Ep. 296 Gubernatorial Candidate Julie Stauch
We interviewed Julie at Smokey Row in Des Moines.
Julie Stauch generously sat down with us at Smokey Row in Des Moines to discuss Iowa's water quality, our public schools, vouchers, rural poverty, and a lot more. It was a great conversation. Whether you agree with her or not, we hope you will enjoy our conversation. And let the record show, we really enjoyed our time with her. She was lovely.
Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!
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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;33;05
Unknown
Julie Stout, candidate for governor. And this is the Prairie Farm podcast. I'm Mark Kenyon. I'm doctor Julie Meacham. I'm Steve Hansen. I'm Jill about Chad Gravy. My name is Jeremy French. I'm Laura Walter, Carol Hawkesbury and owner of Hoxie Native Seeds. And this is the prairie Farm podcast. This is how hairy Backcountry Hunters and Anglers podcast. Skip Sligh, Iowa whitetail Valerie Van Coton, State Historical Society of Iowa doctor Matt Helmer at Iowa State University.
00;00;33;06 - 00;00;55;12
Unknown
My name is Carla Berger with the Native Habitat project. I'm Judd Mccollam. I appeared out of the wilderness and this is the Prairie Farm podcast. Welcome to the Prairie Farm podcast. Julie, you are lovely. Oh, we got a little. We got a little tea. Little coffee spill. Yeah, I'm making a mess. No, no. We're good. Well, first of all, shout out to Smokey Row for letting us be here.
00;00;55;13 - 00;01;08;15
Unknown
I worked at Smokey Row for years, and my wife worked a smoke girl for years. My sister works as Smoke Arrow. My brother in law worked at Smokey Row. My brother worked with me. That smoke you? Oh, yeah. Oh, well. Yeah. You get out of college. That's what you do. You work at a coffee shop while you apply to other jobs?
00;01;08;18 - 00;01;24;25
Unknown
Yeah, I suppose since. So she worked and so grow big fans of smoke grow. So thank you. So my girl, for housing. Did you ever work at this branch? Yes I did. Oh, yeah. I would drive from, Linville, Iowa, out to Des Moines, and I would mop these floors. Yeah, I did a big fan of this place.
00;01;24;26 - 00;01;46;21
Unknown
We had a great time. It's fun time. That's interesting. Anyway, Julie, we're having a great time. We actually had to interrupt ourselves to actually start the podcast. Yeah, it's been very fun. We interview a lot of people, and most all of them are great to be around, but you can just tell when you're enjoying being around someone and I've never started a podcast, so I'm really enjoying being with you.
00;01;46;23 - 00;02;02;08
Unknown
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Well, I'll jump right in, because I know that I don't want to keep you longer than you guys allowed us to hang out with you, but the, big question everyone wanted us to ask. I reached out to a bunch of people, and there's other ones, but this is the one that comes up the most.
00;02;02;15 - 00;02;22;12
Unknown
And our most listen to podcasts by far, have to do with this topic. And I saw the reason I reached out is you made a commitment to Iowa about this. What are we going to do about our water? Yes. Well it's a mess out there. It's a hot mess. And we have a lot of cleaning up to do.
00;02;22;25 - 00;02;41;13
Unknown
But specific to your question I just put out. Oh I guess it's now three weeks ago. My pledge to Iowans on clean water. And and what we have to do to get there, and what I would do the first day as governor. And I'll do my best to recite those if you want. Yeah, absolutely.
00;02;41;20 - 00;03;14;04
Unknown
Please do. So what? Number one, the first thing is, And hire. And start on the first day the an a director of the DNR who, because they report directly to the governor, that person can start right away without going through Senate approvals. And so, appoint that person and that will be a person who is ready and willing to go in and start implementing the changes.
00;03;14;04 - 00;03;39;02
Unknown
And there will be three implement three changes I want implemented. One would be to, restore the Clean Water Act 1972, clean water standards here in the state, because those they took down under Runnels and they got federal approval under Trump to keep them down. And so, we we can still bring that back. It's allowed for us to do it in the state.
00;03;39;02 - 00;04;03;18
Unknown
We don't have to have federal approval on that. Second would be bring back the water monitors, because the only way we can measure the quality of the water is to have those monitors. Yeah. Now, I'm not using the technically correct name, but I am using that term because it makes more sense to the average person. The technical term is a bit confusing and so that's why I use that.
00;04;03;24 - 00;04;29;02
Unknown
Yeah. I want to I want to jump in right there. For anyone listening, the reason that is important is, we have been privileged to some conversations on what happened there, and it's not good. Basically, groups were lobbying against it because it was costing them money because they were seeing Iowans start to care about water quality. Well, the problem, if you stop monitoring the water and there's no data that shows how bad the water is, can't see you ever.
00;04;29;03 - 00;04;46;27
Unknown
Yeah, there's no PR problem if there's no monitoring. So why, why fix a PR problem when you can just rip it out from the root? And what they decide to do was to really push to defund these water monitors. These are very important pieces of Iowa's health. So anyway, I love that step that you've got. Thank you.
00;04;46;29 - 00;05;19;28
Unknown
Thank you. So go go to work getting us put back in. And then the third point, it has two parts and that is, identify penalties for violating the water standards that are implemented. And second, to determine an enforcement process because penalties without enforcement means nothing happens. And so you have to have both. So that's that was our, my, clean water stance.
00;05;19;28 - 00;05;38;19
Unknown
And what I'm doing is let me let me give you a, a little backstory on that, if you don't mind, if I didn't pull these out of the air. I went and spent three months in the summer going across Iowa talk, having conversations with Iowans about their concerns and and did it in I mean, I made them fill out a worksheet.
00;05;38;26 - 00;06;09;13
Unknown
And so I would get their personal thoughts on different things. And the questions were wide open. I didn't put any guidelines in there because I wanted to hear what they said first. And out of that water quality. Right. Public schools and health care were like very closely tied water quality, slight edge but slight. Yeah. And so those were the big three.
00;06;09;13 - 00;06;48;04
Unknown
And then there are several others that come underneath that. But what I'm going to be doing this fall is putting out at different points what I would do the first day, the clean water, the water when I could figure that out. From a number of conversations with experts I'd already had. Yes, the the others. I'm in the process of the conversations with experts in order to make sure I'm finding reasonable government solutions, things that government can provide versus the just pie in the sky stuff, and then also understanding what the timeline will be on each of those.
