53 Comments - soccermom - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 12:49 pm: Here’s the thing. On sunny days, when I wake up after a good night’s sleep anticipating some interesting, engaging things I have planned for the day, I always think, “It’s Morning in America!” There’s an ironic undertone, sure — but the thing is, when I wake up on a good day, I think about something incredibly positive and patriotic and forward-looking said by a Republican. When was the last time a Republican said something that made you feel good about your life as an American? I’m not complaining - from both a personal and a professional perspective, it’s a good day for me when the GOP loses. But I think we’d have a better state, and a better country, if both parties were competing to make things better, every day, instead of plotting to kneecap each other at the expense (literal and figurative) of their constituents. - Knome Sane - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 12:49 pm: I could swear I heard Kinzinger’s comments in a movie….”The American President” with Michael Douglas, perhaps? - Conservative Republican - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 12:56 pm: Great comments by Kinzinger. With more GOP leaders taking that tone, the GOP will do fine — even if IL becomes one of the nation’s last Dem redoubts. - Stones - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 12:57 pm: Kinzinger’s right on point with his comments. Having been around the process for years I don’t recall the anomosity (in general) among Republicans as I was growing up as I see now. I’m sure FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and others have something to do with that just by fanning the flames. I’m long said the more they talk - the more they turn off the true moderates in this country who actually decide elections as opposed to most of us on this board who are partisans one way or another. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:05 pm: Young people with political dreams with an (R) behind their last name do not see openings in Illinois on a state level, that will let them get their political careers on track. Kinzinger choose to go to Congress to avoid this situation, as had Dold, Walsh, Schock, Schilling and Davis. The thought is if they could gain exposure on a national level, they could return to Illinois should something else open up and use that experience to seque into statewide office. Poshard and Blagojevich did the same thing when they saw slim pickings for their party on a statewide level. Kinzinger can’t just hang around Congress for a decade, just to end up in a debate for an Illinois statewide GOP nomination with the likes of Brady or Adam Whatshisface. You don’t risk your current national exposure to lose to a fringe hack with a local base in a goofy primary. So, the guys who went to Washington in 2010 could have been future statewide players for the GOP if they survived last year, which many didn’t. The GOP crop failed. One term former congressmen and women don’t have much of a chance to reach for a statewide elected position. In either party. So the GOP is back to looking for candidates to run statewide that have no credibility in government, at any level. So, it isn’t about presentation or semantics. There is no there there. The GOP has to pick from a bunch of minority leaders in the state, or convince someone like Kinzinger to try and leave his pretty safe Congressional seat for a try at the rotten Springfield apple. When Illinois went GOP in the past, Chicago was always the Democrat’s pilot light. There was always a place for a Democrat to begin wooing Illinoisans. The GOP doesn’t have that. When the GOP lost the General Assembly, they lost power across the state and lost any launching pad for a comeback. Do all the perfect PR and saying all the right things won’t do it. You have to have someone, and right now, the GOP doesn’t. - Caveman - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:06 pm: If common sense ruled, we would continue to re-elect Democrats both nationally and state-wide. Just look how well thinks are going, especially in Illinois where Republicans have no influence and haven’t for many years. We’re #1. Right? Or wait, is it #42? I can never remember. Ahh, whose counting anyway. - Kasich Walker, Jr. - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:17 pm: In other news, Newt Gingrich said that he is totally opposed to some Washington boss collecting money from billionaires to go out and destroy candidates he doesn’t like. He forget the “unless…” - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:18 pm: Kinzinger - A republican that gets it! As the Litmus Testers yell and scream and … test … to make sure you are “Republican”, more and more voters have left my party to find refuge in the middle or “Indie” ranks, picking and choosing, and more times than not, not choosing the Republican candidate. And here we are, with the Illinois Senate Republicans mustering one …1 ..ONE vote for same sex marriage, and one of the biggest opponents of the SSM bill, a SCC member wanting the ouster of the ILGOP chairman on the grounds of supporting the SSM Bill, Jim Oberweis sat there, said not a word, and voted No, without even giving the people of Illinois a thought to why, as Oberweis tries to oust the Chairman for his tolerance. THAT is what is wrong with my party, and Adam Kinzinger is what is right with where the ILGOP needs to go. Oberweis, while sitting and listening