Posted on 08/13/2015 1:49:56 PM PDT by jfd1776
Reflections on the Kirk campaign and the helper scandal…
In the classic Kaufman & Hecht comedy “The Front Page” (and its wild remake, “His Girl Friday”), there is a moment when everything looks darkest for our heroes, as the governor and mayor are about to arrest the publisher and editor for harboring an escaped criminal… when all of a sudden a piece of evidence falls into their hands (proof of attempted bribery of one Mr. Pettibone by the governor and mayor), which gives them a second chance, an opportunity to escape punishment for their error and come back on top, against all odds.
The heroes, Walter Burns and Hildy Johnson, credit this unexpected second chance to “an unseen power” that watches over their newspaper and always steps in to save them.
The Republican Party, deservingly or not, has been given just such a moment in Illinois.
On August 11, Mark Kirk, the unpopular and unhealthy incumbent U.S. Senator from Illinois, seemed on track for an easy renomination in 2016, virtually ensuring that the Republicans will lose his seat, and likely, with it the Senate majority. 2016 is known to be a terribly difficult year for Senate Republicans; several of those up for reelection are people swept into office in the 2010 Republican landslide, and are particularly vulnerable for various reasons.
It’s not opinion, but a fact uncontested by any but the most blind establishment partisans, that if Kirk is the nominee, the seat goes Democrat in the fall. He couldn’t even manage to reach 50% in 2010 when he faced an opponent known as “the mob’s banker,” anyone who thinks he’ll do better in 2016 against a stronger Democrat is smoking something that’s not yet legal in Illinois.
One Front Page Story
The Republican party establishment had booked Kirk as the uncontested nominee, advising donors not to bother supporting primary opposition to this incumbent. The party establishment has gotten surprisingly cocky in such matters in recent years, supporting incumbents ever more strongly in opposition to the party platform, just because they believe that incumbency trumps all other issues or considerations.
Radio host Joe Walsh reminds his audience almost daily of the need to replace Kirk on the ticket… prominent moderate Ron Gidwitz publicly proclaimed Kirk’s unelectability (before being humorously forced to recant it)… social media and polling both prove that if Kirk is on the ballot in November, he’ll doom downballot races to be dragged down by the lead weight of his unpopularity… and still the Republican party let the word out: no opposition will be considered. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t you dare think it.
Then came August 12, and the landscape changed.
The front page headline on the Chicago Tribune that morning read “Kirk Campaign Paid for Caregiver.” Above the fold, as we say in the business… the most prominent spot any news story can get.
The full story is worth reading, and was fairly presented by the Tribune.
A year into his Senate term, Mark Kirk suffered a stroke, and needed full time care from then on. As Kirk had long been living beyond his means (a north shore public servant is apparently from the north shore first, and a public servant second; no living in his congressional office space for him, as less pretentious congressmen have been known to do to save money), Kirk soon started searching for a cheaper way to pay for this live-in care.
He wound up hiring the caregiver away from the original provider, paying the man – Cameroon-born Mervyn Fombe-Abiko – out of his pocket for before-and-after office hours, and getting him a campaign job for office hours.
As anyone involved in federal politics should know, campaigns can’t pay for personal things that aren’t campaign-related, expenses that would have existed if the candidate weren’t in politics. A personal caregiver is not a position that campaigns fund. The FEC considers it an unfair use of donors’ money.
It was revealed that the campaign instinctively knew this, so they sought an opinion from the Senate Ethics Committee on whether transferring Mr. Fombe-Abiko to the campaign would be okay; they should have gone to the FEC, which obviously had more authority on such a matter. The Ethics Committee said they didn’t care; the FEC obviously does.
It is not yet revealed whether Mr. Fombe-Abiko actually did campaign-related work in the year he was paid by the campaign, so it’s conceivable that there may be no crime here. It’s conceivable that this young man just stuffed envelopes and answered phones during the hours he was paid by the campaign (though such jobs ought to go to interns and political science majors, starting out in their careers, shouldn’t they?)… more news is yet to be discovered on this matter.
