Clovis Visits Oskaloosa In Closing Days Of Primary

Republican candidate for US Senate Sam Clovis.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Sam Clovis stopped by Pizza Ranch in Oskaloosa Saturday to address a group from the Ottumwa Tea Party Chapter.

Clovis is a former resident of Oskaloosa, where he was a professor at William Penn. Clovis says he still holds Oskaloosa in high regard, and still owns property within the city limits.

Clovis has picked up the endorsement of former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who adopted Oskaloosa as his home town during his time in Iowa. “We’ve seen a couple of things that have been fairly dramatic shifts in opinions,” said Clovis.

Clovis says that debates between the candidates and district conventions have allowed him to differentiate himself from the field and have had more people paying attention to his campaign. Clovis says that with the primary just days away, people are paying more attention to the race, and the undecided voter is starting to form an opinion about who they will choose. “Well, we’ve seen all these commercials, and cute’s cute and pretty’s pretty, but no substance here, and finally we see substance,” said Clovis.

Currently, the Republican Party in Iowa is highly fractured, and I asked Clovis, if he won the nomination, how would he bring the party back together. “There is one thing that unifies the Republican Party,” said Clovis, “that is the pursuit of liberty under the Constitution of the United States. We all agree on that.”

“Let’s get behind the notion that we can unify under the auspices of the pursuit of Liberty and the Constitution,” Clovis said. “There’s not a Republican alive that doesn’t agree with that.”

“Now, how we get there, we can argue, but we know what our objective is. Let’s get behind that, and let’s move forward,” explained Clovis.

Clovis agrees that there are feelings that have been hurt, “and some deep wounds that have to be healed”.

“I don’t need to be prepared, or coached, for anything to be ready to become a statesmen and a leader in the United States Senate. I have those skills,” said Clovis who says he believes he is “ready to hit the ground running.”

“I want to join Senator Grassley in the Senate and to provide a strong Christian conservative view of this state and provide those things and protect those values that the people of Iowa want, Clovis said.

Iowa has been trending towards a blue state in the past few decades, and I asked Clovis how Republicans in the state are dealing with the current political landscape. “People are disappointed in both parties,” said Clovis. “This is an off-year election and a lot of people are sitting there saying, what does it matter. I think that it will matter, and I think that people in the Republican Party need to give people a reason to vote for us, as Republicans, rather than voting against Barack Obama.”

There are five Republican candidates, including Clovis, for the US Senate seat that Democrat Tom Harkin currently holds. Bruce Brailey is the current front-runner for the Democrats, with Bob Quast continuing his write-in campaign for the primary.