Republican team upbeat on Iowa campaign trail

WEST DES MOINES - Gov. Terry Branstad and U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst led an upbeat band of GOP candidates around western Iowa on Friday to promote get-out-the-vote efforts they hope will translate into a resounding victory next Tuesday.

'Four more days and you can get your TVs back,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, kicking off a four-city tour that began with a packed house at Jethro's BBQ, where patrons divided their interests between politics and pork delicacies.

Friday's featured partisan entrees were heaping helpings of conservatism, as Branstad lambasted Democrats for creating problems that he said he since has fixed. But he said changes still are needed at the federal level, and called on Iowans to send Ernst and four GOP congressional candidates to Washington to fix them as well.

'We are at a crossroads right now,” Ernst told the crowd, sounding a campaign theme. 'We are asking Iowans to make that choice: either we stay on the path that Washington has for us, or we take that right turn and start moving in the right direction.”

Ernst, who confided that she did not envision being in this position when she moved from county auditor to the state Senate four years ago, told supporters she is relying on them to help her finish the job Tuesday.

'We are going to do this, folks,” she said. 'I can't do it alone. I've got to have your help in doing it.”

Ernst told reporters Iowa Democrats 'have really done a great job in the past with their ground game, and so we're trying to match them this year and really encourage early voting. We're really pushing to get those folks out, and it's been working.”

Branstad said the GOP cause has been aided by the fact that President Barack Obama is unpopular and Americans are 'very upset” by the direction of the nation's domestic and foreign policies. He said Republicans have been seeing huge crowds turn out to greet them, including stops in Brooklyn - hometown of Ernst's Democratic opponent, Bruce Braley - and in Coralville, in the Democratic stronghold of Johnson County.

'Four years ago I won by more than 10 percent. I have every reason to believe we're going to do better than we did in 2010,” said Branstad in sizing up Tuesday's contest with Democratic opponent Jack Hatch.

Members of the 2014 GOP ticket also made stops in Fort Dodge, Sioux City and Council Bluffs on Friday.

Braley spent Friday participating in voter canvasses in Mason City, Storm Lake and Sioux City before meeting with grass-roots organizers and activists in Denison to share his plans to fight for Iowa families. The 1st District congressman, who is seeking to succeed Democrat Tom Harkin in the U.S. Senate, will be joined by former President Bill Clinton at campaign stops today in Des Moines and Waterloo.

Hatch and his running mate, Monica Vernon, continued their six-day 'Fresh Start” tour with stops Friday in Keokuk, Fort Madison, Burlington, Mount Pleasant, Ottumwa and Knoxville before an evening stop at Democrats' campaign office in Marion.

There he told supporters it will be important for him and other Democrats to roll up large margins in Linn County, typically a reliable stronghold for the party's candidates.

'Eastern Iowa has always been a focus for us,” he said. 'That's where the Democrats are. That's where we live. We think people here understand what we're talking about when we say we're going to be a government that is a partner with their community in our community-up approach.”

Hatch also talked about opening a governor's field office in Cedar Rapids where residents could 'register complaints and register ideas.”

'It's a way for us to get information out to the communities so they know their governor is not just someone who lives in Des Moines and works in Des Moines,” Hatch said. 'We want to work all over the state.

'I want to be a governor who does not get cloistered in Terrace Hill, in the capital city,” he said.

A field office would help break down barriers between people and the government so Iowans don't think state government is 'too obtrusive, too vacant, too distant from them.”

'We want to bring government to the people the best way we can,” Hatch said.

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