Tom Vilsack Collection

When American voters think about rural America, they tend to be of a much more conservative mindset. But, for twelve years, and under two Democratic presidents; Barack Obama and Joe Biden we had Tom Vilsack. And yes, like the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General the Secretary of Agriculture is a VERY important part of our lives. Without the Secretary of Agriculture we would not be eating the crops we grow and the rural areas would not have the basic living of electricity, running water, and in a post COVID-19 world; access to high speed broadband Internet service.

Born in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania orphanage on December 13, 1950; Tom Vilsack was adopted on April 10, 1951 by Bud and Dolly Vilsack. His childhood would not be easy as his mother suffered from addictions to alcohol and prescription drugs which caused she and her husband to separate for a time. Tom would live with his father until, on Christmas Day 1963, Dolly Vilsack would make the decision to become sober.

Life in the 1960s was a middle-class one for the Vilsacks. Tom would attend a preparatory school, but there was a hardship on how his parents would pay for his college education. One day after school, Tom went to this club that his family was members of. He ordered his usual hamburger and Coca-Cola only to be told that he could no longer be served as his family was no longer members. Bud and Dolly Vilsack cancelled their membership to help pay for their son's higher education.

In the fall of 1968 the United States was in the middle of a presidential election and Tom Vilsack was starting his freshman year at Hamilton College. One day that fall, he saw a young lady named Christie Bell who was attending Kirkland College; the then sister school to Hamilton. The two schools shared a cafeteria. One day, Tom got the nerve to go up to this girl (Christie) and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Are you a Humphrey supporter or a Nixon supporter?" Christie responded by saying, "Humphrey, of course." That prompted Tom to say, "We can talk then."

Over the next four years the two dated. Tom would go home with Christie to visit her hometown of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It was at this time and this place that he learned about Midwest values and Democratic Party politics when he attended his first potluck supers with Christie and her family. By the time he was ready to graduate in 1972, Tom Vilsack was accepted to Albany Law School. He told his father the great news while his father lie in his sickbed. Tom was worried how they were going to pay for the tuition to which his father assured him that they would find a way. The next day, Bud Vilsack would pass away.

Tom Vilsack did attend law school, marrying Christie in August 1973, and earning his juris doctorate in 1975. After graduating, the Vilsacks moved back to Mount Pleasant where Tom would practice small town law in his father-in-law; Tom Bell, Sr.'s practice.
As a small town lawyer you are not just a legal counsel, but a tax preparer. Many was the time that during tax season that citizens from Mount Pleasant would come to Tom with grocery bags filled with that year's receipts reminding him to make sure that he gets them a nice refund.

With this status in a small town in the Midwest comes a civic duty. Tom Vilsack would take to the local radio airwaves and raise the public funds needed by having a radiothon to build a new sports complex to which he said that he was the "Jerry Lewis of Mount Pleasant for a few days." After that, he would get involved in the local Chamber of Commerce as well as the United Way, and in 1988, both Tom and Christie would volunteer in the 1988 Presidential Campaign for Delaware Senator Joe Biden.

In December 1986, while at a council meeting a disgruntled citizen of Mount Pleasant gunned down Mayor Edward King. Tom worked to raise money for a memorial fountain and as a result, the father of the deceased mayor asked him to run for mayor. He would serve from 1987 until 1992; with one of those elections he won being a write in victory.

In 1992, Tom Vilsack was elected to the State Senate representing Iowa's 49th District. As a member of the State Senate Vilsack would support legislation like when a company in Iowa received state tax incentives they had to provide better pay and benefits to their employees. In addition, he supported legislation that helped workers keep their health coverage when they changed jobs as well as having the state of Iowa assume a 50 percent share of the local county mental health costs. He would also support legislation to protect animal agricultural producers.

By 1996, Tom Vilsack thought that he had had enough of politics. His two sons; Jess and Doug were getting older and he felt that he was missing the best part of their lives. It was the day of Jess' high school graduation that Vilsack's brother-in-law; Tom Bell, Jr., (a counterpart serving as counsel on the Watergate Committee with Hillary Rodham) who convinced him to continue in politics. That same day, while riding his bicycle, Tom Bell, Jr. would die of a heart attack.

