On October 28, with less than a week before the midterm elections, MAHA PAC hosted a high-energy event in Iowa to support MAHA candidate for governor, Zach Lahn. The speaker lineup included many farming and food-health voices who have united behind MAHA PAC’s first official candidate, including special guest Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In an interview, Lahn told The MAHA Report that after meeting with Kennedy and Joel Salatin, he decided to launch his bid for Iowa’s next governor. Thereafter, he built his campaign platform around MAHA policies, he said, promising to protect Iowans’ water supplies and help farmers use fewer chemical inputs.
This was an aggressive gambit for a Republican in Iowa, the nation’s largest corn producer and second-largest soy producer. But this also made the alliance between MAHA and Lahn a natural fit.
Opening Wednesday night’s standing-room-only rally, MAHA PAC President Tony Lyons shared how and why Lahn became an early, strong MAHA candidate. “If there was any candidate who could be a MAHA candidate, it had to be Zach Lahn,” he proclaimed.
“With a candidate like Zach Lahn, we can see change for Iowans such as we are seeing at the federal level. He wants to help rebuild the whole state of Iowa,” said Lyons. “He will win now because Iowans recognize the real thing when they see it…. This is the moment when we can do the right thing, and rebuild the state of Iowa and the whole country!”
Hours before the event, energy and excitement were high. The food was apropos: Lahn donor and MAHA ally Steak ‘n Shake provided a robust supply of beef tallow French fries and grass-finished burgers. And the first 100 attendees received a complimentary copy of Pete Evans’ The MAHA Cookbook, while others donned various MAHA hats (often stacked atop a MAGA or other hat). Raw chocolate milk was free, as were samplings of pork and beef bacon and other meaty treats. MAHA T-shirts, hats, and buttons intermingled with Lahn slogans on shirts and jackets. American flags and Christian symbolism were prominent.
Following Lyons, Florida Surgeon General Joe Ladapo took the stage to proclaim that he and his family are ‘all in’ on the MAHA mission. “We need leaders like Zach Lahn who will restore our connection to our birthright, an agenda for better health…. It’s important to vote for people who care about you and have your back. Let’s support Zach Lahn and every candidate out there who will stand for MAHA and your family’s health!”
Next up was Iowa House District 43 candidate Nicole Hasso, a particular firebrand who exhorted her fellow Iowans: “Why are we here? Because we want clean water, because we want Iowa first, and because we declare war on cancer.” Hasso thanked Kennedy for “bringing MAHA to Iowa,” and elicited loud cheers when she shouted, “Our state is at a crossroads. I don’t want them to Minnesota my Iowa!” Referring to Lahn’s Democratic Party opponent, Rob Sand, she said she has knocked on thousands of doors, and one message she has received repeatedly is that Lahn must “Go Pound Sand!”
During her turn at center stage, Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt shared how she had lost many family members because of unhealthy food, including her son Ben. Zen explained that Iowa exports most of its agricultural production for livestock feed or other products, echoing Lahn’s proposal to one day source 80% of Iowans’ food from within the state. “Iowa grown, for our own,” she chanted, as the crowd enthusiastically joined in. “I’m here today for the man who puts Iowa first, and it is Zach Lahn…. Be responsible for health and freedom, and vote for Zach Lahn today!”
Iowans also spoke, including congressional candidate Joe Mitchell, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Iowa House District 40 candidate Bill Gustoff. The effect was to meld national and local MAHA passions behind Lahn, and build toward the night’s big names.
Many Iowans clearly savor their national leadership on MAHA issues. MAHA PAC arranged a bus to transport 59 supporters from Cedar Rapids, over 120 miles away. Following the event, chiropractors Dr. Janet Cuhel and Dr. Gene Cretsinger gushed about the intense enthusiasm they experienced at the event, writing, “We feel this will be part of history. The MAHA support and endorsement makes me proud to be an Iowan. We also want to thank MAHA for getting a bus for the event.”
Another speaker, Calley Means, was infused with the spirited zeal of the occasion. He asked the audience: “Why are Iowan kids so sick? Why are China and hedge funds buying up Iowa farmland?” Means labeled Lahn an “insurgent candidate” who focuses on human health, challenging Iowans to choose between the status quo and visionary, bipartisan solutions. “Bobby Kennedy is the most fearless man I have ever met,” Means said. “We must put people like Bobby and Zach Lahn in power… The reason we have these crises is because of corruption, and there are so few leaders like Zach who speak the truth.”
