* Congressman Don Manzullo is doing his very best to use his incumbency and experience as an advantage oer Republican primary challenger and freshman Congressman Adam Kinzinger, including holding out the possibility that he is in line for a plum committee assignment, according to Chuck Sweeny…
I asked Kinzinger, a freshman on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, why voters should choose him over Manzullo, who has 19 years of experience, including six years chairing the Small Business Subcommittee. Manzullo has a reputation as a relentless fighter for U.S. manufacturing.
“Don is going for his 21st year in Congress. He’s been a committee chairman, and usually after you’re a committee chairman you’re kind of in the wind-down part of that session,” Kinzinger said. “He’s maybe going to be there for another two or four years.”
But Rich Carter, Manzullo’s spokesman, said that should he win re-election, the veteran representative may become Foreign Affairs Committee chairman in the next Congress.
* Manzullo is also attempting to “prove” that he is by far the more conservative candidate in the primary. From a press release…
An analysis of Congressional votes shows that U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-16) continued his strong conservative record of voting against wasteful Washington spending in 2011 while his opponent voted much more often for big government.
Manzullo, who maintains a lifetime 96 percent rating with the American Conservative Union, voted 79 more times to cut spending in 2011 than Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-11), who says he came to Washington in 2010 to cut spending. An analysis of all 949 roll call votes cast in 2011 shows Kinzinger voted to spend $209 billion more than Manzullo. Click here to view the full analysis. […]
Manzullo was recently endorsed by the Illinois Conservatives, a statewide organization of about 4,000 young conservatives under 35. He was endorsed last month by Family PAC-Federal, Illinois’ leading pro-family political action committee, and he is consistently recognized for his efforts to cut wasteful spending by many national conservative organizations.
Heritage Action, the sister organization of the conservative Heritage Foundation, shows a wide disparity in conservative rating in its Legislative Scorecard, with Manzullo receiving an 83 percent rating and Kinzinger receiving a 60 percent rating.
By the way, I checked the Illinois Conservatives’ Facebook page and website the other day and couldn’t find any explanation for how the endorsement was made. I was told by the leader of the group that ten board members took a vote.
* In other campaign news, the Illinois AFL-CIO decided today not to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary race between Tammy Duckworth and Raja Krishnamoorthi, according to the Krishnamoorthi campaign, who say they fell just a couple of votes shy of the nod. The Krishnamoorthi folks are portraying this endorsement fight as a national vs. local contest, and are basically saying that their local supporters were able to keep DC labor leaders from handing the nod to Duckworth.
“The SEIU Illinois Council is proud to endorse Tammy Duckworth as the next Congresswoman from the 8th Congressional District and looks forward to working with her in advancing President Obama’s agenda for working families,” said Tom Balanoff, president of the SEIU Illinois Council.
“To have the endorsement of the SEIU Illinois Council is so significant and I am honored by it,” Duckworth said in response to the endorsement. “I look forward to working with SEIU to provide a better life for working families.”
Duckworth is running against Raja Krishnamoorthi for the Democratic nomination in the 8th congressional district. Krishnamoorthi announced the endorsement of State Sen. Michael Noland (D-22) of Elgin earlier today as well.
Duckworth was also endorsed today by Teamsters Joint Council 25, which represents 20 locals in the Chicago area.
* Meanwhile, Roll Call takes a look at Google’s “autocomplete” function and how it means that some politicians can’t get away from their pasts…
And anyone looking for Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) will be reminded that he made headlines when his wife accused him of having unpaid child support.
One of the difficulties in monitoring and potentially managing autocomplete is that Google provides different suggestions to different people. As a part of Google’s ongoing attempt to personalize its search tool, autocomplete provides suggested terms based on a number of factors, including the location of the user and the previous searches from that Google account, according to industry experts.
(To ensure the searches Roll Call did for this story would be a good indication of what most users would see while searching with the same term, the searches were conducted after clearing location information, Google account information and browsing history from the computer used.)
Rob Ousbey, vice president of operations at search engine optimization firm Distilled, explained that one important factor in autocomplete’s algorithm is the search terms being entered by others.
“The more people search for those things, the more likely they are to be suggested,” he said. Those suggestions are “a genuine reflection of what people have been interested in in the past,” he said.
Singer, hunter and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent will keynote the Sangamon County GOP’s annual Lincoln Day event on Feb. 10, Sangamon County Republican Chairman Tony Libri said Monday.
The 108th annual event, which raises money for the local GOP will be held in the evening instead of the traditional mid-day. […]
Nugent is not expected to sing at the event, which will be held at the Prairie Capital Convention Center. Included are a private reception at 5 p.m., costing $100 per person or $150 per couple, and a dinner at 6 p.m. costing an additional $100 per person. […]
Libri said he’s familiar with the Nugent song “Cat Scratch Fever,” but doesn’t know much about him. However, he said, he’s hoping for a good turnout, and would be “very happy with 800 or more.”
That last quote shows you what sort of people run the GOP in Springfield. The party chairman knows Nugent’s biggest radio hit, but nothing else? Pretty weird.
