We need more Republicans like Mark Kirk in Washington.

While many fringe conservatives seem to delight in being “know-nothing” and opposing ideas while bringing nothing to the table, Representative Kirk has been at the forefront of creating solutions for his constituents.  His Congressional website states, “Congressman Kirk works to advance a Suburban Agenda that is pro-defense, pro-personal responsibility, pro-environment, and pro-science.”

That was a powerful line the first time I read it.  As a Republican who believes in solutions before obstruction, I feel proud that we have a Senate candidate in Illinois that will put solutions and ideas above all else.  Even stating support for science seems few and far between at times, especially considering the know-nothingness of certain Republican Presidential candidates who deny such simple and basic science as evolution.

Here’s the bottom line:

Mark Kirk is a fiscal conservative.  From his website:

Mark Kirk opposed Speaker Pelosi’s trillion-dollar stimulus plan. Congressman Kirk offered two amendments to the bill. The first Kirk Amendment successfully cut a $200 million set aside to re-sod the National Mall. The second Kirk Amendment, which would have created a bipartisan oversight panel, was rejected by the Democratic Leadership.

Mark Kirk opposed the $407 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill filled with 9,000 secret earmarks – including a dozen earmarks totaling $8.7 million secured by clients of Paul Magliochetti and Associates (PMA), a firm raided by the FBI and facing criminal prosecution by the Justice Department.

and…

Mark Kirk voted for the 2001 and 2003 tax relief packages and supports making this tax relief permanent.

Last year, Congressman Kirk voted against a budget plan to raise taxes by $1.5 trillion and triple the debt over the next 10 years (S.Con.Res 13).

The year before, Congressman Kirk voted against a plan to raise taxes by at least $683 billion over the next five years (S.Con.Res. 70) and a proposal to raise the 10-percent tax rate bracket to 15 percent, re-impose the marriage penalty, cut the child tax credit in half, and raise taxes on seniors, working families and small businesses (H.Con.Res. 312).

Mark Kirk believes we should permanently repeal the death tax and marriage penalty, double the child tax credit and cut the capital gains tax.

Furthermore, like most reasonable people, Mark Kirk is a social moderate.  Regulating and criminalizing private behavior in the bedroom is not something that Republicans should support.  Social moderation, led by many Republican stalwarts — people like Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, Jack Kemp and Rudy Giuliani have expressed moderation and toleration for different groups, and the Republican Party should take notice.

To learn more about Mark Kirk, please view his website and read the Issues page of the Kirk for Senate website to learn some more about specific policy proposals.

From the Sun-Times:

“I find it hard to believe that the Supreme Court justices that voted to strike our handgun laws have spent any time in the communities that many of us represent,” Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said.

“There’s no way if they knew the violence our young people face every day that they could decide this was a reasonable course of action.”

Excuse me?  The handgun ban has been in place for 30 years, and gun violence was always present.  The fact that guns were so widespread in Chicago is proof that gun bans are completely, and totally ineffective. Are the council members so blinded by their ideology that they cannot see how much of a failure the policy has been?

Mayor Daley often spoke about how the gun ban protected first responders to accidents.  However, I recently spoke to a Chicago EMT who often works in the crime ravaged areas in the city’s south side.  He told me that one lesson that is learned early on the job is to knock on doors while standing off to the side, because of how widespread illegal guns are.  The first responders already know the truth — that the proliferation of illegal guns in Chicago needs to be addressed not with disarming the people who follow the law, but with laws and regulations that target the criminals.  In a recent editorial, the Chicago Tribune makes a few recommendations:

But let’s also look hard at how vigorously we enforce the laws when gangbangers and ex-convicts get caught with guns on the street. These offenders pose the greatest danger. Yet cops complain that the courts are often willing to plea bargain gun crimes into lesser offenses.

Federal and county prosecutors have more aggressively pursued criminals who use guns. One result: more federal prosecutions, and more long federal prison sentences, for many of those gun offenders. Mayor Daley should convene a summit of the federal and county prosecutors who conduct that cooperative effort — along with front-line supervisors of the local and federal agencies that combat gun crimes — to make sure this cooperative effort in metropolitan Chicago is as muscular as it can be. This would be a meeting for the top law enforcement men and women on the street.