So in 1998 Tom Vilsack set out for his next elective office, Governor. He was not expected to do well in the Democratic Party Primary against Mark McCormick, but Tom rallied and ended up winning the Democratic Primary by approximately 3,100 votes or 51.20 percent of the vote. The same was expected in the General Election against Jim Ross Lightfoot, but with the help of Senator Paul Wellstone, DFL-MN and United States First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; Tom Vilsack won the General Election by just under 55,500 votes, or 52.30 percent of the vote. He would become the first Democrat elected governor of Iowa since 1966, and only the fifth Democrat elected governor of Iowa in the 20th Century. He would be re-elected governor in 2002; one of only two Democrats in that Midterm Election Cycle that saw a red wave. The other was California Governor Gray Davis, but he would be recalled in November 2003.

In Vilsack's second term as governor, he would see programs come about like Grow Iowa Values Fund, which was a $503 million appropriation that would be used to boost the economy of Iowa by providing corporations grants as well as incentives that were pledged to create higher paying jobs. He would veto portions of the bill that cut income taxes and eased business regulations.

In 2005, one of the things that Tom Vilsack did by executive order was to allow for felons to be able to regain their voting franchise in Iowa. In a statement on this, the governor said, "When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged in society." Prior to his action, when a recent felon wanted to regain their voter franchise they would have to petition the governor for the process to begin and that could take up to six months to get the right to vote back. But, because of the actions taken by Governor Vilsack, there have been approximately 115,000 former felons in Iowa who have regained their right to vote.

Nationally, it was believed that in the Presidential Election of 2004, Tom Vilsack could be Senator John Kerry's running mate or a member of the Cabinet. He, along with Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina did make the Vice Presidential Shortlist. In the end, it was Senator Edwards whom Senator Kerry chose, and they would go down in defeat in November to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

With 2006 promising to be a blue wave year for the Democratic Party, Tom Vilsack knew that he was not going to seek a third term as governor. He created a PAC called Heartland PAC to go around the Midwest to get Democrats elected at all levels of government, including Ohio and his adopted home state of Iowa. Both states did go blue that year electing such people as Ted Strickland as Ohio's governor, Sherrod Brown as Ohio's new senator, and Betty Sutton to the US House of Representatives to succeed Sherrod Brown in the 13th Congressional District. But for Tom Vilsack, the bright spot that Election Night in 2006 was that his successor would be a Democrat named Chet Culver. That gave the outgoing governor the springboard that he needed to launch a campaign to seek the Democratic Nomination for President in 2008.

On November 30, 2006, Tom Vilsack made it official by announcing his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Gathered in a high school gymnasium in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Tom Vilsack would introduce himself to the American people outside of the state of Iowa. Remember, like Bill Clinton in 1991, Tom Vilsack was a relatively unknown. He would later be joined in the campaign by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden; all of whom would serve together in the Obama/Biden administration.

Because of the competition between two high profile Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Vilsack knew that he would not get the backing of a Bill Clinton, even though he supported his running and he was not going to get the big money Democrats to get behind him. As he would say, "I may not be a rock star, but I am rock solid." So he would depend heavily on social media like My Space, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. At the time there was a site called Talk Shoe, (a play on Ed Sullivan's pronunciation of the word "show") where he would do one 15 minute interview on January 27, 2007. He would come back on August 12, 2008 as a surrogate for the Obama campaign to take questions from callers for 30 minutes.

But, despite not being a rock star, but rock solid on the issues and competing against such heavyweights like Clinton and Obama, Tom Vilsack could not raise the money needed to run a successful campaign. He would end his campaign on February 23, 2007 and endorse Hillary Clinton in April. His thank you conference call to thank supporters and was heartfelt. For a Friday night, supporters stayed on the call for more than an hour listening and just talking to him. It was like a virtual Midwest reunion of sorts.

