OTTUMWA — Chris Reed’s 2008 challenge to Sen. Tom Harkin wasn’t part of his stump speech in Ottumwa on Thursday, but it is clear he carried forward some of the lessons.

The biggest of those lessons may be pure name recognition. It is extremely hard for a challenger to overcome an incumbent’s built-in advantage in that area. So Reed made sure his backdrop was a banner with his name and photo on it. Campaign staff passed out stickers with his name. And a staffer recorded the speech with a webcam for his campaign Web site.

Technology, Reed hopes, will help him overcome some of the hurdles in his bid to be the next congressman from Iowa’s Second Congressional District.

“Technology is extremely important to increasing the message getting out,” he said.

Reed’s message is focused on fiscal responsibility and conservatism. He calls himself a “Ronald Reagan conservative,” and spent much of his speech blasting federal spending.

The health care plan currently making its way through Congress came in for particular criticism. The bill requires significant new spending and comes on top of the earlier corporate bailouts and stimulus money.

Reed said his concerns about the health care bill coincide with concerns about immigration, another hot-button issue. The federal legislation prohibits health care money from going to illegal immigrants, but other regulations bar hospitals from asking about a patient’s immigration status.

That leads Reed and other critics to charge that legislators’ promises that illegal immigrants will not consume spending meant to citizens are cosmetic only.

“It’s a pathway to amnesty, and that threatens the sovereignty of this country,” Reed said.

Incumbent Rep. Dave Loebsack is on the wrong side of that debate, Reed charged, as well as cap-and-trade and other issues Iowans feel strongly about. He said Loebsack is simply not listening to the people who put him in office.

Reed’s first campaign also means some potential voters are already familiar with him. That was enough for James Johnson, the Davis County Republican chairman, to back Reed’s candidacy. He said Reed convinced him in 2006 that he would make a good representative.

Now the challenge is convincing other voters.

Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com