Self-styled ‘lunatic farmer’ Joel Salatin took the food-sovereignty theme to new heights during his remarks. Salatin shared how decades of regulatory capture by industry lobbyists has destroyed farmers’ freedom to grow and sell the food most Americans consume: prepared foods. If farmers could bake and sell chicken pot pies, he said, they would make far more money than selling the chickens used to make them. Salatin then warned that half of all American farmland will be transferred in the next 15 years, so the nation needs a new generation of land lovers:
“We call them ‘land masseuses,’ to massage our landscape instead of exploit it, to come to it as nurturers rather than conquistadors, and to view themselves as part of a healthy food system, to bring healthy food to Americans, to bring health back to Americans, and choice back to our food system. The man to do that is Zach Lahn!”
The stage was set for Lahn to share his vision for a healthier Iowa. Lahn’s full speech covered a broad range of issues and was published in full here at The MAHA Report. His campaign has centered on MAHA policies that support regenerative agriculture to reduce water pollution, rebuild soils, and provide nutritious, Iowa-grown food in school lunches.
Iowa has some of the highest cancer rates in the nation. Lahn has advocated for reducing nitrate and other contaminant levels in Iowans’ drinking water, much as Kennedy years ago fought to clean up the Hudson River. Lahn acknowledged the two men’s shared passion, telling the Iowa rally crowd:
“One of the reasons I got into this race, one of the primary reasons, was because I believed in what Bobby Kennedy [Jr.] said. He said: we’re gonna make real progress on these issues when we decide that ‘we love our children more than we hate each other.’ This man has been an inspiration to our country. And I will tell you, the entire country owes his family a debt of gratitude.”
Kennedy joined Zach on stage. Known for his passionate impromptu speeches, he began by recounting his decades-long battle to stop pollution of the Hudson River, during which he learned of laws prohibiting unauthorized discharges into waterways. He explained the ancient legal foundations of the idea of a ‘public trust’ in which the air, water, and wildlife “belong to all the people. Everybody has a right to use them.” Applying this ethic in the MAHA movement, he argued that “Every child in this state has the right to drink water without the fear that they’re gonna get cancer, to breathe air without getting asthma.”
Kennedy next tied this idea of public rights to America’s historical identity as a nation defined by wilderness and wild landscapes, citing famous American thinkers, writers, and painters who helped shape the nation’s self-image around a connection to grasslands, mountains, and prairies. As humans, Kennedy said, “our connection to nature is the closest connection that we have to God… These landscapes connect us to everything that is important.” He then recounted pivotal wilderness episodes in the lives of great spiritual leaders (including Moses, Mohammed, and Buddha), noting that “Almost all of Christ’s parables come from the farm.”
Having developed his theme of the connection between farming, food, and human health, Kennedy expressed his conviction that “it is a sin to poison our children.” He closed with this MAHA message:
“We have to think of a way to grow food without poisoning our kids, without giving ourselves cancer, without destroying the soils that enrich us and enrich our microbiome and connect our brain with all our organs and make us healthy, robust, and vibrant people. And we need somebody who is really smart, who understands these issues… And I can think of the most important ones, and it’s the person we’re here tonight to support.”
These words neatly tied together the night’s themes. The audience’s intense passion inspired the many speakers, who in turn rallied the crowd to cheers, clapping, and several standing ovations. Lahn was visibly energized, pausing at one point to observe, “I can feel the movement. Can you feel the movement? I can feel it … One of my goals for the state of Iowa is to make Iowa the real food capital of the country.”
In just four days, Iowans will vote for their future – for all of ours.
For information on voting click below
Mr. Klar - National Review wrote about Lahn and maha yesterday. Have a look at the comments (all from paid subscribers). Diehard magas, never-trumpers, and in-betweens (almost) all agree about Lahn and Bobby and his "movement."
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/zach-lahn-tries-to-blend-maha-and-conservatism/
Howdy all Iowans, get ye to the polls and vote for Lahn please! Thank you! :)