Chamber holds candidate forum

MT. PLEASANT — State representative candidates Mike Heaton and Jeff Shipley participated in a candidate forum hosted by the Mt. Pleasant Area Chamber of Commerce, Tuesday night.

The candidates conducted themselves respectfully to one another, and answered questions from the chamber and audience.

“This is not a debate format, but a get-to-know your candidates event,” event moderator Jennifer Crull said in an introduction for the evening.

Shipley and Heaton took turns answering questions as simple as, “who are you,” and as complicated as their thoughts on Chapter 20.

Consistently, Shipley brought his answers around to his core values surrounding freedom, the importance of family, and a traditional republican approach to politics.

Heaton supplied succinct answers which drew from personal connections with the Mt. Pleasant community.

Being from different sides of the political spectrum, the two gave differing opinions on most topics.

When asked about tax cuts Shipley said, “You can spend your money a whole lot better than I can.”

Heaton argued that tax cuts only benefit the wealthy and take away from health and education.

“We should work with businesses on intrapreneurship,” Heaton also said.

The differences between candidates was also on display when they spoke of economics.

Shipley approached the topic with a fast-paced dialogue about needing predictable business environments, while Heaton took a slower-paced approach.

“I have this photo in the workspace downtown,” Heaton said.

He described the photo of trees and the sky with small specs of birds floating on the tail winds.

Heaton compared the constantly shifting economic times to the inevitability of tail winds.

“We need to ride the tail winds,” He analogized.

Some friction occurred when Shipley entered into discussion about Latin-x verbiage when answering a questions about health care.

“My god,” scoffs could be heard from the crowd as Shipley spoke.

When Heaton’s turn came to cover the topic, he took the opportunity to address this.

“I don’t like when people use race as an example,” he said, and the audience applauded.

Shipley did try to clarify his stance saying “talk with your Latin American friends, they’ll tell you those terms are infantile,” he said.

Coming off that conversation, the men delivered closing remarks.

Shipley thanked the audience and hosts and reaffirmed, “I am fighting for freedom.”

Heaton gave his thank you remarks and left the audience with the familiar feeling with which he began.

“I love you guys,” he told the community.

Both candidates entertained personal questions and discussion with audience members for nearly an hour after the official event concluded.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com