Hugs, ‘hooyahs,’ salutes for Ernst at veterans’ hall

CORALVILLE - Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst have worked hard to highlight their differences in their race for an open U.S. Senate seat.

At an American Legion post in Coralville Wednesday morning, it was all about Ernst's military service and how it prepares her to make decisions about foreign policy, military involvement around the world and the care of veterans at home.

She was greeted with hugs, handshakes, 'hooyahs” and salutes from more than 150 people, many wearing military and veterans' organization paraphernalia.

Tim W. Saylor of Iowa City gave Ernst a salute and a hug. Saylor served for more than a year as Lt. Col. Ernst's command sergeant major before he retired from the Iowa National Guard.

'I told her she should run,” Saylor said after Ernst and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who implored the veterans to 'go on one more mission … that's to make sure we get out the vote.”

'We'd always have our sit-downs and one day I told her she should run, that if she was even thinking about it, she should go of it,” Saylor said.

Ernst, a state senator from Red Oak, is going for it, closing out the campaign in a personal way with a 99-county tour - what McCain called the 'Harry Reid Retirement Tour,” a reference to the Democratic Senate majority leader.

'We're trying to reach as many Iowans as possible,” Ernst told reporters. 'People want to get to know their candidate, they want to physically shake my hand or give me a hug and they want to know that I am going to work hard for them. That's what I'm demonstrating on this tour.”

Although a fresh poll Wednesday showed Ernst leading by 4 percentage points, Ernst predicted the race will be very close, but said she's confident her personal approach will offset whatever advantage Democrats might have in their get-out-the-vote strategy.

'Absolutely,” she said. 'What we see here is indicative of the way I think the election is going to go. Every venue we go to is packed with people. It's pretty incredible. I feel pretty good.”

Her audience felt pretty good about the message it heard from McCain that in a dangerous world the Senate needs someone with Ernst's experience.

'I can't tell you how happy I will be to have someone on the Armed Services Committee with her background and knowledge and experience that she has,” McCain said. 'We need to care for the men and women who are serving. As importantly, in some way more importantly, we need to care for our veterans.”

Of course, Braley has been a member of the House Armed Services Committee, but missed many of its meetings.

'He chose not to attend 75 percent of those full committee hearings at a time when he could have done something to change the course of our VA Health Care System,”

Ernst said. 'He chose not to and he left 120,000 Americans veterans hanging out there without the health care they had earned and deserved. Our veterans deserve better.”

She promised to fight for veterans' benefits.

That's part of what makes voting for Ernst a 'no-brainer,” according to Paul Millice of Iowa City, who served 29 years in the Army National Guard and Reserve.

Military service is one of the first things he looks for in a candidate, and said that's why he and many veterans are so enthusiastic about voting for Ernst.

When it was pointed out the crowd was larger than an event McCain did at the American Legion post when he was running for president, Millice wasn't surprised.

'We got a bigger draw,” he said. 'We got Joni.”