00;06;48;05 - 00;07;05;23
Unknown
So that's it. Yeah. Yeah that's fantastic I do. And actually what you found was basically when we reached out to people and said, what do you want to hear in the interview that those were the things that and then the fourth one, I would add, has to do with small business. But if we if we get to that, I would, I would love to jump in.
00;07;05;23 - 00;07;34;17
Unknown
But the well, those things are kind of putting Iowa on the map right now, especially our water quality. Oh, yes. You know, every now and then you hear or read an article or you hear a podcast mention just how bad our water, issues are. And then, of course, the thing that, everyone's waiting to be, you know, publicly, directly correlated to is our very high cancer rates that we have.
00;07;34;19 - 00;08;03;22
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, but we can't do that without monitors. Right? Absolutely. Right. So I've got this a little bit of a PR question then. Water quality. I've interviewed, Ted, Corrigan from, Iowa Water Works. We've interviewed Larry Weber from, the Iowa City or University of Iowa, and we've interviewed Doctor Matt Helmers from Iowa State. All, have their expertise involves nitrates in the water or water quality in general.
00;08;03;24 - 00;08;26;22
Unknown
And they made it very clear it is an agriculture practice issue. There was no wiggle room. We tried to, you know, kind of go back and forth. No, there's no it is so, so to fix this problem involves the pocketbooks of yes farmers, but also large ag corporations that are going to fight tooth and nail for this not to be an issue.
00;08;26;22 - 00;08;51;16
Unknown
And they're going to say, you hate farmers. What do you do about that? I don't hate farmers because farmers aren't the problem here. Okay, farmer. The problem are, the sales people who are telling folks the. Let me take a step back here. Yeah, please. I, I have many other clients who were not political. Okay.
00;08;51;18 - 00;09;17;07
Unknown
And one of those that I worked for over two years was the, water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska. And I had to go the first thing I had to do was go interview a whole bunch of faculty members, one on one research faculty, about how they could work with the center on on water for food and how we had the kinds of water we would need all all over the globe.
00;09;17;09 - 00;09;29;06
Unknown
And, so I was talking to a soils professor and I said, what is it going to take? Like how much more research do you guys have to do to understand?
00;09;29;09 - 00;10;04;00
Unknown
To understand what the problem is? And he goes, we've known the problem for 20 years. And that was like 12 years ago when I was working with them. We've known that problem for 20 years, Julie. We tell farmers and we educate farmers. We offer programs and getting them to change their habits. But what I've learned since then is part of the problem is salespeople saying, well, sure, you need that much, but do you want to risk your year, your crop by not putting in more and making sure you get it all?
00;10;04;04 - 00;10;27;04
Unknown
Yeah, and I think that's really where the variable, one of the variables is that's continuing to press them to put in more interesting. Yeah I do think that I mean, Chris Jones talks about the Swine Republic. He talks about like we are putting way I love this stuff. Yeah very sharp guy. Don't hold your punches Chris. Yeah that's how I hear it man.
00;10;27;04 - 00;10;45;05
Unknown
He invited us into his home and we recorded in his backyard with an incredible dude and was just like, he was like canning vegetables. He was just like, Yeah, well, yeah, he was like, yeah, I'm just can't get out of his garden. Yeah. And then and he was just like a kind guy. And then we got in the podcast and he's like, we need to change this.
00;10;45;06 - 00;11;08;07
Unknown
We need to do this. And we're like, whoa, yeah, what a guy. So yeah, the water thing. Huge deal. Kent. Sorry. Did I interrupt you? No, I mean, it's just, you know, it's a follow the money kind of thing, you know, who's profiting off of this model? And if there weren't, if there weren't so many deleterious effects that literally are coming downstream from this model, no pun intended.
00;11;08;07 - 00;11;32;27
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Then. And it it it literally or it, it wouldn't be such a concern. But the problem is there are so many of these negative effects that we've already talked about. And so then it becomes, okay, well, how do we trace it back to the source? And like you said, the farmer. Now, certainly farmers aren't, in my opinion, completely, you know, blame free.
00;11;33;00 - 00;11;58;04
Unknown
You know, you don't have to do what somebody tells you to do, but, they certainly are more so the just the collateral damage to this model that in large part exploits them and exploits their land, I think exploit exploitation is the right word. It really is. And and it's forcing them to spend more when they they need to.
00;11;58;07 - 00;12;23;00
Unknown
They don't need to spend more. Right. They can. And that reduces their own funding, right? Yeah. Yeah. They are not the biggest. They're not the anywhere near the biggest, financial. Benefactor from this. Oh gosh. No, not even close. We're looking at a really tough year this year. Yeah. Right. And I'm, I'm watching that and thinking, okay, there's another wrinkle on all of this.
00;12;23;13 - 00;12;54;23
Unknown
That how how every everything I'm reading about how would that impact my work as governor. You know. And what would it do. Yeah. Can we hit on that while we're on that topic just a little bit? Sure. Yeah, that's something we talked about on a recent episode of the podcast. Just, the effects of, the tariffs that have resulted in losing, China, America's biggest client for buying.
00;12;54;24 - 00;13;22;02
Unknown
Are you not going to come back? No. Yeah. I think when Trump did this the last time, they started realizing, okay, this is could happen again. So they started building other markets and they don't need us anymore. Yeah. I mean they've invested billions and billions of dollars of building out ports in Brazil and Russia and Brazil. Pay. The average farmer in Brazil gets about a third, if not a little less of what the average American farmer gets paid to labor.
00;13;22;02 - 00;13;58;27
Unknown
Labor's way cheaper. I mean, it's just they're I don't see a world where they're coming back on the soybeans and and so what's been used in the past is E cap money coming down from the federal level to basically kind of bridge the gap in expected earnings off your yield for, for that year, Wolf. We'll, get you back up there close to it with, with certain allotment per acre that's, you know, measured out by different crops and so that, of course, is viewed by the public as a, as a federal handout to farmers.
00;13;59;00 - 00;14;20;26
Unknown
And, also it costs taxpayers money and it's not a long term solution. I don't think anybody would argue that that's a long term solution for our farmers. And it's also at the federal level. And here in Iowa, from a state level, that's an outsized impact because it is our the driver of our economy is is agriculture.
