Nathan Sage for the U.S. Senate; A Different Kind of Democrat
with Liberty and Justice for ALL...
(Note: Nathan will be joining Spencer Dirks and me on our Iowa Revolution/Deep Midwest Substack Live event, today, April 16, at noon. If you are subscribed you will get a notification when we go live. Please share widely).
This past December I received an email from people who helped run Dan Osborn’s Independent campaign for Senate in Nebraska, asking if they could meet with me as soon as possible. Osborn, a politically inexperienced, ex-military, blue-collar worker and union organizer came within seven points of beating incumbent Republican Deb Fischer in 2024. My son Asa was home for the holidays, and I showed him the email, and he was intrigued by it. Asa follows politics closely, maybe in part because he’s been going with me to political events and meeting with presidential, state, and local candidates since he was a toddler. I remember that in Pella, on July 4, 2007, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was in town he held Asa’s little hand.
I had no idea why the Osborn people wanted to meet with me, but to my memory, I emailed them back saying that I would meet with them, but I wouldn’t drive to Omaha where they were based. Most big city people want us rural people to drive to them, and I was having none of that. They emailed me back that they were leaving Muscatine on their way to Des Moines, and I could choose where we would meet. I told them to meet us at Smokey Row in Pella since I had another meeting there that day, and we met with them maybe an hour and a half or so later.
I knew that the Osborn people must have had a big ask for me because they were going to a lot of work to talk to an old retired radio guy. They did.
They arrived, settled into our booth, and made their ask. Did I know someone who was a registered Independent, ex-military, and blue-collar to run as an Independent against Republican incumbent Joni Ernst? Asa and I looked at each other and started thinking about people we knew.
It might have taken 15 minutes or so, but when I landed on the name of one friend, I knew he had the background and values needed to be a viable candidate to challenge Ernst--I just didn’t know if he was Independent. The Osborn people looked at voter registration information on their computer, and it turns out he was. But not for long.
Nathan Sage is a Marine and a soldier who served three deployments to Iraq; two for the Marines and one for the Army. He served our country in combat as a mechanic and wants to continue to serve in the Senate. He grew up in a trailer park in Mason City in the shadow of a meat processing plant, where one of his nephews works today. Nathan knows what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck year after year. As a teen, he worked at Walmart, and one day the manager gathered all of the employees together, told them that she had rumors of employees talking about organizing, and warned them not to do it. He didn’t understand what it meant then, but he does now.
Nathan also worked on a manufacturing plant floor as a young man, among other jobs. After getting out of the military, he went to Kansas State University on the G.I. Bill and graduated with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Leadership.
Nathan’s mom worked at a daycare, and his dad worked at a tire factory. Every day, Nathan’s dad came home caked in rubber particles, and both died from cancer way too young. You can find more about Nathan’s bio and campaign here.
A couple of days later we met with Nathan and the Osborn team. Asa and I arrived at the meeting early. We hadn’t prepped Nathan because we wanted everyone to see how he responded without preparation. Nathan was surprised at the nature of the meeting but answered their questions honestly and authentically. That’s Nathan.
As the meeting drew to a close, our guests looked at Asa and asked him what he thought.
“You got your guy,” he said.
Nathan decided to run for the Senate initially as an independent, but now as a Democrat. He changed his voter registration last week on Friday.
How did I meet Nathan and how do I know he’s a great candidate to run for Senate and help get our nation back on track? How do I know that his values will serve us well?
Nathan’s love of journalism and broadcasting brought him to KNIA/KRLS Radio in Knoxville/Pella/Indianola where I supervised the news team. Nathan started at the bottom at the radio station as the overnight announcer. Soon there was an opening in news.
Doing reporting for a radio station in a small town is a tough job. City Council, Board of Supervisors, and School Board meetings. A couple of meetings at night nearly every week. Unlike big city reporters, we cover EVERYTHING---house fires, car wrecks, anhydrous leaks, farm accidents, murders, sex crimes, drownings, criminal and civil crimes, interviews with politicians running for president, the Iowa Legislature, and local offices. The work is never done, and it never feels like you are doing a good enough job. And sometimes when you do radio if you are dumb enough to say you like sports, you have to call games too, and as a result, your personal life suffers, and you are endlessly near exhaustion. It’s a recipe for failure.
Reporters in what is called heritage radio have to do five news stories a day, with two soundbites (we call them actualities), and a 5-7 minute interview. That’s not a goal. It’s a mandate. Don’t do it and you’re soon looking for other work. If none of this seems fair, I didn’t make the rules.
In working at KNIA/KRLS, I have been through so many reporters who understandably couldn’t handle this level of work and pressure, that I was always skeptical if anyone we interviewed for the job could do it. It was important for me to be honest about what the applicants were getting into and not give them false expectations.
As I laid out the requirements of the job to Nathan, he said, “You don’t believe I can do this, do you?” I replied that I was never certain anyone could do it, given the challenges. He said, “Well, in a few months we’re going to sit right here where we are now and you’re going to tell me you were wrong. I’m going to prove you wrong.”
He did.
Nathan excelled and handled every challenge that came at him. When you are a small-town reporter, and if you are a good one, you see people at their very best and their very worst. You see their struggles and feel their pain. And if you are lucky and work hard at it, you earn their trust. Nathan did.
And when Nathan decided that he wanted to go over to the dark side--into sales, I called him a dumbass. Despite the difficulties of the reporting job, I thought, why anyone would want to go into sales when they could be in news was beyond me. But Nathan excelled at sales. He did more than sales. He did marketing. He loved helping small businesses grow as part of their team. He moved to Indianola and became market director for the station in Warren County.
He then parlayed his love of helping small businesses into his current position as Executive Director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce.
Nathan’s not a typical candidate. Some might understandably wonder why he didn’t “pay his dues,” and go the more traditional route of first running for lower office, perhaps with a run for city council, the Iowa Legislature, or whatever.
In living his life, Nathan has paid his dues, many times over.
Iowans don’t want or need a typical candidate. They want someone with a blue-collar background who will fight for us and win. They want candidates with honesty and integrity who know where and how we live and what we go through every day. Nathan Sage is that candidate.
Have you ever lived paycheck to paycheck, pounded a bazillion nails, busted your knuckles day in and day out turning wrenches, waited tables until you dropped, stacked shelves until you can’t raise your arms anymore, or had a bad back and carpal tunnel syndrome from being chained to a keyboard all day? Do you have bad knees from years spent working on factory floors? Have you ever replaced the tires on your car two at a time because you can’t really afford one new tire let alone four? Have you ever had bosses treat you like dirt, no matter how hard you worked? Do you appreciate the protections unions gave us, like the 40-hour work week and child labor laws? Have you ever had insurance companies screw you over? Get into a fender bender and they give you pennies on the dollar for your vehicle? Ever missed a car payment? Two? Or three? Do you know anyone who was denied medical coverage by their insurance company? Know anyone who went broke from medical debt? Have you ever had to argue over a hospital bill? Do you like that insurance companies decide who gets medical claims paid for and who doesn’t using algorithms? Do you like the fact that people suffer and die because the health insurance algorithms put profit over human lives so the CEOs can pile their stacks of money as high and wide as they can?
Do you want to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Our public schools and libraries? Our history? Women’s voting rights and bodily autonomy? Do you want a secure border and an efficient and humane path for immigrants our economy needs? Do you think that everyone who works full time should be able to have a home and feed their family? Do you think we should feed hungry school kids or should they be told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Do you think college, trade schools, and work-based certifications should be affordable for all? Do you think members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks?
Are you tired of the plantation-based strategy the billionaire class uses to get poor people of different races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, and identities to fight each other while they laugh at us and pick our pockets?
Do you think America shouldn’t be ruled by a king?
If so, Nathan Sage is the candidate for you. For us. For all Iowans, and all Americans. Nathan’s not a slick politician. He’s rough around the edges, will make mistakes, and unlike most politicians who think they are better than us, he won’t pretend to know everything and blow smoke at us. Nathan tells me when he starts building policy ideas for the campaign and in the Senate, working people will be at the decision-making table whenever a CEO or lobbyist is.
Nathan doesn’t have all the answers and wants to listen to you. To hear you, and your vision for America.
The vast majority of Iowans share the same values. Work to the best of your abilities to improve your life and community, be kind, help your neighbors when they need it, and have the freedom to live as you see fit as you build a safe and comfortable life for your family where you can put your feet up after a long day at work and sit on the couch or your favorite chair and maybe watch some TV or read among your loved ones without worrying about how you are going to pay the bills.
That’s the American dream.
The American reality is that the majority of us have to claw and scratch our way to provide for our families day by day, week by week, year after year, only to have a medical emergency strike -- and it’s all gone. And night after night we wake up in the middle of the night from worry. For some of us, the American dream is a nightmare.
The billionaires broke America. Let’s send Nathan Sage and others like him who share our values and life experience to Washington, D.C. to fix it.
I doubted Nathan Sage once before. I never will again.
Learn more about Nathan here. This election can’t be won without money. Sadly, it’s going to take gobs of money. If you can afford it, please contribute to his campaign here, and consider a recurring donation. If you can’t, Nathan understands. He knows that most of us are broke, nearly broke, or one medical emergency away from it, which is exactly where elected Republicans and the billionaire class want us to be.
He and his family are right there, along with most of the rest of us.
Money or not, we hope you’ll join the Sage for Senate campaign by clicking here. Along with donations, the campaign needs volunteers to help in many ways. We would love to have you put your talents to work to help Nathan beat Joni Ernst.
And FYI, I’m not being paid by his campaign and never will be. I’m just doing what’s right to help make the world a better place and fight fascism.
Let’s do it together by supporting Nathan. Please click here.
If you want to connect on social media, here are the links:
https://www.instagram.com/sageforiowa/
https://www.tiktok.com/@sageforiowa?lang=en
https://bsky.app/profile/sageforiowa.bsky.social
https://www.facebook.com/sageforsenate/
Please consider sharing this post, and upgrading to a paid subscriber if you can afford it.
My content will always be free, as for over 60 years the words of Simon and Garfunkle in their 1964 song, “The Sound of Silence” have influenced me, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls,” and I’m not going to paywall them out should they be interested in my writing. My favorite version is by “Disturbed.”
I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled The Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun! I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.
Here is the Zoom link for this month’s Office Lounge for paid subscribers. It’s always held on the last Friday of the month at noon, except for November and December.
I probably don't need to keep saying this but... Bob always seems to be right where the universe needs him to be!
I appreciate all your writing, but this one struck home at a level I wasn't anticipating. Thank you.