With the general election just three weeks away, about 100 Perry-area Democrats gathered at La Poste Wednesday night to rally for retired Vice Admiral Mike Franken, the Sioux Center Democrat who is running for the U.S. Senate against longtime incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley from New Hartford.
Franken was introduced by Gary Overla of Dallas Center, the Democratic candidate for Iowa House District 47, which includes Perry and all of Greene and Guthrie counties. Overla is a longtime social studies teacher at Perry High School. He is running against Rep. Carter Nordman of Dallas Center, a first-term representative and small business owner who was president of Iowa Students for Trump in 2016.
“Is my opponent a MAGA extremist?” Overla said. “I don’t know if he’s an extremist or not, but I do know that he’s a tool of Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Republican party, and he takes his marching orders from them.”
Overla updated the audience on his campaign’s progress and then made way for Franken, who began by appealing to principles higher than partisan interests.
“We will put country over party,” Franken said. “We will put people over politics. And then then next step is to vote Chuck Grassley out of office.”
He said Iowans of all parties care about the same issues, and most of the important issues are neither Republican nor Democrat.
“We see that these are remarkably serious times with every passing day,” Franken said. “The problems are big but in the United States, here domestically, these are fixable problems. Why? Because Iowans are resilient. They’re hardworking, and they’re strong. But what we don’t deserve, though, is a senator for life who lines his pockets with special interests and votes against our needs.”
For instance, Iowa was once ranked at the top in education but no longer. Mental healthcare.
Franken noted that Grassley voted against capping insulin prices at $35 a month and that Republicans are now lining up behind a plan by Sen. Rick Scott that would remove the recently approved $2,000-a-year cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Franken also talked about attracting manufacturing to Iowa as well as a workforce skilled for manufacturing jobs. He criticized Grassley for voting in August against the CHIPS Act of 2022, which provides about $280 billion in new funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S.
“If Iowa is not an accommodating place to live,” he said, “if women are treated differently than men, if they feel like our kids just don’t want to live anyplace near us because of the angst and the antagonisms of this state, if they don’t think we’re enlightened in our discussions, where do you think those people will move to if you give them the option to leave? That’s not a good thing.”
Franken mentioned the rates of income and wealth inequality in the U.S. today and the need to tax the rich.
“We need to change the tax code,” he said. “As it stands today, the uber-wealthy, as a percentage of their income, are paying less than the electrician who is making $85,000 down the street.” He also said he would remove the cap on income subject to Social Security taxation, which is now set at $147,000.
Jim, as a newspaperman with ink in your blood, you surely know there are two political parties is the United States and a good, unbiased writer would cover both. Give your readers a choice. Maybe not all of them are one sided. It could help your readership and thus boost your circulation, and that would be a good selling point to tell your retailers when you are selling ads. Best Wishes . . . Merle Kent Shawd
Thanks for your kind words, Merle. Please rest assured that I will give the Republican candidates equal coverage if and when they rally in Perry.