08.02.07
TRIBUNE-STAR: Vigo County in win-win situation

Goode will bring more visibility to Valley

Editorial
Terre Haute Tribune-Star

Vigo County is no longer an afterthought to our local representation in Congress.

The county’s revived visibility on Capitol Hill should continue through at least 2010, after Wednesday’s announcement that Terre Haute resident Greg Goode will run as a Republican in the 2008 race for the 8th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. If Goode wins his party’s nomination, he’ll challenge Democrat incumbent Brad Ellsworth in the general election more than 15 months from now.

This is a win-win situation for Vigo County.

Goode’s connections to the local community are apparent in his campaign resume. The 34-year-old works as the executive assistant to Indiana State University President Lloyd Benjamin. Goode was born in Springfield, Ill., but his family later moved to Vigo County. The Terre Haute South Vigo High School graduate holds two degrees from ISU, and lives in Terre Haute with his wife, Leslie, and their 2-year-old son, Jackson. Goode also served on the staffs of past Republican congressmen from Terre Haute, Ed Pease and Brian Kerns.

Ellsworth’s roots are in Vanderburgh County, where he served as sheriff before winning the 8th District race last November against six-term Republican Rep. John Hostettler. But Vigo County played a significant role in that success, and Ellsworth won’t likely forget that. Vigo and neighboring Vermillion County gave Ellsworth his largest margins of victory. Overall, Ellsworth received 61 percent of the vote throughout the 18-county district. Seventy-one percent of Vigo voters backed him.

Vigo was largely ignored after Hostettler inherited the county when the district was redrawn after the 2000 Census. That’s primarily because Vigo is one of the few 8th District counties that tends to favor Democrats.

Still, Republican congressional candidates who pay attention to the needs and opinions of Vigo County voters have done well here in the past. Local voters often backed longtime GOP congressman John Myers and his Republican successors.

So Ellsworth cannot consider Vigo County’s endorsement automatic in the 2008 campaign. He’ll have to earn that support during his next 15 months in office. Likewise, Goode cannot expect to unseat an incumbent just two years after a landslide victory without winning his home county, and he’ll have to appeal to Democrats to do so.

It may seem self-serving for Vigo County to take a “what’s-in-it-for-us” view of its congressional race. But after several years of perfunctory representation, it’s good to feel needed again.

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