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 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.[3] Kasten was defeated by Democratic state Senator Russ Feingold in 1992.
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.[7] He chaired Giuliani's Wisconsin campaign, along with former U.S. Representative Scott Klug and former State Senator Cathy Stepp.[8]
After Giuliani dropped out, Kasten endorsed his close friend and former Senate colleague John McCain.[9] In April 2016, Kasten endorsed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for president in 2016, becoming part of Trump's foreign policy advisory team.[10]
Writer Mike Baron named a recurring character in his Wisconsin-based comic bookBadger 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.[11][better source needed] 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); it won the campus-wide elections in 1986 and 1987.[12]
References
^'Wisconsin Blue Book 1991-1992,' Biographical Sketch of Robert W. Kasten, pg. 11