Warren Makes Campaign Swing Through Oskaloosa

US Senator Elizabeth Warren is running for President, and she made a campaign stop in Oskaloosa on Sunday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – It was the first of its kind that most can remember, a campaign stop hosted in the back yard of an Oskaloosa residence.

Democratic Senator and 2020 Presidental Candidate Elizabeth Warren stopped by the back yard of Cheryl Benson on Sunday morning, where she presented her argument as to why she is the best choice to lead the country into the future.

Cheryl Benson hosted Warren on Sunday morning, and said the experience has been “really exciting. It’s fun, the energy, and all the people, and so it’s kind of kicking off the caucuses.”

Benson says she doesn’t have a favorite candidate at this point, “so I’m open to ABT. Anybody But Trump.”

Mahaska County is a Republican stronghold, and attracting Democrat candidates has been tough. “I like to go and listen to all of them so I’m hoping they all pass through close enough that I can go hear them,” added Benson.

Benson would like to see campaign reform and federally fund the elections. “I think we would get better people running if they didn’t have to beg for money and owe people favors, and then I think they would be more willing to work with each other.”

“The whole tariff thing is ridiculous,” added Benson of the current economy. “I think the way other people view us at this point is because of some of the back and forth that Trump does.”

Oskaloosa Resident Emily Russell has been politically active in the community for some time. She and her late husband Chuck caught many of the presidential hopefuls when they used to stop by Stapp Purity Drug, or Taso’s. Today, many candidates choose Smokey Row Coffee as their location of choice, and that’s what made today’s visit so different.

The gathering at a residential home was new for Russell. “I’ve been to a lot of candidate meetings, but I’ve never been to one in a back yard.”

Russell has many different topics she’s wanting to hear candidate thoughts on, and can’t say there is any one particular topic that tops her list. “I’m anxious to hear her [Warren] because she has so many plans.”

On the subject of Oskaloosa’s role in helping to select candidates seeking office, Russell says our community has a good role to play but wishes that more candidates would come to Oskaloosa. “There hasn’t been very many of them come so far.”

Russell wonders if Mahaska County is so red, it may be scaring candidates away. “It seems like before, we’ve had more.”

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke about the humble beginnings of her life, where a minimum wage job helped to save the family home and family.

Warren said that when she was a girl, a full-time minimum wage job would support a family of three, including paying a mortgage. “Today, a full-time minimum wage job in America will not keep a momma and her baby out of poverty. That is wrong, and that is why I am in this fight.”

“When you see a government that works for those with money and isn’t working so well for anyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple,” said Warren of the way Washington is currently working.

“Understand this. Whatever issue brings you here today, I guarantee there’s a decision to be made in Washington; it gets touched by money,” Warren added. “Money. Campaign contributions you bet, but so much more. Bought and paid for experts, think tanks, lobbyists, all Washington is awash in money.”

Warren went on to say there needed to be “big structural change,” saying “we need to attack corruption head-on.”

“I have the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate,” Warren said. “The influence of money is felt in so many places. This really is a huge bill [that] touches a lot of things.

“End lobbying as we know it,” Warren said making her first example she would do to end corruption. “Block the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington.”

“Make the United States Supreme Court follow basic rules on ethics,” Warren said to a cheering crowd.

“Make every single person who runs for federal office put their tax returns online,” Warren suggested.

“We need to rewrite a couple of structural rules in our economy,” Warren went on to say. She said that there is a concentration of business among a few giants “that run everything. The old competitive markets just aren’t there.”

“We need more power in the hands of employees,” Warren explained of unions, making it easier to join a union and “give unions more power.” “Unions built America’s middle class. Unions will rebuild American’s middle class.”

“I want to see a wealth tax on the biggest one-tenth of one percent of the fortunes in this country,” Warren added. “Anybody that’s got more than 50 million dollars in assets, on your 50 millionth and first dollar, you’ve got to pitch in two cents, and two cents on every dollar in assets above it.”

