GOP hopeful tacks to center in Iowa House debate

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Former Capitol Hill staffer David Young (R) and former Iowa state Rep. Staci Appel (D) squared off for the first time Thursday night, battling over who should replace retiring Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) in one of the country’s closest House races.

Young, former chief of staff to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), seemed more polished and at ease throughout. Appel was more hesitant and reliant on her talking points, falling back on the rejoinder “as a mom” at least a half-dozen times in the hourlong debate.

{mosads}Young pivoted to the center on a number of issues, much to Appel’s frustration.

He said he supported increasing the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a wedge issue many Democrats have used against the GOP this campaign cycle, and disputed Appel’s claims that he’d previously opposed an increase. He said he wouldn’t fight to repeal ObamaCare and that he backed the state’s Medicaid expansion under the law, saying it “seems to be working in Iowa.”

“[ObamaCare] is not going to be able to be repealed as long as we have this president. … it’s going to be there for the long haul,” he said, before calling for allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines as a way to improve access. 

Both parties see a tight race between the two candidates. Appel led Young by 40 percent to 34 percent in a poll released earlier this week from Loras College, but neither is well-known in the district, which sprawls from Des Moines’s suburbs to the southwestern corner of the state and includes dozens of small farming towns.

One pivot to the center might come back to haunt Young, however. He said he never supported privatizing Social Security during the debate, which Appel disputed.

Appel argued he was trying to whitewash a more conservative past record, saying Young voiced enthusiastic support for President George W. Bush, when he pushed to create private Social Security accounts.

Her campaign pointed to comments he made in May that Bush had “put his neck out on the line and try to reform and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and what happened, the liberals just lambasted him and made it a political issue.”

Young came back to the press room to talk to reporters afterwards, while Appel instead sent her campaign manager.

The Republican again went back and forth on Social Security while talking to The Hill.

“We’ll never know if it’s good or bad policy, it’s been so politicized, but it is interesting that Americans, they put their money, they trust it more to have a better return in a private account,” he said, hinting that he did think the idea of creating private accounts for Social Security had some merits before saying it was politically unfeasible today.

A minute later, he backtracked.  

“I don’t ever recall where she came up with me supporting it. I thought it was an interesting idea,” he said. “It’s off the table, and I want to go sit at the table and take care of Iowans. … What’s happened with TARP and Wall Street, it may not be a good time. It will never happen from what I see.”

Appel had a slip of her own, though, while discussing how America should respond to ISIS. 

After Young called for the State Department to pull the passports of suspected homegrown terrorists, so they can’t join up with terrorists abroad, she disagreed. 

“I would not be urging taking away their passports,” she said.

Her campaign manager argued afterwards that Appel meant she supports the current legal regime for handling potential domestic terrorists.

The debate was held at a Western Iowa Community College near Omaha’s suburbs in front of an audience of a few dozen supporters of each candidate.

Appel circled back to promising to create “better-paying jobs” on repeated occasions, without offering many specifics on how to create them past raising the minimum wage and funding the Small Business Administration. 

Young portrayed himself as someone who knew how to get things done in Congress.

“I can hit the ground running. If you want to know what kind of person I am, call Chuck Grassley,”

Appel touted her experience as a mother and financial planner as assets, and called herself a more “independent thinker” than Young.

“My service for the state of Iowa, my background being a mom, a mom of six, being a financial consultant working with families trying to help them out with their retirements, putting their kids through college,” she said.