State Senator Jack Hatch, Democratic candidate for governor, met with a small group of Greene County Democrats at an informal campaign stop at Prairie Blue Sunday evening.
Hatch was born and raised in Connecticut. He came to Iowa in 1968 to attend Drake University and didn’t leave. He served in the Iowa House from 1885 to 1993 and from 2001 to 2003. He has been in the Iowa Senate since 2003. “I stayed because Iowa is a place where opportunity is available to us,” he said.
Hatch explained the Hatch/Vernon plan for economic development works from the community up, not from the top down. He would challenge local communities to determine how to grow, and then provide assistance. “Don’t look for politicians to tell you how to do something. You’ve got to do it from the bottom up. And that’s how we grab a hold of opportunity, all over the state,” he said. “What’s good for this county is different from another county.”
Monica Vernon just recently sold a marketing research firm she owned and is a city councilwoman in Cedar Rapids. Hatch said her experience in dealing with clean up and restoration following the 2008 flood proves her to be a problem solver who has much to offer Iowa.
Hatch said his first proposal if elected would be for universal early childhood education for every 4-year-old in the state. He would also propose increasing the age of mandatory school attendance past the age of 16.
He said his administration would “go after those points where state government can best help local government, local communities, including businesses,” he said.
The last 10 days of the campaign will be “just gutting it out,” Hatch said. He said the Branstad campaign is appealing to fear of something new. He spoke of the money being spent on the campaign, saying that the 2014 Branstad campaign is “living off the fumes of 2010,” and that “unlimited money in politics is not good.”
He and Vernon are planning a 38-city tour during the last eight days of the campaign. A new television spot, an “upbeat, positive message” was scheduled to break on Monday.
When asked why he is running for governor, Hatch answered that running for governor was not something he had planned to do, but Gov Branstad’s idealogical leaning toward the right and his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, along with the political battle that pitted the Republicans’ property tax reform legislation against the Democrats’ vision of Medicaid expansion prompted him to run against Branstad.
“It was that experience that led me to believe that this guy is an impediment to growth, an impediment to health. The hypocrisy of him saying ‘we want to be the healthiest state in the nation,’ when all he was promoting was Blue Zones… and the Healthy Walk… it’s not enough. It’s not enough to get people healthy. And healthy means lives. It means children who don’t have health care because their parents don’t have health care…. That’s why,” he said to answer the question. “It’s the fact that this should not be a political issue. Health should not be a political issue.”
Branstad has served a total of 20 years as Iowa governor. When asked about the “danger” of a 20-year governor, Hatch said that complacency is the biggest issue, saying Branstad has proposed no actual agenda for another term and intends to go to a “safe place” where no growth would occur.
The second danger is in representing only those who have kept the governor in power. “You get so comfortable you start representing only those who have kept you in power. He’s just protecting the big guys, just protecting the big corporations everywhere you go,” Hatch said about Branstad.
Also at the Sunday evening meeting was Iowa House candidate Hans Erickson. Pictured are (from left) Hatch, Erickson, Greene County Democrat co-chair David Morain and Greene County treasurer Donna Lawson.
