The Daily Herald coverage finally starts to catch up to Austin Mayor’s stellar job.
The National Republican Campaign Committee is blanketing 6th Congressional District mailboxes with an unusually early barrage of glossy ads attacking Democrat Tammy Duckworth’s views.
With five mail pieces on taxes and one on immigration, the House GOP’s political arm has spent nearly $200,000 before Labor Day, the traditional start of campaign season.
The influx of mail is viewed as a sign Republicans are nervous about the prospects of their candidate, state Sen. Peter Roskam, in the longtime GOP stronghold, which includes parts of northeastern DuPage and northwest Cook counties. Roskam and Duckworth are vying in the Nov. 7 election for the seat left open by the retiring U.S. Sen. Henry Hyde, who has served 16 terms.
“The poll data that I’ve seen on that race shows it’s a tossup,†said Paul Green, political science professor at Roosevelt University. “If they lose Henry Hyde’s seat, the chances are very good that (House Speaker) Denny Hastert will have a lot more time to watch wrestling matches.â€
The national Republicans aren’t denying there’s at least some worry in the wake of Hyde’s retirement.
You can see copies of several of these mailers at AM’s website here, here and here. You may not agree with his analyses, but you can at least see the whole mailers.
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- Wumpus - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 1:38 pm:
IF Roskam would run a compentent campaign, he should have no problems. This illustrates who Tammy’s constituents will be.
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-open-seats-glance,0,433953.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
Illinois 56th District:
Democrat Tammy Duckworth.
Raised out of state: $536,982.
Republican Peter Roskam.
Raised out of state: $84,650.
- Wumpus - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 1:39 pm:
Should be 6th, they mistaklenly put 5th and I tried to correct their mistake…..blah, blah, you get the point of the link!
- Still Anon - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 2:39 pm:
The fact that out-of-staters are donating to Duckworth doesn’t mean she won’t represent the 6th, it means that Americans everywhere are disgusted with the current situation in Congress and understand it’s bigger than their own Rep.
- Establishment Republican - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 2:49 pm:
More important than just the raw figure, it is the percentage of money that Duckworth and other Democrats across the country are raising from out of state and out of their district that should give them pause.
I believe it is something like only 3 % of Duckworth’s money is coming from IL 6. That is hardly evidence of a whole lot of people in her affluent district shelling out money for her.
- NW burbs - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 2:52 pm:
So according to conservatives out of staters aren’t allowed to donate to Major Duckworth, but they can donate to Roskam (you need to take a look at PACs and 527s too — conservatives conveniently neglect those groups)?
And according to conservatives it’s somehow wrong for the national Democratic party to be involved in the 6th when, obviously, the cash-strapped national Republicans already are diving in head first (and before Labor Day no less)…
Explain your hypocrisy conservatives (of course, it makes sense that the cons would be hypocritical on this given the two-faced nature of their candidate — More Pork, More Tax Windfalls for the Filthy Rich, More Debt to Red China!!!)
- Wumpus - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 3:04 pm:
I am not being hypocritical, just observant. No, the great thing is that George Soros can donate to whomever he wants. It should be noted by the voters, that is all. I never said forbid anyone in the US from giving, people should be made aware of it.
She lives in the 8th (understandable), her campaign is funded by out of state and her campaign is run by the city of CHciago. Perhaps she should run against McSweeney and Bean should run against Kirk. Given our system, they are allowed to run in other districts and the voters decide. They liked Bean over Crane, and now she has a shot at winning.
NWBurbs, you seem to have issue with the campaign beginning so early, do the same feelings apply to the gov race? I have stated that it was brilliant for Rod to begin early…speaking of hypocritical.
- Northwest - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 3:07 pm:
Out of state contributions mean nothing. A local candidate with Duckworth’s profile–a Iraq war veteran disabled in combat–is going to attract a national following in the press and among donors. That’s why the Dems recruited her in the first place.
The Republican mailers confirm the need for something sorely absent around here–an accuracy watchdog. The press apparently no longer thinks it should play that role. The pieces sent out claim that Duckworth’s positions are 100 percent the opposite of what the public record, as reported by the areas’ newspapers, say it is. In other words, they’re lies.
Ironically, under FCC rules, if the Republicans said the same things on TV that they’re saying about Duckworth in the mail, they’d be forced to take their ads down.
- grand old partisan - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 3:31 pm:
Settle down, NW. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s politics. Do you really mean to tell me that if the situation were reversed, you wouldn’t be crowing equally loud about Roskam?
Besides, let’s do the math again, and add in the PACs, as you suggest. You’re still looking at about a 25% difference between the two, with Duckworth on the side of more out-of-state money.
