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.”

Over at Hit & Run, Katherine Mangu-Ward has this to say:

On CNN right now, former Vice President Dick Cheney is giving a response to Obama’s speech. As soon as Obama was done the picture switched seamlessly and instantly to Cheney, offering an uncensored, dissenting view from the official pronouncements of the most powerful man in the country. Cheney is speaking from the American Enterprise Institute, an institution that exists entirely free of government pressure, despite a tendency to muck around in partisan politics and policy. The speech is being transmitted on a private, for-profit television channel, broadcast on pay TV, also operating free of government interference.

This is free speech. This is a free society. These institutions—think tanks, news television—operate without fear of reprisal. It’s easy to forget that a rich, multifaceted civil society is a tremendous luxury—and a rarity. Even in other developed nations, television stations are often owned by the state and/or subject to far more political restraint and government censorship.

No matter which side you come down on, it shows the health of our society and the liberties and freedoms we possess just by being able to have this debate.

I am reminded of one of my favorite stories, from Nathan Sharanksy. 

When I read his book The Case for Democracy, he told one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read.  I’m going to paraphrase from memory.

As a boy growing up the Soviet Union, his exposure to political writing was limited to periodicals approved by the government.  The government only allowed communist literature into libraries.  One day, while he and his friends were browsing through the periodicals, they came across a communist magazine from England.  Because of the magazine promoting communism, the government allowed it into circulation.  However, Sharanky knew from his schooling that England was not a communist country.  He immediately realized that if a communist magazine was allowed in England but they were not a communist country, the government allowed dissent to be published and distributed.  The government of England allowed individuals to publish thoughts which criticized the government.  Coming to that realization is how Sharansky first understood the concept of freedom.

So, no matter how hard the communists in the Soviet Union tried to squash dissent, people were still able to realize what it meant to be free.  In the United States, we live in a country where do you not need to use abstract thinking to realize freedom.  Republicans and Democrats have different solutions, but we are both fighting to preserve freedom.

Stand and take notice, fellow Republicans.  Teddy was right.

“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled…

..I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service… When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit… Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics… For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.”

Jack Kemp personified the direction the Republican Party currently needs to go; he was a staunch advocate for limited government, tax cuts, and putting power in the hands of the individual rather than government bureaucracy.

He was also defined by his tolerance.  A staunch advocate of civil rights, he was a self-styled ‘bleeding heart conservative’ who supported both tax cuts and limited government, and a tolerance for every human regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.  Those of us in the Republican Party would do well by keeping in mind the tolerance and progressivism that Kemp embodied.  He will be missed.

So don’t let his empty rhetoric fool you.  Moderation is alive and well in the Republican Party.  As a moderate, I can verify some details.  I go to 5-10 meetings per month of various Republican groups:  Will County Republican Central Commitee, Will County Young Republicans (of which I am Vice-Chair and Treasurer), Frankfort Township Republican Organization, along with many others.  There is a diversity of opinion within the various groups.  I can tell you first hand that none of them wish to expel moderates from the party.  In fact, in some cases, these groups are dominated by moderates (sometimes not).  The point isn’t whether we’re more dominated by conservatives or moderates — the point is that a diversity of opinion is welcome in the Republican Party.

In the end, the ideological divide is less about rigid ideology and more about world outlook.  In the Republican Party, we believe individuals can best decide for themselves how to live their lives, and government should step back as much as possible.  The Democrat Party wants government to act as your nanny, making decisions for you, because Papa Government knows best.

Cross posted at Freedom Illinois