00;14;20;26 - 00;14;57;12
Unknown
And in the state, if this which I, I tend to agree with you, I don't I don't think China's coming back to as a buyer any anytime soon. What we lost there for people to want to buy from us, we have to be reliable, a reliable supplier. I learned that when I worked at pioneer. I asked the vice president that I was working for, of all these different things that we produce here at pioneer, what brings the most income and and what if you pulled it away would cause the most problem.
00;14;57;15 - 00;15;25;02
Unknown
And she said, our supply structure, we lose our supply. Supply structure. And we are you know, it's we have something in our supply structure that no other company can do. At that time, when I was working for them. Wow. Yeah. So, so so what from the perspective of the Chinese, our supply structure just fail, right. And they're not going to risk that failure.
00;15;25;05 - 00;15;41;20
Unknown
So they're looking at alternatives. It's smart I mean why aren't a lot of us doing that with our own buying. Oh right. Now we know the tariffs are going to take things up. So people are going out and stocking up on what they need before it goes up. Yeah. That way our prices yeah we can at least manage it with our own home economies.
00;15;42;21 - 00;16;04;14
Unknown
Yeah. So I guess what is there anything we can that can be done or that you would like to see done on a state level to help farmers as they, you know, over the next we'll say ten years transition. Right. How do we help them transition from the systems that they've known for for 100 years? Right.
00;16;04;14 - 00;16;24;25
Unknown
Yeah. You know, and I don't have answers on that yet. I am thinking about it and I am getting into things on it because I think that's going to be critical. Just how do we manage that transition and what can we do at the state level, and how do we pair that with the solutions that we have to seek in other areas?
00;16;25;13 - 00;16;39;14
Unknown
That you're convicting me because Kent and I, we gotta do something different. We gotta do something different. We got to be, you know, on our farm, we are doing something well, we've never talked about how can we help people with the transition, you know, and I'm now I'm like, you're the first person I've ever heard talk about that.
00;16;39;18 - 00;17;12;13
Unknown
Yeah. Funny story. Yeah. I got my degree in elementary education with a minor in child development, and there weren't jobs where we lived up in Mason city at that time. And it's a little bit different today on teacher job availability. Yeah, I know, isn't it? I used to be a teacher myself. And so I, I was doing long term subbing and, in the course of that, the principal came in to talk to me about, you know, to do a just sit in the classroom and observe me and evaluate my work.
00;17;12;15 - 00;17;36;20
Unknown
And and then I met with him afterwards, and he told me what he thought. And he told me at that time he said, you are the best with transitions of any. There is not another teacher in the school who's better at it than you were. That and in the classroom. What? I'm sorry. Because it was the end of a session when he came in, you know, a subject matter was fifth graders, you know, the end of, let's say, reading, transitioning to math.
00;17;36;20 - 00;17;53;07
Unknown
But it was bathroom break time. And so, I mean, I just did what you do in that scenario. You give people directions, right? And, and and I said he I was stunned that he said that. And then I said, tell me what you really mean by that because I just did, which I think you have to do. Right?
00;17;53;07 - 00;18;12;21
Unknown
Yeah. And so I feel the same irony at this moment because you're, thinking about you hadn't you said you hadn't thought about transitions? I always think about transitions. How do we get from here to there? And how do we what are the steps that we have to go through to? I can't just be this Band-Aid pull. Yeah.
00;18;12;21 - 00;18;30;07
Unknown
And I don't know why I think that way, but, I mean, it's it's a big deal. CEOs of big companies get paid billions of dollars to handle transition while a lot of times and I've just never thought of it, that's not the governor should be handling transitions. Sadly, right now we have a governor who's handling transitions in the wrong way.
00;18;30;07 - 00;18;52;23
Unknown
She's just selling it all off to a few large corporations. Some interesting. So what would you and I know we've hammered on the Industrial Act, but do you see a future of corn and beans, or do you feel like the transition needs to be away from those crops? I think it's away from any particular crop. I think it's and I don't again, I don't have a set answer on that part yet.
00;18;52;25 - 00;19;22;14
Unknown
That's going to require a lot more conversation. But and research. But the I don't think we want to go away from anything as much as we transition, how much of it we have or how much of it we do. Yeah. You know, and it's not, you know, my dad had greenhouses and I worked in those greenhouses, and we were transitioning all the time because there were seasonal plants that people wanted constantly.
00;19;22;14 - 00;19;58;00
Unknown
It was constantly changing. And maybe that's where I picked it up. But you know what? What do we need to be doing now and how do we get and but what are we going to need to do next? And how do we transition from one crop to the next crop through the greenhouses. Right. Yeah. And so, I think I, you know, that's a simplistic example of how we'll have to think about it, but it's not eliminating as much as instead of having everything all in on two crops, let's, you know, you know, it's not so much going back to the old.
00;19;58;03 - 00;20;21;01
Unknown
It might be going back to rotating the crops. I don't want to eliminate it, but thinking about how we transition our, our crops and that requires farmers at the table to do that and be a part of that discussion. Them. Yeah. And I have not you know, it's like not a good time to have that discussion right now because they're mostly in the field still.
00;20;21;03 - 00;20;46;00
Unknown
But at some point I hope to have those conversations because they're I mean, they're they're the people doing it. Yeah. And, and and they have I that, that they've always been so inventive are Iowa farmers. People have talked to me about how they I remember when I first was getting involved in politics, somebody said to me, we need a soundboard.
00;20;46;00 - 00;21;07;20
Unknown
And I was like, I don't even know what a soundboard is. And he said, oh, that's okay, find me a farmer. And I was like, really? Farmers know about same soundboards. And it's like they have machine shops. They can make anything. Wow. And and they did and they did. And and it was really amazing to see how much problem solving they could do.
00;21;07;20 - 00;21;27;15
Unknown
So I feel like it's going to be fun to be at the table talking with farmers. Yeah. And and really trying to figure out okay, let's agree on problem identification first and then let's go to what do we need. How could we transition this. What are the things that could happen. What could it look like. And brainstorm. You know it's a process you go through.
