American dream, opportunity on the ballot, Blum, Fiorina say

CEDAR RAPIDS - More than the names on the ballot, the 2014 midterm election is about 'the future of this country and what we want our country to be,” Republican Rod Blum told said Thursday.

The election, which includes his bid to represent Iowa's U.S. House 1st District is about more than him and Democrat Pat Murphy, he told about three dozen people at a meet-and-greet with for Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

Over the past 582 days of the campaign, he said, people have repeatedly asked, 'Rod, can't we do better?”

Blum, 59, a Dubuque entrepreneur, was adamant that America can do better.

'This is not the new normal,” he said.

After six years of President Barack Obama's failed economic policies, failed leadership on foreign affairs and his 'pen and phone” strategy of bypassing Congress to enact his agenda, Blum said he agreed with the president that although Obama's name won't be on the ballot, his policies will be.

'And most of all, the American dream will be on the ballot,” Blum said.

Fiorina, too, said there seems to be a 'sense of disquiet” among voters.

'It's not particularly partisan or political,” she said. 'They are worried that we are losing something, that we are losing the sense of limitless possibilities.”

Fiorina, an unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate in California and chairwoman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, has formed the Unlocking Potential Project, through which she hopes to change the face of the Republican Party. She's using the project to get more women involved in politics, in part, because she finds Democrats' 'war on women” offensive.

Women are a majority of the electorate and the idea that they would all be of one opinion or one political stripe makes no sense to her. They're concerned about the economy and jobs - 'theirs, maybe their husbands' jobs, their kids,” education, the Affordable Care Act that is limiting their health care choices, and national security.

Most women, like most men, are not single-issue voters, she said, referring to Democrats' emphasis on abortion and birth control. Many women have agreed to disagree on those issues, she said, but their concerns are broader than one issue.

She encouraged voters to elect leaders who understands that the 'highest calling of leadership is unlocking the potential in the people they serve.”

The president thinks he's a leader because he has a big office and big title,” Fiorina said. The president and Democrats in general, she said, believe a leader's job is to take care of people.

That is a 'fundamental and core difference” between conservatives and liberals, she said.

'Conservatives know no one of us is better than another,” Fiorina said. Everyone has 'dignity, purpose, meaning and potential.”

Conservatives, she added, believe government's role is not to take care of people ‘but that our purpose is to make things possible.”

Fiorina has been mentioned as potential 2016 presidential candidate, but laughed at the suggestion that she was running for vice president.

'I don't think that's a job you run for,” she said.

Later, she and Blum toured Kirkwood Community College and attended a get-out-the-vote rally in Waterloo.

Friday, Fiorina will campaign with 2nd District GOP candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa City at 12:30 p.m. at the Hamburg Inn and 1:30 p.m. at Oaknoll Assisted Living.

Later they will be in Davenport and Bettendorf.