Posted on 04/17/2015 6:04:56 AM PDT by cotton1706
In a special-election primary this summer, a candidate representing each faction will vie for the House seat vacated by Aaron Schock.
This year’s first big confrontation between the GOP establishment and the party’s restless grassroots will be held this summer in an Illinois special-election primary. The smart money is betting on the establishment’s choice, but dissatisfaction with attempts to force-feed that choice on voters, together with the performance of the new GOP Congress in fighting President Obama, could give an insurgent a real shot.
Former Republican House member Aaron Schock of Illinois resigned last month under a cascade of controversy about questionable expenses for which he had been reimbursed by his campaign or taxpayers. Even before the announcement was official, Illinois power brokers were moving to anoint state senator Darin LaHood as his successor in a special election.
Schock’s Peoria-based district is a Republican stronghold, the product of a Democratic gerrymander so extreme that Mitt Romney carried it by 24 points in 2012. That effectively means the winner will be decided in the July 7 GOP primary.
LaHood is about as establishment a choice as one could imagine. He is the son of Representative Ray LaHood, the very moderate Republican who represented about half of the current district in Congress until 2009. He then left office to become President Obama’s Transportation Secretary, where he promoted pork-barrel spending and dubious high-speed-rail projects. His son’s supporters say his politics are distinct from those of his father, but clearly the LaHood name will be a mixed blessing in a primary. On the one hand, it brings strong name identification for Darin LaHood. But on the other, it leaves many of the district’s conservatives looking for a fresh, non–status quo alternative.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Don’t know this Flynn guy but Conservatives should send him a check, just to circumvent the GOPe.
Amen. And is there a challenger for Mark Kirk yet?
That GOPe squish needs to go yesterday.
Exactly right. If we ever want to beat the GOPe, we need to to it one race at a time and we need to fight fire with fire, or in this case money with money.
Ron Wallace is a conservative who was running in the special election. He dropped out and endorsed Flynn.
Ron formed an exploratory committee for a U.S. Senate campaign, and I’m his campaign manager. Ron is pro-spending cuts, pro-tax rate cuts, pro-life, pro-gun rights, anti-illegal alien, and anti-Obamacare. Please volunteer and/or donate to his campaign. His site is www.altgop.com. It doesn’t have any information, yet, but it will be updated next week.
Ron sounds terrific!
Either in the primary, or in the general, Kirk has got to go.
I was just informed yesterday that the damn GOP is tossing money at Kirk to keep anyone else out, they figure it is going to come down to who gets the greater sympathy vote,
Kirk or Duckworth - pathetic!!
Ron Wallace doesn’t care about how much money the party leaders spend. Wallace knows that Kirk is more liberal than many Democrats and that Kirk needs to lose the primary.
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