00;21;27;21 - 00;21;45;23
Unknown
Yeah absolutely. Well I don't want to steal all our time with those, but I, I really appreciate you knowing that it needs to be addressed and starting the process on it. I know that it would. It'll be a decade or two long process of transitioning on how we do agriculture, but it there is a lot to do with it.
00;21;45;23 - 00;22;04;14
Unknown
So let's move. Let's transition. Mine's going to be a little more backward to they've done. Yeah. Number two. Number two you mentioned is well schools when I so my mom owned I'm going to just give her a shout out. She owns Apples of Gold. It's a dyslexia specialty center. And they serve all over the US. Yeah. Learn nation.
00;22;04;16 - 00;22;22;14
Unknown
Yeah. And, and she's great at what she does. When I was in high school, I went to Lyndale Sully. And the year after I graduated, the year I graduated, we ranked like number two as overall school overall score for schools. That includes like all the the sports and extracurriculars as well as where we're testing at as a school district.
00;22;22;16 - 00;22;40;06
Unknown
And I remember ranking number two the year after I left the state zoo in the state and the state, the state was like fourth in the country. So I, I went to college and in Texas, and I was very proud. And I told people about like, no, I went to a really good school. Fast forward, just had my ten year reunion.
00;22;40;08 - 00;23;00;10
Unknown
Not the same. But in terms of our ranking in the United States as a state, I'm much less proud to say that I was educated in Iowa. Or I have to give a little caveat. And then there's the what is the Mississippi miracle where this very poor and in, comparison state has just shot up the rankings.
00;23;00;16 - 00;23;20;06
Unknown
I don't know if there's any correlation there, but what's going on with our education where we have fallen so far, States that were 49th in the country are rising with less money. What are we doing wrong and what can we do? Well, I think the simple answer of what we've been doing wrong has been in the last 15 years.
00;23;20;21 - 00;23;51;24
Unknown
Under, two different, Republican governors. We've been starving our schools and, you know, and at the same time, we're starving our schools. We're increasing their responsibilities in areas not directly related to education, but because they are a center part of a community, and they are in the best position to help facilitate those. So you start starving the schools and increasing responsibilities, and you're really starving the schools.
00;23;51;26 - 00;24;28;05
Unknown
And so we have to look at, the public education is the next one that will come out for me. And we have to look at very seriously at, how we, how our, our formula on that and how, how we prioritize our schools in our budgeting because they haven't been prioritized. What do you think is the, the most, effective lever you could pull if you if you were to be elected as governor, you step into the office, what would you do kind of first to start addressing school?
00;24;28;07 - 00;24;58;12
Unknown
Well, I think the first thing on all the, problem areas and it happens anyway, you know, the governor gets to appoint the new person to head whatever the department is, right? We currently have an education director who doesn't have a background in public education and basically is there to be a lackey for Kim Reynolds. And, do whatever she says she wants done and justify it.
00;24;59;06 - 00;25;30;24
Unknown
And I think so we have to get somebody in there who is an education expert, who is knowledgeable of what it's like to work in a public school. I would want them to have public school experience and then I think it's a lot harder. I mean, it's, oh, there's the budgeting process, which would be the first thing I would ask for is a significantly greater, percentage in the formula than what they've like, they got, what, 2% this last year.
00;25;30;27 - 00;25;57;27
Unknown
I would want to go to 5 or 6%. Wow. We have to yeah, we have to do that. And then the other thing is the vouchers. That system has to go. I will say this, there are some private schools that are meeting some unique needs. And so it strikes me that vouchers are not the place to take care of that, the place to take care of that is with vouchers just aren't working.
00;25;57;27 - 00;26;18;01
Unknown
And they're they're going to break the state bank. And, you know, given the preliminary reports on the budget this week, it's it's problematic. And the tax revenue with the flat tax came in lower. No shock there. Yeah. Was it like 200 million or something like that. It was close to 200. It wasn't. It was like the one I saw yesterday was 190.
00;26;18;02 - 00;26;49;22
Unknown
Okay. Yeah. But anyway, so what we have to do is we have to look at, you know, getting expertise in the Department of Education that's actually education experience. And then, and then just going in and I think probably systematically rebuilding or building a new I kind of like to be sure to say building a new because we don't have to we shouldn't go back, we should go forward.
00;26;49;24 - 00;27;12;01
Unknown
And these are opportunities to make changes that we're going to be needed anyway. Even if they had stayed strong because of just societal changes. Technology. Yeah. You know, for one, do you have any, more tangible things that you believe? Like, we need to be changing this to move forward in schools, that I don't have that detail yet.
00;27;12;02 - 00;27;34;04
Unknown
Yeah, I'm I'm keeping it high level. Right now with just 3 or 4 bullets when I put these out. Yeah. And so I don't have that level of detail. I have been in some conversations with education groups to find out what they see as problematic and what they need. And it's it's a long list. What it what I, I mean, it has the potential meaning.
00;27;34;10 - 00;28;04;29
Unknown
You mean a1, A1. Yes. No. Sticks are not but you know, has the potential to change humanity is probably change how education is happening. Is that in the conversation when you're talking to the administrators of the school districts? We haven't gotten that deep. Yes. Okay. More are there more about, the challenges cell phones have created? Yeah, I would say that's if if we wanted to find one good thing Kim Reynolds may have done is that you having the kids not have their cell phones at school?
00;28;05;11 - 00;28;25;00
Unknown
And I know some parents don't like that because they want to stay connected during the day, but I think I think it's better for the kids. And it just wasn't that way when we were that age, you know, and we survived. Well, it also, I mean, I remember kids with no cell phones who still struggled with paying attention in class, cell phone.
00;28;25;05 - 00;28;39;10
Unknown
It would drive me crazy, if that's true. Yeah. You know, I'm one of those. We go into meetings like, okay, turn your cell phone off if we're going to have serious discussions, because otherwise I'm as bad as anybody else. Oh, something pops up and I have to look at it. Yeah, no, I don't have to look at it.
00;28;39;11 - 00;28;57;17
Unknown
And then you're thinking about it for 30 or 40s. Yeah. Yeah, it just is a distraction. So, but so no, that hasn't come up yet, but I'm not very far in those conversations. Yeah, yeah, I really I want to say I everyone who thinks that Julie is saying like, oh, she's not an expert in these yet. Please.
