Previously:

The 2011 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa (September 18, 2011)

The 2011 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa: Senator Bernie Sanders (I) (September 19, 2011)

Paul Begala (center right) speaking with the press at the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa. photo – Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress.

Paul Begala was one of the featured speakers at the annual Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa on Sunday. Paul Begala’s speech:

[applause] Paul Begala: Thank you very much. Thank you.  [applause] Uh, thank you, Senator [Tom] Harkin, uh, and, and Ruth [Harkin].  I want to particularly thank you all for coming out on a rainy afternoon, you know, on a rainy Sunday.  And so if I may begin by quoting scripture, in the Book of Matthew, right, the Lord taught us the rain falls upon the just and the unjust. Which means somewhere Dick Cheney is soakin’ wet. [laughter][applause][cheers] I know I’m among the just under this tent, brothers and sisters. And talk about preachin’, how about Brother [Senator Bernie] Sanders. [applause][cheers] Preach it. Golly. That was wonderful. [applause] I could take you home to Sugarland [Texas] and put you in a tent, tent revival, Senator. That was fantastic. Thank you for reminding us of what’s at stake. [voice: “Yes.”] And what we can be when we are at our best. And he has been such a powerful voice for us in the Senate, so I really want to thank and honor Senator Bernie Sanders. [applause]…

“…the Lord taught us the rain falls upon the just and the unjust. Which means somewhere Dick Cheney is soakin’ wet….”

…And, of course, none of us would be here if it were not for Ruth Harkin. [laughter] Um, it’s true. [applause] As, as, as my wife likes to say, behind every successful man is an astonished wife. [laughter] Ruth has dragged Tom a long way in forty-three years and we’re grateful for it. [laughter] Uh, and of course, mostly, uh, our, our host, uh, I told him this, um, earlier this morning. Uh, my old boss, President Clinton, was, had to do Meet the Press and a bunch of these shows this morning ’cause he’s doing his Clinton Global Initiative.  So, just like the old days he kinda got the old band together yesterday and we did a little prep session, you know. And it was just great fun, but, you know, we kinda wrapped up. And he said, you know, you gonna be watchin’? I said, well, I’m gonna try, but I’m gonna be out in Iowa for the Harkin Steak Fry. [voice impression] Oh, God, I love that thing. That’s great. [laughter][cheers]  I swear to God, that’s exactly. [voice impression]  You know, I, I’ve spoken there three times. I believe I hold a personal record. [laughter] [inaudible] He said, [voice impression] it was raining cats and dogs. Harkin was all worried. I told him it’d be just fine. The good lord just parted the clouds, just… [laughter]  So, he loves, loves, loves Tom Harkin. He loves Ruth Harkin. And he loves Iowa and he loves you. And he wanted me to tell you that from the bottom of his heart. [applause] So, thank you for supporting Bill Clinton [applause] [inaudible].

I am from Texas. I, I grew up there. Uh, I’m from a little town called Sugarland, Texas where our congressman was Tom Delay. [voices: “Oh.”] Oh, but he’s committed, so, so committed to public service that I believe soon he’ll be making license plates [voices][inaudible][laughter][applause] So he’s got a heart for service, you gotta admire that from, from old Delay. Um, but you know, I grew up in that town. It is, it is maybe the most right wing little town in my great big right wing state. [laughter] And, uh, I’d go home and I’d go see all the guys I grew up with and, and ’cause I lived in Washington and worked there, my friends would say, well, I would say to them, like how, what do you think about Delay? I thought at some point, you know, that car would run out of gas back home. So, I’d say that to ’em, how’s, how’s Delay doing? And invariably they’d say, well, you know, not bad, for a liberal. [laughter] Those are the people I grew up with, but I love ’em. [laughter] Um, I, I very often felt like the only fireplug at the dog show, but, you know. [laughter] It makes you tough. [laughter] And [laugh], and so what you do, maybe many of you grew up like that, right, what you do if you’re, first of all it is good for the soul. It gave me great respect, honestly, for the other side, and to learn from them, and to be honest, and have these discussions, and to know that I, I not only know, but I love people who are Republican. Some of them are in my family. Deeply misguided, my brother [inaudible]. [laughter] Um, but this teaches us, right, all how to get along. But, they way you kind of, people always ask me, you came out of this really right wing town and you’re big liberal and how does that happen? Well, in part, it happens because you have to seek your leadership. It’s not handed to you. You have to seek it. So, all those years in Texas I was not represented by Tom Delay. I was represented by Tom Harkin. [voices: “Yeah.”] [applause][cheers]

Every, every one of us, show of hands. How many of us, and I’m one of ’em, have a loved one who is disabled and now emancipated because of Tom Harkin’s Americans With Disability Act, the Emancipation Proclamation [applause] for the disabled community?  Thank you, Senator Harkin for that law. [cheers] It’s a life changing law [applause] for a whole lot of people. How many of us have a loved one who can benefit from the stem cell research and the medical research and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Act that Senator Harkin wrote and passed and put into law [applause] to try to save lives [cheers] here in America? [applause] How many of us have been, could be, or would be denied health coverage because we committed the sin of having a preexisting condition? Or, as my wife likes to say, hell, life is a preexisting condition. [laughter] That’s no longer [applause] gonna happen because of Tom Harkin and the work he does chairing [cheers] that health committee in Washington. [applause][cheers] I want to thank Senator Harkin [applause] for his fight on behalf of all of us. And, and, by the way, for all of you who are in to agriculture, who’s here into agriculture, if you eat you’re into agriculture. [laughter] Some of you are into it a little more than others. [laughter] I, I have, you know, you’ll all laugh at this, but I have a little bitty sixty-three acre, uh, farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. And every farmer and every farm family in America owes a debt to Tom Harkin for the decades of service he has done for family farmers and small farmers all across this country. [applause] In your state and all the other forty-nine states, too. [applause] So we owe him so much. And I want him to know this in public, that all across America there are places where sometimes we feel like we’re represented, we don’t have a voice, no one is fighting for us, and then, by God, we can go turn on the television and see Tom Harkin and it says D Iowa, but it ought to say D everyone. [voices: “Yeah.”] [applause] ‘Cause that’s who he’s fighting for [inaudible]. [applause] And this is the thing. This is what I love about him. Is that he combines this wonderful big hearted compassion and this, this very broad sense of what winner circle ought to be in America with a willingness and ability to fight. [voices: “Yeah.”] [applause] You know, sometimes I think the definition of a liberal is someone who’s afraid to take his own side in a fight. [laughter] That’s not Harkin, right?

