“This is about building an America that works for everybody,” she told a crowd of 350 at Fort Frenzy Thursday evening. “It’s about whose side the government is on.”

She said building that America that works for everyone besides the top-tenth of the top 1% will require something more than incremental policies here and there.

“For us to take back government, it’s not enough to do a little change,” said Warren. “We have to have big structural change.”

As she toured Iowa once again, the Oklahoma native emphasized rural policies to ensure farmers and small towns are not left behind. Policies included rural broadband access for a “21st century economy,” farm policy that ensures farmers would have a floor on prices, and the cancellation of student loan debt that could alleviate the pressure for young college graduates to move away from their hometown to big cities in order to have a chance at paying off their debts.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Margot Rogers, 6, of Manson, uses her Elizabeth Warren fans to play peekaboo with her mom, Jessica Einwalter, during a campaign stop for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy Thursday evening.

“I want you to all think about it that way,” she said of the controversial college debt cancellation policy that has raised eyebrows even among those in her own party.

The policies, she said, are about more than the next four or eight years, painting a daunting picture of the decision Iowa voters need to make both in February and November.

“It’s about what happens for generations to come,” she said, warning attendees of the “real peril” in the country. “A big part of that is going to be determined in Iowa.”

That decision, as she posed it, will be about whether the government should be permitted to work for a “thinner and thinner slice at the top, leaving more folks behind.”

Warren said the conditions that made it possible for her to be successful from a humble background no longer exist with a minimum wage that “won’t keep a mother and baby out of poverty,” runaway tuition rates for higher education and corruption in Washington that lets the money make the decisions.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, poses for a picture with Deb Brown, at left, and Keri Rojas, both of Webster City, during a campaign stop in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy Thursday afternoon.

“When you’ve got a government that works great for those with money … and not so well for anyone else, that is corruption. Pure and simple,” she said to thunderous applause, calling one of her tenets of rebuilding the right kind of government, “the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate.”

In addition to anti-corruption plans that she said would “block the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington,” and require anyone running for federal office to publish their tax returns, Warren posed economic policies to re-build an America that works for the little guy.

Labor unions would once again be the bread-and-butter of the working family under her vision, which she says would rebuild the middle class.

Anti-trust law enforcement, under her vision, would break up a world of mega corporations in every industry that “run over their own employees, customers and communites where they’re located.”

Other items, like her proposed wealth tax, have been under attack from more moderate Democratic candidates in the crowded field.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, speaks during her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.

Under an extra 2% tax on all wealth over $50 million, Warren said coverage could be provided for universal child care for all children up to age 5, universal pre-kindergarten for 3 and 4-year-olds, increased wages to attract preschool and day care teachers in a field with historic difficulty retaining qualified providers, tuition-free technical and four-year college, a $50 billion infusion into historically black colleges and universities and the cancellation of student loan debt.

Even with applause in between each addition of items in the list Warren said the new tax could pay for, some in the audience said they were unsure of the “but wait, there’s more,”-esque moment.

“I’m a little skeptical,” said Daryll Beall, of Fort Dodge, a former Democratic state senator. Items he was most skeptical of were Warren’s “Medicare for All” policy and free college.

“If she would have stopped at community college, I think it would’ve been OK,” he said.

“This is not something I’m doing to be cranky,” Warren implored. “All I’m saying is when you make it big, really big, super-duper big, top one-tenth of 1% big, pitch in two cents so everyone else has as chance to make it in this country.”

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, speaks during her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.

Beall, who supports universal health care as a human right, said messing with Medicare would be a very delicate issue.

“Medicare works pretty darn well,” he said. “I don’t want to muck it up.”

“The basic idea behind Medicare for All is to say we have a goal,” said Warren, “that is the best possible coverage at the lowest possible cost.”

Rob Allen, a retired Fort Dodge teacher who is making a point to see every presidential candidate, was unsure of that promise, too. Just two days earlier, Allen heard out candidate John Delaney, a former congressman from Maryland, who proposed that Medicare for All would bankrupt local hospitals with an untenable reimbursement rate if it were the only insurance.

Though he appreciates her passion and enthusiasm, he’s unsure if ideas like that can win over every bloc Democrats need to pick up to beat President Donald Trump.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, arrives for her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.

“Safety says a moderate candidate,” would be the best for the party, Allen speculated. “But Donald Trump doesn’t care what he says. In order to combat that kind of thing, you have to have someone who’s not afraid to come back.”

Beall noted that Warren moved up to his top three list.

“I was impressed,” he said. “I still want to kick the tires, like Iowans like to do.”

A former Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter, he doesn’t discount the ability of progressive ideas to win over the necessary voter blocs to turn the electoral map blue again. He says a progressive candidate just has to be able to sell their vision with credibility.

“I don’t think Bernie could win,” Beall said. “I think she could.”

“It’s about who has opportunity in this country,” Warren summarized in her brand of progresive populism, urging a struggling middle class to “persist” to “pave the course of American history.”

“What this election is about,” she said, “is the very survival of our democracy.”

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, speaks during her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Dale Liska, of Fort Dodge, films U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, as she speaks during her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Massachusets, answers an audience members question during her campaign stop Thursday afternoon in the Cardiff Center at Fort Frenzy.