Warren believes the two cents in “wealth tax” would help restructure the economy by providing universal childcare for every baby age 0-5 years of age.

Warren says this will also cover universal Pre-K for every three and four-year-old in the country. Raise the wages for every preschool and childcare to the “professional level.”

Also to be covered by the two-cent wealth tax would be universal public technical school, two-year college, and four-year college “for every kid that wants to go.”

The final piece of the two-cent wealth tax would be to cancel student loan debt for 95% of college graduates. “All of that with two cents,” Warren said.

The third part of Warren’s overall plan is “to change some rules to protect our democracy.”

Warren says that a constitutional amendment is needed “to protect the right of every American citizen to vote and to get that vote counted.”

Warren believes this move is necessary to counter “voter suppression laws and gerrymandering,” and to overturn Citizens United.

“For me, it’s about opportunity. For me, it’s about what kind of America do we want to be,” Warren told those in attendance as she closed out her speech on Sunday.

Stacy Loesch from Rosewell, Georgia was in Oskaloosa to see Warren on Sunday. Loesch and his wife are on an extended hiatus traveling the United States and decided to come to Iowa to experience what it was like to interact with presidential candidates. “This is like the last week of our journey.”

“Somewhere around Wyoming I think, we came up with the idea of stopping in Iowa just for this reason,” Loesch explained. “I’m so glad that I did because it has given me a hope, or a sense that we just don’t get from watching the news. You see these people. I heard Amie last night, and I listened today, you see the passion that they bring. You see how badly they want to make the changes they believe in. You just don’t get that message watching CNN or Fox, and all the hollering. I read the New York Times, and I am passionately Anti-Trump, and I was beginning to give up hope, but now I kind of see that energy here just from the candidates and from the people watching here. I’m thinking I’m watching US History in the making. This is where our next president is going to be chosen.”

“It’s just amazing. I just wish more people would come here,” Loesch said of the Iowa Caucus process. “It’s been very powerful.”

In Iowa, residents become weary and annoyed with advertising as the caucus process happens. Loesch says that Iowan’s are lucky. “A lot of times you don’t appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore.”

“I wish more people knew how easy it is to just come here,” Loesch said of Americans and the opportunity to interact with the candidates. “I would recommend a long weekend or something, and just come and watch.”

Mahaska County Democrats Chair Eric Palmer introduced Warren to the approximate 100 attendees on Sunday.

Palmer says he hasn’t endorsed any candidate, “it’s really an honor to get to introduce a US Senator running for president.”

Palmer says that it’s tough to entice Democratic candidates to come to Mahaska County. “Any good candidate is going to make it here, and so we’ve seen two good candidates make it here so far.”

Palmer says he’s been contacted by other campaigns and believes we will be seeing other candidates in the area. “Folks are coming.”

“If you are only playing to your echo chamber or your own audience, you’re missing out.” Palmer said. “You need to be able to answer to folks that may not necessarily agree with you, and quite frankly the only way you’re going to persuade them is to meet them.”

“If you give up the fight in areas that aren’t necessarily easy, you’re not a good candidate,” added Palmer.

When it comes to Democratic presidential candidates, Palmer says it’s good to have them here in Mahaska County. He’s glad for the ones that have visited the county and heard from its residents about some of the issues.

Of those issues, Palmer points towards agriculture, calling it a critical issue for Iowa.

“This tariff, I was telling one of these guys, one out of five rows of soybeans was going to China,” Palmer explained. “This ham-handed approach using the Iowa farmers and our economies, and two bail-outs now, the second bailout coming down the road, this guy has been a disaster. The President has been a disaster for this part of Iowa.”

“I’m concerned about my farmer friends and the economy I do business in,” added Palmer who said that when farmers are hurting, it hurts his business as well.

On Warrens speech, Palmer agrees that the influence of money needs to be taken out of politics. “There’s too much big money, too much anonymous money, and she addressed that, and it’s a big issue for me.”