Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives
Previous Post: Gay marriage bill barely clears Exec
Next Post: Concealed carry roundup
Posted in:
* As if Aaron Schock doesn’t enough trouble with some shadowy super PAC funding negative ads and mailers against him. Now, the Club For Growth has him in the crosshairs. From Illinois Review…
The conservative political action group Club for Growth has a low tolerance for Republican Congress members that score low on their annual scorecard. Wednesday Club for Growth announced a new website, “PrimaryMyCongressman.com” in which they will feature two Illinois GOP Congressmen - Adam Kinzinger and Aaron Schock - now in the group’s crosshairs for 2014.
From the website…
WHY SCHOCK?
Aaron Schock likes to portray himself as a defender of economic freedom, but his record is not consistent with that portrayal. His website claims that he’s focused on “fighting the massive expansion of government spending and debt.” However, one of the first votes Schock took in the House was against cutting all of the spending projects from Obama’s failed $800 billion stimulus bill, joining only 43 Republicans. He voted for the August 2011 debt limit deal that gave Obama a $2.1 trillion increase in the national debt, and he’s been a consistent supporter of keeping Davis-Bacon wage requirements for federal projects, nothing but an anti-free market giveaway to big labor.
Schock has a 61 percent lifetime rating with the Club For Growth, but apparently that’s not good enough.
* As I’ve told you before, Adam Kinzinger has been traveling the state and talking about how the Republican Party needs to moderate its message. He was in Quincy recently and delivered the same message, along with a plug for Schock…
n his speech, Kinzinger primarily focused on the idea that Republicans should calm themselves in their interactions with others in order to advance the message. He alluded to other Congressman who “go on Fox News and see who can scream the loudest.” However, he didn’t name any names.
He also criticized the use of the term “RINO”, which stands for “Republican in Name Only” and is typically used to describe a Republican who either isn’t conservative or has recently voted with the Democrats. Kinzinger said that anybody who was with him a majority of the time was good enough to be in the party.
He said that Democrats would never kick somebody out of their party who wasn’t ideologically pure and that Republicans shouldn’t either if they wanted to build the party.
The message received mixed reactions from the audience.
However, the most interesting part of Kinzinger’s speech came at the beginning when he called out potential gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, directly accusing him of being behind recent radio and TV ads targeting Rep. Aaron Schock.
Rauner had been in attendance and gave a short speech but had ducked out just prior to Kinzinger’s speech.
Kinzinger said that “a million dollars spent by a Republican against a Republican is as good as two million spent by a Democrat.”
* From the Club For Growth’s website…
WHY KINZINGER?
Kinzinger zinged Congress at a 2010 Homer/Lockport Tea Party Rally as a candidate, saying “We should have been talking about our belief in the private sector. We should have been talking about what it takes to allow entrepreneurs and small business owners to create jobs. We should have been talking about tightening our belts…” But as a member of Congress, Kinzinger voted against cutting $15 million the Preisidio Trust Fund, leaving him as one of just 10 Republicans in favor of a subsidy for a national park in San Francisco that is a pet project of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s.
* Bruce Rauner, by the way, was also at that Quincy GOP event. Video of his stump speech…
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 9:57 am
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
Previous Post: Gay marriage bill barely clears Exec
Next Post: Concealed carry roundup
WordPress Mobile Edition available at alexking.org.
powered by WordPress.
Trouble? I see it differently. If you are Schock and you want to win a blue state like Illinois, it doesn’t hurt to be opposed by the ultra-right wing groups that supported Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. This helps moderate a relatively conservative Schock
Comment by Easy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:00 am
The stupidity is breathtaking
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:11 am
Kinziger is absolutely right (or moderate). You see the word RINO thrown around all the time like it’s the scarlet letters, anyone every call anyone a DINO? (except for Fred Flintstone)
Comment by OurMagician Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:15 am
“Schock has a 61 percent lifetime rating with the Club For Growth, but apparently that’s not good enough.”
-He had a 44 percent rating in 2011 ranking him in the bottom 1/5 of house gop members. I understand that Democrats and some in the media think it’s irrational that republicans want our politicians to actually walk our talk on issues we care about, but it’s reality.