You know, I , when,
I, my wife and I first started dating, this is now thirty years ago, and, ad I’m a big sports fan and it was fight night at our college. And so I took her to the fights. And, and, you know, they, they begin and she’s real smart and full of questions, she said, well, why does the, the ref in the ring, why does he wear a bow tie? It seems sort of odd for a boxing match. I said, well, that, that symbolizes the civility, that there is some rules here and dignity and civility and that’s what he sort of represents. Then they come to the center of the ring and shake hands. She said, well, well, what is, what does that mean, they shake hands? I said, well, it’s, you know, it’s still a friendly fight. They’re gonna go and beat each other’s brains out, but, but then they’ll [laughter] come back and, and be friends again. And then right before the fight began one of the fighters in the corner did this. My wife, a Lutheran, I’m a Catholic, she looks at this, sign of the cross, and she says, well, what does that mean? And I said, well, honey, it don’t mean a damn thing if he don’t know how to fight. [laughter][applause] Tom Harkin knows how to fight. [applause] By God, he knows how to fight. [applause] And I love that about him. And we need that on our side, ’cause we can see the other side, right?

I don’t know how many of y’all saw the big Republican debate at the Reagan Library. [voice: “No.”][voice: “Yeah.”] Yeah. I, I had the, I had the sense that for some of them it was their first time in a library. [laughter] [inaudible][cheers] [applause]  You know, they, they, they held it, I work at CNN, but I watched, it was on Fox News, and I highly recommend it. It’s the, Fox is this comedy channel pretends like it’s news, it’s hilarious. [laughter] But I do two things every day. I do. I read the Holy Bible and I watch Fox News so I know what both sides are thinking. [laughter] [applause] ‘Cause I believe in good and evil in the world. [applause] So I like to hear from both, so I tuned in and I watched that debate. And, oh, my stars, I mean, Senator Harkin is right, these, these, these folks, uh, Eisenhower would not have been welcome on that stage. Ronald Reagan woulda had the bends. I mean. They’ve gone so far right it was really astonishing. There was a point at which they were all arguing over who hates evolution more. [laughter] Right? You remember that? And, and I knew Rick Perry when he was first starting out, he was a Democrat, now he’s a Republican, so he supports evolution of a sort. [voice: “Yeah.”] Right? [laughter] And Mitt Romney? [laughter] [voice: “That’s devolution.”] Devolution. That’s right, that’s moving in the wrong direction. That’s, that’s going in the, uh, from, that’s going the other way in that ascent of man chart, you know, they’re about the third one from the left. [laughter] And, and Romney, he, I remember when he was running against Teddy Kennedy, God rest his soul, back in ninety-four. And he got up in a debate, I swear to you, you go look at this on YouTube, Mitt Romney, uh, still with that very perfect Grecian hair that he’s got. [laughter] Grecian formula, whatever it is. And he turns to Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the great progressive champions we have ever had, and he turns to him and he says, if I’m elected to the Senate I will be more pro gay rights than you will, [laughter] Senator Kennedy. And, I, even at the time I thought, well, Mitt, unless you’re like doing it with a dude you’re not gonna be more. [laughter][applause] And now [applause], now [applause], now he wants to amend our Constitution to discriminate against our brothers and sisters just because of who they happen to be and how God made them? That’s evolution of a sort, but you’re right, it’s going the wrong way. But, oh, no, they can’t say that anymore, right? They, they, now, it’s, it’s a litmus test.

Wolf Blitzer asked them at one of the debates, who here believes in, in the biblical, not the biblical, the biological theory of evolution? And, kind of, nobody raised their hand.  And so a few sort of looked like they might have wanted to, but they didn’t dare and. [laughter] Course, they don’t let me out on the stage to do the questions or my follow up would have been, okay, how ’bout gravity or photosynthesis, [laughter], electromagnetism, any of that spooky science [laughter][inaudible]? [applause] My, my oldest, my, I have four boys and my oldest just turned nineteen, he’s starting college. He’s [inaudible] he wants to be a neuroscientist, right, so, he’s studying science. And so he’s studying evolution. By the way, he went to a Catholic school and the priest who taught him evolution explained to him that there’s no, there’s no, uh, uh, uh, conflict there at all. Uh, and so, my, my son was having one of these arguments with on of his right wing friends who said that, well, you know, evolution is just a theory. And my son said, yes, so is gravity. Lay down on the floor and let me hold a rock over your head. [laughter][applause] he’s a smart ass, he really is. He gets that from his mother. [applause]….

The remainder of the transcript will follow in subsequent posts.

