January 2008

Leadership Defined

ArchPundit January 16, 2008 1 Comment

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) – Some Illinois congressional races are a battleground over the Iraq war issue even while candidates appear to want it off voters’ radar.

A review by The Associated Press found voters who want to use campaign or House Web sites to check candidates’ views, can sometimes find the war not even among issues the sites focus on.

Republican Congressman Mark Kirk has shown virtually no interest in bringing it up, although each of his potential Democratic challengers do.

Kirk is a former House International Relations Committee general counsel, State Department aide and Persian Gulf War veteran. And he serves as a Naval Reserve commander in the Pentagon’s war room.

Kirk and his spokesman didn’t respond to messages left by The Associated Press over the past month seeking comment.

Response from Seals:

Congressional candidate Dan Seals (IL-10) condemned Kirk's lack of
accountability on the war in Iraq, saying that his priorities were out
of line with the 10th district.

"The war in Iraq is one of the top issues I hear about from voters
across the 10th district," Seals said. "Yet, time after time, Mark
Kirk has shown that he is more interested in playing political games
than addressing the serious issues facing our country."

Kirk has not only avoided discussing his position on the war in Iraq,
but he has also failed to ask the tough questions of the Bush
administration. In May 2007, the Chicago Tribune reported that Kirk
visited the White House to "deliver what one participant called a
'strong signal' about the electoral dangers that 'war fatigue and war
weariness' pose for Republicans in 2008."

"When Mark Kirk had a chance to sit down with President Bush to
discuss the war in Iraq, he didn't urge the President to change
course. He simply told the President that the war was hurting his re-
election chances," Seals said. "Now, Kirk's failure to answer the
tough questions about his failed leadership on the war is another sign
that we need change in Washington."

What’s amusing is that some are trying to sell Kirk as some principled statesman.  The thing is–you have to speak to be such a thing.

The Trib Does a Funny

ArchPundit January 16, 2008 1 Comment

The Republican race is a tough affair between businessman Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove and state Sen. Chris Lauzen of Aurora. Oberweis ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004 and for governor in 2006. Lauzen has been in the Senate for 14 years, where he has alienated many legislators and been minimally effective. An odd quirk: Lauzen once sought to change his legal name to Christopher J. Lauzen, CPA. Yes, that would have been his full name. He didn’t think enough people knew he was a certified public accountant. He eventually dropped the idea.

This page has been critical of Oberweis’ campaign tactics, particularly his vitriolic anti-immigration message. He has acknowledged that he made mistakes in past campaigns. He has a much better grounding on national issues than Lauzen, and to our knowledge, has never tried to change his name to Jim Oberweis, Dairy King.

Oberweis, who has Hastert’s support, is endorsed. There is a third GOP candidate, Michael Dilger, who lives many miles from the district in Evanston.

Let’s remember who Oberweis is:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nst-aXvdrR4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Defunct blogger Polis had the definitive take on the commercial

Those Oberweis copter commercials may be the funniest thing on tv these days (save Arrested Development). Forget the fact that his numbers are said to be way off, just having him spout off that anti-immigrant rhetoric over the noise of copter blades is high comedy. The only thing that would improve on this would be if he was flying over the Mexican border with a rifle picking off crossing illegals. “Even if I stay up here and shoot all day, I can’t make a dent out of the thousands who are stealing YOUR jobs!”

He also has Mittmentum issues 

I suppose the Tribune felt they had to endorse someone, but if there was ever a place for a a non-endorsement, this was it.

Marin Points Out the Obvious–Can Dold Pay Some Attention

ArchPundit January 16, 2008 No Comments

 Marin on Lipinski

Make no mistake, given his dad’s still-mighty political machine, Lipinski could walk away with another victory, earning not just a third term but more. He will begin to qualify for the glorious benefits that six years in Congress guarantee. Like the potential for lifetime health care benefits and a splendid pension.

Pera has less in common with the Lipinski machine than any other contender when it comes to social, economic or foreign policy matters. Pera is more liberal, Lipinski more conservative, on everything from social issues to support for the Iraq war.

