DES MOINES — Local representatives of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) said Saturday’s public forum, attended by seven of the nine Democratic candidates seeking the presidency, shed light on issues that will be critical in the upcoming election

Deb Duncan, president of AFSCME Council 6 Local 870 and custodian for the ISU Department of Residence, said Saturday the forum served an important function in determining which candidate union members will support.

Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York attended the largest public meeting of presidential candidates this year at the Polk County Convention Center.

“I hadn’t heard a lot about the candidates, and I think this helps in the decision-making process,” Duncan said. She said she was impressed with the overall unity of the candidates and is not yet in favor of one individual.

“We are not running against each other,” Graham said Saturday. “We are committed to one goal: to save the American people from another four years of this administration.”

More than 1,000 representatives of AFSCME, which has forceful political leverage in Iowa, attended the forum.

“There were so many of [the candidates] that support our issues — working people. It will be a hard decision to make,” said Duncan, who has worked as a custodian of Platt and Lancaster House of Willow Hall for 13 years. “We do have to have someone that’s electable.”

The seven candidates wrestled with issues surrounding tax-cut rollbacks and health care issues, while blasting President George Bush’s recent actions throughout the three-hour public forum.

Duncan said Kucinich was especially strong throughout the forum.

“Tell me, Mr. Bush, where are those weapons of mass destruction?” Kucinich said. “I’ll tell you where they are. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Hopelessness is a weapon of mass destruction.”

The candidates differentiated themselves from each other on the degree they plan to rescind Bush’s tax cuts and their vision of a universal health care system.

Gephardt said he would require all employers, including the state and local government, to provide health insurance to all of their employees, regardless of whether they were full or part-time.

“This issue is the moral issue of our time,” Gephardt said. “Companies like Wal-Mart have been dropping people to part-time so they don’t have to pay health insurance.”

He said his plan would reimburse all employers with a tax credit equaling 60 percent of their cost for health care.

Dean, a former physician, said his plan would increase state-administered children’s health insurance programs and create new programs for adults, mirroring those offered to federal employees now.

“My plan covers every single American,” Dean said.

Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton all said they plan to implement a single-payer health insurance plan that would be administered by the government.

“I don’t think the American people right now believe there is a plan that can actually get this done, but we have to get it done,” she said. “The only way we’re going to address payment issues is to have a universal system.”

She said health insurance must be controlled by the government, rather than by employers.

Edwards and Graham took a different route than their fellow Democrats on solving the health care dilemma. The two maintained that an incremental expansion of existing programs would eventually provide insurance coverage for all Americans.

“We have to do something about the cost of health care in America,” Edwards said.

Gephardt, Kucinich and Moseley Braun said they believe tax cuts should be rolled back to their levels prior to the 2001 Bush tax cuts.

“The tax cuts were an absolute travesty and must be rolled back,” Moseley Braun said. “Not even the wealthy are doing very well with this leadership. These people have got economics all backwards.”

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut were the only two of nine Democratic candidates who did not attend the public forum.

Lieberman was observing the Jewish Sabbath and did not attend. AFSCME representatives watched a prerecorded interview with Lieberman following the public forum.

Kerry was delivering a graduation speech in New Hampshire and took questions from AFSCME representatives by satellite later Saturday afternoon.

Duncan said she is confident there will be a Democratic candidate who can defeat Bush in 2004.

“I think we can build the Democratic party back up to where it was,” she said.