Still Anon makes a reasonable point. There is nothing inherently wrong with money coming in from out of state. That’s the whole point of PACs and Party funds, which I am hardly against. But there has to be a balance, and smart campaign managers know that. Yes, these district races have national implications, and so it does matter to me who is elected in your district. But we do not have a parliament, we have single member-district plurality representation. The people of a given district have the final say in electing THEIR representative, and there is something unseemly about having more of your money coming from out of state donors than from local grassroots. That’s a political reality that Duckworth’s campaign had better start accepting, and do something about it besides spin it.
- HANKSTER - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 3:32 pm:
I do not find where people raise money as important as who they get money from. But those numbers above are misleading as they leave out PAC money. Roskam has recieved hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs, most of which are from out of the state.
- grand old partisan - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 3:45 pm:
Northwest: perhaps you’d like to explain what Ms. Duckworth means by “wealthiest Americans” when she says that she favors elimiating the death tax for everyone except them.
Perhaps you can explain how saying that persons who broke the law are not going to be subject to the penatlies that were on the books when they broke it is not a form of “Amnesty.”
I don’t see anything innacurate about any of the positions being attributed to her in these mailers.
She’s for not enforcing the immigration laws as written. She opposed to a extending a tax cut that would benefit many of her prospective constituents. Where are the lies?
- HANKSTER - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 4:06 pm:
GOP: It says in the links above that wealthiest Americans are those recieving estates of $2 mil or more.
I don’t see lies, its the these mailings. What I do see is common misleading Republican talking points. For example, because Duckworth does not support eliminating the inheritance tax on estates over $2 million, the Republicans maintain she is for higher taxes. What they do not mention is that Duckworth supports eliminating the AMT which would give more tax breaks to people in the district than eliminating the inheritance tax would.
- Disgusted - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 7:15 pm:
At least these people are paying for their campaign flyers. Cromagnonovitch is having state agencies pick up his freight by rushing to press with every conceivable promo for his unfunded initiatives. He has spent millions and millions from various agency postage accounts to send out hundreds of thousands of flyers, letter and brochures filled with his name and photo. The unrepresented taxpayers of the state will have to pay for all this in the future also. It appears to border on frantic. Added to the expense is the fact that whatever mailing lists the campaign is using to mail this stuff are outdated and much of it is being returned, at additional expense to the state. What a scam!
- markg8 - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 8:15 pm:
Roskam has had 6 mailers to date all paid for and produced by the NRCC: outside money, outside direction, with content outside the bounds of decency and reality as is the Republican way these days. When will you guys repudiate this kind of campaigning instead of calling it “just politics”?
Yeah I know politics ain’t beanbag, but lying, cheating and stealing as a way of life has given this nation the likes of Rove, DeLay, and Cunningham and we’re all the worse off for it.
BTW how much money did Tom DeLay raise for him - a guy Roskam now claims he hardly knows - last September at that DC fundraiser he hosted for Pete?
- Elder - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 10:09 pm:
I think the NRCC just stepped in it for Roskum. Do they know what percent of the voters in that district are immigrants and children of immigrants? He may have just lost as many votes as he gained. Maybe more!
- NW burbs - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 10:23 pm:
Wumpus - when did I say I took issue with the campaign beginning early? Roskam’s campaign began in the days Hyde was announcing retirement. He had his elitist conservative buddies in Illinois and Washington put the full court press on against Pankau and others to clear the primary field. And why do you (and so many other conservatives) hold George Soros up as a strawman? Why not talk about Pete Coors, Richard Mellon Scaife, etc?
G.O.Partisan - What? It is hypocrisy — rationalize it all you want to make your partisan spin, but it’s bald-face hypocrisy along with all the other conservative red herrings being used in the 6th. I especially like the hypocritical red herring about being out of district. It’s ok for Roskam to run from outside the district, despite the fact his home didn’t need any retrofitting of any sort. But somehow it’s not ok for a disabled candidate, whose friends and colleagues helped her retrofit her home which is mere minutes down the street from the 6th, to run?
Sure.
And you better fix your calculator. The national Republicans alone are putting millions into Roskam’s race — and that’s money they shouldn’t even have to spend if they had anywhere near a competent candidate.
- Lincoln Lounger - Monday, Aug 28, 06 @ 11:47 pm:
I’m more concerned about how terrible Roskam’s campaign has been rather than from where the money is coming. The recent shake up was a long time coming — perhaps too late.
- markg8 - Tuesday, Aug 29, 06 @ 7:06 pm:
Roskam must’ve thought Hyde’s promise to leave him the seat was all he needed. Unfortunately for him the voters have a say in it. Or maybe he thinks Rick Carney and Bob Saar can save his bacon. Vote rigging in DuPage is being watched closely this time. I doubt Saar wants to risk going to the big house for a guy who isn’t running for the White House.
- teddy - Monday, Sep 4, 06 @ 5:04 pm:
Duckworth has been a really, really baaaad candidate. That’s why she’s losing.