Don't try to meet with Richard DeBolt on Thursday afternoons. Even if you're the campaign manager for President Bush.
Thursday afternoons are when DeBolt coaches his 7-year-old son Austin's soccer team, and it's a solid marked-out time in his calendar — no matter who you are.
When Bush's adviser Karl Rove and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton recently called up asking to meet with DeBolt in Seattle, he said no.
"I'm like, 'I've got a soccer match in four hours. I can't go,' " he said (but he made sure another high-ranking state Republican filled in for him).
It's part of the balancing act for DeBolt, 38, who is the top Republican in the state House of Representatives and the head of public relations in the United States for the Canadian energy company TransAlta.
He and his wife Amy also rear Austin and Sophie, 10, in their Adna-area home.
"There's only so much you can be stressed," DeBolt said at a recent interview in the Centralia Starbucks. "I've found the human spirit can take a lot."
DeBolt, first elected to the state House in 1996, hopes voters send him back for a fifth term.
He said his goal is to continue working to make the state friendly for businesses.
"We want to put people back to work," DeBolt said.
Jobs, he said, are the best way to prevent any number of societal problems — alcoholism, family abuse, a lack of health insurance.
"If you want healthier schools, jobs. If you want more kids on health care, jobs," he said. "Jobs remove pressure on the system."
His other priorities include making government more user-friendly, he said.
He said he's taken votes to strengthen laws about domestic violence.
Other votes include those to bring workers into community colleges for training.
He said one of his current interests is the health care system. He said he's open to ideas about how to fix the system, but said he disagrees with the Democratic plan of creating government pools to buy prescription drugs. He said doing that would shut out some types of drugs and foul up the free market system.
"There's a way to do it, but it's going to take some courage," DeBolt said.
DeBolt, originally from a military family in Pierce County, came to Lewis County to head the local chamber of commerce. He ran for an open legislative seat in 1996 to focus on economic development.
He said if elected to a fifth term, he would like to stay in office as long as he's getting things accomplished.
"As long as I feel like I'm making an impact, I'll stay," he said.
He said he's been asked to run for higher office, such as a seat in Congress, but jumped back from the idea of going to Washington, D.C.
"There are sharks out there!" he said with a laugh. "In Olympia, I'm swimming with the salmon. The worst we get up there is an orca or a sea lion."
DeBolt calls himself a cheerleader who likes to bring people together to fix things.
As head of the Republican caucus in the House, he doesn't mind taking his lumps as part of the process.
"I want to change how people view politics. I don't want people to be apathetic. People aren't apathetic about me," he said, flashing a broad smile.