to Sen. McCarter tell everyone he has gay friends (as an aside, McCarter wondered ‘why’ people were laughing at that statement, senator, you played the ‘I have (blank) friends’ as cover for your ‘No vote, thus the laughter!), and Oberweis, complaining loudly that he could not get anyone to return his calls for a meeting to oust an inept ILGOP chairman, on the gounds of intolerance, sat there, silent. But boy, he can rent a room to oust. And we are wondering WHY the party won’t grow? We are, again and again, at a crossroads to move the party towards the Reagan 80% and Reagan’s visions, but we MUST go negative, my Litmus Tests bretheren. We must ensure that even though we are fewer, we are purer. Ever wonder WHY the Democrats here in Illinois are so diverse? Pro 2nd amendment, to SSM, and everywhere inbetween, the ILDems understand that voters in all districts are all different, and what is considered a good candidate in Alton, is not a good fitting candidate in Zion, and every other alphabetical city, town, or village here in Illinois. Do not fold on your principals, but understand that 80% rule has merit and it seems that the ILDems understand it far better than we do. When we as a party can be pigeon-holed and cookie-cuttered to the point that ALL Republicans seem to be fighting to seem mainstream, we lose. We don’t? You have 2 …TWO… veto-proof chambers, and a loss to Pat Quinn when the map mattered most to explain away if you disagree. I can never understand, how if you are not passing a Litmus Test for some, you just can’t be supported by the “base”. Hey, all you “base”, how is that “minority in the minority party” tasting about now? We are being dragged down by what some think is the “best ideals of being a Republican” at the cost of our party not being able to get out of the TEENS in the Illinois Senate. Does looking so rigid, and unwelcoming make this all better? “We are what a Republican stands for, 100%, no apologies, no surrender”. Guess what, the voters are telling you that you won, you got your party, congratulations, but you lost the power of the People to lead. At some point, cutting off our nose to spite our face, will lead to suffication … and the death of the Republican party now and for always. So, keep in mind, as we tell everyone, “I have friends that are (blank)”, and scream for intolerance, but are silent on the Floor of the Illinois Senate, we are destroying every opportunity, at every turn, to be seen differently, while agreeing with those 80% of the time … who will not give us, Republicans … the time of day. Every day we wallow in this Super-Minority, with the same inept leadership, unwilling to address the “elephant” … in the room … we are more willing to run cookie-cutter candidates and be safe, not to upset the “base”, while real leadership changes need to be made, growing away from the bowing to what is eating us away, and be seen as the strongest choice to all voters … who we agree with … 80% of the time. Instead, the weak minded Litmus Testers make the 20% we disagree on be the driving force of the ILGOP, even if it means destroying every chace to rise above our challenges. Thank you, Congressman Kinzinger. You have given me HOPE, and there is a spring in my step knowing that not all is lost, no matter how many want us to be intolerant, or how many of us have “friends” that they exclude. There are others like you, Congressman, and that is a good thing right now. - hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:18 pm: Kinzinger is right, but the Illinois GOP can get on its best behavior all it wants and still have Illinois GOP candidates derailed by the crazypants behavior of Republicans in other states and in D.C. The Illinois GOP does not have any role in reshaping the toxic Republican brand and despite hailing from the Land of Lincoln has no influence over the direction of the Party of Lincoln. As long as the national GOP is a mess, the Illinois GOP will be a mess. Looking back on things, the Illinois GOP’s Alan Keyes Experiment was just the crazy canary in the coal mine for the national GOP. - OneMan - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:23 pm: OswegoWilly Preach it brother… - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:24 pm: - OneMan - You and me, “308″ Representing! - Skeeter - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:25 pm: Actually, I don’t think Adam gets it at all. He talks about the message and the screaming. That has very little to do with anything. The problem for the GOP isn’t the message but the platform. Smiling and delivering it in an even voice will not get voters to like it when it features bashing women, gays, and poor people. - dupage dan - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:27 pm: What AK, VM and OW said. - Responsa - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:31 pm: It is no wonder that Conservative up and comers with brains and charisma like Kinzinger opt to head to D.C. There will never be a Republican mayor of Chicago in my lifetime and the governorship of failing Illinois is not exactly a plum job anymore with appeal to the best and brightest (of either party). Sad but true. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:32 pm: - Skeeter - You are On Point, but right now, the “loudest” of us, seems to be the ones dragging us …the screaming, is “real” and image is what the “Indies” we are trying to woo … see. With respect. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:37 pm: Looks like Willie is making some side money writing for Rep. Kinzinger, lol. He’s right, of course, in general. There’s a certain percentage of victims who want to be fed gloom and doom all the time. In today’s media, you can make a lot of money on it. I don’t think you can build a sustainable national or state party on it. Reagan did pound Carter pretty good in his first election (those were very dark times). But people came to trust in his general optimism, generosity of spirit and willingness to compromise for the common good. That made him much more popular when he left office than when he arrived. –It’s even worse in Illinois. The recent Paul Simon Institute poll found that just 22.3 percent identified themselves as Republicans. Last fall’s PPP poll had it at 26 percent.– Post-Blago, those numbers are astounding, almost beyond belief. That’s not a base, that’s a sinking ship. The Illinois GOP has models for success. For some reason, in recent years, they’ve chosen to reject them and pander to their fringe. - ZC - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:41 pm: Part of the problem for the GOP in IL is national politics really does infect state perceptions in a way it didn’t thirty years ago. Back when you could really position your state party further away from the national mainstream, why conservative Dems could be so successful in Louisiana and Texas. That’s much harder to do now, which is why I suspect states like IL are getting more “blue” and truly mixed states like WI are descending into a kind of peaceful civil war. Ironically to grow the gop brand in IL it probably would help to have more national GOP figures who play in IL. Mark Kirk is a start. Dubya, Palin and Romney and Ryan are never going to play perfectly with a majority of IL’s political culture. Their social conservatism will ultimately displease the woman in the Cook County Suburbs. And you do NOT want to displease the woman in the Cook County suburbs. - Skeeter - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:41 pm: OW, To get my vote, you are going to have to do more than tone it down. I can accept a party with wackos like Joe Walsh as long as I’m not convinced that Joe Walsh’s views are not mainstream to the GOP. Both sides have people that screech. We would be better off without them. But what they are screeching about is the key. There are other issues for the GOP, of course. If they happen to be checking out candidates for Gov. in 2014, perhaps they should find somebody who hasn’t been an elected official for 20 years and who’s solution to the budget issues is to create a commission. That’s probably not a way to get my vote either. A plan would be nice. As a Chicago resident, in 2010 I could vote for the guy who was a screw up from my hometown. Or I could vote for the guy who seems to hate my hometown and has no plan at all to fix the state. Was that really a choice? - Endangered Moderate Species - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:42 pm: Kinzinger is on the mark. Barickman is taking a lot of heat in his district for voting his conscience on SSM. He is another young GOP pol that gets it. These guys are not RINO’s. They stand behind the core GOP principle of less government. It is good to see that real Reagan Republicans are still among us. We may not always agree, but at least we’ll be civil in our discourse and that is a trait the voters do respect. - fultonfarm - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:42 pm: If the comprehensive amnesty bill comes up will he do the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce and allow for more illegal immigration in the future or will he try to enforce existing laws with maybe a slight and very selective nod to the so -called “Dreamers.’ Is he old enough to remember the 1986 Amensty bill and the lies given to the public at that time. We shall see. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:42 pm: ===The Illinois GOP has models for success. For some reason, in recent years, they’ve chosen to reject them and pander to their fringe.=== Can NOT agree more. Just wish, the simple ideas of working Cook, having a ground game, and knowing the percentages would hold more sway… as they did in the past. lol - And to the Gloom and Doom feeding, you called it. The Gloomers and Doomers use to be a different “base” to build upon, now they build TV Networks. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:46 pm: - Skeeter -, That is why we can only HOPE at this point, a strong candidate(s) will emerge with what you are looking for, not only for the ILGOP, but for Illinois. We in the ILGOP need to start somewhere, and acknowledging our faults, honsetly and thoughtfully, would be a nice change, and a great start. Fair? - steve schnorf - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:48 pm: I’ve been saying for 10 years we can’t succeed by being just the party of “No”. We have to be for solutions instead of just against things to move back to a competitive position - ArchPundit - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:53 pm: Kinzinger also did a good job in the Benghazi hearing–instead of focusing on yelling loudly, he actually stumped Clinton with a thoughtful question. - Skeeter - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:54 pm: OW, Yeah, you need a moderate at least on social issues. At some point the positions of the GOP become socially unacceptable to many people. While I can support many GOP economic ideas, if I support the GOP it will mean alienating many close friends due to those social issues. A lot of us are completely fed up with both Quinn and Madigan, but we just can’t support the GOP. So we spend time here and on other venues talking about how we will never vote for anybody. