If A Congressman’s Father-in-Law was under investigation for genocide
ArchPundit
Wouldn’t it be news? Especially if the Congressman’s wife worked to return her father to power?
Especially when the son-in-law runs around showing off his purple thumb?
Illinois Congressional Races
NOW, can we get Roskam on the Record about the President’s Social Security Program?
The President insists he will return to pushing Social Security Privatization after the elections.
But there’s a second part of the equation to dealing with the current account budget deficit and that is how we spend your money. Now, I’m going to talk about discretionary spending in a minute, but I just want you to understand that a significant problem we face is in our mandatory programs. And I know you know that. Those would be programs called Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid.
As you might recall, I addressed that issue last year, focusing on Social Security reform. I’m not through talking about the issue. I spent some time today in the Oval Office with the United States senators, and they’re not through talking about the issue either. It’s important for this country — (applause) — I know it’s hard politically to address these issues. Sometimes it just seems easier for people to say, we’ll deal with it later on. Now is the time for the Congress and the President to work together to reform Medicare and reform Social Security so we can leave behind a solvent balance sheet for our next generation of Americans. (Applause.)
If we can’t get it done this year, I’m going to try next year. And if we can’t get it done next year, I’m going to try the year after that, because it is the right thing to do. It’s just so easy to say, let somebody else deal with it. Now is the time to solve the problems of Medicare and Social Security, and I want your help. I need the Manhattan Institute to continue to agitate for change and reform. You’ve got a big voice. You got creative thinkers, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to put this on your agenda, and let you know the White House and members of the Senate and the House are anxious to deal with this issue and get it done once and for all.
The Daily Herald’s Patterson made fun Duckworth’s campaign asking what would Roskam do about Social Security, but never seemed to have gotten Roskam on the record on privatization. Given the President and the likely new Chair of the Ways and Means Committee are publicly touting new efforts for the next session, maybe that might be a good idea for a reporter to get for the voting public.
Bill Scheuer is an idiot
Knowing he had only a 90- day window to gather the required 14,000 signatures with a small group of volunteers, Scheurer sought help. He said a consultant who identified himself with a business card as Anthony R. Constantine, owner of AR Consulting, approached him last month and offered to collect up to 10,000 signatures at $2 per signature.
No contract was signed and no money was paid up front, as is typically done in politics. Scheurer, who ran as a Democrat against Bean in the 2004 primary, admitted to being a bit politically naive and said he didn?t conduct a background check because he was afraid of scaring off the consultant or revealing too much information about his own campaign
Even if the guy had turned in signatures, I’d virtually guarantee they would have been invalid.
Trusting some clown who shows up with a business card gets you exactly where Scheuer is. No where.
Going back to Jeff, the number of idiots who come up and say they are going to do this or that is astounding and they make just this kind of promise all the time. Jeff smiles and says thanks and then runs the actual campaign.
Have a Dog Bite Injury? Call Peter Roskam!
BackupPundit
Zorn takes Roskam to task for some ambulance chasing, trial lawyer style yellow page advertising.
Check out the scans of the ads. Can you do “Personal Injury” in any bigger font?
Update: Austin Mayor has a much funnier picture than I.
Liberals Smell Blood
Da Speaker will be under scrutiny for a while on this one I’m guessing.
update:
My apologies for missing One Man’s Austin Mayor’s dissection
Forward Together Endorsements
At the right hand side ad—there you can vote for who should receive support from Mark Warner’s leadership PAC. On the Western Half–David Loebsack. On the Eastern, well, all the candidates in Illinois are there, so take your choice, 6, 8, 10 and 11 look to be competitive.
Social Security Privatization
Patterson goes off the rails a bit making fun of a Duckworth press release that bothers to note that Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana who chairs the Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security just said his top priority for 2007 was Social Security privatization.
McCrery is likely to be Chair of Ways and Means if Republicans retain a majority.
