Election 2012: Local Business Owners Start Obama Council in Marion

The Obama for America campaign and three local business owners held a press conference today on the creation of Small Businesses for Obama Council.

The council is a group of business owners, comprised of Priscella Steele and Craig Campbell, owners of Marion’s Campbell Steele Gallery, and Michael Wyrick of Compass Advertising in Cedar Rapids.

They spoke in front of two reporters, including me, at the Gallery on Friday morning.

The aim is to spread their enthusiasm for the current president to local business owners to help assure a victory for President Barack Obama in Iowa.

"The point is, we're going to meet with small business owners and do what we can to get Obama re-elected," said Steele. "We’ll reach out in every possible way."

They plan to do so by explaining how they believe all small business owners have benefited from President Barack Obama’s social and fiscal policies. 

"He really does help small businesses," said Wyrick. "He’s encourage small business to hire, helped start-ups through the Small Business Act, extended a record $35 billion in loans for small businesses and he helped businesses with offsetting the cost of health-care."

Steele said the purpose of the group is especially important in a state like Iowa because it’s so evenly divided between Republican and Democratic voters. Iowa is one of eight toss up states in the 2012 election.

And though they discussed the ways they’ve benefited from Obama’s fiscal policies, all three business people said social issues were enormously important to them.

"For me, it is difficult to separate business policies as opposed to social concerns," Steele said. "My overwhelming support (for Obama) is because of his proactive stance on the middle class, women’s issues, but more importantly, I can’t stress enough my belief in the resounding achievement of (health-care reform). That is pivotal to the welfare of our country."

While they discussed their perceived successes of Obama’s economics policies, they didn’t avoid the dire economic condition of the country.

Wyrick said he believes that the latter years under former President George W. Bush were more difficult for running business than today.

But just because the economy has mot made a full recovery, Wyrick said there’s no reason not to trust that another four years under Obama may be beneficial.

"Things aren’t getting as good as quick as some people would like, but I believe we would give him another four years," he said.