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:58 pm: Right on, Adamo. If the behavior of the new/old conservatives begins to crest, the growling arrogance of Rush et.al will recede, good Lord willing. Put him and those like him out to pasture. Time to shuck off the ‘Ol Yellers - Kasich Walker, Jr. - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 1:59 pm: Get a GOP candidate who will honor contracts with state employees and vendors, support defunding military occupations, oppose government interference in marriages & cannabis markets, and speak out about the waste of dough on airports in Peotone. Then see what happens to the GOP statewide. - qcexaminer - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:01 pm: Could someone please explain how Obama was able to win a second term by “dividing our country” (War On Women, War on Millionaires and Billionaires while taking their $$$ Romneny Isn’t One of Us, etc) yet according to Kinzinger the path to GOP victory is “But we have to do it in a way that’s not dividing the country”. If dividing the country worked for Obama, why shouldn’t the GOP punch back twice as hard? - capncrunch - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:06 pm: You’re not alone Willy, my wife and I agree. She was born and raised in Oswego;-must be something in the water up there! - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:06 pm: ===At some point the positions of the GOP become socially unacceptable to many people. While I can support many GOP economic ideas, if I support the GOP it will mean alienating many close friends due to those social issues. A lot of us are completely fed up with both Quinn and Madigan, but we just can’t support the GOP.=== You, as a voter, are the voters we in the ILGOP need to understand that we are alienating, and while you may never agree 100% with the GOP, we have yet to give you cause to look at the 80% you very well MAY agree with, as we continue our in-fighting and lack of a political compass to understand we have what voters are looking for. Today, my ILGOP chooses to show the voters what they disagree with them. That is our Leadership vacuum, from Party Chair, to HGOP, SGOP, their Senoir Political minds … and some back benchers who are “louder” than those who disagree with them. Those are the “issue/philisophical” challenges we iin the ILGOP face, as - steve schnorf - also points out exceptionally well, as usual, we embrace the “Party of NO” label. - Skeeter -, you are a Case Study voter for us. I have no answers for you, only what I hope will change. I wuld love to be able to tell you my party is addressing those and other issues like those as we sp[eak, but I can not. But I leave it like this for you, I hope you know as loud and divisive as some want to show you we are, Republicans are your neighbors, we have families like you, and we want to make things better, and those Republicans who want your vote, will be around, just like Congressman Kinzinger. - dupage dan - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:08 pm: KWY - just what does a statewide office holder have anything to do with “defunding military occupations”? Occupying what - Kankakee? - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:12 pm: - capncrunch - Oswego is a great place, with good people, and I am sure is one of those good people who called Oswego home. We are less alone when we all speak up, and hopefully after Quinn’s last win and a Super-Majority in both chambers, more voices will drown out the Testers. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:14 pm: I am sure SHE is one of those good people who called Oswego home. Better! - Kasich Walker, Jr. - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:23 pm: DD, legislatively, not much…..but speaking out on where the money and blood is going displays priorities and orientation. It is hard to believe that no one in the GOP tires of nearly every public gathering being taken as an opportunity for a faithful member of one party or the other to suggest that our freedom is being protected not by dissenters, law enforcement, and lawyers, but by a compensated volunteer military occupying nations of the Mid East, many enticed in to service to escape unemployment or easing their personal tuition related debt. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:27 pm: ===If dividing the country worked for Obama, why shouldn’t the GOP punch back twice as hard?=== The GOP, rightly or wrongly, is seen as the agressor, the bully, the Negative Nelly, while Obama is “fighting” the bullies, Obama scored points on the perception. As the GOP fights “twice as hard”, we look “twice as dopey” and not be ing inclusive to voters like - Skeeter - in the process. Until the GOP gets on stronger, broader footing with the voters, every time we go “both barrels”, scream louder, stomp fiercer, we are going to look bad, until we come up with some answers people are willing to listen to. Sometimes, the “bully pulpit”, just makes you look like a Bully. - Bluefish - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:43 pm: Kinzinger is on the right track but the national GOP platform is the real problem. Let’s review how the 2012 version came across: If you’re a woman, we will take away your reproductive rights. If you’re gay, we will take away your civil rights. If you’re a senior, we will take away your Social Security and Medicare. If you’re foriegn born, we will take away your path to citizenship. If you’re a poor college student, we will take away your access to education. If you’re middle class, we will take away some of your income (someone has to pay for the tax cuts for the Romneys of the world). Perhaps a better approach would be to find something to appeal to these voters who understandably have flocked to the Democrats. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 2:55 pm: –Could someone please explain how Obama was able to win a second term by “dividing our country” (War On Women, War on Millionaires and Billionaires while taking their $$$ Romneny Isn’t One of Us, etc) yet according to Kinzinger the path to GOP victory is “But we have to do it in a way that’s not dividing the country”. If dividing the country worked for Obama, why shouldn’t the GOP punch back twice as hard? – Go ahead, keep punching. But don’t mistake howling at the moon to accomplishment. There certainly is a war going on now in the GOP. Kinzinger has taken a side, you seem to have as well. But to some of your points: Every election is a division of sorts. Who gets most votes, wins. War on Women? How did that happen? I think the most powerful man in the national GOP went on the public airwaves and called a young woman a “slut” and a “prostitute” and suggested she post videos of herself online having sex for having the temerity to testify before Congress about access to contraception. From the rest of the GOP, including Gov. Romney: Crickets. Too scared to cross the guy. Can you see how some people might have had a problem with that? Not to mention Akin, Murdouch and Walsh and their BIO 101 lessons. War on Millionaires: There was one? I guess they won, because there are more millionaires and billionaires in the United States now than ever before — and watch that stock market go. Romney wasn’t one of us: I think the governor made that clear himself in his “47″ remarks. In the ultimate irony, 47% was his popular vote. QC, you’re part of the victim wing of the GOP. Kinzinger is trying to build a majority, governing wing. Kind of the purpose of the exercise. - Lundstrom - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:06 pm: VMan, nailed it. The current IL GOP consists of B-list types. No standouts, no crossover superstars, no broad voter appeal. The GOP bench is so thin on talent that it makes me not want to vote ever again. I refuse to vote for democrats, so I’m left with nothing. I hope that Quinn doesn’t run again. Too many people supported him because they felt sorry for him. They thought that Madigan was doing him in. Meh. Quinn just isn’t competent and is poor leadership material. We have seen Quinn prove Harold Washington’s point about him, haven’t we? - Susiejones - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:06 pm: good to see Kinzinger’s remarks and many of the postings here. I have felt disenfranchised from the Republican Party for a long time. I still want to think of my self as a Republican–less government; fiscal restraint–but I cannot stand the obstructionist attitudes in Washington, D.C. where the stated intent is to make sure the President fails. and the election last fall that left us with 19 Republicans in the Senate is an outright embarrassment. - Nickypiii - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:09 pm: Is Adam even old enough to remember Reagan? Party affiliation is going to keep going down as the younger people start getting more and more involved with national politics. Republicans are considered the party of “NO” right now and nothing going on in Wash DC has helped with that perception. Get a clue and return to real “Republicanism”. That used to mean libertarian ideals of low/no government interference and freedom of personal choice. None of this nanny state BS that peers into people bedrooms, wombs, etc. has helped anyone but religious zealots and Tea Party morons who are now the Republican party. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:14 pm: - Bluefish -, Too simple, but here is the rub… If voters agree with 80% of what the GOP is trying to do, then we can win on message, but the broad stroke, as you painted, is how we in the GOP have let our party be painted by the “Litmus Testers” and the reason it seems, even as you presented it, that its 100% or nothing … its because the “base”, the purists require it that way… and that message filters down to the voters. We have a great of work to do. We need to understand the Reagan Rule of 80 is good, and not against the purity of what others see as “their GOP”. The question is not if it can be done, but will it be done, and will the “base” see this as expansion, or “ruining” the Party of Lincoln and Reagan? Want to know where you stand in this battle for the GOP, answer that question above and you will have your answer… - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:19 pm: - wordslinger -, Wow. Well said. Amen. - Mittuns - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:27 pm: Isn’t this the guy who had a bitter, divisive primary with Manzullo, arguing over who was most conservative? Good message, but seems disingenuous. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:33 pm: ===Isn’t this the guy who had a bitter, divisive primary with Manzullo, arguing over who was most conservative? Good message, but seems disingenuous.