Bruce Braley Spoke About Why He Ran for Congress in 2006: Health Insurance

Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley (1st District, Iowa), came into familiar territory when he spoke at the Hamburg Inn 2. He said he used to live at 326 So. (?) Linn Street, a short distance from HB Inn 2, and was a regular at Dave Panther’s restaurant.

He spoke simply and directly to a packed house of fans and media photographers and reporters. He said that one of the reasons he ran for Congress in 2006 is because 46 million Americans at the time had no health insurance.

“My nephew Tucker had liver cancer before the age of two. He had good health insurance, but his parents still owed thousands and thousands of dollars for his care after he was treated. That’s why I ran.

“People said, ‘you’re just trying to make us feel bad.’

“My response is, ‘You’re just a day away from being in the same situation.’”

Then Congressman Braley went to each person in attendance and shook hands. He spoke to each one.

One of the first women he talked to harangued him at such length you would have thought she was the only person in the room who had anything worthwhile to say. Finally, he politely disengaged himself and said he had other people to talk to, but he did hear her out for the most part and made an appropriate response on topic. I admired his social skills and patience.

What I like best about Bruce Braley is that he voted for pay equity for women; in other words, equal pay for equal work.

I told him I support him and have been sending him money for his campaign, which he thanked me for.

Jim, my husband, told Bruce, “It would turn my stomach if Joni Ernst were a senator from Iowa.”

Of course, I feel exactly the same way. She would privatize Social Security, ban abortion even in cases of incest and rape, kow-tow to corporate lobbyists like the oil-rich Koch Brothers, who are funding her campaign; dismantle the Department of Education and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA); and ban student loans.

Are Joni Ernst’s values “Iowa values,” as she proclaims they are? Not in my book. She talks out of both sides of her mouth, first declaring that she’d “privatize Social Security,” which former Pres. George W. Bush tried and failed to do (would have been terrific after the stock market crash of 2008, wouldn’t it have been?), and then saying she’d “protect Social Security” for the sake of her political future in her recent political ads. Well, which is it, Joni?

I trust a Democrat to protect Social Security more than I’d trust someone like Joni Ernst. She’d do whatever her corporate handlers tell her to do, and there’s enough Senators bought by corporate interests already. They don’t represent the citizens of their states. They represent the corporations who fund them.

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