Henry County Democrats gather for Harvest Rally

MT. PLEASANT – Presidential candidate Alan Howe as well as congressional candidate Rita Hart and state Sen. Rich Taylor spoke at Henry County Democrats' Harvest Rally on Saturday, Sept. 28. Representatives from various presidential campaigns also spoke to the crowd of democrats from around the county, who gathered at the Mt. Pleasant Golf and Country Club for dinner.

According to Jeff Fager, the chair of the political group, funds collected from the annual fundraiser go toward sustaining the operations of the county party. Fager helped introduce speakers throughout the evening.

Brenda Lanferman, a Henry County resident who lives several miles outside of Mt. Pleasant, has attended several Harvest Rallies and is currently organizing a house party for Pete Buttigieg, a presidential candidate from Indiana.

'It's very important to be politically involved at this time … more so this election than ever before. We need to get back on track for America's sake. It's sad what we've become and the hatred we have out there … it's unreal,” Lanferman said.

Following a quick introduction by Fager, Howe kicked off the speeches. His appearance at the Harvest Rally was his third in Mt. Pleasant and his fourth overall in Iowa. The candidate lives in south central Pennsylvania and started his political career by running for congress two and a half years ago. Howe began running for President in May of last year after losing the primary in his district for congress, which he credits to redistricting.

Addressing the audience, Howe started by stating the four main threats he hopes to address through his campaign: a 'treasonous” U.S. President, climate change, rising personal and institutional racism and dangerously high levels of income inequality. Howe spent a majority of his speech stressing the importance of holding President Trump accountable for 'betraying the country.”

'We must break up the Putin-Trump team,” he said and further punctuated his message by concluding his speech with 'Impeach Trump now,” which Howe repeated three times.

Rita Hart, a candidate running in the second congressional district, shared a personal story about how her mother taught her to stick up for voices that may not be heard in the Capital.

'She taught us how to listen. She also taught us that when we're at that table and her voice was not being heard … it was our responsibility to stick up and say, ‘Hey give her a chance to talk. Her voice needs to be listened to,'” Hart said.

'And the most important lesson [I learned] is that sometimes, it's not the loud voices in the room … that is the one you should be listening to. Sometimes the voices you have to lean in to hear are the ones you need to be listening to the most … that's what I think is going on in Washington right now, is that they're listening to all these loud voices, voices that have all the power and the energy and they're not leaning in and listening to the voices that really matter. We need to lean in and listen to voices here … in rural Iowa,” she said as she explained why she believed she hopes to gain the support of her fellow Iowans.

State Sen. Rich Taylor followed. Taylor, who took office in 2012, had originally anticipated only serving two terms.

'I said, after that, I'm going to have to think about it because I'm old and I want to have some retirement, too. But being up there these last three years in the Iowa Senate and seeing what these Republicans, how they're destroying our state … I have to run again.”

'I'll continue to work as hard as I can to fix things that are going wrong in Iowa, and if I can't fix them, at least they're going to know what's going on because I'm not going to shut up,” Taylor concluded.

Representatives from other presidential campaigns spoke on behalf of the candidates and included Belien Sisa, the Latino press secretary for Bernie Sanders, Britton Ostby from Sen. Cory Booker's campaign, Ronan Chastsky who represented Pete Buttigieg, Claire Goldberg, a field organizer for Kamala Harris, Jordan Hagert from Amy Klobuchar's campaign and Dave Helman from Elizabeth Warren's campaign.

To close out the speeches, Fager addressed the group and spoke about the virtues the country was built upon and encouraged members of the Henry County Democrats to continue supporting candidates from the party.

'To be that beacon to the world, to be the role model that we can and should be. That's our America. That's the America we love. That's the America we're going to fight for and that's the reason we're going to win,” Fager said of the upcoming elections.