MASON CITY —
A day after ending his nearly year-long bid for the U.S. Senate in Iowa Nathan Sage Monday endorsed his former Democratic primary rival Josh Turek in an impassioned speech in Mason City in which Sage relentlessly lambasted Zach Wahls, often in strikingly personal terms trained at the state senator’s character.
Turek and Wahls, both state legislators, remain the two strongest candidates in polling for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by two-term Republican Joni Ernst.
“My interactions with people, what they don’t understand is I read people very, very well,” Sage said. “I’m very good at understanding when people are actually sincere, when they’re fake, when they are lying to me and when they don’t give a shit. I’ll just be blunt honest with you: Zach Wahls does not give a shit. He is a artificial, fake politician that wants the next notch in his belt to be able to follow his career path of being in Washington. He cares about that. I am not going to beat around the bush about that. Josh Turek, on the other hand, was a human being to me.”
Sage, a former Knoxville economic-development leader from Indianola who served in both the U.S. Army and Marines, endorsed Turek, a Democratic legislator from Council Bluffs, earlier in the day and then traveled to his hometown of Mason City to deliver the speech. About 100 people, including many of Sage’s friends and former educators, attended his Turek endorsement event at the Mason City Public Library, which also featured State Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque, a candidate for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District seat now occupied by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa.
James, a Presbyterian pastor and four-term legislator, described Turek as “such an impressive human.”
Sage joins State Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, in endorsing Turek for the U.S. Senate. Scholten had mounted a bid for the federal office as well but left the race and backed Turek when the latter announced.
Sage, who spotlighted his hardscrabble, working-class credentials in the campaign, said he sees a fellow traveler in Turek, who also talks about growing up with economic challenges in Council Bluffs as well as medical and disability obstacles as Turek was born with spina bifida and had 21 surgeries by age 12.
“This guy has heart, he has fight, he’s not scared to get down on your level and get there,” Sage said of Turek.
Sage said he spoke with both Turek and Wahls, a state senator from Coralville, before determining the endorsement. Turek met with Sage one on one in a recent two-hour conversation above the Iowa State Capitol dome after the two had navigated stairs to get there.
“I didn’t even know you could get to the top of the capitol,” Sage said.
Turek, a two-time gold-medal winner in Paralympics basketball for the United States, is Iowa’s first permanently and visibly disabled legislator. Turek uses a non-motorized wheelchair.
“He didn’t blink an eye,” Sage said of his trek with Turek to the dome. “He took his wheelchair, put it to the side, and he climbed on his hands, spiral staircases. I don’t even know how far that is.”
Most people have struggled in their lives, and Turek understands that journey, Sage said.
“I truly believe the only way we can ever get this country back to where it needs to be is people need to know what that is like — what it’s like when you don’t have food on your table, what it’s like when you can’t put gas in your car, when you’re standing at the register and you’re hoping that it says ‘accepted,’” Sage said. “That’s the world for a lot of people in this room, a lot of people in the state and a lot of people in the country and Josh Turek gets it.”
“He’s been fighting his whole life just like I have been fighting so when it came to endorsing Josh, it was like hell, yes,” Sage added.
Sage said Wahls is guilty of what journalist Mark Leibovich terms the “DC scalp stare.” That’s when people at parties and other social events in the nation’s capital look over the heads of those with whom they are talking to see if more important people are approaching.
“Zach will look at you, look past you,” Sage said. “He doesn’t look at you in the eyes.”
As of press time Wahls had not responded to a request by The Iowa Mercury for comment on Sage’s endorsement of Turek. Wahls did issue a glowing statement about Sage Sunday.
“Nathan Sage’s relentless focus on working class Iowans, his courage to speak truth to power and challenge the broken status quo are much needed in our politics and in our party. I’m grateful he stepped up for Iowa.,” Wahls said in the statement Sunday afternoon posted on social media.
Sage did not indicate any future career or political plans.
“I’ve been lighting a fire in people for a long time,” Sage said. “Saying good-bye is probably the hardest thing.”
About The Iowa Mercury
(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )
