Biden campaigns in Davenport. focuses on ‘trouble’ in middle class

DAVENPORT - 'America's back,” Vice President Joe Biden said in Davenport Monday, but 'the middle class still is in trouble.”

Biden, who was in Davenport campaigning at Modern Woodmen Park for Democratic Senate hopeful Bruce Braley and Rep. Dave Loebsack, decried the economic inequality he contended Republicans are fueling with policies that leave behind average people.

Biden is the latest surrogate to come to the state to stump for Braley, who is locked in a tight contest for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat, running against Republican Joni Ernst. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be here Wednesday.

The vice president said the top earners in the country are making big profits, but average Americans aren't, and he warned that letting Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate would set the country back six or eight years.

Biden also criticized Ernst for a remark she made earlier in the race about people on Medicaid who 'have no personal responsibility for their health care.”

'I would love to be able to take her to a nursing home in the Quad Cities area,” Biden said, adding most residents there are middle class people, not 'poor folk,” but still rely on Medicaid, the federal program.

Recent opinion polls say Ernst, who was campaigning with Sen. Chuck Grassley in Cedar Falls on Monday, is leading Braley by a small margin. And all of the speakers exhorted activists here to put their all into the campaign's last eight days.

During his remarks, Braley targeted billionaires Charles and David Koch, who have ties to groups that are spending heavily in the race. Braley said they are afraid of him winning the race.

'They're betting that their secret money matters more than your voice,” he said, imploring people to work for the next eight days until Election Day and prove 'that our boots on the ground are better than their secret donor money any day.”

Braley and Biden were joined on the stage Dave Loebsack, a Democratic incumbent who is in a tight battle for the 2nd Congressional District seat. He said his Republican rival, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, had forgotten where she came from and added, 'There's no way on God's green earth they're going to beat me ...”

Republicans greeted the vice president by poking fun at the mispronunciation of Braley's name by first lady Michelle Obama and others at recent events.

'If Joe Biden remembers Congressman Braley's name, this will be the best surrogate he's had,” said Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the Iowa GOP.

When she was in the state the first time this campaign season, the first lady referred to Braley as 'Bruce Bailey” several times.

Campaign organizers estimated about 100 to 150 people were on hand, most inside an indoor meeting room, but some standing on the stadium concourse on an unseasonably warm day.

'I've got my fingers crossed for Braley,” said Barbara Peinert, a party volunteer who says she's put in 'thousands” of hours on the phones. 'I know it's going to be close.”