Hart whips up support at Charles City campaign stop

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

At this point in the general election campaign, it’s not so much about convincing people to vote for you, as making sure they vote.

“We’ve got 12 days left, right? Twelve days,” said Rita Hart, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, at a campaign stop in her hometown Thursday morning.

“We’re going to do what we can to continue to distribute our message to anybody who has not made up their mind yet,” she told the Press after talking to the group, “but we’re in the final stretch, so we have to keep people invigorated and make sure they’re getting out to vote and getting their friends and family to do it.”

Hart, who was born and raised near Charles City and still has brothers and sisters living here, talked to a group of about 30 people for 20 minutes.

“Everywhere I go, somebody stands up and says, ‘This is the most important election of our lifetime,’ and I know you’ve heard that before, but there really is an awful lot on the line,” she said. “We’re having a great response. Everywhere we go we’re getting good crowds, we’re getting enthusiasm, and more importantly, people do understand how important it is.”

Hart has campaigned in Charles City several times since gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell selected her as his running mate in June after he won the party’s primary.

She has been a state senator representing all of Clinton County and part of Scott County since 2012. In addition to helping her husband, Paul, farm northeast of Davenport, Hart was previously a teacher for more than 20 years.

Hart said she wants to change the culture in Des Moines where Republican lawmakers go behind closed doors and make decisions without listening to the other party or to the people of the state.

“I want to change that culture. Fred Hubbell wants to change that culture,” she said. “We want to be able to work across the aisle. We want to be able to work with people who have good ideas, no matter where they come from, and create the kind of environment, with the right kind of leadership, that pulls people together instead of dividing them.”

She said some of the Republican decisions have resulted in the “gutting” of collective bargaining, “the privatization of Medicaid which has taken away health care for so many and caused providers to close their doors,” lack of resources for mental health care, and air and water quality legislation that doesn’t go far enough and that fails to take advantage of experts on that topic including people in Charles City.

“And so on Day 1 of a Hubbell-Hart agenda we’re going to start turning around the privatization of Medicaid and getting it back under state control so that Iowans are taking care of Iowans,” she said.

“We’re going to start investing in education, … so we do the things that make a difference to our children and to the future of Iowa and to the economy of Iowa,” she said, including lowering tuition “so that we can make sure our kids can afford to go to college, whatever level of higher education that they need, so they can realize their dreams without having to have decades of student debt on their shoulders.”

She said the state is ready for a change, “and we have to do it with compassion.”

“We have to get our priorities straight, get this budget straightened around and put our priorities where they belong, in areas like education and health care,” she said.

“We have to get elected first, and that’s why I’m so glad that your here,” she said to the group. “We’ve got just 12 days to double down and bring it home.”