Patterson thinks it’s odd because the evidence is that Roskam skipped a vote on privatization in the State House that was largely for Democratic electoral purposes, but also is a serious dilemma for the state if benefits for the elderly are reduced.
He then makes fun of the exercise as being like the game 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but the really odd thing here is he didn’t get Roskam on record as to what sort of changes he’d support in Social Security. In the public record there isn’t anything directly pinning down Roskam on whether he’d support McCrery’s bill. Why isn’t Roskam’s position the first thing to clarify and report?
It’s not exactly absurd to point out what Roskam’s allies want in relation to Social Security. He’s signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, he’s close to the Eagle Forum, and generally a darling of conservatives. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this, but those connections sure seem to point out what his position is.
One of the leaders of his party, the man who is likely to have one of the most powerful chairmanships in DC, just said Social Security privatization is a high priority for 2007. Challenging Roskam on that issue is fair game–if Roskam doesn’t agree with his allies, than he can say it.
The shot at the end at Madigan is a bit bizarre given Tom Cross (not really wrong) made fun of him for having a series of workshops designed to target the Social Security privatization plans in Congress.
In this case, Madigan isn’t even close to the same thing as McCrery. Madigan hardly ever gets involved in Congressional Elections unless it is a key ally and is one the reason for the incumbent friendly remap in 2002. He spends his time worrying about the State House seats. He hasn’t given her any money and I don’t think Steve Brown has even done a press release on the race.
The real issue here for someone trying to help voters figure out this race is what the hell is Roskam’s position? I’m as cynical as the next guy when it comes to campaign press releases, but in this case, it makes an important distinction that voters deserve to know.
Maybe He’s Not Just Tom DeLay’s Pool Boy
Hastert linked to Abramoff scandal.
John Laesch, the new Mike Flanagan? Discuss.
Duckworth Polling
Sweet covered the essentials today in her column.
It’s a Bennett, Petts & Blumenthal poll:
The following is a summary of findings from a telephone survey conducted among 400 likely voters in the Sixth Congressional District of Illinois. Interviews were conducted May 9-11, 2006. The sampling error for this survey is
plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Hard numbers:
Roskam: 35%
Duckworth 34%
Leaners
Roskam 40%
Duckworth 40%
Other parts of the memo:
Despite the Republican nature of the district (49% Republican, 36% Democrat), the political environment presents an opportunity for Duckworth. Specifically:
? Just 27% think things in this country are going in the right direction while 58% think things are on the wrong track.
? Only 34% think President Bush is doing an excellent or good job as President while 65% disapprove of Bush?s job performance. More four in ten (42%) rate his performance as poor.
? More have an unfavorable opinion of President Bush (48%) than have a favorable impression of him (43%).
65% disapproval of George Bush in the 6th CD. Heh. 48% don’t even like Bush. Statewide, Survey USA has Bush at 67% Disapproval and 73% disapproval in Suburban Cook. with the collar counties the only place he’s even close to breaking even with 47% disapproval (DuPage is collar under Survey USA and many polls).
Considering Roskam is also an incumbent representing a part of the area this is a hard result.
Roskam wants to localize the race, hence discussing a potential lease deal on the tollways, but the problem is this is a national race with a national candidate who is in many ways the face of the war. Add to that, Roskam is generally more conservative than Bush and it’s pretty difficult to figure out how the race becomes localized. Adding to his problems, that pesky DeLay fundraiser around the time of DeLay’s indictment, Roskam has to run away from people who have supported him fairly strongly to win.
The numbers one really needs to see are the intensity numbers for this year though. All national evidence points toward a Republican base that isn’t terribly motivated and a Democratic base that is fired up. The mitigating factors could be a motivated DuPage County getting out the vote for Birkett, but in the recent Survey USA poll between Topinka and Blagojevich don’t show her above 50% in the collars–given his unpopularity in that area, that’s a real problem for Republicans all around.