00;28;57;17 - 00;29;18;06
Unknown
Here. Pass that. Please hear that. She has the humility to say in front of thousands, tens of thousands of you guys, hey, I don't know yet. And I am working on it. And there's a year over a year left to go do well. And the bottom line is, I'll never be the expert on these. There are too many things in state government, but what I am good at is identifying problem.
00;29;18;06 - 00;29;41;27
Unknown
I'm a problem solver, so I identify problems and then I work with the experts to find out practical solutions and how to implement them. And what's government's role in implementation, because it's not always government's role. Many times there are others whose role it is. And so how do we bring all these people together to solve the problems? And then what's the timeline for the solutions?
00;29;41;29 - 00;30;06;11
Unknown
And then drive, drive, drive. Yeah. As a long time educator and someone who grew up in the house of a public school superintendent and a school nurse for my parents, I have some opinions that I'll share with you off air. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's put a lot of thought in. His dad is a very, very intelligent man, and he's worked in Illinois and Iowa, so he's kind of seen as something I, I wanted to get.
00;30;06;11 - 00;30;23;17
Unknown
What? What did you have anything else I want to add before you want to? I can talk forever, so stop. Okay? Okay. Let's keep going. Iowa technically is probably by the nation. Being is still considered a swing state, but we're probably one election away from not being considered. I don't think we're a no no, I don't think we are.
00;30;23;17 - 00;30;40;16
Unknown
I'm saying we're still maybe kind of considered one, but I think the next election would solidify it as a red state. What you've been observing I read your resume and cover letter, which was that was clever. That was fun. I like that on your, everyone. Julie staunch for all Iowans. Is that it? Yeah, for all Iowans.
00;30;40;16 - 00;31;04;12
Unknown
She has a resume and, a cover letter on there. It's pretty fun. So you've been observing or in the political scene for a while. What happened? Why aren't we a swing state anymore? Oh, okay. That is a complex question to answer. Yeah. Okay, so. And the best place for me to answer it is what happened with the Democrats.
00;31;04;12 - 00;31;32;19
Unknown
Okay. Because I'm more inside with the Democrats broadly. What I say, when I'm out talking with folks is both parties have lost sight of their mission. Okay. And it means that both parties are redeemable, but they have to get back on what is their mission. And right now, and it's very different for each party. So, for the Republicans, it's a I can give you a simplistic assessment.
00;31;32;24 - 00;31;52;27
Unknown
They've turned everything over to Donald Trump. And that's the problem, which, by the way, with a minor in child development, Donald Trump is a three year old and he has never moved past the three year old egocentric stage. A lot of people talk about him being all these other kinds of things. I can just tell you from my child development, that man is still a three year old.
00;31;52;29 - 00;32;12;14
Unknown
And so, and so when you turn something as massive as the U.S government over to a three year old who's having a tantrum one day because somebody dissed him in a way that he didn't like, and now he wants to go have them arrested and thrown in jail or shot or whatever. Like he's a three year old.
00;32;12;17 - 00;32;49;06
Unknown
Okay. Now, back on the question that you asked. For the Democrats, I think I think what has happened with us is, is when I first started, there were some consultants and there were some different, groups, but now there's hundreds of consultants and hundreds of different groups that are providing services to campaigns. And I think what happened is the campaigns became reliant on those services to give them the answers.
00;32;49;13 - 00;33;21;21
Unknown
So then they didn't have to do as much groundwork. And and what's happened is we we as Democrats, disconnected from our own base. Wow. Not I don't think, by intent, but we disconnected from our own base. So what I'm doing, and this is part of why I'm running this is a big part of why I'm running. I would never have thought about this, but, last fall I worked in Nebraska, as the general election director, which in Iowa, we call the coordinated campaign director.
00;33;21;23 - 00;33;33;17
Unknown
And that put me on the battleground states calls and on those calls, which were daily we kept,
00;33;33;19 - 00;34;10;27
Unknown
We were failing every day. Okay. And all the other states were exceeding the expectations of the metrics. And in the end, they all lost. And we won in Nebraska. And we did it in 92 days, which was nothing short of a miracle. And but a miracle of the people. That's what that one was. And so what I came back from that was we are relying too much on, on polls and surveys at the wrong point in campaigns.
00;34;10;29 - 00;34;33;10
Unknown
They're good, they're helpful to us. But you have to you have to know what the issues are that people want. And that's what wasn't happening. We were we were using. And I kind of thought this every time I was working on a poll, and I've worked with some fabulous pollsters and have a tremendous amount of respect for them in the work they do.
00;34;33;12 - 00;34;54;22
Unknown
But we really need to be having conversations with real people on the ground first to find out what the issues are they care about. Then later you come back and you poll on where are they on those issues that we already know bring people together and that they care passionately about. And so that's what I did this summer.
00;34;54;24 - 00;35;14;29
Unknown
And and it is having a huge impact for my campaign. And so I'm excited to keep moving forward on this doesn't mean I'm going to win. No I don't nobody knows who's going to win. You know, everybody's, you know, putting down their money in different places with their bets on who's going to win, but nobody knows. And you never do.
00;35;15;01 - 00;35;46;14
Unknown
Yeah. Like literally with Mike Franken's race in 2022. I came in in March, for that race. And, we the primary was in June. We had to build everything because it hadn't been built and execute again, this crazy straight up the mountain kind of thing. And, the day before, my gut said we were going to get there, but I didn't know what it would look like or how it how it would go.
00;35;46;16 - 00;36;12;03
Unknown
But we didn't know. You never know, you know. And the people who who want firm, I know they're going to win it just you don't because you can't. Yeah. There's too many variables, right. The, the you know, you would not there to you. There is no one recipe for how to make a candidate win. Yeah there just isn't.
00;36;12;05 - 00;36;35;14
Unknown
So you have to combine who the candidate is with the the district, with the year, with all these other things. And so but I think to get back to the real point of your question, I think that what we've done is we've become too dependent on polls up front and, and what they tell us up front and that is not close to Election Day.
00;36;35;14 - 00;36;55;28
Unknown
And it's but it's good to have the baseline, but it doesn't. Wow. And you can be asking all the wrong questions. And it's this polls are based on the questions you ask. So if you don't ask questions about where people are and why, and those have to be open ended, if you direct them at all, if you give them multiple choice, if you're not open ended.