Yes, guns can be a danger in the home, and the city’s new ordinance will lessen that danger. But guns are a pure menace in the hands of thugs on the street. Knowing with certainty that if you get caught doing the crime, you’ll do the time, can be a powerful deterrent to gunplay. Ensuring that certainty also has the rare power to united gun-rights and gun-control activists in making Chicago a safer city.

Reasonable people want reasonable guns laws — no reasonable person wants complete anarchy in our gun laws.  We can all debate various ways to help stop violence in America’s cities, and reasonable guns laws are a part of that.  However, to completely disarm law abiding citizens isn’t the way to do it.

“And just to set the record straight, let me say this about our friends who are now Republicans but who do not identify themselves as conservatives: I want the record to show that I do not view the new revitalized Republican Party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won’t associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk. Talk with anyone, anywhere, at any time if it means talking about the principles for the Republican Party. Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists.”

Some of us understand the concept that in order to govern effectively, you need a reasonable, forward-thinking, middle of the road mindset to solve real problems encountered by real people.  Rigid, regressive ideology will only cause greater problems.  Reagan understood that, let’s hope the rest of us come to that realization also.

Frankfort Township Republican Organization Fundraiser
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
6pm – 9pm
CD & Me (23320 S. LaGrange Road, Frankfort)
$35 individual ticket / $50 couple tickets. (includes dinner)
Cash bar

From the Daily Herald:

Not only is Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park by far the most qualified in the GOP field, he would be the most formidable candidate Republicans could offer in the November general election. Put simply: Kirk could win; it is debatable whether any of the other five candidates could.

I don’t think it’s debatable at all – no other candidate in the Republican primary can win the general election.  Period.

The Herald continues…

He’s an intelligent, hardworking independent who strives to model bipartisan ethics in a system that is choking on its partisanship. In 10 years, he’s become a leader among Republican moderates in the House, chairing their Tuesday Group get-togethers. Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, described him well as “one of Congress’ most effective moderates.”

He has been a leader on Capitol Hill in rejecting the outrageous congressional practice of earmark spending and has fought for fiscal sanity in government spending.

As a Naval Reserve intelligence officer, Kirk has keen insights into the stakes in Afghanistan and the war on terror and an ability to articulate them that few other politicians can match.

As for those political assailants who ignore the record and try to smear Kirk as a Democrat in Republican clothing, consider this: If that were true, why have Democratic national officials worked so hard to try time and again to unseat him in the 10th Congressional District?

While it’s true that many reactionary Republicans will oppose Congressman Kirk based on a small amount of fringe issues, the fact of the matter remains that Congresman Kirk has been helping to lead the fight to oppose the Democrats national takeover of health care, reduce the deficit, cut taxes, and keep our country safe.

The choice is simple:  do we want to elect a legislator with proven results in Washington, or do we want to lose?  Most of the other candidates for U.S. Senate here in Illinois are good people, and good Republicans.  However, Mark Kirk is the only Republican in Illinois that can win.  His Republican values will serve us well in the United States Senate.

Furthermore, there is another reason that the election of Mark Kirk to the U.S. Senate would be positive — it would push back on the Democrats national talking points.  For the last decade, Democrats have been trying to portray the Republican Party as moving far to the extreme conservative right wing.  However, electing a responsible moderate Republican like Mark Kirk should prove to the media and the rest of the county that those of us active in the Republican Party believe in a big tent party and reject small minded purity tests.

(Note:  For the sake of brevity, I’m going to use the term “Obamacare” to describe the general plan put forward by the President.  It’s not intended to be an insult.  Besides, Democrats have been using the term “Reaganomics” to describe supply side economics for decades, so they have no room to lecture on using a term like this)

***

After driving up, I noticed something that was half-expcted:  the anti-Obamacare group which I came out to stand with was joined by an organized group across the street demonstrating in favor of Obamacare.  I suppose word got out that we were going to do this, so the Democrats responded with their own group.  Seems reasonable.

