Republican nominee for Congress Dr. Jim Maxwell, ’67 visited Mr. Ray Ruhlman’s Government class Thursday, Oct. 18.  He spoke in the hope of inspiring students to use their power to make changes.

Dr. Maxwell is the chief neurosurgeon at Rochester General Hospital, but over a family visit to Washington, D.C. had the thought of running for office pop in his head.  Maxwell is the brother of McQuaid’s own computer science teacher Mr. John Maxwell, ’75.  Mr. Ruhlman had Dr. Maxwell come visit his senior Government class to explain the logistics of running for office.

Dr. Maxwell, a McQuaid alumnus, opened his talk explaining the time he spent at the school. During his senior year he ran for class president and actually lost. Although he did get enough votes to get on the committee. He continued to discuss that at one point he was under the belief that right before graduation he thought he was going to be expelled. He did not explain for what, but he tried to instill in us that no one is perfect.

Dr. Maxwell attended Georgetown University, where began his love for politics. Dr. Maxwell said that his friends who were studying political science often invited him to Capitol Hill to see what went on. He there began to fall in love with the idea of becoming a politician, but his grades for med school started to slip and he realized he had to make a decision.  He chose brain surgery and never looked back, until a family visit to D.C. where his grandson started to ask questions about Capitol Hill.

Dr. Maxwell realized his frustration with the current partisan divide and thought he might try to make a difference. Dr. Maxwell is the Republican nominee for the open spot in the House of Representatives. The spot was held by Democrat Louise Slaughter for 34 years, who passed away in March. In a very important midterm election, one might think the Republican committee supports Maxwell entirely, but that does not seem to be the case. Maxwell explained that since he is so unknown throughout the political circles, the committee has somewhat shunned him.

Dr. Maxwell described himself as an atypical Republican.  In fact, he decided to run as a Republican out of necessity because an Independent could never win.

Mr. Ruhlman was able to secure the visit by getting his number from Mr. Maxwell and simply calling.  Mr. Ruhlman said he looks for successful McQuaid grads to relate to the students, and he was very impressed with Dr. Maxwell.

“The fact that he asked for their prayers, and that he was at peace with the outcome, I thought it was very unusual. Most people’s worlds might be destroyed,” said Mr. Ruhlman.

Students had nothing but good things to say about him. 

“It was nice to see someone who was not necessarily corrupted by years of politics,” said James Schnell. “I definitely thought he was more of a progressive Republican.”

The overwhelming reaction from students was that he was very impressive and far exceeded expectations. Before meeting him, many believed he would be a narrow-headed politician, but by being very open with the students, he quickly was seen as just another McQuaid grad who wanted students to succeed.