00;36;56;07 - 00;37;29;23
Unknown
Yeah. The I the reason that I've. Yeah, that is an awesome like insight. Just the Democrat Democratic party stop listening to the front lines is kind of what you're. Well, they did it. They thought they were listening, but they started listening a different way, you know, so they thought, oh, great, polling can help us. So then we can focus on these other elements of the campaign, and it can have them making assumptions that weren't really valid, but we didn't find out they weren't valid until much later.
00;37;29;23 - 00;37;49;21
Unknown
Yeah. Right. So, you know, we just have to start asking people what do they care about, you know, and what do they want done? I want to pivot to another thing we mentioned earlier. Our cancer rate, I believe, or we have the second highest cancer, and I believe in the country here and I it's it's not the highest rate.
00;37;49;21 - 00;38;08;18
Unknown
It's the highest second, highest increasing rate. No, no, no, I think we're number one for that. Oh okay okay I think yeah I think we're I think we might actually be I could be wrong in this statistic. If not, I'm not wrong by much. I think we might be the only place in the world that has an increasing rate of cancer places.
00;38;08;20 - 00;38;42;06
Unknown
But but I because I just read that again yesterday. But what I would say is we don't even have to worry about the percentages. It's bad here, right? Yeah. It's bad. And when you have an increasing rate, given enough time, everybody gets cancer mathematically. And and when you start looking at the statistics on the number of, you know, the number of people per 1000 or the number of people per ten, that, our effects are, well, are statistically going to have cancer in Iowa.
00;38;42;08 - 00;39;01;00
Unknown
You can start looking at your own family size and then start thinking about which one of your kids is going to get cancer. If if they stay in Iowa. So I, I'm working this rather strongly because I want people to understand just how much it does affect them. And if it's not within your own household, maybe start thinking about grandma.
00;39;01;00 - 00;39;31;03
Unknown
Grandpa, start thinking about church. Start thinking about your, Lions Club, whatever you want to. Yeah. How many of your classmates and, start taking it seriously? If we take it seriously and we find out what are what are the the main causes of this? Some are a little more easy to, I guess find correlation, except, you know, like radon, you know?
00;39;31;03 - 00;39;52;21
Unknown
Well, it's just got a lot of decaying ancient plant material in our bedrock here, and we have high radon levels, and that's nobody's that description, you know, you know, there's there, you know, what is this part of living in Iowa? I mean, it just seems unlikely for that to be the case because that's been here for millennia. And this is something that is becoming more acute in very recent years.
00;39;52;24 - 00;40;20;02
Unknown
And it is likely that I'm not saying this will happen, but it is likely we will find some correlations to things that greatly anchor Iowa's economy to be related to the causation of this. Right. As a state, do you think we're going to be willing to step up to the plate, acknowledge that reality, and then do something about it?
00;40;20;05 - 00;40;51;26
Unknown
And if so, what could that even look like? The second part of that question is much harder to answer. Okay, yeah, but to speak to it as a state, the the number one thing leaders have to do in anything, in any company, in any volunteer organization, no matter what make. And so there are people sitting out here in the coffee shop who are leaders in something, because, you know, everybody can have a leadership role in a certain scenario.
00;40;52;15 - 00;41;13;04
Unknown
And so in that if you take that into concept, what leaders have to do is define the problems and they have to put parameters on them, and then they have to then they have to define, explain to people why this problem is real and why we all need to come together and work on it. That's what leaders do.
00;41;13;12 - 00;41;41;25
Unknown
And, you know, there's, a whole leadership communication process for making change out there. One that I, I have, I'm self-taught in, but it's fabulous and it really is effective. And it's just five steps. But you have to the first thing the leaders have to do is they have to explain it, and you have to explain it and explain it and explain it and explain it, because the first person who hears it won't just go tell everybody else, right?
00;41;41;29 - 00;42;13;11
Unknown
And so we have to repeat, repeat, repeat. And they have to show that leadership is behind solving this problem. That's a governor's job. But it's also state, legislators, jobs and members of Congress jobs. And it's all part of those leadership roles goes down to if it's in a community, leaders have to describe the change, then they have to, then they have to make sure people want the change.
00;42;13;14 - 00;42;35;01
Unknown
And that's a that's a persuasion component of the process. And then the next one is make sure that the people who are in charge of things have the knowledge to execute the change. And then it is a big, the next one is, oh, do we have the right people in the right place? They might have the knowledge.
00;42;35;04 - 00;43;07;16
Unknown
Do they have the ability to do what needs to be done here? And then the last one is we reward efforts towards the change. And rewards don't mean stickers or prizes or things like that. It means acknowledging people's work, the good work and the good effort they've done. That's really what it means. It's recognizing that they have contributed and reached out and doing that, that the same time you're still telling people that we need to make this change.
00;43;07;19 - 00;43;30;04
Unknown
So it's not it's not it's very circular. Right. You know, it just flows around the circle and it's a spiral staircase. You just keep doing it up that staircase. And that is that's what we need here in Iowa on all of these issues, you know, and, and it will be different people participating in each issue that we're looking at and how they do it.
00;43;30;04 - 00;43;50;18
Unknown
And so a part a big part of the the leader's job in the case of governor is to bring people to the table to, to get to get connective tissue belt, to get the understanding of what we need to have happen. And then to continue to flow through these steps to make sure it happens and stay on it.
00;43;50;21 - 00;44;08;15
Unknown
And, you know, it's like, I hate to kind of use this, but I'm gonna use it anyway. It's it's like, mom, here is your list of chores for this week. These chores are important because here's why you have to do them. Your day on this one is this, this and this. This is my mother, okay? I'm not making this up.
00;44;08;15 - 00;44;30;08
Unknown
This was my mother. Oh, you're mom, you're not just a generic. Oh, you're mom. Yeah. Yes. My mom did this, and and then and here's how you have to execute it. And she would check our work when we were done and make sure we did it right. And, you know, it's it's stuff like that. And you know, that's an oversimplification, but that's kind of what we need from a governor.
00;44;30;14 - 00;44;57;06
Unknown
And we haven't had that in the last 15 years. And that's I, I appreciate that answer. And we understand like the cancer things can't complicated super complicated. And I have no my very limited exposure to a medical background. So. Well well well. And no one is shit. And nobody should expect the governor to have that. But I'm encouraged that you want to do something about it.