After Clinton suspended her campaign in June 2008, Vilsack went to work as a surrogate for Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency.

After the 2008 Election, Tom Vilsack was considered by the experts to go back to private life and continue in his Minnesota based law firm; Dorsey and Whitney where he was practicing law with another politician named Walter Mondale. But, during the transition, President-Elect Obama named Tom Vilsack to be his secretary of agriculture in the new term. He would be confirmed unanimously by the US Senate on January 20, 2009 becoming the 30th Secretary of Agriculture.

In his tenure for eight years as Barack Obama's secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack worked with little media notice on issues like H1N1, school lunches, healthy foods for our children through the First Lady's cause of combating childhood obesity, climate change, and access to broadband into rural America. But he was not without his controversies. In 2010, a video had surfaced of an African-American USDA worker who appeared to make some rather racial remarks some years earlier. The video that surfaced was taken out of context and Shirley Sherrod was fired by Secretary Vilsack. After learning all of the facts and receiving flax from the African-American community and the White House Chief of Staff, Vilsack held a press conference admitting his mistake. He did offer Sherrod a job at USDA months later but she declined to accept it. He resigned on January 13, 2017, one week before the President's second term was over.

During the 2016 Presidential Election, Tom Vilsack once again endorsed Hillary Clinton to be the next Democratic Presidential Nominee and the next president of the United States. And just like in 2004 when he was on Senator Kerry's shortlist for vice president, Secretary Vilsack made the shortlist in 2016. It came down to Senator Tim Kaine, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Then it was whittled down to Kaine and Vilsack. But in the end, Secretary Clinton chose Senator Kaine as her running mate. Tom Vilsack would get a seat of honor at the Democratic National Convention where he sat next to Bill Clinton in the spectators' box.

After his tenure in the Obama administration, Tom Vilsack went to work as president and CEO of the US Dairy Council. He was also the only member of the Obama Cabinet to publicly endorse his successor in the Donald Trump administration, Sonny Purdue. There was talk of running for the US Senate in the state of Iowa in 2020, but Vilsack declined. He would also go back to his roots of presidential support and endorse Joe Biden in the Democratic Presidential Primaries.

Because COVID-19 was raging in 2020, President-Elect Biden called on his old colleague from the Obama administration to come and work for him. In December, Joe Biden named Tom Vilsack to be the 32nd Secretary of Agriculture. He would again be unanimously approved by the US Senate in February 2021 and sworn into office the next day by Vice President Kamala Harris.
in his second tenure, Secretary Vilsack worked with the administration to help rural communities during COVID. He again focused on climate change and how it affected the food supply. Family farms during the Russia and Ukraine War were a focus, and the signature plan of the administration to improve infrastructure and broadband in rural America were a focus.

But despite the important work he does, Tom Vilsack will make himself available to the people. If someone has a birthday or an anniversary; he is there sending a note of congratulations. If someone expires, he will send a condolence. And if you're visiting Washington, DC, you just might get to visit him at the USDA.

It seems as though Americans have a warped idea of what the USDA does. We think of Green Acres where they get regular pamphlets from the USDA on proper ways of farming. Or we think of farmers as illiterate old codgers like the Real McCoys. And many Americans think that it is only the Republican Party who has a monopoly on rural America.

This collection is meant for that rural American, to see that for 12 out of the past 16 years they had and have an innovator at the USDA working for them.

See Also…

• Vice President Recordings
• Calvin Coolidge Recordings
• Harry S Truman Recordings
• Richard Nixon Recordings
• Lyndon B. Johnson Recordings
• Hubert Humphrey Recordings
• Gerald Ford Recordings
• Walter Mondale Recordings
• George H.W. Bush Recordings
• Al Gore Recordings
• Joseph Biden Recordings
• Kamala Harris Recordings
• Robert F. Kennedy Recordings
• Henry Kissinger Recordings
• Colin Powell Recordings
• Hillary Rodham Clinton Collection
• John Kerry Recordings
• Presidential Election 2004
• Presidential Election 2008
• Presidential Election 2012
• Presidential Election 2016