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/projects/scorecard/?year=2011&chamber=2&state=Any&party=R&memberName=
Rauner’s been doing Rahm’s bidding on chicago tonight, this is a cute double game but it won’t fly. He was absolutely destroyed by the afscme flak that debated him last year and he looks like Andy McKenna redux. I’m not sure which advisor he has telling him that he thinks in a youtube era he can say he’s scott walker to republicans but then in chicago he’s obama’s ex chief of staff’s surrogate on spending issues.
Comment by shore Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:18 am
Shall we break this down for all us NON Blood Oathers, and Litmus Testers;
===Kinzinger zinged Congress at a 2010 Homer/Lockport Tea Party Rally as a candidate, saying “We should have been talking about our belief in the private sector. We should have been talking about what it takes to allow entrepreneurs and small business owners to create jobs. We should have been talking about tightening our belts…” But as a member of Congress, Kinzinger voted against cutting $15 million the Preisidio Trust Fund, leaving him as one of just 10 Republicans in favor of a subsidy for a national park in San Francisco that is a pet project of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s.===
Now …KEY WORDS.
Tea Party
San Francisco
Nancy Pelosi
Congressman Kinzinger, while THAT specific, ONE thing, and add your speaking the truth around Illinois and marginalizing the “base”,… “which (has) also teed off quite a few people”, … sounds “bad”, steer clear of these Litmus Testers and Blood Oathers and you will find refuge away from the “base”.
They will turn on you the moment you show weakness. We in the ILGOP need you to counter Oberweis and his “Slytherin House” rabble that would rather have pitchforks and torches lead Our party instead of Ideas and Leadership.
Keep going and DOING exactly what you ARE doing, and if 61% is the not 80% Reagan Rule, than what in the name of Blood Oaths WILL appease these Primary-Pushing True Believers?
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:19 am
Keep going and DOING exactly what you ARE doing, and if 61% is the not 80% Reagan Rule, than what in the name of Blood Oaths WILL appease these Primary-Pushing True Believers?
Adding …
“…if 61% Aaron Schock is the not IN THE 80% Reagan Rule, than what in the name of Blood Oaths WILL appease these Primary-Pushing True Believers?
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:21 am
==Scott Walker is a “management and leadership star” and a “mentor…along with Mitch Daniels”.==
Walker and Daniels couldn’t be more different in management and leadership style, tactics, and effectiveness.
Rauner’s still floundering a bit, trying to hit all the high notes for the small-government audience. I really hope he’s smarter than this.
He seems loyal to Illinois. He might be good, but there’s no way to see past the nonsense he’s spouting right now.
Comment by walkinfool Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:32 am
Kinzinger said that “a million dollars spent by a Republican against a Republican is as good as two million spent by a Democrat.”
Hmmm, I think that’s exactly what happened in the Kinzinger/Manzullo race!
Come on guys you gotta be willing to take your own medicine here.
Just saying - Seriously????!!!!!
Comment by Seriously? Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:32 am
It is hilarious watching the neandrathals eat their young. Don’t stop now, boys!
Comment by Bill Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:35 am
Maybe it’s funny to you, Bill…
Comment by Arthur Andersen Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:41 am
walkinfool is exactly right. But walker and daniels, especially the former more than the latter are opposed to what Rahm/obama represent-which Rauner has embraced. If they have a series of tv debates again he’ll get his clocked cleaned particularly if there’s an adam andjrewskjski who can throw punches.
oswego it’s 61 percent on spending but pretty sure kinzinger is pro life pro 2nd amendment so on the whole it’s probably closer to your 80-90 percent.
Schock was 44 percent in the club for growth rating near the departed dold. castle the moderate champion the teaparty torched in the 2010 delaware gop primary was at 48 percent. This isn’t a situation where the club for growth is fitting a guy with a 95 percent conservative rating with RINO horns for the heck of it.
Comment by shore Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:50 am
===Maybe it’s funny to you, Bill…===
You are On Point, - AA - …
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:50 am
===oswego it’s 61 percent on spending but pretty sure kinzinger is pro life pro 2nd amendment so on the whole it’s probably closer to your 80-90 percent.===
Playing it safe …
And - shore -, I understand the premise of the Schock idea, the 44%, all of it, but to your point you just made to me, if Kinzinger is 80% in the Reagan Rule ballpark, and they are going to go after HIM, how much weight should I give a group that will not look at what they are saying in the “big picture” of the Reagan Rule, and choose convenience to go after BOTH Kinzinger and Schock?
