Today was chilly, windy and blustery; the election is just a few weeks away!
This diary will discuss exactly what I did. Ok, what I did was not that exciting, but hopefully it was effective. And I have a couple of things to say about one Republican Representative, Ray LaHood.
I have an earlier diary about this race:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
More below the fold.
I had called the office of Bill Spears, our candidate who is attempting to unseat Freshman incumbent Aaron Schock. Our district has been historically Democratic, but our last Democratic incumbent got a bit cocky and ended up losing to a slick, well funded candidate by a very narrow margin:
http://www.elections.state.il.us/...
SCHOCK (Republican) 19719, Slone (Democratic) 19484
So I wanted to get to work! Today, I went to our local county Democrat office to get a couple of walk sheets and to go door to door. I also picked up three yard signs to add to the two we already have: one is for
for an Appellate Judge candidate, Vickie Wright http://www.judgevickiwright.com/
one is for our
Attorney General Lisa Madigan,
http://www.lisamadigan.org/ ,
and one is for our U. S. House candidate,
Steve Waterworth
http://www.waterworthforcongress.com/.
But back to the race that I am working. I am working for
Bill Spears, a current city councilman
http://www.peoriademocrats.org/...
In this race, the contrast is clear. We have the incumbent who is mostly funded by big money interest groups and who is running an outside consultant driven campaign. And then there is Bill Spears, the person who is running at the grass roots level.
Our utility company, which is currently wildly profitable, wants a 55% rate hike when the current rate freeze is over. I wonder who is more likely to come to bat for us: the fat cat financed Republican incumbent, or the Democratic challenger?
Anyway, today I spent about 3.5 hours going door to door and leaving flyers. It saves on postage, and I did get a chance to talk briefly to a few folks. Since I have done this a few times, I've learned to recognize the good spots to leave the flyers (leaving them in the mail box is illegal).
IL-18 Race:
Mr. Ray LaHood, the Republican incumbent, has made the news again. I've diaried as to how he has made a fool of himself time and time again in the recent past in his attempts to shield Dennis Hastert from criticism:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Now, he has attracted attention to himself for making public a letter in which he sought to have the security clearance of Democratic staff members revoked in retaliation for unfavorable "leaks" on an unclassified document about the disgraced Republican Duke Cunningham:
http://peoriapundit.com/...
My apologies. I thought the Journal Star would pretty much ignore the story of how U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood's unleashed an investigation on a congressional staffer in retaliation for the suspected release of an unclassified report on a dirty Republican congressman. But the JS did run an article on this breaking national news story that involves a local congressman. They ran it on the bottom right hand corner of page B-1.
http://pjstar.com/...
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Ray LaHood's call for an investigation into the leaking of a secret intelligence report has led to the suspension of a Democratic staff member and sparked the latest partisan squabble to divide the normally cooperative panel.
LaHood was asked about this on Fox News; he responded
source: http://peoriapundit.com/...
Today on Fox News, LaHood said, "I'll tell you why I did it. The reason I did it was because Jane Harman released the Duke Cunningham -- who sat on our Intelligence committee -- report." That report, which detailed the misconduct of Cunningham, who is now serving a jail term, was not classified.
A Fox anchor asked, "So, it's payback?" LaHood responded, "There are some of us on the other side who can equally play politics, and I'm not afraid to do it."
What a jerk! Mind you, this jackass is the one who tries to play the "straight and narrow" card.