Rita Hart bring ‘Backyard Talks’ tour to the region

Rita Hart, the Democratic congressional candidate for Iowa's District 2, brought her 'Backyard Talks” tour to the region Saturday.

Hart visited with small groups of voters in Washington and Fairfield, then took a tour of downtown Mt. Pleasant.

'It's been a hard way to campaign this year,” Hart said while wrapping up her visit in Washington. 'We just want to make sure we were having some opportunities to speak to people face-to-face and have to do it in a safe way. We needed to do it outdoors. It's much safer. We keep the crowd small.”

The primary issue voters brought up was healthcare, which Hart said has been a common thread at all of her campaign stops.

'Healthcare is still a top priority for me because I have seen how difficult life can be for people who don't have access to healthcare,” Dr. Robin Plattenberger-Gilmore, a Washington physician, said. 'People are afraid to go because they're afraid they're going to get a big bill, and they're afraid that their child's expenses are going to be something to kick them out of their house or maybe lose their car. They're just living on the edge, and in this country, nobody should be living on the edge.”

Cheryl Barnes of Washington said that she is worried that pre-existing conditions may no longer be covered by insurers.

'I'm retired, and the thing that worries me is, for elderly people, my husband has a pre-existing condition, and he's going to have to retire at some point because of his health,” Barnes said. 'I worry about how we're going to be able to maintain our lifestyle and necessities and still take care of his pre-existing condition.”

Hart said that health care must be protected.

'It's so important that we get this right,” she said. 'We need it to be high quality care, and we also need it to be affordable. We need to bring down the cost of our premiums and our co-pays and our deductibles and the cost of prescription drugs.”

Hart said that the COVID-19 pandemic is another concern of a lot of people who feel their voices are not being hear in Washington.

'They're not listening to the voices of so many of us who are saying we've got to get this COVID crisis under control, so then our economy can continue to improve,” Hart said.

Jacqueline Arreola of Washington said that the voices of the Latino community need to be heard as well.

'We are a minority that has become the biggest minority in the U.S.,” Arreola said. 'We need to be represented, not just during the campaign, but throughout the whole time you are out there on the East Coast.

'I don't want to say, ‘Love me,' but get to know me. Get to know who we are. Get the stories of what we do here.”

Hart said that much of the negative stereotype some people have about the Latin community comes from fear.

'If you come into communities that have a large minority population, you don't see that fear any more,” Hart said. 'They see the community, they see the family life, and they see the contributions, and it's not scary any more.”

At both the Washington and Fairfield stops, Hart told supporters her story of growing up with eight brothers and sisters, and how there would be lively debates at the dinner table.

'It's where I learned to stand up for what I think, but it's also, more importantly, how important it is to listen to people who don't agree with you,” she said. 'Good ideas come from everywhere and it behooves you to listen to people who don't always have the same ideas as you do.”

She talked about how her mother, due to health issues early in life, could only speak in a whisper.

'She often got talked over, because it was so easy to talk over her,” Hart said. 'I learned that it's really important for somebody to step up and say, ‘Hey, quiet down. Mom's trying to say something.' That was a great lesson for me to know that it's up to you to make sure that everybody's voice at the table get heard.”