No snark, honestly asking how would I justify the convenience of looking at the Big Picture against one, (Schock), and the myopic view against the other (Kinzinger)?
With respect.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:55 am
Just Sayin’, there’s a big difference between Kinzinger/Manzullo and this Club for Growth nonsense. A primary death match between two incumbents in a redistricting scenario vs. a wasteful effort to generate a primary that everyone knows will be unsuccessful in a vain attempt at ideological purity.
Why not take the same money and protect Rodney Davis and attempt to recruit a top tier candidate in IL-10?
Idiocy.
Comment by LincolnLounger Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 10:58 am
I’d like to encourage Congressman Kinzinger to change the mentioning of his sense of optimism in a small government that can, among several other duties, “kill our enemies”, to a government that can correctly define and identify enemies.
Comment by Kasich Walker, Jr. Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 11:09 am
I agree the gop needs moderating but man the hypocrisy of kinzinger and schock whining about attacks from fellow republicans is obnoxious after their anti-manzullo superpac shenanigans.
Comment by hisgirlfriday Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 11:11 am
They’re really blasting away at each other in the Congressional GOP.
What’s the end game? Boehner can’t deliver his caucus now.
It’s hard to see how you grow a national party when now guys like Schock and Kinzinger are seen as apostates.
For the GOP, successful gerrymandering across the country was probably too much of a good thing. Too many safe districts where reps. are accountable to no one but the guy who writes the biggest check.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 11:24 am
–Wordslinger-
Speaking of the biggest check, when are you going to send us one for the pension mess you helped created?–
It’s in the mail. Keep checking your mailbox.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 11:43 am
IL 8 R Walsh, Joe 10 99% 99%
IL 16 R Manzullo, Donald 62 85% 81%
IL 14 R Hultgren, Randy 79 78% 78%
IL 15 R Johnson, Timothy 120 69% 56%
IL 11 R Kinzinger, Adam 172 56% 56%
IL 6 R Roskam, Peter 174 56% 78%
IL 19 R Shimkus, John 174 56% 72%
IL 17 R Schilling, Robert 179 54% 54%
IL 13 R Biggert, Judy 215 47% 63%
IL 18 R Schock, Aaron 224 44% 63%
those are their ratings. I love the walsh rating. Jesse Jackson Jr had the Jr. campaign posters. Walsh if he runs again should just have 99%. no name. just 99%.
Comment by shore Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 12:12 pm
=== However, the most interesting part of Kinzinger’s speech came at the beginning when he called out potential gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner ===
Yes. Let us discuss the importance of tolerance and peace and calmly working through our differences.
*ahem*
“But first, I would like to begin this kum-ba-yah moment by reiterating the unsubstantiated Facebook rant of my good friend Aaron Schock’s Chief of Staff.”
Seriously?
Nothing screams peace and unity louder than beginning your keynote address at a Republican event by “calling out” another Republican based on a few unsupported allegations your buddy is making.
You were saying, Mr, Kinzinger?
Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 12:18 pm
Speaking of “successful gerrymandering” in Dem Illinois, this might be part of Schock’s problem.
I don’t know anything about Kinzinger’s gerrymandered for Dem district, but I do know that the Dems made Schock’s district more conservative when they took the Quincy area away from the 17th and gave it to Schock and when they took away the more Dem areas of Peoria and gave it to the 17th.
With a lot of moderate blue collar Dems in his former district, he had to more to to appease powerful unions; now that his district is more right-leaning, this sort of thing is coming back to bite him in the keister.
I’ve always liked Schock and hope he wins, but it looks like having an even more GOP gerrymandered district might not be the godsend I originally thought it would be for him.
Comment by qcexaminer Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 12:27 pm
If these guys are mad at Shock and Kinzinger can you imagine if they still had Bob Dold to kick around?
Comment by Johnny Q. Suburban Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 12:28 pm
Looks Schock’s campaign to make himself look like a moderate is working real well
The other clear fact is that Counsin Brucey’s body has rejected the consultants’ procedure to transplant a personality.
