Senator Charles Grassley now has a democrat opponent — and it looks like a “David versus Goliath” contest this fall. Grassley has almost five-and-a-half million dollars raised for his reelection campaign. Art Small, the democrat who filed the necessary papers to put his name on the ballot, doesn’t even have five dollars. Small says he’s gotten two 50-dollar checks and a woman in Davenport gave him three dollars, but he spent one-hundred-nine dollars on a hotel room in Des Moines for tonight, so he’s “at zero right now.” Small grew up in Maine and has lived in Iowa since 1959. He lives in Iowa City today. Small has been a college professor, a lawyer and a small business owner. He was a state legislator from 1970 to 1986, and reluctantly throws his hat in the ring for the U.S. Senate. Nevertheless, he’s promising to run as aggressive a campaign as he can. Small says he’s 70, as is Grassley. But Grassley’s about a month older, and Small says he’ll ask Iowans to “give the younger man a chance.” Small says he “expected and hoped that some other better-known and better-funded candidate would have stepped forward.” Since no one did, Small says he did. Small acknowledges not many Iowans know him, but he promises to run as aggressive a campaign as he can. Small says he and Grassley “are as different as night and day.” Small says his biggest campaign issue will be economics. Small says the national debt and the federal budget deficit will have to be paid off by his children and grandchild and is a “monstrous thing hanging over our society.” Ironically, Small and Grassley knew one another when they served in the Iowa Legislature together. Small says he’s not running because he holds any “animus towards Charles Grassley.” Small says Grassley’s a “reasonable and amiable person” and Small promises not to accuse Grassley of being a “scoundrel” and Small doesn’t expect Grassley to cast him as a scoundrel either, but Small says with that much campaign money in Grassley’s war chest “who knows?” .
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