Previously: The 2011 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa (September 18, 2011)

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont)(left) out in the rain at the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa. photo – Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (i) was one of the featured speakers at the annual Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa on Sunday. Senator Sanders’ speech:

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont): [applause] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And let me begin by thanking you, not only for allowing me to be with you for a few minutes, but also for sending Tom Harkin [voice: “Yeah!”] to the United States Senate. [applause] Tom and I serve on the same committee, the Health, Education, Labor, Pension Committee, which he chairs. He has picked up the mantle from Senator [Ted] Kennedy. He is doing an extraordinary job. And I have to tell you, when it comes to the issue of children, when it comes to the issue of labor, when it comes to the issue of the environment your senator, Tom Harkin, is consistently out in front and a real national leader. Tom, thank you very much. [applause]

What I’m going to tell you this afternoon in many ways is what you already know better than I do. And that is that this is a pivotal moment in the history of the United States of America. [voice: “Amen.”] It’s [applause], it’s a pivotal moment because of the work that so many people have done for so many years, so many struggles that have taken place, so many sacrifices by our veterans and others to make this country a great and Democratic country, a country which has been the envy of the entire world. [applause] And now there are forces afoot who want to roll back every victory that has been won by working people over the last eighty years. They, they have a belief that what America is supposed to be about is that every person is in it alone. And you saw a glimpse of it just the other day at the Republican debate. Somebody asked one of the candidates, well, what happens if somebody doesn’t have health insurance and that person becomes terribly ill? What happens to that person? And the answer was, well, too bad, guess he has to die. [voices:  “No.”] That is not our belief. [applause] [voice: “Thank you.”]  What our belief is is that we are a nation, historically and today, which understand that when one child goes hungry, when one senior cannot afford the prescription drugs that she needs, that all of us are in it together to make sure that we address those needs. [applause]…

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) speaking under the big tent at the Harkin Steak Fry. photo – Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress.

…And what we understand is that this country is great, not because we have more billionaires than any other country, we are great because we have tens of millions of people who go to work every day, do their jobs, create the wealth that provides for all of us. [applause]

Now let me very briefly tell you what you already know. It’s not a pretty story. But we cannot go forward unless we are honest and straightforward in discussing the realities of today. Not pleasant realities. Let’s get ’em out on the table so that we can begin to address them. First reality, the great middle class, the people who have built this country and made it the envy of the world, that middle class is collapsing. That’s the reality. No hiding it. What do I mean by that? Today unemployment in America is not nine percent. Unemployment in America, real unemployment, is sixteen percent if you include those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part time. Second of all, you have millions of American workers today who are employed, they’re working longer hours at lower wages than they used to work. Third, median family income is plummeting, gone down beyond, below three thousand dollars as what it was ten years ago. What we have in this country today are young people who cannot get work, older people who are working for lower wages, lower wages, and twenty-five million people who have no work at all.

The first issue that [Senator] Tom [Harkin] and I are gonna be working on is a major jobs program [cheers] to put our people back to work. [applause] [cheers]  And let me tell you how we’re gonna do it. [applause]  Let me tell you how we’re gonna do it. In my state, I don’t know about Iowa, but in my state we have major infrastructural problems. Let me tell you what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is that we have roads that are in disrepair, bridges that are crumbling, we have water systems that were built before the Civil War, or rail system is totally inadequate, there are many parts of the state we can’t get good quality broadband or cell phone service, we have got a lot of schools that are not serving our kids well and need to be rebuilt. If we begin addressing the infrastructural needs of this country, if we understand that today we are spending two percent, two point two percent to be exact, of our GDP [gross domestic product] on infrastructure, China is spending nine percent. They’re building high speed rail. They’re building airports. They’re building sustainable energy.  Now is the time for us to rebuild our infrastructure. When you do that, not only do you make us more productive, more internationally competitive, you’re gonna put millions of people back to work. [applause] Let’s rebuild our infrastructure. [applause]

Second of all, we are spending as a nation three hundred and fifty billion dollars every single year importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries. I was in Saudi Arabia some years ago and I can tell you that the royal family of Saudi Arabia is doing just fine. [laughter] They don’t need any more money from the United States of America. Our job is to move to energy independence, to move to energy efficiency, and to move to sustainable energy. [applause] And when we do that we create millions of good paying jobs. [applause][cheers]

Lastly, I want to, in terms of job creation, I want to touch on an issue where there are differences of opinion. There are differences of opinion, but I’ll give you mine. When you talk about the collapse of the middle class, when you’re talking about the loss of millions of good paying jobs in recent years in this country, when you talk about workers’ wages going down what you are talking about to a significant degree is the decline of manufacturing in the United States of America. Now I don’t know about Iowa, though I suspect it’s the same, but in Vermont you go shopping, you go to a store, you go to a mall, you buy a product. You know where that product is made? [voices] It’s made in China. That’s where it is made. In the last ten years alone, if you can believe this, we as a nation have lost fifty thousand factories. [voice” “Augh.”] Vermont has never been a major manufacturing state, but we had a number of jobs. Last seven or eight years my guess is we’ve lost twenty-five percent of our manufacturing jobs. One of the reasons for that in my view is that we have had a trade policy which has worked very, very well for the CEOs of large corporations, not very well for American workers. [voice: “That’s right.”][applause]  I am talking about NAFTA, I’m talking about CAFTA, I’m talking about permanent normal trade relations with China. What these trade agreements are, in my view, by and large they’re saying to American workers we want you to compete against people in the third world who are working for pennies an hour. That’s your competition. And when wages go down and down maybe we’ll ring some of those jobs back. Here is a sad story I’ll tell you, two sad stories reflecting what’s going on in America
today. In Detroit, Michigan where the UAW is strong, new jobs being created, we hope this being changed as a result of the new agreement signed by the UAW, but last year the good news was that Chrysler and the other companies were adding new jobs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that those new jobs were paying workers fifty percent of the wages that the other workers were making from twenty-eight bucks an hour down to fourteen dollars an hour.

