2008

Fine Moments in Votes of Confidence

From Roll Call

In 2004, while running to replace retiring Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-
Ill.), Oberweis aired a controversial television ad in which he flew a
helicopter above Soldier Field to show how many immigrants without the
right documentation enter the country through legal channels every
week -- roughly 65,000.

He now admits it probably wasn't the best idea.

"The commercial did not communicate our position well enough,"
Oberweis said. "The tone was harsh and the American public was not
ready for the message four years ago. "

But timing, again, appears to be in Oberweis' favor. With parochial
anger in the GOP base running red-hot, his identification with the
issue may tilt the race in his favor.
Let's remember that commercial here:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/Nst-aXvdrR4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
============================================
A Republican source close to Hastert said Oberweis was "ahead of his
time" on the immigration issue but failed to understand that few
voters cared in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.

Oberweis' shortsightedness, the source suggested, has been a liability
for the sometimes undisciplined candidate.

"[Oberweis] has a tin ear and doesn't know how to use issues
appropriately," the source said.

The Hastert confidant also suggested that the former Speaker was less
than pleased with having to make a choice between either Oberweis or
Lauzen, a longtime political rival. But ultimately "Denny does care
about what happens after he's gone."

The source said the former Speaker picked the more even-handed
Oberweis, who "has better temperament, better judgment and a better
ability to work and get things done for the district."

"Unfortunately the field is one of these two idiots," the source said.
"If you just look at these two, Oberweis is the more practical choice
in that he certainly has a good chance in winning and he's someone
that'll try to work to get some things done and bring people together,
than be a lightning rod all the time."

What’s great about this is Oberweis has his moments of craziness too such as his description of pro-life advocates as the American Taliban. He then turned his entire Gubernatorial race over to Jack Roeser and the crack staff surrounding the Family Taxpayer Network including Matt Barber and Joe Weigand who has a claim to fame of dressing as a chicken to criticize former Gubernatorial candidate and genuinely decent person Jim Ryan.

On the other side we have the thin skinned wonder of Aurora in State Senator Chris Lauzen who most recently went off on the Tribune

State Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora), who is running for Congress, said he’d planned to go to the Rose Bowl with his wife and family, including one son who is a freshman at USC. But Lauzen said he would call this morning to cancel his order for six tickets.

“I should cancel it, and I’ll take that away from my family too,” Lauzen said.

Lauzen said he did not use a connection to get the tickets, but did call the university president’s office to ask how to go through the process.

“Sure, where else am I going to call?” Lauzen said.

But Lauzen called it “horrible” that “you would judge that there is anything inappropriate.”

“If you’re asking a question, it becomes a story,” Lauzen said.

Lauzen said he made a mistake running for office 16 years ago, saying politics is a “crappy business” that has cost his family millions of dollars.

“So I’ll, I don’t want any more trouble for me or my family,” Lauzen said. “This is really a horrible, horrible business. This is horrible.”

Lauzen also referred to his Republican opponent, Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove, in the race to succeed former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in the 14th Congressional District.

“Just think what Oberweis will do with this,” Lauzen said.

Saying he was a “little bit sensitive,” Lauzen provided his home phone number to a reporter who asked how to reached him with any follow-up questions.

“Why don’t you call me at home and then maybe you can talk to one of my family members who won’t be going?” Lauzen said.

Lauzen is the genius who after fighting in a primary over his credentials with another candidate sued the man for defamation and attempted to change his name to Chris Lauzen CPA

His wife wrote a very odd letter on his behalf earlier this cycle

Lauzen, himself, wrote one of the most bizarre open letters to Hastert to encourage him to not endorse anyone in the 14th race.

You have demonstrated through your recent action of early resignation that you wish to set aside the public duty to which we elected you. At first, I was very concerned that your health was failing somehow, and I sympathized with you and your family. But, you have assured us repeatedly that there is no health problem and we are relieved on your behalf.

Many folks express their wonder to me about the apparent necessity to spend $1 Million of taxpayer funds that could better be spent on national security, healthcare, or education, on the March 8, 2008 Special Election. Now that you are stepping away from your official duties, I believe that citizens and voters would be distressed if you reassert yourself and use your considerable clout to influence the outcome of an impending primary.

So really whomever wins the Republican primary, the big winners are the bloggers who get to have fun with these freaks.

Freak Show Jones

Fun stuff over at Art Jones campaign website:

Do you want a Third World slum made out of the United States?
Do you want the American land built by the sweat and blood of our European ancestors desecrated?

For those wondering if he was a white supremacist, I think we have our answer.

Adding to that, one of his listed endorsements is the Veterans of Jewish Wars.  I’m not familiar with it, but I have a feeling it’s not good.  Jim Tobin of the National Taxpayers United Illinois group might want to revoke the groups endorsement given this guys views.  I’m no fan of NTUI, but they aren’t in the business of supporting people like Art Jones.

ABC NextGen

Lame Title, but nice project with a bunch of candidates for Congress, President, and Cook County States Attorney Submitting videos.

