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Porter endorses Coulson, Kadner has tea, and maybe the worst ad of the year

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Illinois

* TA had a nice scoop today…

Team America has confirmed with the Beth Coulson for Congress campaign that former Congressman John Porter is going to endorse State Rep. Beth Coulson in her bid for the GOP nomination to succeed Congressman Mark Kirk in the Tenth Congressional District. As most of you know, Porter was a popular and highly-regarded congressman who was noted for his political acumen and influence, as well as his ethics and attention to serving his district for many years.

The press release just arrived in my in-box…

“Beth is the best fit for the 10th district and I know her to be a dedicated leader” Porter said. “She is a strong fiscal conservative at a time when Washington, DC, needs legislators who will restrain runaway federal spending.”

Porter’s highly sought-after endorsement by 10th Congressional District GOP candidates comes on the heels of former-Gov. Jim Edgar announcing last month that he, too, is backing Coulson.

“Beth Coulson has demonstrated herself as a thoughtful legislator with the ability to master complex public policy issues and translate them into common sense solutions,” Porter said. “In particular, because of her professional background as a medical school professor, Beth would provide invaluable and much-needed insight into ongoing health care policy issues.” […]

Porter’s endorsement follows the endorsement of the majority of Illinois Congressional Republicans including Reps. Judy Biggert, Timothy Johnson, Aaron Schock and John Shimkus and Republican members of the Illinois General Assembly including leaders State Rep. Tom Cross and State Sen. Chris Radogno. Coulson has also received the backing of numerous local elected officials and civic leaders in the 10th District.

* Meanwhile, Phil Kadner attended a tea party event this week…

There wasn’t any of that on display Tuesday night, but then all of the speakers seemed to be preaching to the choir.

In fact, this crowd was beyond polite.

When someone asked people to give up their seats for older men and women in the audience who were standing, I saw one fellow with a cane get up and offer his chair to a younger person. I saw another senior citizen, who could barely balance himself, give up his seat to a woman and lean against a wall.

Every person I spoke with was so bursting with enthusiasm for the cause that I had trouble taking notes.

One man told me he’s tired of writing letters to politicians in Washington only to get form letters back saying, “Thank you for writing. Now I’m going to vote the way I want to.”

Several of the members told me they spend a lot of time on the Internet researching political issues and e-mailing friends.

The crowd was white, middle class and suburban. And for whatever reason, they feel their country is being taken away from them.

Read the whole thing. It’s a good piece.

* Republican Cook County Board candidate Mark Thompson has a new Internet ad. At least I think it’s just an Internet ad. I hope he doesn’t put this on TV. Watch if you dare…

Sometimes, it’s better just to do nothing rather than put out stuff like that. Yeesh.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:04 am

Comments

That looks like a bad Saturday Night Live scetch, I was waiting for the punchline, instead of getting “informed”????. Also, the best you can do is a horrible still picture on a 3rd rate blue background? This is the worse of the season thus far, but its still early

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:14 am
That VERY boring ad is still much more exciting than Mark could ever be. I hope Liz Gorman crushes him at the polls!

Comment by Suburbs Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:16 am
The elderly gentleman enjoyed his warm glass of milk on the front porch as he enjoyed the sunset until he was mauled by a big black bear. Yet another Fuzzy Memory from Jack Handey

Comment by Quacktastic Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:26 am
Hmmm,I thought the guy rocking in the chair was Thomspon until the last segment.

Funny he’s showing an ad of guy sipping ice tea on his front porch during winter in Chicago.

Comment by 2010 Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:26 am
I thought that was Thompson in the rocking chair with the milk and glassy stare…then I saw his photo at the end. Yikes.

Good for Porter to come out for Coulson. Beth is a class act and the best Republican hope to keep that seat. Will Kirk endorse or is he afraid of offending someone?

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:26 am
I would really like to see the Tea Party people form a new party - I just don’t think the moderate and conservative Republicans like each other anymore. I’m sure the Tea Partiers are nice people just as Kadner has found, but I’d really like to see their anti-everything bags under a new tent.