There’s another story. Someplace, I can’t remember the state. Good news is that a company, American company, had gone to China, they were coming back to America. Do you know why they were coming back to America? ‘Cause the wages were so bloody low they could make more money paying people seven fifty an hour in the United States than doing business in China and paying the transportation costs. Those are not the options we want to be looking at.

What do we want? Seems to me pretty obvious. Turn on TV tonight and all you’re gonna see is ads telling you, buy this product, buy that car, buy these shoes, buy this, buy that, buy the other thing. If these large corporations want us to buy their products the time is now for them to build those products here in the United States [applause] of America and to rebuild our manufacturing sector.

Now, when [Senator] Tom [Harkin] and I go back to work on Tuesday what we’re gonna be looking at are a series of attacks on programs in the United States of America that have been unbelievably important to the well-being of working people.  Social Security, in my view, is the most successful federal program [applause] in the history of the United States of America. [cheers][applause] And do you know why Republicans hate Social Security? They hate Social Security because Social Security is working the way it was supposed to work. Social Security is successful, which is why they hate it, why they want to privatize it, and why they want to send it to Wall Street. We take programs like Social Security for granted. We shouldn’t. As a result of the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street the crooks on Wall Street, and I use that word advisedly, the crooks on Wall Street led us into this recession. [applause] And when this recession took place not only did millions of people lose their jobs they lost their homes and they lost their life savings. That’s what happened. For seventy-six years Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American in good times and in bad. Not one penny has been denied an eligible person. And we’ve done that in a very cost effective administrative way. Furthermore, when you hear people telling you Social Security is going broke, that is a lie. [applause] Social… [applause] the Congressional Budget Office came out with a report a couple of weeks ago, Social Security has a two point five trillion dollar surplus, can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next twenty-seven years. Social Security, and everybody’s got to understand this, yeah, we do have a serious deficit problem, Social Security, however, hasn’t added one nickel to that deficit because it’s paid by the payroll, [applause] payroll tax. So we have got to stand tall and say, no cuts to Social Security. [applause][voice: “Yes.”] In my view if you want Social Security to be strong, not just the next twenty-seven years but for the next seventy-five years, there’s an easy way to do that. And that is, you lift the cap. [voices: “Yeah.”] [applause] And if you do that [applause], and you could start at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you do that Social Security is strong for the next seventy-five years. And that’s what we should do [applause][cheers] and that’s the legislation that I’ve introduced. [applause]

Now there are some folks out there, our Republican friends, [voice: “Not here.”] they want to voucherize Medicare. [voices: “No.”]  [booing] Here is their brilliant idea. If you’re old, you don’t have a whole lot of money, and if you’re sick, maybe you got cancer, maybe you have some terrible disease, and you’re sixty-eight years old, they’re gonna give you a check for eight thousand dollars. Lotsa luck, that’ll last for at least two days. [laughter] That’s what they want to do. And then there are other people who say, well, maybe we don’t want to go that far, but, you know, we got a serious deficit problem, we want to raise the eligibility level from sixty-five to sixty-seven. [voice: “No.”] Well, you tell me what happens to a sixty-six year old worker when he or she gets sick. We are not going to let them raise the eligibility age [applause] to sixty-seven. [applause]

Then you got Medicaid. We have fifty million people today with no health insurance and many others are under insured, large deductibles and high premiums. And there are some who say, well, let’s cut a few hundred billion dollars off of Medicaid. Brothers and sisters, forty-five thousand of our fellow Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance and they don’t get to a doctor on time. We are not gonna throw millions of children and working people off of Medicaid. No cuts in Medicaid. [applause]

In terms of health care the sixty-four dollar question that we have got to answer is the following. Why is it that with fifty million people uninsured, with costs soaring, with forty-five thousand Americans dying each year because they don’t get the medical care they need, why is it that we end up spending almost twice as much as do the people of any other country? Why is it that in this great country we are the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all of our people? My view is, and I hope, I hope that my small state of Vermont is gonna lead the nation in a new direction. We need a Medicare for all single payer [applause] health care program. {applause][cheers]

The day has got to come [applause], the day has got to come when health care is a right and not a privilege, that people don’t have to stay at a job [applause] only because of health care. That’s what we’ve got to do.

Let me conclude ’cause I promised [Senator] Tom [Harkin] this would not be an eight hour speech. [laughter] [voice: “Why not?”] [voices: ” Go on.”] [voice: “Give ‘eh hell, Bernie.”]

I mentioned before that the middle class is collapsing. I mentioned before, as you all know, that poverty is increasing. I want to say a word about poverty. Poverty is not something we talk a whole lot about in this country. And mostly it’s because, you know, at the political level poor people don’t make major campaign contributions, you know, many poor people don’t even vote. But I want to tell you something, about poverty. When we think about poverty we think, well poverty’s a bad thing, people live in inadequate housing, they don’t have a good car, maybe they don’t go to the movies on Saturday night. We just did, on Tom’s committee, the health committee, we just did a hearing last week. And you know what we discovered, what doctors told us? If you are in the lower twenty percent of income earners you will die six and a half years earlier than if you are in the top twenty percent. In other words, poverty in America is a death sentence. And as a nation we should profoundly embarrassed that in America we have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth. Twenty-one percent of our kids. That is something that has got to end. [applause] Instead of investing in the wars [applause] let’s invest in our children and make them the best educated and the healthiest kids in the world. [applause] [cheers]

Now what’s going on in Washington is you have, as I know you have here in Iowa, you have some extreme right wingers who have taken control of part of our government. And I will tell you from the bottom of my heart that these people do, are a fringe group who represent relatively few Americans. You go out on any street corner in the state of Iowa and in the state of Vermont and you say to people, people who walk by, and you say, do you think it makes sense to give tax breaks to b
illionaires and cut Social Security? Ninety-nine percent of the people will say, that’s crazy. Do you believe it makes sense to have a trade policy which literally gives tax breaks for companies who shut down in America and go abroad. [voice: “No.”] People will say, that makes no sense at all. But what is happening in America is the wealthiest people in this country have developed a new religion. They’re very religious. [laughter] But their religion is not love, it’s not compassion, it’s not concern for their fellow citizens or for the children. Or for the weak. Their religion is greed. [applause] And they want more and more and more. [applause]

In America today we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income. I know that’s not covered on CBS or NBC too often, but that is the fact. You’ve got the top one percent earning more income than the bottom fifty percent. And listen to this, you have the top four hundred wealthiest people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, a hundred and fifty million people. And many of these people with their money, what they, and I don’t understand it, I really don’t.  It’s a, it seems to me to be almost a sickness. They can’t control themselves. They want more and more. They’re stashing their money abroad so they don’t have to pay taxes to the United States, shutting down plants in America, moving to China so they can make some more money. That’s what they’re doing.

And that’s what this fight is about. So let me conclude by saying this. They do have the money. They have incredible resources. Citizens United, absurd Supreme Court decision, has decided that a corporation is a person. I know people when I see it. Goldman Sachs is not a person. [applause][cheers] But what the fight is about is whether we developed the kind of organization that you are about, working people from all over this state and my state and the other states, whether we come together  when we get our brothers and our sisters and our cousins and our aunts involved in the political process, making sure they understand how important it is, what happens in Washington or in the state capitols. Those guys do have the money. We have the people. We have justice behind our back. And what this fight is about, it is not just for you or for me, far more importantly it is for our kids and our grandchildren. [voice: “Amen.”] Too many people for too many years have sacrificed and struggled to create the greatest country on earth, the greatest Democracy on earth where everybody has opportunity, where everybody has the right to a decent standard of living. Those people have struggled. We do not have the right to turn our backs on those people or on the needs of our kids and grandchildren. The fight is too important. So I can tell you that the people of Vermont stand with you to fight for a progressive, progressive movement so that government works for all of the people and not just the wealthy and the powerful. [applause] Thank you all very much. [applause][cheers]

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). photos – Jerry Schmidt, Show Me Progress.

One of the great Fall political events is the annual Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa. This morning we drove the almost two hundred fifty miles to the Balloon Field in Indianola to listen to Democratic Party and other like-minded luminaries address a large crowd of Iowa Democrats at the outdoor venue. The weather wasn’t too cooperative, ranging from a persistent drizzle to a steady downpour. Never mind – we brought our rain gear, old shoes, and large umbrellas. The big tent covering the dining area (and venue for speeches) also helped keep us relatively dry.

The featured speakers, in addition to Senator Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa, were Paul Begala – Democratic Party strategist and senior staffer for President Bill Clinton – and Senator Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont. They fired up the audience of over five hundred under the big tent.

“I Back Barack – 2012”

Volunteers on the food serving line. Note the Obama campaign buttons.

Paul Begala.

Paul Begala (right) and an Iowa Democrat conversing out in the rain.

Senator Tom Harkin (D) (left) and Paul Begala at the grill.

Paul Begala speaking to the press.

Senator Tom Harkin (D) speaking to the press.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I) addressing the crowd under the big tent.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I).

Listening to the message.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I).

Applauding Senator Bernie Sanders.

Senator Tom Harkin (D) addressing the crowd under the big tent – Ruth Harkin (left).

Paul Begala enjoying one of Senator Tom Harkin’s (D) many punch lines.

Taking it all in.

Paul Begala addressing the crowd under the big tent.

After the speech.

At the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, September 16, 2007.

7 December 2010 Last updated at 12:54 ET

Elizabeth Edwards ‘halts cancer treatment’

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of disgraced former presidential candidate John Edwards, is gravely ill with cancer, family and friends have said.

Her doctors have said further treatment for breast cancer would be unproductive and she may have only months to live….

At Balloon Juice:

After all the pain, the worry, the roller coaster of possibility and disappointment, it comes to this. The acknowledgement of the inevitable is in some ways more painful than the inevitable itself, because it’s the death of hope. Before, plans could be made for months and maybe even years. Now, it’s days, perhaps a week, and the only hope is that the end will not be as awful as everyone knows it can be.

Update: Elizabeth Edwards dies of cancer at 61

On the stage (from left to right) sign language interpreter, David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), Ruth Harkin, Governor Chet Culver (D), Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, Roxanne Conlin.

A television reporter doing a stand up before the start of the event. Note that they provided their own shade. Also note attire (jeans and tennis shoes) out of the camera’s view.

There were a large number of Democratic and progressive t-shirts worn by people attending – this one takes issue with Arizona’s SB 1070.

The volunteers helping to feed the crowd have the logistics of doing so down to a science. They are efficient and the food service is fast.

The dining tents are a must for any weather, rain or shine.

The media gathered and waited for the photo-op/press availability. And waited, and waited…

(from left to right) Governor Chet Culver (D), Senator Tom Harkin (D), David Axelrod, David Plouffe.

The guests at the grill. At one point several photographers stuck their cameras (and expensive telephoto lenses) in the other side of grill attempting to get shots through the grill. I kid you not. At one point during the press availability I was standing next to the grill – you could really feel the heat. My audio recorder picked of the Q and A, wind noise, and sizzling steaks…

(left to right, foreground) David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), Governor Chet Culver (D).

