A democratic candidate for U.S. Senate made a campaign stop at the Hotel Pattee in Perry Thursday.

Retired United States Navy Admiral Mike Franken spent 36 years in the Navy before retiring as a three star admiral. Franken was born and raised in Sioux County, Iowa. Franken said while running for office wasn’t his intention he does have experience around politics.

“I decided to run for office and I wasn’t intending to do that but I was President (Barack) Obama’s Chief of Legislative Affairs, and I had worked in the Clinton Administration in legislative affairs and, also in the Bush Administration, and I had started a defense agency from the ground up working both sides in a bipartisan manner.”

Franken said  having worked in a vast number of jobs he feels there can be improvements to the quality of life in Iowa. Franken explained what things could be improved in Iowa to better the quality of life.

“We can do better from a quality of life perspective in State of Iowa from childcare, to broadband, to reconfiguring our electrical grid and a greener more sustainable agriculture, to clean water coming out of every faucet, building the economic business base in the state so that people who have seen the world come back here and are not scraping to buy that first house.”

Franken is running for the democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.