
Succeeded by	Jim Sensenbrenner
Member of the Wisconsin State Senate for the 4th district
In office 1973–1975
Preceded by	Nile Soik
Succeeded by	Nile Soik
Personal details
Born	Robert Walter Kasten Jr. June 19, 1942(1942-06-19) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Sarah Kasten

Robert Walter Kasten Jr. (born June 19, 1942) is a Republican politician from the state of Wisconsin who served as a U.S. Representative from 1975 to 1979 and as a U.S. Senator from 1981 to 1993.

Background

Kasten was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended the Milwaukee Country Day School before graduating in 1960 from The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1964 from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and received his M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School in 1966. He served in the Wisconsin Air National Guard from 1966 to 1972.

Elected office

Kasten was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate in 1972. In 1974, he was elected to the House of Representatives after defeating incumbent Glenn R. Davis in a Republican primary election. He was reelected in 1976. He ran for Governor of Wisconsin in 1978, but lost the Republican nomination to Lee S. Dreyfus.

Kasten ran for the United States Senate in 1980 and narrowly defeated Democrat and incumbent Senator Gaylord Nelson. The victory was propelled in part by the popularity of Ronald Reagan at the top of the Republican ticket. In the Senate, Kasten was an outspoken conservative. He was the first Republican to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate since Alexander Wiley left office in 1963 after being defeated in 1962 by Nelson.

In 1985, Kasten was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after a District of Columbia police officer observed him running a red light and driving on the wrong side of the road. The charges were later dropped.^{[citation needed]}

In 1986, Kasten narrowly defeated Democrat Ed Garvey to win a second term after a very bitter campaign, one that was characterized by personal attacks and is remembered as one of the nastiest elections in Wisconsin history. Kasten was defeated by Democratic state Senator Russ Feingold in 1992.

After the Senate

Since 1993, he has been President of Kasten & Company, a consulting firm. In July 2007, Kasten joined the presidential campaign of Republican Rudy Giuliani as a foreign policy adviser. He chaired Giuliani's Wisconsin campaign, along with former U.S. Representative Scott Klug and former State Senator Cathy Stepp.

After Giuliani dropped out, Kasten endorsed his close friend and former Senate colleague John McCain. In April 2016, Kasten endorsed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for president in 2016, becoming part of Trump's foreign policy advisory team.

Electoral history

Wisconsin U.S. Senate Election 1992
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Russ Feingold	1,290,662	52.6
	Republican	Bob Kasten (incumbent)	1,129,599	46.0

Wisconsin U.S. Senate Election 1986
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Bob Kasten (incumbent)	754,573	50.9
	Democratic	Ed Garvey	702,963	47.4

Wisconsin U.S. Senate Election 1980
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Bob Kasten		50.2
	Democratic	Gaylord Nelson (incumbent)		48.3

Cultural references

Writer Mike Baron named a recurring character in his Wisconsin-based comic book Badger after Kasten, then Wisconsin's junior senator. The character, a peg-legged, vampire-hunting pig named "Senator Bob Kasten", made several appearances in the series. A student political party on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus satirically named themselves the "Bob Kasten School of Driving" (a reference to his DUI arrest) won the campus-wide elections in 1986 and 1987.

External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Appearances on C-SPAN