* We have a special election Saturday, so I will probably put a post up sometime. You can head to Illinoize for other updates…
* Now, turn the volume ALL THE WAY UP…
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
* And while the volume is loud…
Destroyed your notion of circular time
I think I blew out three pair of headphones listening to Sticky Fingers. Man, what an album. That big tempo/time break by Charlie in the middle of “Sister Morphine” is worth the price by itself.
Well it just goes to show,
Things are not what they seem
* This may be a better press pop than a legal precedent…
Oberweis Dairy went to state court Thursday to try to stop the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from continuing to air ads that claimed illegal immigrants worked at its stores.
Oberweis Dairy President Joe Oberweis said claims in the political commercials directed at his father — Republican congressional candidate Jim Oberweis — are false and damaging to the business.
“Politics are politics, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to stand up and defend our business,” Joe Oberweis said.
* Here’s the ad in question…
* Illegal immigrants did work in one of his stores, but they weren’t Oberweis employees. They worked for a contractor who was fired. The ad never explicitly says Oberweis Dairy hired them. But it is an unfair hit.
* Even so, Oberweis has his own trouble with staying within the bounds of reality…
Rob Wadsworth is a firefighter. His wife, Amanda, works as an office assistant. They live in Yorkville and get by OK on $73,000 a year. They have a mop-headed little boy and a cute little girl. Take a look at their photo here. Aren’t they just adorable?
Well, life’s not all rosy for the Wadsworths. Rob likes to hit the tavern with his buddies after work, so Amanda basically has two jobs because someone has to ride herd on the kids — one’s a chronic shoplifter, the other likes to play with matches and neither of them can recite the alphabet without prompting — and Rob says he’d come home if Amanda’s hag of a mother wasn’t there all the time …
Actually, we made up that last part … but who cares? Jim Oberweis made up the Wadsworths!
He also made up Juan and Maria Garcia, a construction worker and a bank teller from Aurora who have three kids and haul in $54,778 a year. And DeKalb office manager Sheila Johnson, a divorced mother of two who makes $47,333. And Juan and Elena Marcos, who have a precious little baby boy and live on his $68,044 salary.
They’re all pictured in a mailer for Oberweis’ campaign for Congress in the 14th District.
Talking to Kane County GOP leaders Wednesday, Oberweis begged for help: “This is a challenging race with significant national attention. We need your help. This race is very close. It’s within 1 or 2 percentage points either way. If the Democrats win this seat we will hear nothing but, ‘Boy, the tide has turned. Democrats are taking over all across the country, they’ve just won Speaker Hastert’s seat.’ If we can hold this seat on the Republican side, the story will be . . . a tide turning in favor of Republicans.”
* Since it’s so close, the Oberweis campaign is trying to get the dirt out on Foster. This is from ABC 7, the most widely watched news in the region…
Oberweis has earned a reputation for tough tactics in his repeated runs for public office in Illinois, and this race is no exception. But now the man Oberweis and Foster are competing to replace, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, is getting his hands dirty, slamming Foster in a radio interview Thursday morning.
“He’s had some personal problems in his life. He’s not as squeaky clean as everyone thought he was,” Hastert told WLS-AM.
Insiders say the “personal problems” Hastert referred to are veiled reference to Foster’s messy divorce a dozen years ago.
The problem with that line of attack is that Foster’s ex will defend him. This will only work as a last-minute ploy when Foster can’t rebut.
But after meeting at length with both candidates, this endorsement was not such a difficult call. Oberweis was forceful and informed, while Foster was a disappointment. Though a respected physicist, he failed to do his homework, unable to discuss important issues in anything but superficial terms.
