The Fulton County Democratic Party had its annual JFK Dinner on Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Geneva Center outside Rochester. Speakers included Lori Camp, who’s running for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Second Congressional District seat and Terry Goodin, running for lieutenant governor alongside gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick. From left are Fulton County Democratic Party Secretary Timothy Kieninger and Vice Chair Phyllis Biddinger; Camp; Goodin; and Chair Josh Zehner and Treasurer Pam Fish.

Text and Photos
By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

ROCHESTER — It’s important to vote for the Democratic ticket in the general election this November due to the party’s stances on democracy, immigration and education, said several candidates on Saturday, Sept. 7.

Lori Camp, who’s running for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Second Congressional District seat, and Terry Goodin, who’s running for lieutenant governor with gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick, spoke on the above topics at the Fulton County Democratic Party’s annual JFK dinner at the Geneva Center outside Rochester.

Camp, of South Bend, who works for software firm Donnell Systems, talked on several of the policies that matter to her.

“I never had any political aspirations,” she said at the beginning of her speech. “I’m not doing this as a quest for power. I am doing this so that regular people are represented by a government official.”

“I believe first of all that the most important thing that we have in the U.S. is our democracy,” said Camp. “Even though sometimes we don’t live up to that ideal, we are the shining beacon. The reason that people want to come here is because we are that shining beacon, and we need to protect and defend that with all we have, and that means getting to the polls and voting.”

Camp said a Republican donated to her campaign because he disagreed with his party’s positions.

“He like many of the other Republicans I have talked to want to keep our democracy and do not believe that if they vote for the other party that will happen,” she said. “If you vote for me, I promise I will protect our democracy at all costs, and if you don’t like what I have done policy-wise, in two years you can vote me out.”

She also said she wanted to prevent “gerrymandering and help stop all of this nonsense about people who shouldn’t vote voting.”

Camp also said if elected she would work “to get this immigration bill passed so that we can start working on reform that is both compassionate and helpful.”

“It is dismaying to me to think that we have people who are ready to just round up everybody and deport them,” she said.

Camp said she was enlightened more on immigration by a Central American native who now lives in Starke County and works with immigrants.

She shared the woman told her about people outside the U.S. taking children and castrating them and telling their parents “that if you don’t do what they say, they will do that to all your children or worse.”

“So when I approach immigration, I want to approach it with compassion,” said Camp. “These aren’t our enemies. These aren’t criminals. They’re not the worse. They’re literally frightened people looking for a better life, probably like many of our ancestors were.”

Goodin, a former teacher, school superintendent and Indiana House of Representatives’ minority leader, worked for President Joe Biden’s administration as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural development director for Indiana before McCormick picked him to run with her.

He emphasized his and McCormick’s stance on education, stating “we have got to continue to move our educational system forward.”

Goodin said his father told him “a free public education is the greatest American invention of all time.”

“We need to stop the attack on our public school corporations across the state of Indiana,” he said. “We need to make sure as we move forward in education every student has the opportunity to achieve and succeed to their fullest potential. That’s going to be different for every single student in our great state.”

Goodin also said he and McCormick wished to help students attain education past high school whether it be college or a trade school without having a lot of debt afterward and cut out state-required testing for kids.