Comment by KeepSmiling Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:34 am
The message is pretty good. The sound quality not professional, and I too thought the old guy was the candidate. Recut it, get a better picture of the actual candidate and it would probably be effective. Patronage and pensions has resonance.

Comment by walter sobchak Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:35 am
moderates and conservatives share in our disgust for our party leadership. moderates now vote democrat and conservatives are tea people.

team america breaks more stories about north shore politics than working journalists at the trib.

Comment by shore Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:39 am
I’ll say this for John Porter: twice I asked him mildly difficult questions (to his face), twice he gave me a straight answer.

Keep Smiling: I would too — Canada’s conservative movement splintered like that once(the Torries and the tea-party-ish Reform Party) and it took them over a decade to even think of having power (they regained the PM in their second attempt following a “unite the right” merging of the two parties).

Comment by lake county democrat Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:43 am
Kadner: I told him I didn’t find anyone in the crowd who sounded like a Democrat.

Mr. Kadner, are you talking about political Democrats or about regular Democrats? There are thousands of us who are being shoved away from a political party that focuses more on what they think you are, than who you really are. There are a lot of Democrats who respect the middle class enough to be alarmed at how we are being robbed by big business/big government deals being held behind closed and locked doors. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want either big business or big government running their lives. There are a lot of Democrats who are demanding transparency and are angry over how we have been treated, after having been promised it by the current state and national administrations. We have discovered that these people are liars.

The reason you are not meeting voters at the Tea Parties who will tell you that they are Democrats is because we feel that if we publically announce our cynicism towards the Party - it will start to drum us out of the party we have been loyal to for our entire adult life. Similar to the folks who regard Congressman Kirk; moderates and independants from both parties are being hunted down and told by extremists to either join their hair-brained partisan nonsense, or to shut up.

Bipartisanship is dead because we have seen that those who promise it - are the same folks who backstab bipartsianship whenever they see partisanship giving them a political edge.

I am a listening to the Tea Partiers, not the GOP - just as polls have clearly indicated. It is no surprise to me that the Tea Party polls better than either the Republicans or the Democrats. We care more about the issues, than about party loyalties right now.

If you think every Tea Party is filled with GOPers, then you are falling for stereotypes, not reality.

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:49 am
Mark Thompson is the stooge of that nut Tony Peraica who continues his nasty war on Liz Gorman.

Liz will easily beat Thompson. Republicans are fed up with Peraica and his games, the same way the Democrats got fed up with him several years ago.

Look out Greens, Tony Peraica could be crashing your party next.

Comment by just sayin' Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 12:35 pm
Step 1: write a radio ad.
Step 2: buy stock video footage of elderly middle to high-income white people.
Step 3: Add in cheesy, badly photoshopped still of your candidate, who can’t be bothered to show up for a live shoot, or can’t afford it.
Step 4: you now have a video commercial.

Comment by Some Guy Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 12:38 pm
“team america breaks more stories about north shore politics than working journalists at the trib. ”

Especially now that the reporter who used to shill –er– cover Kirk has taken her rightful place on his payroll.

Comment by JonShibleyFan Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:12 pm
Whatever the old guy in the rocking chair is on . . . I want some.

Comment by the Other Anonymous Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:30 pm
kirk had one reporter, the obama administration and the daley olympic team had the entire city press corps outside of kass. ben bradley, hmmm. It’s also hard to be biased about a small bill on internet predators.

i miss susan, she was a great ally of our man. i would have preffered she stay with mother tribune and continued her work, but all good things must come to an end.

team america like him or not has the 10th wired.

Comment by shore Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:39 pm
Think I heard Thompson’s background music at the last funeral I attended.

Comment by zatoichi Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:41 pm
“i miss susan, she was a great ally of our man.”

Repeated without comment.

Comment by JonShibleyFan Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:43 pm
I watched the ad with the sound off, and I thought it was either selling an Alzheimer’s cure, or a laxative.