00;44;57;06 - 00;45;18;29
Unknown
You want to actually address it. Yes. And that's that's a big for that. And the ObGyn deserts that we are creating here, I find it ironic that Republicans are calling for women to have more children. At the same time, they're depleting the state of ObGyn doctors who are the very doctors we all need. Yeah. As women. Absolutely. Are we all?
00;45;18;29 - 00;45;40;26
Unknown
I needed it at the very beginning of my life. You know, all of us did we do. Yes. You know. So yes. That's a good way to put it. I you know, we're not we're not here without obedience. I actually want to bring this up. We've just got two more things, will, on your time. Rural cities and towns are dying, but I want to bring up a very specific thing.
00;45;41;01 - 00;46;02;14
Unknown
I am friends with the only I clinician. No, maybe there are not one of the I clinicians. One of two in Knoxville. I am friends with one of two dentists in Knoxville. I am friends with some of the doctors in Knoxville that that and they say, yeah, good luck trying to get an optometrist in Knoxville, Iowa, you know, in Knoxville is lucky.
00;46;02;16 - 00;46;23;27
Unknown
We're surrounded by five companies that are worth over $1 billion that support jobs. So Knoxville is in a lot better situation than most of rural Iowa, right. Good luck pulling some of the pulling those doctors pulling those over is not the same position you are in. Yes. Yep. Exactly. And so, what do we do without getting those specifically the health professionals?
00;46;23;27 - 00;46;49;11
Unknown
I know there's other parts to rural Iowa, but the health I'm very worried about it. Well what we what we have done in the past that has worked well is to you know, use the visa programs and bring in doctors who've been trained here in the US and who, if they come and work here that we pay for their schooling.
00;46;49;13 - 00;47;18;15
Unknown
So and they have to work here x amount of years and in most cases they become established here in a part of the community and they don't leave after the whatever that number of years is, has, has been completed. And that program worked well. But now here we're in an environment of we're pulling people out for no reason for whatever other than skin color, as best I can see, and throwing them out of the country and, people are incensed about that.
00;47;19;00 - 00;47;38;19
Unknown
And, and little tiny towns in Iowa where I've met with people, they've said, these people are our neighbors. These people are good people who are helping us. They're good members of the community. They go to church. We like them. We don't always have the same language, but we treat each other with respect. And why are we doing this?
00;47;39;05 - 00;48;14;23
Unknown
And to me, when I look back at Iowa as a state, the only time the state grows is when we bring in different populations, immigrant populations, whether they come in as refugees or they come in to do farm labor. That's how the state grows. Because are they? I'll tell you story. Mike Franken was meeting with Bill Knapp, and I was lying to staff Mike at that meeting, and Bill was in the Navy.
00;48;14;25 - 00;48;36;13
Unknown
He went into the Navy at 17, into World War two. And Mike asked him why he signed up, and his answer was, I wanted to get away from those damn cows. Because I believe his family had a dairy farm. I think that's what he told us. And he just he didn't want to deal with cows anymore.
00;48;37;05 - 00;49;02;03
Unknown
That is not uncommon. There are generations of people who grow up on the farm. They know how to work. They know what the work is, but they don't want to do that work. They have other aspirations for themselves. So anyway, that's a long answer. But it was a great moment to hear him say that. Yeah, my insightful, my biological dad, my grandparents, all my aunts, uncles, they're all immigrants from the Philippines.
00;49;02;03 - 00;49;22;03
Unknown
My mom actually is from the US but grew up in the Philippines. And they came over and became an accountant, a doctor, a lawyer, you know, a oh, what's the other, a tech sale, like a he, he deals with tech and big companies. Yeah. And I would argue they're very productive, you know, parts of our community.
00;49;22;03 - 00;49;47;01
Unknown
I love that answer. Using, immigration and visas to get. Because there are super talented people in other countries that would love to live in Knoxville, Iowa. My my ObGyn, AG, my hand for my son in and the early 80s was, one of those people, one of those who was an immigrant who came in, went to school and and then to help deliver our son.
00;49;47;01 - 00;50;07;20
Unknown
Yeah. And so, it's and he was great to work with. So, I love that answer. And an interesting case study on this is, Art Collins book, Storm Lake. I haven't read it, but I have it on the shelf. I'm. I'm working through it right now, and and he just. He's such a good writer. Is he is he is in it.
00;50;07;20 - 00;50;37;11
Unknown
And he addresses that how immigration has has really, been a huge part of Storm Lake's success as a community. I to to me, the American dream, I was born in the US, so this goes against me. But the American dream, core value of it is immigration. Having people from other countries coming in. I'm not saying that if you were born here, you can have the American dream, but that's like the pinnacle is like finding a better life in the United States.
00;50;37;11 - 00;50;59;11
Unknown
And I just want to make sure that they actually and we can actually have a better life in the United States. And so I want to get to the last question, okay. This worries Ken tonight. We've talked about it many times. And I think most people listening I'm I bet you're in agreement where there's a lot of divisiveness, but I, I don't want to frame it where we just accused.
00;50;59;12 - 00;51;18;17
Unknown
It's just division. There's but I would say that there's a lot of top down division. So I'll, I'll just leave it at that. What would you do to help bring us back together? Not only do I want to have, lunch and dinner kindly with my uncle, which I totally can, I want to not avoid topics. I want to be able to talk.
00;51;18;24 - 00;51;37;12
Unknown
What would you do to help further bring us together in an area where we can fully be a community again, and not have to hide or not go to church with certain people or, you know, whatever it would be. Yeah. We have to think of that. First of all, scaling on something like that is a big challenge.
00;51;37;12 - 00;52;01;11
Unknown
But first, the first things first, as leaders always have to model that model the behavior that you want to see from other people. And I think in that regard here in the state, very well, let's let's just go to some legislative actions that have been taking place. They're trying to kill off our cities and our counties by the funding changes that they've made.
00;52;01;13 - 00;52;35;02
Unknown
And that is a tragedy. But it is also forcing some community collaboration amongst political parties because it affects everybody. When that funding doesn't come into their county or into their community and, and or into their school, I mean, all these things, they're really trying to consolidate power at the top. So the thing that I would want to focus on is rebuilding that strength out there across the state.
