This week, Illinois Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias was endorsed by the Illinois Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
No sooner did this union of hard-working Illinoisans endorse Alexi than the GOP knives came out. The Republicans want the President's old seat, and they want it badly.
The attack on Alexi and the members of the SEIU reads like it popped out from one of Glenn Beck's conspiracy chalkboards...seriously, we're not kidding:
SEIU, as we know, has been on the frontlines of fighting for real health care reform. And Alexi himself blogged here on Daily Kos about his support for the public option. So it's no surprise that Republicans are going after both Alexi and SEIU with wild conspiracy theories and lies.
One of those Republicans is Congressman Mark Kirk (IL-10), who, as frontpager Steve Singiser pointed out yesterday, is having major problems with the Republican base. After being repeatedly booed at and relentlessly attacked for his cap and trade vote, Kirk is trying anything -- anything -- to make things right with the Republican base, and that includes wholeheartedly embracing Glenn Beck and his fringe theories. Abdon Pallasch at the Chicago Sun-Times has the scoop:
Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk announced Friday he will hold a news conference calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to sever its ties to Illinois’ largest union, the Service Employees International Union, because, Kirk says, the group is too close to ACORN.
But, as the article points out, Kirk had no problem with ACORN when he voted in 2005 for an earmark granting ACORN $140,000 to fight teen delinquency.
What Kirk has, however, and what local and national reporters are beginning to pick up on, is a problem sticking to one position when the political heat gets tough. Crains’ Chicago Business’s Greg Hinz recently wrote an absolutely devastating piece on why Kirk's brazen backtracking foreshadows serious problems with his campaign:
...Mr. Kirk, having bravely voted this spring to implement a national cap-and-trade carbon tax, now has totally flip-flopped. And flip-flopped in such a painfully contorted manner that I'm amazed he didn't wrench his back in the process. [...]
[B]laming his [liberal] district for his vote raises the obvious question of which other of his moderate views the gentleman from Highland Park is preparing to jettison. Guns, abortion and gay rights, tax policy, pharmaceutical aid, whatever? Who knows what the man now really believes.
Kirk's latest ACORN-bashing in light of his ACORN support just a few years ago does nothing to make this growing perception go away. It must be troubling for Kirk's campaign that he is coming across as a politician willing to turn whichever way the wind blows. But when that wind is hot air coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and other conspiracy theorists, it's troubling for the voters of Illinois that such a candidate seriously believes he should represent our State in the U.S. Senate.
As many of you know, Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is running for the Democratic nomination for President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat (currently held by Senator Burris, who is not running for re-election). You can check out Alexi’s diaries here. We’re the people behind his campaign, and with your help, we’ll get a young, dynamic progressive elected as the next Senator of Illinois. |