Then Thompson showed up on screen and I realized that it was for a homeopathic body spray for warts.

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 1:49 pm
===
“i miss susan, she was a great ally of our man.”
===

Sorry, who is Susan? Wasn’t following.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:09 pm
Anon,

“Susan” is Susan Kuczka, a former Tribbie who covered the 10th CD.

Perhaps the signature story of that assignment was her story about a Dan Seals campaign event (which she labeled a “stunt” in the story), in which the man on the street quote about said event came from someone who not only was NOT anywhere near the event, but who was a known Mark Kirk activist.

Today, Ms. Kuczka is a paid staffer for the Kirk for Senate operation.

Comment by JonShibleyFan Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:14 pm
Paid for by Heavily Sedated People for Thompson…

Comment by soccermom Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:14 pm
Thank you. I thought that was to whom you and shore were referring, but didn’t see a previous reference, so I wasn’t sure. Susan joined as a spokesperson a while back, didn’t she? October?

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:23 pm
I couldn’t figure out what the rocking chair guy reminded me of. But Vanilla Guy helped me out. Definitely Alzheimer’s. Or maybe horse tranquilizer. And I love the hardcore Chicago accent in the VO–no doubt that she’s local.

Comment by MarkMac74 Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:44 pm
bad production values, bad writing, amateur vo talent (must be his sister), I’ve seen more clever ads for mortuaries.

Comment by Euripedis Pantsoff Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:52 pm
hahaha dude. no way!

Comment by heet101 Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 2:59 pm
While it is pretty bad the Thompson ad does exactly as much as any other internet ad which is nothing.

Unless you are able to create some earned media off of it you are wasting valuable (and often limited) campaign resources producing them.

Comment by Cosmic Charlie Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 3:07 pm
After seeing Thompson’s picture at the end of the commercial, I think it would have been better if he just let us think the old man with the milk was him. Yikes.

Comment by SweetLou Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 3:08 pm
I keep watching that ad. I can’t stop. It’s so bad, it’s awesome. The rocking chair guy even kind of burps at the end. It’s like a commercial for a lovely senior living facility, but the senior facility is the guy’s own home in Cook County. I love it. North Riverside should use it in their next municipal election. If only Mark Thompson’s face didn’t appear at the end — that kind of snapped me out of my pleasant nap.

I’d be willing to bet that the seniors in Cook County probably don’t need a lot of razzle dazzle in a commercial. They need to see someone their own age doing something that they understand. And if te seniors are the intended market of the ad, it’s gotta go somewhere other than the Internet. (and I can’t wait!)

Comment by KeepSmiling Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 3:17 pm
I wish I had dementia like the old guy in the ad so I could have forgotten that thing by now.

Comment by Old Milwaukee Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 3:28 pm
I worked with Mark Thompson years ago. He was a pretty good guy, and I liked him

Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Jan 7, 10 @ 11:47 pm
Very funny comments! But it’s like McKenna’s “Hair” ad. All the campers here are following the lead of their counselor, so everyone is trashing it, but everyone is talking about it . . .

Comment by Bubs Friday, Jan 8, 10 @ 12:04 am
It is about as good an ad as you get in a County Board race. While the message is a scare tactic, name recognition is the goal here. The candidate is about as exciting as your average County Board candidate.

Comment by Tom Joad Friday, Jan 8, 10 @ 9:07 am
Tea Partiers are a bunch of pathetic, ungratetful cry babies.

If you live in the United States today, you enjoy more personal freedom and have a higher standard of living than 99% of the people who ever walked the Planet Earth. But that’s not good enough, I guess.

I’m first generation. My folks never knew there was a Depression when they were kids, they were so broke. My old man heard the boots on the steps and was taken away in the middle of the night.

They left it all behind, came here and gave me and my siblings the gift of the United States.

Most of the old-timers are gone now. I miss them. I’d love to hear what they’d have to say about these petulant whiners who don’t know how good they have it.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jan 8, 10 @ 1:34 pm