There were some very interesting differences between the sides, however.  After hearing Nancy Pelosi and other Democrat officials describe the anti-Obamacare protestors as engaging in “astroturfing” and being funded by the wealthy and the RNC, the look of the protests told a different story.  On the anti-Obamacare side, every single sign I saw were homemade.  On the pro-Obamacare side, 90% of the signs I saw were professional poltical signs, and they were all identical.  While I don’t think the type of sign you’re holding discounts your point of view, one thing is indisputable:  Pelosi’s assertion that the anti-Obamacare protestors are well funded is uninformed.

***

At the event, I sent out two twitter messages that read:

At a protest against Obamacare…a pro-Obamacare group across the street…everyone screaming at each other. What does this accomplish?
about 5 hours ago from txt

Neither side innocent. Both sides just screaming at each other. Screaming across the street at each other has never changed anyone’s mind
about 5 hours ago from txt

I stand behing those remarks.  Two groups, standing on opposite sides of the street, screaming at the top of their lungs, have never in the history of mankind actually changed anyone’s mind.  Early on in the rally, I was struck with the thought that both sides were wasting their time. I stand firm against any type of socialized medicine or single payer health care systems, but I was just struck at the senselessness of standing on a street corner screaming at one another.

***

If we’re going to succeed in reform, which everyone agrees we need, we need to alter our tactics.  I understand that people get emotional.  I understand people have strong feelings.  But if we’re going to have a debate, it needs to be civil and it needs to stick to the facts.  No one wants the status quo — Obama is attempting a sales job where he’s trying to paint the Republicans as the party of the status quo and the party of obstruction.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Republicans like myself recognize that the system is broken.  Reform is needed.  We have ideas on the table and we’re ready to talk.

Kinzinger, an Iraq War veteran, filed a campaign report with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday that said he raised $112,000 in this year’s second quarter, including $20,000 from political committees.

Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia gave $5,000 to Kinzinger from his leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC) PAC. Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock, the representative from the Peoria-based 18th District, gave $5,000 from his leadership organization, Generation Y Fund.

Republican Rep. John M. Shimkus, who represents southern Illinois’ 19th District, gave $1,000 to Kinzinger’s campaign. Former Rep. Thomas W. Ewing gave $250 from his campaign committee, which is still open even though Ewing retired from the 15th District at the end of 2000. That district, adjacent to the 11th, is now represented by Republican Timothy V. Johnson.

Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus gave to Kinzinger from both his campaign committee and his leadership PAC.

Notable individual donors to Kinzinger include Marty Ozinga, a construction company owner who lost overwhelmingly to Halvorson in 2008, and Jim Oberweis, a dairy company owner who has waged multiple losing bids for Congress or governor.

In response to Lauren Fitzpatrick’s article on June 28th titled, “Southland moderates split on Obama energy bill,” it is insulting to call Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson a moderate.  While she ran as one in the 2008 general election, she has voted as a carbon copy of Nancy Pelosi since Rep. Halvorson arrived in the House of Representatives.  After pledging to oppose Cap-and-Trade legislation during the 2008 election, she has now bowed to Pelosi and Obama and broke her promise not to support Cap-and-Trade, which she referred to as a “bad idea.”  The citizens of the 11th Congressional district need to stand up and recognize that Rep. Halvorson is not a moderate.  She is decidedly far-left and will continue to vote with Nancy Pelosi as long as she is a member of Congress.  If we want moderate and common sense representation, we need to look elsewhere.

Jeff Wartman
Mokena, IL

The website should be up soon — check www.electadam.com for updates.

“It is a fundamental principle of our country that the people are sovereign. While they recognize the undeniable authority of the state, they have established as its instrument a Government of limited powers. They hold inviolate in their own hands the jurisdiction over their own freedom and the ownership of their own property. Neither of these can be impaired except by due process of law. The wealth of our country is not public wealth, but private wealth. It does not belong to the Government, it belongs to the people. The Government has no justification in taking private Property except for a public purpose. It is always necessary to keep these principles in mind in the laying of taxes and in the making of appropriations. No right exists to levy on a dollar, or to order the expenditure of a dollar, of the money of the people, except for a necessary public purpose duly authorized by the Constitution. The power over the purse is the power over liberty.”