Hope you’ve had a great weekend and are ready for Fair week.
I wanted to send you details about the advocacy efforts we are launching this week, along with the digital ads we’re running (below). The initial phase of the advocacy campaign consists of an extensive digital ad campaign in each of the legislative districts, reinforced with our door-to-door effort and direct mail through November. Additional legislators will be added to the advocacy efforts in the coming month. If you are not in a targeted district, hopefully you will not see the ad (except on CapFax J).
In the House districts, the campaign will focus on failure to curb government over-spending by passing the unbalanced Madigan budget and promoting higher taxes. In the Senate, the ads focus on the Democrat majority’s refusal to address the problem of ever-increasing property taxes that drain family budgets and dampen growth.
The accountability effort will initially include the following Illinois Senate & House members:
* Sen. Mark Kirk has burned himself twice by announcing he’d be writing in a presidential preference rather than voting for anyone who is actually on the ballot. And now he’s refusing to talk about the subject at all…
Kirk yanked his endorsement of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in June, saying he would write in former CIA director and retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information. Last month, Kirk said he was switching his write-in vote to Colin Powell, saying the former secretary of state and retired Army general was “much more experienced at the national level.”
But last week, in denouncing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s support of the multinational deal aimed at curbing Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons, Kirk told CNN he “can’t support someone who is for the Iran agreement.” Powell, however, supported the Iran agreement.
“Don’t really need to discuss my write-in choice because it’s not that important, it’s not going to swing the election at all,” Kirk said. […]
“My job is to make sure that if it’s Clinton or it’s Trump that we have the strongest representative possible in the Senate,” Kirk said.
Whenever candidates refuse to talk about something they can always be assured of getting more reporter questions about that very topic.
And it was a silly move in the first place because, as Kirk himself was eventually forced to admit, write-in votes aren’t counted in Illinois for people who are not officially registered as candidates.
*** UPDATE *** The Duckworth campaign passed along the exchange…
REPORTER: Senator, you had mentioned that you would not support anybody who supported the Iran deal and Colin Powell, who is your write-in choice, did support the Iran deal.
KIRK: My job is to make sure, if it’s Clinton or it’s Trump, that we have the strongest representative possible that’s in the Senate.
REPORTER: So it’s more playing a defensive posture about whoever is President is what it comes down to?
KIRK: And we’re sending someone who is the best representative for the state of Illinois. And, instead of Tammy Duckworth, who really represents Chicagoland. For me, cause I was born downstate, and will travel downstate, so the rest of the state needs a Senator too.
REPORTER: So do you have a new write-in choice for President?
KIRK: I think we will, uh, we’ll just, uh, make sure, uh, go with whoever’s best. Don’t really need to discuss my write-in choice because it’s not that important. It’s not going to swing the election at all.
