Illinois Congressional Races

The Trib Does a Funny

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

 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

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.

He is bright and he’s growing into the job in his first full term.

Apparently the Tribune thinks this is Dan Lipinski’s first term.

It is his second and he’s running for a third. He served the full term from 2005 to 2007 after his father installed him.

Before endorsing, it might be good to know the basic facts. Just a thought.

Barack Obama wins a lot of support around the country with a message that he will ease the shrill partisanship that has gripped Washington and work with those who disagree with him. Meanwhile, back home in the 3rd Congressional District, the best-financed opponent to Rep. Dan Lipinski argues that the problem with Lipinski is … he works too well with Republicans.

And Barack Obama is against telecom immunity and for a definite withdrawal date for our troops in Iraq. The same as Mark Pera.

The Trib brings up the bill Lipinski joined on to implement the Iraq Study Group recommendations, but the thing is–it doesn’t do anything. Nothing except ask the President to think about maybe changing things. It’s bipartisanship without a point.

But more than that, the only thing Lipinski has been known for while being in Washington is the weird hobby horse of the right wing—pushing for ala carte pricing on cable.

Good Overview of Seals versus Footlik

Over at JTA

On the national level, the wonks watching this race are not giving Footlik much of a shot, as polls in October showed Seals winning big.

“He is personable, articulate, smart. He is the kind of guy, who when you sit in a room with him, you go, ‘Wow. He is thoughtful,’” Stu Rothenberg, who publishes the national newsletter The Rothenberg Report, told JTA. “He is Barak Obama without the Kenya connection.”

And in a sit down with JTA on Wednesday at his campaign headquarters in a strip mall in Deerfield, Seals lived up to that reputation.

Seals, whose father played pro-football for the Chicago Bears, spoke warmly about his childhood experience as a non-Jew attending a JCC camp. “Until then, I thought a dreidel was just a top,” he said.

Seals deftly threw out Jewish political keywords such as “tikun Olam.” And he said that Jews tend to get “short shrift” because they are so often viewed as a one-issue demographic, that issue being Israel.

Sounding like Obama, he said that he would not engage in any bashing of Footlik, though he was dismissive of his rival’s chances.

One resident of the district told JTA before the debate at Stevenson that he heard that Seals has refused to spend any money so far in his race against Footlik because he does not view him as a challenger.

Some Democrats are angry at Footlik for challenging Seals, according to a local party activist who wished to remain anonymous. The fear, according to the activist, is that in comparison to Footlik, Seals will look weak on Israel –- a potential problem down the road against Kirk, in a district where Jews could end up accounting for an estimated 30 percent of the votes cast.

Read the whole thing, but I don’t want to copy too much.

My read is that Jay is a great guy and a good candidate, but given Seals is well liked by Democrats in the District and most understand you need to run twice to win, most of the reasons for supporting Jay aren’t catching with people. Jay’s campaign would argue he’s stronger in a general, but I’m not sure that the greater burden of building up name recognition wouldn’t make it just as difficult. Last time, it was a seven point difference with virtually no national help for Dan.

I like Jay and would like to see him run for something another time, but I don’t see a compelling case as to why Seals shouldn’t get a second shot given how well he did without national support last time.

And if the national pundits could stop comparing Seals and Obama it would be nice. I think they can both stand on their own two feet, but the kind of articulate black man thing is getting a bit old and while I think Seals is a great candidate, he’s not Barack Obama.

He Knows How to Beat Seals?

Hysterical:

When asked about Daniel Seals and Jay Footlik, the two Democrats who will face off in the Feb. 5 primary to see who will run against him, Kirk said that he is not worried about a challenge from Seals.

“I won in the toughest year ever last year for Republicans and I
defeated Seals by a 7 percent margin,” he told me before he spoke to the Norpac crowd. “We know Dan Seals the best, and we know how to beat him.”

Actually, all signs show a worse cycle in 2008 with potentially Barack Obama on the ticket. So that’s some hubris that I hope he really believes. I think Seals or Footlik can take the guy especially if Obama is on the ticket.

