2nd District: Rathje goes door-to-door for votes

The sun is still rising over Stanwood when Steve Rathje starts knocking on doors in the tiny Cedar County community on Highway 30.

Residents either aren't up or have left for work, because the 2nd District Republican doesn't find many people home. So he slips a brochure in the door and heads to the next house on his list of people who have voted in three of the last four GOP primary elections.

Rathje, when he does find someone home, introduces himself as a Republican and a businessman and asks for their vote in the June 8 Republican primary.

Tom Netolicky is standing on the front stoop of his house about to light a cigarette when Rathje walks up and asks if he has any complaints.

“Most of them are complaints you can't answer,” Netolicky said. “What in the hell is going on?

Down the street, a woman takes Rathje's literature and says, “We need change. We definitely need change.”

Rathje said he hears that often as he campaigns for the Republican nomination to challenge two-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack. He'll face Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Christopher Reed and Rob Gettemy in the primary.

“Out here in the rural areas, people think it's time to get back to the way it's supposed to be,” Steve Nash of Tipton told Rathje. “It seems like the government is taking over everything.”

People are upset, even if they aren't sure what upsets them, Rathje said.

“They can't put their finger on it, but in their gut, they're upset,” he said.

Colleen Wear of Ely knows what's upsetting her.

“It's Dave Loebsack, especially where he stands on health care,” said Wear, who was eating lunch at the Stoplight Café in Tipton. “He just doesn't seem to be listening. It seems like he's not looking out for the welfare of Iowa.”

Wear says she's never done anything more political than vote. Now she's a precinct captain for Rathje.

“I'm so frustrated with taxes and spend, spend, spend that I thought it was time to do something,” she said.

Mark Vande Haar of Coralville, who worked for on the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns two years ago, shares that frustration. Now he volunteers for Rathje.

Obama had “hope and change, but no plan,” said Vande Haar, who owns a basketball recruiting service. “You can't just talk about issues. You have to have a plan.”

And Rathje is the man with a plan in the 2

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District race. He's called for a 60-day income tax holiday, reducing the average income tax from 31 percent to 25 percent, reducing corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent and giving college graduates and new businesses a two-year grace period before they begin to pay income taxes.

“I want to keep the money in the pockets of the people who earn it,” Rathje said. “I'll let them grow the economy instead of the government because that doesn't work.”

His plan, Rathje said, would create of up to 3.5 million new jobs – thousands in the 2

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District – paying an average $50,000 a year in wages. Every million jobs yields about $15 billion a year in taxes. His plan would create as many jobs as President Obama's $778 billion stimulus plan at a fraction of the cost, he said.

His business, International Procurement Services, is all about creating jobs and keeping them in this country. It uses American companies to make manufactured components cheaper, faster and better than overseas competitors, Rathje said.

He believes that blue-collar voters could decide the election and thinks his job creation plan will appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, including union members “who are losing jobs and seeing them go overseas.”

Rathje was the first of the four 2

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District candidates to run TV ads and said he has the resources to keep running them through the campaign. At the same time, he plans to keep knocking on doors and telling voters his story.

Some people might question whether door-knocking is the best use of his time, Rathje said. It's hard for people to find time to come to campaign events.

“I don't expect voters to come to me, so I go to them,” he said. It makes it possible to meet 100 or more people a day. People like Joe Schroeder who said no other politician has visited his trucking business in Stanwood.

“I'm honored,” he tells Rathje and goes on to say he was a “card-carrying Democrat, but now I'm a Republican because you're pro-gun, anti-abortion and pro-real marriage.”

Hearing that again and again makes Rathje “cautiously optimistic” he'll win the primary.

“As a businessman I always take the competition seriously,” he said. “You don't want to take anyone lightly.”

 

Name: Steve Rathje

Name: Steve Rathje

Age: 54

City of Residence: Cedar Rapids

Political Party: Republican

Education: Marion High School

Occupation: Owner, International Procurement Services, Inc., Genesis Group

Related Experience: Former factory worker, plant superintendent, truck driver; Cedar Rapids Jefferson High school football coach, little league coach, active in church

Family: Wife, Mary, four children

Contact:

www.steverathje.com; PO Box 1232, Marion, Iowa 52302; (800) 886-0670;

linda@steverathje.com