Mark Pera and Bennett both offered up videos for IL-3, but while those are good solid videos about their candidacies, there’s nothing like Art Jones who is, to say the least, off the rails crazy man! With Poetry!   Go check him out and check out the serious ones. Missing-Little Lip.
Let me explain to candidates that if you have a black background, don’t wear a black or dark blue suit–you look like a floating head.  Footlik, Scheurer, and Stein are especially noticeable in this regard.  Also, a guy who owns a lighting company should probably have a properly lit video Bill Foster.

Small thing for ABC–if you want to really make it a good resource, make it so people can put them on other sites like YouTube–I’d post almost all of them if they did so.

Speaking of People Who No One Trusts

Nothing like pissing off ASFSCME when trying to blame the reformers:

The notice does not say how many employees would be laid off. Stroger’s chief of staff, Lance Tyson, said the notices are the first step and that it will take two to three weeks for the administration to evaluate where the cuts would fall.
Anders Lindall, a union spokesman, called the letter “factually inaccurate,” noting some of the nine commissioners have supported new revenue although they oppose Stroger’s sales-tax increase.

“We have never seen a layoff letter like this one that attempts to pin the blame for potential job cuts on specific commissioners,” said Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Council 31

Blagojevich to Lege: Trust Me

LOL–it’s hard to imagine that he thinks this is going to help:

Today, the governor didn’t repeat that veto threat when given the opportunity at a news conference aimed at heading off the CTA, Metra and Pace service cuts and fare hikes that loom Jan. 20.

Asked if he would sign legislation that increased the sales tax, Blagojevich hinted he might be able “to improve” a bill so that enough constituencies are satisfied. If it’s a bill that includes an increase in sales taxes to fund transit, then so be it, the governor said – just send it his way.

“If, however, the legislature believes in that (sales tax) bill, they ought to pass that bill and give me a chance to improve it,” Blagojevich told reporters in Chicago.

“There are a lot of creative things you could with the ability to rewrite legislation and I’ll leave it at that,” he added. “If they believe in that bill, they ought to pass that bill. We want them to pass something and give me the ability to act.”

When pressed on how he would “improve” the bill if he remained dead-set against increasing the sales tax, Blago said only: “Stay tuned. Stay tuned.”

He’s had the ability to negotiate with the Lege leaders in good faith and has passed up every opportunity.  The level of arrogance is just astounding.

Blair Hull Enters the New Hampshire Race

TPM Election Central has a new mailer put out by the Hull for Senate Campaign errr…Clinton campaign:

The Obama campaign replied with Rich, Zorn, and I largely recycling the 2004 material.

The vapidness of the argument is explained when Rich quoted me on his post–essentially these same bills that he voted present on (as did Emil Jones and Lisa Madigan once she was in the Illinois Senate) are the ones that he killed singlehandedly as Committee Chair once the Dems took the Illinois Senate.  It’s a bit bizarre to claim he’s ducking those votes when once he had the chance, he took the entire heat on the bills.

One theory is that Assistant Clinton Campaign Manager Mike Henry is having PTSD flashbacks  to his role as Campaign Manger for Blair Hull as Clinton numbers implode in New Hampshire.
Though I think most of us can understand if she hit Bill at sometime in the past.

When Pandering Doesn’t Work–Immigrant Bashing Fails in Iowa

Joshua Hoyt, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, points out that scary brown people aren’t nearly as scary as immigrant bashers would like you to think:

The results are in. In a state where voters had a clear choice to vote for Romney’s tough stance on illegal immigration in the Republican caucuses, they instead turned out in historic numbers to vote Democratic. There they picked Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who has unabashedly advocated an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented.

On the Republican side, Romney, despite his overwhelming funding advantage, came up short. University of Iowa polls showed that 57 percent of Iowa voters favored earned citizenship for the undocumented and only 23 percent favored deportation.

This is consistent with national polling. In 20 of 22 separate public opinion polls conducted between March and December, somewhere between 55 percent and 83 percent of the respondents favored some form of earned legal status. In the remaining two polls, the majority favored this option.

Immigrant bashing just does not move votes. The 2006 elections were a disaster for anti-immigrant demagoguery. Not only did the issue fail to stave off the Republican loss of the House and Senate, but leading Republican anti-immigrant campaigners such as Reps. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and John Hostettler of Indiana and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania all lost their races. And in a telling portent of the future, Latino support for the GOP dropped to 26 percent from 44 percent.

While addressing immigration is necessary given the utter incompetence carried over from the INS to Homeland Security, it’s not an issue that is going to deliver a national election or take a good lead and turn it into a loss.  It does matter on the periphery of elections and certainly if you are in a close election, it can hurt a candidate who isn’t bashing.  At some point you have to stand up and do the right thing though and there are a lot of positive ways to address the issue and still win.

More than anything, the Democratic Party’s future is going to rely on building a base for constructive immigration reform.

But even in the party where the issue is hot, the guy who is relatively moderate took a greater percentage of the vote for those who thought the issue was important than did Romney.

After the jump, an e-mail from the Americans for Legal Immigration–a fine example of hysteria about brown people

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