00;52;35;05 - 00;53;08;05
Unknown
And, another thing that I would I would want to do is to highly engage our community colleges, because I learned when I lived in Mason city, I started my own business because there weren't teaching jobs and ended up in being involved on several community boards and also church boards and I ended up on, the Council of Government Board, which is the counties that are inside of a community college district.
00;53;08;07 - 00;53;43;27
Unknown
They you're on this board and you work together. And that was, very interesting to me to see how the communities talked about shared challenges and problems on the on the board and how we could work together and how do we manage different things. So I really think the community colleges could be key to helping rebuild some of this and providing the baseline for where the home base is probably a better way to say it for how you do that.
00;53;44;04 - 00;54;22;10
Unknown
Wow. And so I just I have such respect for the work that they do. When I was working at Planned Parenthood, they collaborated with us on a nursing shortage, fund that we were trying to get created, which got created, but I don't think it ever got funded. I left Planned Parenthood shortly after that, but, the, I think I think that they there's so much leadership and influence that they hold at the community colleges that as collaborative partners, they have not been utilized well of late, in my opinion.
00;54;22;28 - 00;54;45;08
Unknown
So because it doesn't help consolidate at the top, you're saying. Correct. Well, it's, it's, it's and and there's, you know, there's I saw something not long ago about they're talking about next session making some cuts to community colleges. One person was talking about making cuts. Another person was talking about, increasing certain kinds of programs at the school, at the schools.
00;54;46;04 - 00;55;13;26
Unknown
I just, I just think a legislator throwing that out without actually having dialog with the community college presidents and learning about the different community college districts because they're quite different. You know, they they run different programs. So it's not like one program everywhere. Right. But anyway, those would be ways I would go about it. But it is a critical problem and it's it's one that we have to address as well.
00;55;13;26 - 00;55;42;06
Unknown
Although it's one of those doesn't come up when people are telling you about the problems, they come up with the concrete problems. So on my list, that's not in there so much. The other one in the list that's big, that I lump as poverty as the all the different factors people are, they're either worried for themselves or for their family or friends about losing their home, losing their health care, you know, and and the federal government is only making that worse right now.
00;55;42;08 - 00;56;22;13
Unknown
And so I'm constantly thinking about, okay, if they drop all this, how do we do it? Because the governor works for the people, and I intend to be that kind of governor. And if we're working for the people and people are can't get food and can't those become critical problems that we have to be solving right away. And it seems to me that solving the problem of let's take food as an example, food security, solving the problem of food security might be a way to help our farmers, might be a way to help others, you know, other businesses.
00;56;22;20 - 00;56;48;19
Unknown
And so, I don't know, the answers, but it just seems to me like there are opportunities. We just have to get the people around the table to have the conversations. Yeah, man, that is an incredible answer. And and, it reminds me of Abraham Lincoln, who had a butcher. No. Well, I'm gonna butcher this quote, but but he said, any man can prove himself going through a hard time to find out who he truly is, give him power.
00;56;48;21 - 00;57;10;22
Unknown
And a lot of times people get power. They start trying to get more. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Consolidating. And so you're one pledge I can make to Iowans and I. It's serious, but it's also humorous is I can guarantee you I will not be a career politician. Yeah. Because you look, it might feel like you. And you can see that guarantee by looking at my resume.
00;57;10;25 - 00;57;34;04
Unknown
I work on a project. Do what they want done, and I move on. Yeah, I got, you know, 40 years ago they would have thought I was a bad employee because of that. But now I have a business that that's what I do. I go help companies and organizations that are going through change or implementing something new, and they want they can't do it with their existing employees, but they don't want you to be permanent.
00;57;34;04 - 00;57;52;20
Unknown
So I pop in, figure out what has to be done, work with the leadership, help them do their job in communicating, and then go to work on the parts of it to make sure that the people understand why they needed to make these change and do it. So yeah, that is amazing. I mean, that's what I was meant to be fun.
00;57;52;20 - 00;58;18;18
Unknown
Yeah, it's and it's teaching. It is it's teaching how how is it teaching. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's just a different kind of the subject matter is different. I'm not teaching, you know, fourth grade math anymore. Instead, I'm teaching people. How do you make these changes? How do you transition and how do you do it for your organization. So in the case here is how do we do this for Iowa.
00;58;18;20 - 00;58;45;06
Unknown
Yeah. And then how do we break down all these pieces and get it to come together. So anyway wow it's a crazy big job. But I'm actually really excited and hopeful that the people of Iowa will want me to do that job, because I really want to work on these problems. I'm a geek. Yeah, yeah. No, it's I've had a wonderful, wonderful time with, you know, and we started trying to do these interviews.
00;58;45;06 - 00;59;06;08
Unknown
I, I was just worried that we were going to get, cold shoulders and, And you've been the opposite of that. Yeah. So we it's great. It's fun. I'm. I'm really grateful that you reached out and happy to have had the conversation with you guys today. So much for joining us. If people liked what you had to say, they want to keep in touch with what you have going on events that kind of stuff.
00;59;06;15 - 00;59;34;00
Unknown
Where would they do that? Oh, you're asking me a question. Okay. Julie Stout for all iowans.com is our website, and, you can find a lot of information there. The context information for how to email and, and, you know, particularly different people you want to email is in there. I mean, it's the it's the go to source for it.
00;59;35;02 - 00;59;56;23
Unknown
And I would say that's the best place. Okay. Awesome. And stout is spelled s t a u c h. Sounds like ouch, ouch ouch ouch. That's beautiful. That is truly from a fourth grade teacher. We were very grateful you would sit down with us. We're grateful to Smokey Row that they would give us a room to be able to do this.
00;59;56;23 - 01;00;17;03
Unknown
And we are grateful that you all would listen on these. Really? I mean, vital topics. We we either make these transitions well now or we will suffer and our children will suffer greatly on some of these, or we will lose some of the privileges that we currently have. So these are really important. Please be sitting down and talking with your friends and family.
01;00;17;04 - 01;01;00;24
Unknown
Please be kind and please do not troll people on the internet. That doesn't create any change. It won't, but the conversations are important. So thank you for listening. As you all know, conservation, transition and change all happen one mind at a time.
