Before the general elections on Tuesday, the gubernatorial candidates are making their last appearances throughout the state to pitch their platforms to the voting public.

Democrat Tom Vilsack and Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot agree on one thing: Iowa has a people problem — the state is short on people because no one wants to stay.

While their concerns are similar, Vilsack and Lightfoot have diametrically opposed views on how to spur population growth in Iowa.

Lightfoot, a business-minded Iowa native, views the state as a large-scale business.

Vilsack, a child of an alcoholic mother, sees Iowa as a home that hurts and unfairly treats its children.

Lightfoot spoke Wednesday morning in the South Room of the Gateway Center Holiday Inn to an audience of about 36 Ames Chamber of Commerce members, predominantly businessmen dressed in suits and eating breakfast.

Vilsack spoke in the Scheman Building Wednesday afternoon to about 260 Iowa Community Action Association members, predominately women casually sitting around tables after lunch.

Lightfoot said Ames exemplifies what he would like to see throughout the rest of the state, mentioning that Iowa State is the “big engine pulling [Ames].”

“A state or town is like a business. If it doesn’t grow, it eventually dies,” Lightfoot said. “The government is a money transfer machine.”

He supports competition among businesses and feels that burdening big businesses with high taxes hurts competition.

“It doesn’t hurt if there’s competition — it helps,” he said.

Lightfoot said nothing will happen without growth in businesses; people will move away, and Iowa will not be a place where people want to live.

His focus is on making Iowa an “attractive place for people to locate.” He said this can be accomplished by attracting new businesses, lowering taxes, providing top-notch school systems and promoting freedom of religion.

“Iowa’s the best place to live in my opinion,” Lightfoot said, “and now we have a wonderful opportunity to keep it on the right track. And that’s why I got into this race.”

Vilsack favored a different approach to growing a healthy Iowa.

Vilsack spoke about his “favorite subject — children.”

He said if children are raised to be educated, healthy and happy individuals, they will, in turn, help businesses to expand.

“We’ll be better off economically in the long run,” Vilsack said, if money is put into the at-risk population.

“I’m dedicated to children’s lives,” he said. “I didn’t have a childhood.”

Vilsack described his home life for the audience.

“I’m not sure how it feels to be poor, but I know how it feels to be raised by a mother who abused alcohol and took prescription drugs.

“I know how it feels to come home and be uncertain which mother would be at the front door — the mother who was sober, cooking dinner in a lighted house and asking me about my day, or the mother who locked herself in the attic for days or weeks at a time, in a dark house, and the only indication that she was still alive was the sound of liquor bottles dropping on the floor,” Vilsack said. “It was tough.”

Vilsack spoke on three main issues: children in the “at risk population,” children from disadvantaged families who do not receive health care and education.

He said subtle messages are sent to children when they are not provided with adequate health care and safe classrooms.

Vilsack said it’s “unconscionable” to put 3- and 4-year-old children who are subject to substance or physical abuse or poverty “on a waiting list.”

“How can we say that building surplus is more important than these children’s safety?” he asked.

Vilsack said 21,000 children in Iowa are not covered by health care because their parents, who work 40 hours a week for $6- $7 wages, cannot afford it.

“When they get sick, they end up in the emergency room, miss 25 percent more school and get behind [in their classes],” he said. “Then, after they fall behind, they cause problems and drop out.”