Jay Marcus, Republican candidate for Iowa’s Third Congressional District for U.S. Congress, was in Ames Tuesday afternoon to visit the “Business After Hours” social at the Jacobson Building.

The stop was one of many in Marcus’ campaign, in which he faces off against Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell and third-party candidates Libertarian Joe Seehusen, Independent Sue Atkinson and Earth Federation candidate Jim Hennager.

“The campaign is going quite well,” Marcus said. “We have the approach that makes a difference.”

Marcus, a former business attorney, said his “Team Iowa” approach includes a team of Iowans who he would meet with if he were elected into office. The team includes five professors from Iowa State.

“It’s not just one person who goes to Washington,” Marcus said.

Last week, Marcus and Boswell took part in a debate on Iowa Public Television. Boswell said they talked principally about education and the family farmer.

“We say that children are the most important feature in our families and our communities,” he said. “We ought to demonstrate that in what we provide to their education and their futures.”

Independent candidate Atkinson wrote on the Web site www.dnet.org that the education system in the United States needs to be completely changed. She said the United States needs to work with other countries that have more educational success.

“The countries beating us on international tests need to be consulted for their curriculum content and ours adjusted accordingly. This will improve our ability to work with other nations and to offer more options for solving our problems,” she wrote.

Boswell said he is in favor of allocating more money for Pell Grants and making them more accessible. He said he wants to make sure young people get the opportunity to receive the best education.

Marcus said he supports a tax incentive for families who have children in college, but he wants to improve the way money is allocated to education.

He said out of the $100 billion the federal government allocates for education, only $65 billion actually gets to educational institutions.

“We live in the information age,” Marcus said. “So higher education is more important now than ever before.”

Boswell said there is a strong need to get reduce classroom sizes.

“We don’t have to test it anymore — smaller class sizes in the lower grades is the way to improve,” he said.

He said there also is a need to provide incentives for the brightest students graduating from Iowa colleges to go into the educational field.

According to the Web site www.pbs.org/php/democracy, Hennager supports increased funding for computers in schools. He also supports national standards and testing.

Seehusen supports allowing vouchers at any participating schools, including public, private and religious schools, according to the PBS Web site.

Marcus said he will be in Ames today making random campaign stops around town. He said he will spend some of the day along Duff Avenue waving to passing cars and will be easily seen with a huge sign on his truck.

Representatives for Boswell said they hope he can get into town before the election but said Boswell is tied up with matters in Washington.

Another debate will air on KMGO-FM out of Centerville at 7 p.m. Thursday. People living outside of the listening area can tune in on the Internet at www.kmgo.com.

For information about the candidates, visit www.dnet.org.