Fire, Aim. Ready
Comment by CircularFiringSquad Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 12:52 pm
=Looks Schock’s campaign to make himself look like a moderate is working real well=
If you really believe that strategy works for anyone, CFS, is there a limit on how many times pols overall will be able to use this as a strategy and/or for each individual pol before the majority of voters catch on?
And has anyone considered that the long-term consequences could be complete mistrust of encumbents and hence, our government? Or, are you in the camp that believes this will only scream “bipartisanship” to the voters?
Hard to believe that these are the types of ideas that highly-paid consultants get paid for.
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 1:17 pm
Should Schcok just be a conservative - Anonymous -?
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:07 pm
And speaking of Dold. Didn’t he try the same strategy (to which some credit Kirk’s “win”) and otherwise follow in Kirk’s footsteps?
If so (or even possibly so), how long is the GOP going to hang onto and keep seelling a “one-time winner” strategy, believing it will help rather than harm others?
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:10 pm
There you go. Who ever thought people would seriously be asking ridiculous questions like, “Should Schcok just be a conservative….?” as if this is some sort of make believe, fancy dress ball.
Which are we supposed to cheer more? The losing strategy, or the ability to package it up and sell it over and over again as a winner?
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:17 pm
So - Anonymous -, should we in the GOP be socially conservative 100% of the time? I never understand why you never really answer anything and talk around EVERYTHING.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:20 pm
- I never understand why you never really answer anything and talk around EVERYTHING. -
To be fair, if this Anonymous didn’t consistently use the same tortured non-logic, I wouldn’t be able to tell him (her?) from the other Anonymi.
Comment by Small Town Liberal Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:26 pm
lol…Maybe those secretaries at the Law Firm that resembles the General Assembly were asking you about having to do double-duty and …well … you just never answered THEIR direct questions either!
To the Post,
If we as a Party refuse to see what Kinzinger is saying, then the Purist, the Blood Oath “Slytherin House” Litmus Testers will win and destroy the Party because we in the GOP will refuse to be seen as an alternative to Moderate Dems that run in the … Moderate districts we refuse to be competetive in.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:30 pm
- Small Town Liberal -,
Apologies.
Maybe you are on to something as not to confuse logic with …but I digress.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 2:32 pm
===understand that Democrats and some in the media think it’s irrational that republicans want our politicians to actually walk our talk on issues we care about, but it’s reality.
You misunderstand us. We applaud it whole heartedly. Please continue. How can I help?
Comment by ArchPundit Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 4:03 pm
The comments section of that Quincy Journal article is a great example of how extreme the Republican Party has gotten in the rural parts of Illinois. After looking through that website, it is clear that a lot of the readers and commenters of that website are living in their own version of reality.
Comment by Nick Kruse Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 4:05 pm
“…..it is clear that a lot of the readers and commenters of that website are living in their own version of reality.”
If there are multiple versions, they may as well choose their own.
Comment by Kasich Walker, Jr. Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 4:46 pm
Here’s to hoping that the Club gets behind some primary challengers for Schock and Kinzinger.
The Club For Growth is the DCCC’s BFF.
Comment by jerry 101 Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 6:26 pm
Boy, this young Fellow, despite that it’s impressive how he entered Congress at such a young age, should really start SERiously start thinking about sitting out the Governor’s Race. As his “Baggage” list conTINues to grow and keeps growing HEAVier, his GOP Opponents here in the L of L must just be chompin’ at the BIT to get their hands on him in the Debates, future TV/Radio Ads, mailings, etc. Given the proclivity of Illinois to go Dem. anyway in Big Races now (The “Cut-Above” U.S. Sen. Kirk aside)in the long run, it just may not be worth his while…
Comment by Just The Way It Is One Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 6:29 pm
mr bruce is a nice guy and but we need a guy who is politically savvy at this time in illinois we dont need a gov who needs ojt
Comment by county chairman Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 8:08 pm
Why are self funders so amazingly inept as politicians? I’m really excited to watch this loser blow $50 million on his vanity project. He will be crushed.
Comment by WizzardOfOzzie Wednesday, Feb 27, 13 @ 11:00 pm