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In tight race, Manzullo blows his top at Majority Leader Cantor

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* I’m told that Congressman Adam Kinzinger’s latest tracking poll has him ahead of fellow Republican Congressman Don Manzullo by three points. Whatever happens today, things are definitely getting testy…

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor should step down from his leadership position for interfering in Tuesday’s primary.

The 10-term congressman said he was “outraged” that Cantor (R-Va.) endorsed freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in the battle between the two lawmakers, which is growing nastier by the day.

“He needs to step down as majority leader,” Manzullo told The Hill on Monday afternoon, referring to Cantor. “Members of our conference don’t trust him, and when you don’t trust someone, you need to replace him.”

* And he’s dishing all over DC…

Locked in the fight of his political life, a visibly perturbed Rep. Don Manzullo unloaded on Majority Leader Eric Cantor for intervening on behalf of his opponent in their contentious GOP primary and revealed that Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy phoned him to convey distance from Cantor’s moves.

“McCarthy’s madder than hell at Cantor,” Manzullo told POLITICO in an interview. “He said, ‘I’m fighting with Cantor.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s interesting.’”

Manzullo also accused Cantor of ripping apart the GOP caucus due to his glowing endorsement of freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger in the 16th Congressional District primary here. […]

Manzullo’s frustration with House GOP leadership appeared to boil over when a super PAC aligned with Cantor dropped $50,000 on a radio ad supporting Kinzinger. The Young Guns PAC is run by former top aides to Cantor. […]

Manzullo said the call by McCarthy was followed by a call from Speaker John Boehner, who said he would talk to his deputy.

“The Speaker called and I said, ‘I want that ad pulled.’ The Speaker said, ‘I’m going to call McCarthy,’” Manzullo recalled.

* Manzullo is also upset at all the Super PAC involvement…

“This has been a real terrible process,” Mr. Manzullo told a reporter on the sidelines of an event for Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. He said that his rival’s campaign “brought in three super PACs that have dumped $400,000 against us trying to defeat us.”

* Former Speaker Dennis Hastert, who endorsed Manzullo, can see both sides…

“Usually, any leadership situation, you don’t want to get stuck in the middle, especially between two incumbents,” Hastert said in an interview with POLITICO. “But I have a great deal of sympathy for Cantor … I feel sorry for Cantor. He’s got 100 new members of Congress, and he has to work with these guys. That’s part of it. He supported Kinzinger because he’s representative of that new group of people he has to deal with every day. It puts you in a predicament.”

* Related…

* Romney, Santorum go head-to-head in Illinois GOP primary

* Cantor’s Big-Time Political Blunder: Third, if Cantor was going to take the bold step of endorsing against a colleague, he should’ve gone all in. The super PAC’s five-figure radio buy on Kinzinger’s behalf was enough money to draw significant attention, but not significant enough to make a real dent in the race.

* GOP incumbents duke it out in Illinois primary

* Manzullo/Kinzinger Showdown Front and Center In Illinois On Tuesday

* Rep. Cantor takes sides in Illinois House primary

* Illinois House primaries critical to balance of power: As colleague Aaron Blake writes: “No state in 2012 will be more crucial to Democrats ability to re-take the House than Illinois.” “Democrats have a great shot at picking up four seats from Republicans under a new redistricting map drawn by the Democratic legislature, but they will also have to defend the seat of retiring Rep. Jerry Costello (D),” Blake notes at The Fix. “In all, as many as six Illinois congressional seats could be competitive come November.”

* Democrats hope for big House election gains in Illinois

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 10:02 am

Comments

BTW, here’s my quote for the Santorum campaign:

“Mitt Romney may have won the City of Chicago, but we won 80 of Illinois’ 102 counties, including President Reagan’s hometown.”

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 10:22 am
Eric Cantor is certainly not your run-of-the-mill Congressional leader. He’s not really a good ol’ boy and he has a divergent style and ideology from Speaker Boehner. They each have their own PAC and their own schedules. One needs to look no further than Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker to see that the Speaker and House Majority Leader don’t always support the same candidates or legislation. Don Manzullo has enjoyed years of political peace and has run in a safe district for 20 years. Now that the going has gotten tougher, he’s mad that people are picking sides. Is that really surprising? He also has a reputation for not helping candidates in his neck of the woods, which doesn’t help.

Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 10:32 am
Politico is really obsessed with that Manzullo-Kinzinger race. Just noticed another post up commenting on it that mentions that Manzullo is nicknamed “Mad Dog.” Not sure that I would want that nickname if I was running for office, but apparently Manzullo has embraced it.

Also, is Manzullo just really emotional about this Cantor stuff or does he think it’s too his advantage to make such a big stink about it to highlight the “establishment” ties to Kinzinger? It seems like the Dem challengers that have had the weight of the party establishment stacked against them (Raja, Gill and Sheyman to an extent) haven’t whined as much about it, but maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.

In other congresscritter thoughts… if so many suburban swing/moderate voters wind up pulling GOP ballots to weigh in on the presidential primary that would be bad news for Schneider in IL-10, right? Not sure if it would affect any of the other races, but just a thought…

Comment by hisgirlfriday Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 10:35 am
I think you’re right about 10 hisgirl. I think Sheyman wins by -a hair and then the Dems can kiss that seat goodbye.