…David Axelrod: …Senator Harkin’s absolutely right, I remember. I don’t know who’s here from the Register, but the headline in the Des Moines Register about the third week of September, you can look it up in your archives, was Political Experts [inaudible] Vilsack Faces Impossible Odds. And we ended up winning that race by five points. He became the first Democratic governor in thirty-two years. and it just really speaks to what happens when people get engaged and start focusing on the choice. you know, Vice President Biden is fond of quoting [inaudible] White of Boston, the old Mayor of Boston, saying, don’t, don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And for the next fifty days we’re gonna make sure that people are very focused on the choice, the choice here in Iowa, the choice around the country because there’s a very stark choice between a Democratic Party that’s trying to lift this country out of the disaster that was created by the last [inaudible] and the folks who want to take us right back to that disaster. And when people focus on that choice you’re gonna see a much different result and you’re gonna see more headline writers and more pundits have to scratch their head on the day after the election and say, why did I write that story…

David Plouffe: …This is gonna be a choice between two people, districts and states. I think that we can win that argument effectively because the Republican experiment is very recent in people’s minds. The Republican policies were the chief reason we face this recession. They wouldn’t have done the things we did to avert a great depression. And they are gonna be a party of and by the big special interests. We’re gonna win this by also increasing Democratic turnout. Right now Republicans are coming out [inaudible] in big numbers. I don’t think we should expect that to diminish. Some of them may be wearing tinfoil hats, but they’re coming out. And we need to get Democrats excited and enthused and that’s what we’re doing…Democratic enthusiasm is ticking up. People’s expression of likelihood of voting is picking up. We have the numbers here in Iowa and in so many states…

Question: Is the rest of the first term on hold if you get hammered in November?

David Axelrod: Well, first of all, we’re not gonna get hammered in, in November. I, I feel like the results are gonna be different than, than, you know, the prognostications now. You know, and I caution everybody not to call the race in the beginning of September.

But, you know, we are going to continue to move this country forward and fight the fights [inaudible] fought. We will work with anybody who wants to work with us, on either side of the aisle, to get that done.

Uh, you know, in the last twenty months the Republican Party has made a decision to sit on the sidelines and give us the entire responsibility and root for failure because they thought that was a prescription for a successful election. I think they’ll be disabused of that and perhaps everybody will come back to Washington after November with more of a sense of responsibility for the future of this country. We look forward to that….

Question: ….Could you help me with that disconnect with what you know on the ground versus what we’re reading in the paper?

David Plouffe: Well, listen, I’d say right now I think a lot of polls out there do show the Republicans at kind of their high water mark….a lot of the undecided independents are definitely getable for us. And you’ve got Republican enthusiasm at very high levels. And I think as a party we better not make that mistake to think that might abate. They’re coming out and they’re coming out in strong numbers. In state after state and district after district if we can just get Democratic vote totals up a little bit we’re gonna win some close races. And the good news is, you know, we’re not creating something out of whole cloth…. The most important thing in my view is, you know, a neighbor talking to a neighbor about the election. And that’s what we’re beginning to see in Iowa and elsewhere, is Democratic volunteerism picking up and Democrats saying they’re more likely to vote….

….So we’ve got to go out there and convince those Democrats of the stakes in this election, that there’s a [inaudible] choice, and if they don’t come out to vote they’re handing the keys back over to the folks that got us in this mess in the first place….

….Senator Tom Harkin (D): …I’ve thought a lot about this. Throughout history, throughout history those who have been opposed to progress have been imbued with a passionate intensity. Let me repeat that. Throughout history those who have been opposed to progress have had passionate intensity. What do I mean by that? A couple of weeks ago on of the Little Rock nine passed away. I was watching this and, and clips of these kids going into the school and the mobs around them, spitting at them, and how vicious they were. They had intensity. They were passionate. I think about George Wallace when he ran for president. They had passionate intensity. I even think about Goldwater. When he ran in sixty four, they were passionate. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? They had passion. You know, groups can have passion. There were passionate people against the New Deal. The Father Coughlins and the Huey Longs and others. Throughout history this has been true. But these are the passions of the moment. What the Republicans are doing is they’re playing to those passions. Yes, there are some disconnects in our society. Yes, some people are out of work. We have been laying the groundwork under President Obama to move us into the future. The Republicans are taking advantage of this passion people have momentarily. I will tell you, I’ve been in this business a long time. I will trade passionate intensity for determination and commitment and a willingness to go out and…do that nitty gritty work. And that’s what we’re doing in Iowa. They can have the passion because their passion is opposed to progress. And in the final result people will get that…      

Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

Roxanne Conlin, the Democratic candidate challenging Chuck Grassley (r-what health care reform bill?), addresses the crowd.

Oh, all right, it’s Warren County, but they’re right next door to each other and I couldn’t resist.

The parking lot at the annual Harkin Steak Fry is a veritable cornucopia of progressive political bumper stickers. And don’t get me started on the t-shirts people wear to the event.

Yep. you’re right, we saw this car last year.

On the drive headed north in Iowa on Interstate 35 a sedan with an older white male driving puled even with us in the passing lane. The driver sounded the car horn then gave us a smile and a thumbs up. He obviously like our bumper sticker.

The license plate frame reads, “I’m for Tom.” Note the vehicle is a hybrid.

Roxanne Conlin is the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate challenging incumbent Chuck Grassley (r-hey, you damn kids keep off my lawn).

On the drive back to Missouri, again on Interstate 35, a BMW pulled slightly ahead of us in the passing lane. The occupants of the back seat smiled and waved at us. We think they liked our bumper sticker.

Previously:

Iowa Road Trip! – the 2010 Harkin Steak Fry

Iowa Road Trip! – Interstate highway rest stops

Iowa Road Trip! – on the way back

Previously:

Iowa Road Trip! – the 2010 Harkin Steak Fry

Iowa Road Trip! – Interstate highway rest stops

Foreground, left to right: David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), and Governor Chet Culver (D) at the press availability at the the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa.

