Independent Michael Luick-Thrams hopes to ‘interrupt narrative’ of Senate campaign

CEDAR RAPIDS - Michael Luick-Thrams has a great appreciation for history, but thinks the race for a U.S. Senate seat should be more about the future and less about the past.

A cultural historian, Luick-Thrams is challenging six-term Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic nominee Patty Judge to focus on the future rather than carry on a 'business as usual” campaign that addresses hot-button topics but ignores day-to-day issues that touch Iowans.

'Our campaign is future-focused,” the independent candidate from Mason City said Monday. 'I don't mean it disrespectfully, but when I look at Patty Judge and Chuck Grassley, they are really World War II warriors. They grew up in an era of the Great Depression, world war and the boom. They are from a different America that is no longer existing, that is no longer here and it won't be the America of the future.”

Luick-Thrams is focusing on 2046 - the bicentennial of Iowa statehood. He pointed out that if they are still alive, Grassley and Judge who were born in 1933 and 1943, respectively, would be 113 and 103.

'I'll still be here,” said Luick-Thrams, who was born in 1962 and would be 84.

He's trying to 'change the narrative, interrupt the discussion” and address issues Grassley and Judge can't or won't. For example, given their track records, he said, neither will address clean water or the impact of corporate farming.

'Monsanto and the Farm Bureau will have to wait in line if I'm elected,” said Luick-Thrams, who was meeting with campaign volunteers in Decorah. 'They don't get to go to the front and plop down millions of dollars of campaign money to keep me in representing their interests.”

Instead, he wants to know what the teachers' association, councils of churches and historical societies are thinking.

He's also interested in a more representative form of government. A congressional delegation of six people speaks for 3 million Iowans at the federal level.

'The Cedar Rapids City Council has more members than the congressional delegation,” Luick-Thrams said.

He's calling for intermediary levels of government, such as a Midwest regional government, to address the shared concerns of Iowa and its neighboring states.

'Why does it always have to be either Des Moines or Washington?” he asked.

Luick-Thrams is ignoring some of the traditional campaign strategies - television advertising and door-to-door canvassing. Instead he's going to where Iowans, especially rural Iowans, go.

'I'll be at RAGBRAI, I'll be at Nordic Fest and the Clay County Fair,” he said. 'I'm going to offer something, not just to harvest votes.”

For more on Luick-Thrams, visit http://heartlandparties.us/.