ATCHISON, Kan. — Jim Ryun has done a lot of winning in his life.

As a schoolboy track star, he set a mile-run record that stood for 36 years. As a distance runner at the University of Kansas and beyond, he participated in the Summer Olympics in 1964, 1968 and 1972.

He founded a successful business and, beginning in 1996, got elected as a Kansas congressman five times.

In November 2006, he lost.

Maybe the Republican lawmaker got caught in a Democratic tide. Maybe he failed to recognize his campaign’s weaknesses until it was too late.

In either case, the soul-searching commenced.

“I had people say, ‘How did you lose?’” he recalls. “I said, ‘It wasn’t easy.’”

Nancy Boyda, a Democrat he defeated by 15 percentage points two years before, beat the incumbent and now occupies the Kansas 2nd District seat in the U.S. House.

“The campaign I had last time was not a very effective one,” Mr. Ryun concedes.

Two days before the 2006 election, President Bush went to Topeka to shore up the Ryun campaign. Too little, too late.

So, that appeared that for the congressman, a good run ending at 10 years. But people kept ringing his number, wanting him to jump back into politics. Nearly 170 past supporters turned out at an event in Manhattan, Kan.

A new team came together. Mr. Ryun entered the race to reclaim his old seat, first needing to get past Lynn Jenkins, the state treasurer, in the Republican primary this August.

The distance runner again negotiates the long distances of the vast 2nd District, which touches Nebraska on its north side and Oklahoma on its south. Making his way around the district’s 26 counties, listening to residents in a door-to-door, business-to-business approach, he finds himself on a sunny afternoon in an Atchison restaurant.

He likes Dr Pepper but settles for Mr. Pibb.

Kansans, he says, have many concerns but a single demand: that the federal government behave responsibly.

“They have to, in their own checkbook, balance their income and expenses,” the candidate says. “Washington has not done enough of that.”

Mr. Ryun’s presence in the campaign offers an odd feel. He runs as a challenger but with little need to introduce himself. His new message sounds like his old message, which the candidate insists has enduring appeal.

People want lower taxes, he says. They want an end to wasteful government spending. They want immigration laws enforced and no amnesty granted to those who violated the nation’s borders.

They want America to look down every avenue searching for energy resources, including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Until supply increases, prices will not drop, especially for the diesel fuel needed for Kansas agriculture. “I haven’t met a farmer yet that doesn’t support exploring,” Mr. Ryun says.

He thinks citizens want permanence in the tax relief measures approved by Congress in 2001 and 2003. With the estate tax, he says, death in 2011 could produce a 55 percent greater tax obligation than death in 2010.

“When tax relief is not permanent, you’re really leaving to the next generation a tremendous burden, and I don’t believe that’s the right way to leave things,” he said.

As a new twist, Mr. Ryun has signed the “no earmarks pledge,” saying this appropriations practice has been abused in Congress. If elected again, the candidate says, he will continue to work for district funding but through the more closely scrutinized “regular order” process.

He declines to dismiss Congress as fundamentally “broken.”

“Step by step ... I really think you can do some things to make it more responsible,” Mr. Ryun says. “If I didn’t feel I could make a difference, I would not be running for the 2nd District seat.”

Ken Newton can be reached

at kenn@npgco.com.