=== The way you win in the GOP is to run Right of your opponent in the primary, and sprint as close as you can to the Center in the general … to … win. What Congessman Kinzinger is saying (I believe) is that we need to think more about growing overall and in the General Election minds as a party and gorw as a Party when the elections are over, so we don’t have the Litmus Tests and Blood Oaths saddling our party as the voters see us today. Adam is trying to get us to move toward growth of a party, not shrinking. Sometimes those closest (running for an elective office, and having to campaign in both a Primary and General election under the winning formula above.) to the process are the best to explain how to fix it. - Cook County Commoner - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:50 pm: My old partner’s mother always reminded me of a Chicago west side alderman who was unbeatable at the polls because at Christmas time he gave the Catholics a ham and the Jewish residents a turkey. No one wins elections with vitriol, prejudice, condescension and convoluted policy arguments. The Republicans need to realize that in a nation with a universal franchise, most people want stuff for their vote. If the stuff is only ideas, then they had better polish the message so the voters know it will turn into a turkey or ham in a very short period of time. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:53 pm: –I hope that Quinn doesn’t run again. Too many people supported him because they felt sorry for him. They thought that Madigan was doing him in.– Lundstrom, any kind of ground game in Cook, and better ground games in the Collars, and Bill Brady is governor in a national GOP year. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 3:59 pm: ===Lundstrom, any kind of ground game in Cook, and better ground games in the Collars, and Bill Brady is governor in a national GOP year.=== When will the realities of how Quinn won and Brady lost finally sink in, in regards to a ground game … - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 4:08 pm: ===Lundstrom, any kind of ground game in Cook, and better ground games in the Collars, and Bill Brady is governor in a national GOP year.=== After we do all this great party work, and get a great message, and grow, and entice “Indies” back, how are we going to get them to the polls? Wish them there? Growth and Renewal in the Illinois Republican Party MUST include a realistic ground game aparatus in Cook, and the Collars need to get the elected Precinct Committeemen to work their precincts o don’t run for Precinct committeeman. You want the office, do the job … Lots of areas to improve, and add Ground Game to the mix as well. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 5:33 pm: Social conservatives and fiscal conservatives are not at all the same. As long as the GOP caters to the former, they are fighting a losing battle. - Anon - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 7:10 pm: Too bad Kinzinger doesn’t vote like he talks. I just another Washington Boehner House righty - wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 7:21 pm: –Too bad Kinzinger doesn’t vote like he talks. I just another Washington Boehner House righty– The kid from Cincinati still has a chance to step up. He’s the Speaker of the House, not a baby-sitter for a bunch of loons. Boehner got the majority from the Tea Party. Now he has to turn around and screw them. Like Big Daddie said, if you can’t do that, you’re in the wrong line of business. There’s a governing majority in the middle. Ike had it with Johnson and Rayburn. Tip never denied Reagan a vote in the House. Boehner has the chance to cast out the crazies. They hate him, anyway. Check out the google. - PublicServant - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 8:10 pm: People aren’t rejecting Republicans because they scream on TV. They’re rejecting them because of their policy positions. You wan’t people to vote Republican? Substantively change your pro-rich/anti-middle class positions. - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Feb 20, 13 @ 8:47 pm: ===He’s the Speaker of the House, not a baby-sitter for a bunch of loons. Boehner got the majority from the Tea Party. Now he has to turn around and screw them. Like Big Daddie said, if you can’t do that, you’re in the wrong line of business. There’s a governing majority in the middle. Ike had it with Johnson and Rayburn. Tip never denied Reagan a vote in the House.=== Well said. The Tea Party Crew ain’t helping, so they must be hurting, and who can Boehner count on to govern, the Tea Party? Our sytem of government works when compromise and common ground are emphasised. Our government doesn’t work when you have rigid ultimatums and unrealistic expectations of governing as a minorty wing of one of the two parties. Ike and Reagan had the best relationships becuase they knew if everyone had a chance to work together, things can get done. Holding Boehner hostage by the fringe is not helping the GOP, and is especially not helping the country. Hold your line … till a deal can be reached and you get 218 “Yes”es. If the Tea Party gets frozen out, along with the Far Left, then the middle wins, and government functions as it should, for the betterment of ALL the people. Well said, - wordslinger -, let’s just hope Boehner doesn’t wait too long for the casting out, if it comes down to that… Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.