A sunny almost cloudless sky, temperature in the eighties, fifteen hundred Democrats, statewide candidates, Congressional candidates, good food, and plenty of good speechifying. That’s the Harkin Steak Fry we’ve come to know over the past few years.

We had good conversations with folks new to us and, believe it or not, we saw friends from last year’s event and caught up on each other’s activities over the past year.

We spoke at length with Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. He had a thing or two to say about CAFOs (he’s written a book about agriculture in Iowa, he’s a farmer, and he has a PhD). We’re hoping the wind and crowd noise didn’t overwhelm the audio recording. That interview’s for you, hotflash.

This post courtesy of the public WiFi at an Iowa Department of Transportation highway rest stop.

More to follow as we sort through the hundreds of photographs and several hours of audio from the road trip.

Previously: Iowa Road Trip! – the 2010 Harkin Steak Fry

Consider this a travel review.

It ain’t Kansas, that’s for sure.

Over the years since 2003 when we’ve journeyed north on Interstate 35 to attend the Harkin Steak Fry we’ve noted two interesting things. The pavement in Iowa is in much better condition than Missouri’s and Iowa rest stops have awesome high speed Internet. Go figure. The rest stop just north of Lamoni, Iowa even has convenient work spaces for intrepid progressive bloggers. Thank you, good people of Iowa.

It’s that time of year again. Blue Girl and I scored some media credentials so tomorrow we’ll be making the four hour drive from west central Missouri to the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola, Iowa for the 33rd Annual Harkin Steak Fry.

From 2009 – the entrance to the Harkin Steak Fry at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola, Iowa.

The featured speakers this year are David Axelrod and David Plouffe.

In previous years:

(2009)

Senator Al Franken (D) at the 2009 Harkin Steak Fry – part 1

Senator Al Franken (D) at the 2009 Harkin Steak Fry – part 2

Senators Harkin (D) and Franken (D) in Indianola, Iowa – there will be a strong public option

The 2009 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – photos

Before anyone gets a shovel and digs a grave for the Public Option, read this

We didn’t attend in 2008. We were covering other stuff in Missouri.

(2007) Our first ever media credential.

Road Trip! – The Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – What? No mud?

Road Trip! – The Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – The speechifying

The weather is supposed to be fantastic. That’s a good thing because the event is held outdoors.

Our previous coverage:

Senator Al Franken (D) at the 2009 Harkin Steak Fry – part 1

Senators Harkin (D) and Franken (D) in Indianola, Iowa – there will be a strong public option

The 2009 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – photos

Before anyone gets a shovel and digs a grave for the Public Option, read this

The second and final part of Al Franken’s remarks:

….The truth is, if we don’t fix the system most of us are gonna lose the health care because we’re simply not gonna be able to afford the health care. [applause] And at the Minnesota state fair that’s the question everybody was asking, Democrats and Republicans. But right now in Congress Democrats seem to be the only ones asking it. Republicans are busy asking Washington questions. They’re asking, “How do we break President Obama?  How do we make sure he fails?” That’s what they’re asking.

Tom referred to Jim DeMint of South Carolina, our esteemed colleague who is, is close friends with, well, both of us. [laughter] Good, good friend. [laughter] And Senator DeMint said this, I’m gonna quote what he said, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo.” Well I don’t think this debate should be about President Obama. [applause] [cheers] It should be, it should be about the people who are going bankrupt because of the cost of health care, [applause] even when they have insurance. [applause] The number one cause, the number one cause of bankruptcy, of personal bankruptcy in this country are health care crises. More than half of the personal bankruptcies in this country are caused by health care crisis. And more than two thirds of those people who go bankrupt because of a health care crisis have health insurance….

….This debate should be about that woman in Fergus Falls, the one I mentioned, the one with diabetes. See, her adult son has diabetes, too, but he can’t afford health insurance so she shares her insulin with her son. In America. [pause]

This debate should be about the older woman who came up to me at the booth. She said to me, “You know when you’re my age, everything is pre-existing.” [laughter] This debate is about the American people. And if this debate is about what’s gonna help the American people well then there’s really no debate. We’ve gotta change the system. And that’s what we’re going to do. [applause]

So the question is, the question is, if you get sick, how do you get health care? And how do we keep people healthy in the first place? And the answer to the question also happens to be the answer to keeping costs down. Tom knows that. In Minnesota we know that. In Minnesota we do pretty well. Ninety-one cents of every health insurance dollar goes to actual health care in Minnesota as compared to seventy to eighty cents in the rest of the country. In one health care roundtable a, a health care economist said to me, “You know, in Minnesota we get an ‘A’.” But then, then he continued saying, “But that’s only because we grade on a curve.” [laughter] Now here in Iowa you’re also in the top quintile in, in health care. But the way our system works we don’t really pay our doctors to keep people healthy. A doctor won’t get paid for helping a diabetic control his diabetes. But we do pay doctors a lot for removing a diabetic’s foot.

