Friday in Rolling Meadows Peter Roskam was rallying his troops during another appearance with Ken (we really don't know who Abramoff is) Mehlman and made one of his dumbest comments of the campaign.
Read on for my take on that, the invitation to see Clinton on Monday in Chicago, tales from the front yesterday and how you can help Tammy Duckworth get out the vote.
John Biemer had this story up in the Trib Friday. While addressing the crowd Roskam rightly said the whole world is watching this race.
As proof, he said a radio producer told him that Al Jazeera--the Arabic language news network--had covered his debate with Duckworth last week. The crowd gasped.
"Now that's a real interesting group that would come out and cover the 6th Congressional District," Roskam observed. "Al Jazeera has an interest in who wins in the 6th Congressional District? I'm telling ya, let's send them an answer, whaddya say?" The crowd cheered.
What answer is that Petey? Elect the guy who doesn't have one word about the Iraq war, the GWOT or Al Qaeda on his website? Elect the guy who thinks we should ship National Guard units right off to the Mexican border after they get back from Iraq and Afghanistan instead of giving them the R&R they deserve, let alone the training and re-equiping they need? These folks signed up to protect their country, to fight the people who attacked us on 9/11. Instead little Petey wants to send them off on a boneheaded jihad against Mexicans on the border instead of hiring 12000 new border guards like Duckworth calls for. The Guard is made up of real people with real lives who have seen their worlds turned upside down Pete. They aren't pawns to be used in a cynical racist attempt to win votes.
Elect the guy who supports making tax cuts for Paris Hilton and the Walmart heirs permanent while standing up for earmarks? He even admits "total federal spending has grown by 33% since 2001" on his website. That's happened because Republicans just like him have been stuffing the budget with thousands of sneaky earmarks and rubber stamping Bush's bloated budgets for the last 6 years. So while we run $350 billion dollar deficits each year adding to our staggering $9 trillion dollar debt he wants to make sure the super rich
never have to pay their fair share of taxes.
Duckworth wants to outlaw earmarks, go back to pay go rules, and reinstate the line item veto. I think the last gives the executive too much power. So did the Supreme Court when they struck it down in the 1990s. But maybe serious people in a Democratic congress can write a new law that passes muster. We must rein in spending and lawmakers need the tools to do it.
Roskam isn't a serious man. Clowns like him and his boss Bush don't scare anybody. Yet with his virtually unlimited line of credit from the RNC and the NRCC the Chicago Tribune says he has a 42-39% lead. This is based on an unremmitting campaign of negative attacks on TV against Tammy.
Duckworth needs to counter them with ads of her own. She's just now getting the most effective one, the Obama ad in rotation. She needs more money, they're not cheap to run here in the Chicago media market. Here's how you can help.
Tomorrow there's a fundraiser luncheon starring Clinton and other Dem luminaries. Tammy gets 32% as does Dan Seals and the DCCC gets 36%. Details below:
Please join
The Honorable Barack Obama
The Honorable Rahm Emanuel
The Honorable Jan Schakowsky
The Honorable Melissa Bean
Tammy Duckworth Candidate IL-06
at a lunch reception honoring
President William Jefferson Clinton
Monday, October 23rd
12:00 PM- 1:30 PM
Hilton Chicago
720 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60605
For more information, or to RSVP, please contact
Claire Serdiuk at (630) 792-1290 or cserdiuk@duckworthforcongress.com
Now not everybody has the big bucks it's gonna take to get into that fundraiser. I certainly don't.
But for the rest of us here is what you can do. Today at 11am at U of Chi and Loyola there will be school buses to take volunteers out to campaign hq. We need to fill these buses with folks who want to canvass for Tammy today. Wear a coat, bring a pen. We'll feed ya. Donuts and coffee when you get there, pizza when you're done. Bring your cmaera if you want to get some pics of Tammy. You never know, they may be worth something someday. At least you'll have photographic proof you helped her win her first race.
If you can make it to these sites today by yourself coem on down. We need all the help we can get.
11 am: We meet in Lombard at our Main Field Office, at the corner of North Avenue and Rohlwing Road, in the North Avenue Shopping mall. Please RSVP to 630-629-0480.
1 pm: We meet at our Hoffman Estates office, at 2500 W Higgins Road, Office # 1035.
Also at our Des Plaines office, at 50 W Oakton St, in the Machinists Union Hall.
I'll be at North Ave. this morning. Come on out. If you're reading this you're a political junkie. Even if talking politics door to door scares the daylights out of you I can assure once you start it's addictive. And you need to get over it. I guarantee you Roskam's fundies aren't too shy.
We can't afford another two years of Bush unbound by a rubber stamp Republican congress. Tammy Duckworth will fight his stupid policies at every turn. It's crunch time. As she says we are her legs. Let's get moving folks.
duckworthforcongress.com