Comment by Siriusly Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 10:52 am
Not sure going ballistic on Cantor will help Manzullo get the Chairmanship of the House Foreign Relations Committee next Congress. He’s been using that potential post as a selling point in his district.

Comment by JoeZ Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 11:12 am
Manzullo needs to chill out and wake up that things get down and dirty in competitive races.

In addition, Manzullo cannot have it both ways on the Super PAC stuff. This AM on the way to work I heard a spot on WLS from a pro-Manzullo group that said Kinzinger voted on a “Rules of Engagement” policy that killed Americans….terrible considering that Kinzinger actually still suits up as a Air Force reservist.

Comment by GOB Bluth Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 11:13 am
Manzullo has a real beef. Given his seniority and the fact the new district is much more his than Kinzinger’s, the least he should expect from leadership is neutrality.

I love the whole “Young Guns” self-identification. Do they have Members Only jackets with their logo? And the Young Guns Action Fund — sounds like a frat house’s kegger money.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 11:23 am
I honestly don’t think most regular republicans have had enough time to form an opinion of cantor to say whether his endorsement of someone is a plus or minus.

Comment by Shore Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 11:24 am
Eric Cantor sees himself as the head of a revolutionary movement within the GOP, much like Newt saw himself in his day. He will be positioning himself for a Presidential run one of these days.

Comment by mark walker Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 12:20 pm
I agree Don’s got a beef, and Cantor has a bigger problem. YG money is given to fight Dems. In this case, it is being turned around to fight Republican incumbents. The other non-YG Repubs have got to be watching over their shoulders now.

If Kinzinger is the future, according to Cantor, goodbye to anyone over 35. And since Kinzinger has had no civilian job or career (unusual for a reservist), I guess our future is no civilian jobs.

Comment by Almost 16(th CD) Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 12:22 pm
===And since Kinzinger has had no civilian job or career (unusual for a reservist), I guess our future is no civilian jobs. ===

You cannot possibly believe what you just wrote. So, if you don’t believe it, don’t write it. And if you do believe that wackiness, it’s past time to find another website to comment on.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 12:34 pm
–I honestly don’t think most regular republicans have had enough time to form an opinion of cantor to say whether his endorsement of someone is a plus or minus. –

It’s not the endorsement, which I don’t if he ever really gave. It’s those checks he wrote.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 3:47 pm
If Kinzinger is the future, according to Cantor, goodbye to anyone over 35

If Old Man Zullo is the future, I predict the same fate for the state GOP as the Shakers. You can only have so many 8-term congresscritters.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 4:04 pm
Rich, you nailed it. I don’t believe that Kinzinger is the future, so I don’t believe that there will be no civilian jobs.

I didn’t mention this because it’s to late for electioneering, but if you check Kinzinger’s work history, he worked for a temp agency after college. He joined the military reserves, and has had no civilian jobs to work between weekend reserve drills. Because he has no commitments, he volunteers for short tours (1-3 months) overseas, then comes home to electioneer and tell stories about it.

I spent some time in the reserves, also as an air crewman, working two other jobs to make ends meet. It’s difficult, but doing reserve duty with no civilian job is nothing to brag about, much less hold up as an example of how the future should be.

Adam did the same thing he’s doing today in 2008, when he talked up challenging Tim Johnson for being too liberal. This time he moved into the 16th to take on Manzullo.

Comment by Almost 16(th CD) Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 4:08 pm
. — He joined the military reserves, and has had no civilian jobs to work between weekend reserve drills. Because he has no commitments, he volunteers for short tours (1-3 months) overseas, then comes home to electioneer and tell stories about it.–

I can’t tell you how much I respect your service, as one who never did. But in an age of never-ending war, I don’t think you can criticize someone for not having a job lined up once their service is done.

Back after 9/11, my old el buddy was in the reserves, and started out guarding the Byron nuclear plant, then air bases in Germany, then air bases in Saudi.

He lost his wife, job and home. Forget about the law, anyone who gives that much time pays dearly.

I would never question the service of a real reservist in this era.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 20, 12 @ 5:54 pm
Sad day for the TEA Party

Don Manzullo was the *original* TEA Party candidate in 1990. He went up against the hand picked establishment candidate and endured the withering attacks of the beltway boys. In ‘90 as in this race he had to run against Washington a Republican intrusion into a local primary. Early in the primary race he was offered a Federal judgeship to bow out gracefully for ‘their’ candidate. He said no!

I knew him well back then and he drove his campaign staff to the verge of nervous breakdown because he was functionally incapable of playing the games generally associated with gaining election to a national office.

Don could not embrace trading any favor for support. In the years after his election he listened to constituents both the strong and the weak and had the same answer for both groups. America works when individual Americans win and he could not stomach appeals from pressure groups of any kind.

The fact that he endured as long as he did with such a ‘backward’ approach to congressional representation is a testament to the integrity of his district. The fact that he did not ascend into a more prominent role in the party is a testament to the lack of integrity in the Washington Republican establishment and I’m sure his inability to keep his mouth shut when the American people were being sold out by both sides.

I don’t know Adam Kinzinger but I do know that Don’s record over the last twenty years and even over the last two eclipses Adam’s like the Sun over the moon. If Eric Cantor wanted a young gun he’s got it but the TEA party should know that it lost it’s founding member today and Adam will be required to fill some very large shoes.

Comment by 90 Man Wednesday, Mar 21, 12 @ 12:00 am