But let me point out something else from Rich’s post about early voting:

[T]he previous high for first-day balloting during Early Voting in Chicago was 890 ballots cast before the Nov. 2006 election. The daily average for that election was 1,378 ballots during Early Voting.

Today, the first day of Early Voting for the 2008 General Primary, an unofficial total of 3,990 ballots were cast in the City of Chicago. Historically, the lowest counts of ballots have been the very first few days and on weekends.

That sound you heard was incumbents all over the city gulping very hard. Barack Obama’s candidacy may be a blessing to some, but his very powerful “change” message might prove fatal for a few entrenched incumbents who have thought for months that their reelections are in the bag.

That’s an energized Democratic base.  If Mark Kirk thinks last year was bad….

Oberweis on Iraq: A Whole Lot of Nothing

From the Daily Herald story on Lauzen and Oberweis Iraq policy:

The Oberweis campaign did not return phone calls seeking expanded comments on Iraq, but in a questionnaire completed for the Daily Herald, he expressed agreement with Gen. David Petraeus that troop withdrawal can begin now.

“I don’t want to see U.S. combat troops in Iraq any longer than they have to be,” Oberweis wrote.

What’s he gonna do when there’s no Bush to tell him what to think?

Doings Western Spring Endorsement for Pera

Quite nice

Pera, who is president of the Lyons Township High School District 204 Board, provides needed vision for the district. While all four candidates say they oppose the war in Iraq, Pera is prepared to use congressional funding authority to force a change. While all four pledge to get transportation dollars to the district, Pera acknowledges the inevitability of funding in such a busy transportation hub, and sees support of larger ideas such as the 2016 Olympics in Chicago as a way to spark new projects for the region.

He believes in securing the borders and requiring illegal immigrants to go through a process in order to stay, but recognizes reform can’t come by making 12 million people felons or keeping them as a permanent underclass.

Pera’s school governance background provides needed reality for federal mandates on education, notably the No Child Left Behind Act, which he rightly notes puts too many penalties on high-performing schools. The federal government helps funds local schools and should offer some standards, but Pera sees heavy-handed government intervention in local schools as a detriment to success.

Lipinski was elected in 2004, inheriting his father’s seat through political maneuvering. He suggests too much was expected of the Democratic majority this past year, going up against an incumbent president and commander-in-chief. But he acknowledges not enough was done by Democratic leadership to push the party’s agenda.

Mark Pera is the type of candidate who will spur party leadership, and eventually move to the top tier himself. He deserves the Democratic nomination on Feb. 5.

Just Kidding

One of my daughters likes to ask to do something and when told no, say “Just Kidding!”  This is usually something like have a bowl of ice cream before dinner.  She isn’t kidding, of course, and for a five year old it’s kind of a cute habit.

Not so cute when it’s a guy running for Congress:

Less than a week later, Schock retracted, saying he “went too far.”

On Tuesday, he told the editorial board of the Peoria Journal Star, “When I made the statement, the tone in which I made it was more in jest.”

“Well, if the Chinese want to sit on their hands and allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, then perhaps we should sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan,” Schock told the board in explaining why he said what he did and the tone in which it was made. “That’s why reporters in Peoria, Jacksonville and Springfield, television, radio and print media, nobody thought two seconds about what I said. But when you read it in black and white and take it as a serious proposal, then obviously it puts it in a different perspective.”

In a phone interview with the Journal-Register’s political writer, Bernard Schoenburg, the day Schock retracted the statement, his campaign manager, Steve Shearer, said Schock’s proposal was “not just something that he pulled out of his pocket. … It’s a deeply thought-out policy.”

“It’s irresponsible, it’s reckless and it’s downright frightening to discuss nuclear warfare in jest,” said Matt Bisbee, spokesman for Jim McConoughey, one of Schock’s opponents to replace U.S. Rep Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, for the 18th Congressional District seat. “It’s unbelievable to me that you can discuss something with such severe consequences in a campaign for U.S. Congress in jest. It just doesn’t make any sense and screams irresponsibility.”

Schock went on to tell the editorial board that he penned the initial comments himself, he “overstated the case,” and that he doesn’t want to sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan.