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4th District candidate Tobi Beck gets endorsement from Mayor Dory
With just a week of campaigning remaining, District 4 congressional candidate Tobi Beck spent Monday morning in Greencastle, learning a few things about small business issues and real estate concerns, and picking up an endorsement from Mayor Bill Dory along the way.
Beck visited local businesses with Eric Wolfe -- owner of Prime Real Estate Group, Greencastle, and himself a one-time state legislature and city clerk-treasurer candidate -- to hear about challenges facing business owners whose insight she could bring to Washington if she can defeat Greencastle Republican Jim Baird, the current District 44 state legislator, in next Tuesday’s election.
“I enjoy talking to experts,” Beck said during a visit to Putnam County Democrat headquarters at 8 W. Washington St., “they give me huge insight. I feel the only way to work is to talk to people on all sides of the political spectrum.”
Beck has been talking to Hoosier mayors of the 4th District recently. Mayor Dory is the fourth such mayor to endorse Beck for U.S. Congress with a fifth announcement scheduled for later this week.
Dory joins Logansport Mayor Dave Kitchell, Monticello Mayor Kenneth Houston and Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight in the Beck camp.
“As mayor of Greencastle, I would like to lend my endorsement to Tobi Beck to represent us in Congress,” Dory said Monday, noting he has read her positions on major issues and believes she is the best candidate to represent the Greencastle community in Congress.
“I think you’ll make a great representative for us,” he added.
Citing Beck’s attention to healthcare concerns and her background in the military and security systems, Dory said, “hopefully you will get to Washington, which we believe you will” and bring some attention to infrastructure needs that are also important to all Hoosiers.
“Unfortunately our local dollars are limited,” the mayor said, suggesting help from the federal level would be invaluable to maintain and improve adequate infrastructure.
Beck suggested that the infrastructure issue also means attention to the issue of high-speed internet availability in rural areas, which means most of the 4th District.
Greencastle itself has had the good fortune of being the first community to receive MetroNet internet service. However, a “digital divide” still exists, the mayor said, as some Greencastle students who live outside the city have to come into town to places like Starbucks or McDonald’s to take advantage of available internet just to do their homework under the schools’ 1-to-1 system.
“There are still areas of the county that are not up to speed,” Dory added as he and Beck noted the importance of internet service not just to schoolchildren but to farmers who use it every day to check on weather, prices and markets in the global economy.
Beck explained that she uses a guiding principles concept to assess issues, warning “you don’t know what decisions will be before Congress tomorrow,” so a representative has to be well informed and ready to work on all the issues.
Noting that several of the bigger cities in the 16-county 4th District are under Democrat leadership -- Greencastle, for example, has had a Democrat mayor the past 30 years -- Beck had praised for local leadership.
“The cities have seen a lot of very good growth under Democrat leadership,” Beck said, indicating she doesn’t wish to make it a “this party vs. that party “ situation but more of a cooperative effort if elected.
“It’s amazing to me,” she added “that a place like Greencastle can struggle with issues like healthcare and others. But there are things we can do.”
But that will take cooperation, she stressed.
“More of us are interested in working with each other than shouting at each other,” the Democrat candidate said, segueing into a story about a Sunday night Hendricks County Halloween event.
Dressed as Wonder Woman for a trick-or-treat venture that attracts about 3,000 youngsters, Beck took note of a sign someone else had put up.
“It said, ‘Politics is scary but it doesn’t have to be,’” she said.
Sounds like a campaign slogan ...