Now let’s take for example McAllen, Texas – the most expensive medical market in the country. In McAllen they spend three times as much on health care for Medicare patients as they do in Mayo Clinic. Even though at Mayo the get better outcomes. Well that’s because in McAllen doctors own the hospitals and they own the imaging clinics. So they perform more tests and procedures and Medicare pays for the tests and the procedures, but they don’t pay for the outcome. At Mayo it’s patient centered. The doctors who flock to Mayo are paid salaries. They don’t get paid more money for [inaudible] procedure, they get paid to keep people healthy. [applause]

See, right now we’re paying for sick care we’re not paying health care. [applause] And when doctors, and when doctors look at a patient as a dollar sign we get a far different outcome. Then when doctors look at a patient as someone you want to keep, get healthy and then keep ’em healthy. So we’re gonna change the system so that we emphasize preventive care on front end and reward doctors for good outcomes on the back end. [applause] And we’re gonna make it so insurance companies can’t deny you, your claim because of pre-existing condition. [applause] We’re gonna make sure that insurance companies face real competition with [emphasis] a public option. [applause] [cheers] we’re going to improve electronic health records [applause] so that doctors don’t do duplicative tests that are unnecessary. These changes are gonna keep us healthier, save families money, and bring down the cost of health care. And call me crazy but it just seems like a pretty damn good idea. [applause]

Now even though these are good ideas some people are gonna fight ’em with everything they got. And it’s pure, it’s pure politics. These people rail against government health care but they’re sure happy that their parents have Medicare. President Obama could propose just about anything and some of our Republican friends would still oppose it. They don’t even think the President should be allowed to tell kids to stay in school and work hard. [applause] [cheers] That’s how ridiculous this is. Their goal isn’t to see how much we can do, it’s to see much we can undo, or they can undo.

The last time the Republicans were in power they undid a lot. [laughter] Under Republicans we couldn’t get vaccines to kids during flu season. Under Republicans we couldn’t get clean water to New Orleans when the levees broke. Under Republicans we couldn’t tell the difference Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin. [applause] [cheers] And the last Republican President, I, I forget his name [laughter], left us, left us on the brink of a great depression. It’s that old Republican tactic. They run for office saying that government doesn’t work, then they get elected and they prove it. [laughter] [applause]

But what our friends across the aisle don’t get is this, this is a Democracy. It’s not the government versus the people. The government is the people. We’re on the same team [applause], we work together. And when government reflects the will of the people and responds to the people we make a lot of progress as individuals and as a country. I think President Obama said it best last Wednesday night in that great speech. He said this, “Our predecessors understood that government could not and should not solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains and security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little. That without the leavening hand of wise policy markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.”

This is something we know in, in my family. When my wife Frannie was about seventeen years old her father, a World War II decorated vet, died in a car accident on the way home from doing two straight shifts at the paper mill in Portland Maine, leaving Frannie’s mom widowed at age twenty-nine with five kids. Now, Frannie’s mo
m had a high school education, that’s it, and they had a tough time, but they made it. And they made it because of Social Security survivor benefits. [applause] Sometimes there wasn’t enough food on the table, sometimes they turned the heat off, and this is Portland, Maine, it was kind of cold. But they made it. My brother-in-law, middle kid, went into the Coast Guard. Became an electrical engineer, he still works with the Coast Guard. My three sisters-in-law and Frannie all went to college on combinations of Pell Grants and scholarships. [applause] And Frannie’s younger sister, there’s one younger than Frannie, Bootsie. And Bootsie went to high school, my mother-in-law got a four hundred dollar GI loan to fix a hole in the roof, instead of using it to fix a hole in the roof, she used it to go to college at the University of Maine at Gorham. And she got three more loans and graduated. And got another loan, then got a masters in teach, in, in teaching kids to read and she became a teacher. And she had a career teaching Title I kids to read and because she taught Title I kids all her loans were forgiven. [applause] Every member of my wife’s family, every member of my wife’s family became a productive member of society. And they did it because of Social Security. [applause] They did it because of Pell Grants. [applause] They did it because of the GI Bill. [applause] They did it because of Title I. [applause]  Now, they tell you in this country pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And that’s something that everyone of us here believes. But first you gotta have the boots. [voice: “Yeah.”] [applause] The government Frannie’s family the boots. And that’s what we’re about, that’s what we’re about. [applause] [cheers] I ran for the senate because I know that Frannie’s story isn’t unique. It’s Tom Harkin’s story. It’s the politics that he practices. It’s America’s story.

The health care bill we’re fighting for right now, it isn’t just about health care. It isn’t just about bringing down the costs, bringing down the debt. It’s about opportunity. It’s about giving people the boots. If you go in to debt because a family member gets sick or hurt you’re gonna spend years just keeping your head above water. If your child has a pre-existing condition you can’t change your job to start a small business which creates seventy percent of the new jobs in this country. You can’t do it because you won’t get health care. Think about what this means for families and then what it means for our economy.

You hear Democrats talk a lot about opportunity. That’s because we really do believe in opportunity. And everything we’ve done [applause] in the last nine months reflects that. We inherited an economy on the brink of a depression and we passed a major recovery act that pulled us from the brink. Cut taxes for families, a third of it was tax cuts for people under two hundred fifty thousand dollars. [applause] It kept states, it kept states from having to cut even more than they’ve had to cut, saving jobs and police and nurses and firefighters and social workers. People who are needed at a time of financial crisis. And we invested in today’s infrastructure and tomorrow’s infrastructure. We passed a law in the last nine months to keep the credit card companies from taking advantage of consumers. [applause] [cheers] A law, a law to protect equal pay for women. [voce: “Yeah!”] [applause] We covered seven million uninsured children through SCHIP. [applause] We gave the FDA the power to regulate tobacco, to regulate it like the health risk that it is. [applause]

In any other year that would be enough. But this year we have the chance to confront the single biggest threat to America’s future and the greatest unmet moral obligation in our history, all rolled into one. That’s what health care is. [applause] [voice: “Obama’s (inaudible), he’s our President!”] This is, this is our moment of opportunity. This need, needs to be the moment where the debate changes, when the heat of an angry summer breaks. So, we need you. We don’t want to look back and say we squandered this opportunity because we allowed ourselves to be shouted down. Or that we voted for change and got scared of actual change. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] We want to look back on this day from an America in which everyone has health care and say, it wasn’t the easiest thing, but it was the right thing. [applause] And together we got it done. [applause] Thank you. [applause] [cheers] Now, now. [applause] [cheers]