But more important may be Pera’s willingness to buck accepted Chicago political practices. It is he who has most aggressively raised the ethical questions that Dan Lipinski has long needed to answer but apparently just can’t.

Questions like how in the world can he justify having had his father, now a lobbyist for the transportation industry, on his payroll as a consultant?

How can he comfortably take campaign contributions from the airline and rail companies that also pay his dad’s salary?

And how the heck can he allow his dad’s so-called charity, the All American Eagle Fund, which does precious little charity except for needy politicians, pay for work done by Dan’s congressional chief of staff?

In Chicago, we expect so little of our politicians. And ethical questions are treated often with disdain. As though it’s almost naive to demand the separation of church and state, or in this case, the separation of special interests from government business.

Dan Lipinski is not a bad guy. He’s well-educated. Earnest. And there’s reason to believe he’s grown some on the job.

In addition, he loves his father. “And he does not lobby me,” contended the congressman.

Why would he need to?

It’s not just a stand against 8 years of unchecked corruption in DC that the Tribune has largely been a cheerleader for, but a time to stand against the entire history of the Chicago Machine.  It’s not what it used to be, but it still has life and it needs to be put out of our misery.  And there couldn’t be a better place to take a stand than against the Lipinskis.
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Huh

ArchPundit January 15, 2008 6 Comments

Quinn endorses Laesch

Perhaps he can figure out why Laesch is so against the AMT–everyone is for changing the AMT–Laesch wants to get rid of it according to his Tribune interview.   Even for people making over $1 million a year. Seriously.

Why?  The problem with the tax isn’t that it’s innately unfair, it’s that it hasn’t kept up with inflation and hits a lot of families in middle incomes.

36:50
CT: I’d just like to ask each of you if you would favor making the Bush tax cuts permanent. And, if so, why? If not, why? And also, what you would do … the Democrats in Congress attempted to do a PAYGO, one-year fix of the Alternative Minimum Tax, a $50 million fix. And they kind of [or, “finally”?] gave it up.  They fixed it, but they haven’t figured out a way to pay for it, and that violated their PAYGO pledge.
So, I’d like to know what you think about that, and what you would have done differently. Mr. Laesch, we’ll start with you.  So, Bush tax cuts and AMT tax.

JL: (starts on Bush tax cuts)
37:50
So, it’s probably a temporary Band-Aid on the Alternate [sic] Minimum Tax. But, some sort of inflation indexing. I didn’t look at my questionnaire when we pulled this out, and I realized I didn’t answer that question when I was coming up here. … [inaudible] …
But, there has to be some sort of temporary fix of the Alternate Minimum Tax.

CT: Well, they’ve been doing one-year fixes every year since 2003.

JL: JL: Well, the long-term goal is to get rid of that.  I don’t think that it worked.  IS THAT A FAIR STATEMENT?[inaudible/trailed off].

CT: They estimate it’ll cost a trillion dollars to get rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax, because its assumptions have been built into all revenue projections going forward. So, just eliminating it would take a trillion dollars out of projected revenues. So, um …

38:50
JL: But, what I said is, that’s the long-term goal. If we stabilize the economy, and get more people back to work with good-paying jobs, there’s gonna be more tax revenue to use. So that’s the goal here over five to ten years, that the Congress is gonna have to deal with.

[Break – discussing job creation]

40:15
CT: On the AMT, the Democrats wanted to pay for that one-year patch, and they finally gave up and passed it and didn’t pay for it. What’s your take on that, and what would you have done differently?

JL: [talks about foreign policy and committees]

41:15 I would also listen to the things voters in the 14th are concerned about. And I understand there’s a huge disparity in the concentration of wealth. Geneva-St. Charles area is very affluent, the area of the district, but the further west you go, there’s more and more people who are struggling from job losses, especially as you get out to Whiteside County, where they lost the steel mill, and a number of other places … Caterpillar, [inaudible – Aurora?], those places are all –-.  Yeah, those are the people I will listen to and consider, and in tax policy, what’s going to help those people most.

41:50 I think just the short-term patch is an inflation index, indexing for inflation … with respect to the AMT, and the long-term goal should be to get rid of it.

WTF is he talking about… and perhaps Quinn could explain the problem to him.