However, while the apparent misuse of campaign funds is interesting, particularly in a state where the Republicans just ejected a Congressman for misspending federal and campaign dollars, it gets even more interesting, in a way that eclipses the question of whether this character really did campaign work or not.
The Many Identities of Mervyn Fombe-AbikoCt-cth-mervyn-fombe-abiko-jpg-20150811
Mr. Fombe-Abiko, it was revealed, likes to go shopping.
He’s shopped on the internet. He’s shopped at stores. He’s shopped at malls.
And when he does so, he likes to use other people’s credit cards.
Mr. Fombe-Abiko has been arrested for buying stuff on the internet and refusing to pay. He has been arrested for passing off other people’s credit cards as his own. He has been arrested for being in possession of counterfeit IDs in other people’s names.
In short, he appears to be a practitioner of both theft of goods and identity theft.
And both Mark Kirk, and his campaign, kept him on after these accusations arose.
The Judgment of a U.S. Senator
We can – and should – feel sorry for a stroke victim. What Mr. Kirk suffered shouldn’t happen to anyone; a decent person doesn’t wish a debilitating stroke on his worst enemy.
But he is still a United States Senator, one of the two men whom Illinois sends to the upper body of Congress to represent them, to protect them from bad laws, from bad regulations, from bad decisions, from bad treaties, and from bad nominees. The Senate is meant to be the city wall that slows or stops errant practices.
Our Framers intended for the Senate to be the elder statesmen whose wisdom enabled them to stand up for the states and stop bad ideas that might come up from the House of Representatives, and to stop bad nominees and treaties proposed by the President.
The Senate isn’t designed to manage anything – they’re not executives… and they aren’t designed to write new legislation; that’s the House’s job. The Senate is there to think, to evaluate, and usually, to stop things.
In short, the Senate is there for judgment. We expect Senators to be wise, thoughtful, rational analysts of both ideas and people, able to make intelligent evaluations of situations and nominees.
How does this story make Mark Kirk look? Is he qualified to serve Illinois as a United States Senator?
In one story, we see all sorts of negatives.
We are reminded of his weakness from the stroke (not his fault, but a fact nonetheless). We see his blending of public and private funds in an employment matter – always a danger sign with any politician, especially with one from Chicago. We see his personal financial challenges - and learn that he has lived beyond his means for years, even before his stroke. It’s always been well known that maintaining two households is expensive; other less well-off office-holders address the issue with roommates or renting cheaper quarters, but such choices apparently wouldn’t do for Mr. Kirk. We see his judgment in hiring; the first time he learned that this character was found to be a criminal, he should have dismissed him. Kirk has served in Navy Intelligence, and serves on sensitive committees in the Senate; he simply can NOT associate himself with criminals. But he did; he kept him on.
And we have been reminded one of one more important thing: that Kirk’s gaffes, which usually don’t make the news, will do so more and more frequently as the campaign rolls out.
What Mark Kirk has most likely assumed since his stroke is that he would be viewed as a crusader politician; a man weakened by illness but still vigorous in championing his causes, impressive to his constituents for his perseverance. This writer believes that he sees himself as a Jacob Javits, the late moderate Republican Senator from New York.
But Kirk’s illness is a different one, more debilitating, and he comes from a state that requires physical health for campaigning. And more importantly, this news story, relatively minor on its own, is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
It reminds us of his gaffes, his often cockeyed public statements, his many positions at odds with his party and his constituents.
Mark Kirk is not an evil man, not a criminal; but he doesn’t have the judgment to be a Senator.
And it is clearer every day that he simply doesn’t have the ability to be re-elected to the office anyway.
A Second Chance
Newspapers sometimes sit on news stories, reserving them until the weekend before an election, so they can hit the person when it’s too late to respond. It’s conceivable that there might have been such a consideration here; one always wonders about the discussions at the editorial desk. “Is this worth covering? Is it worth featuring? Should we save it for when there’s no other news?”
For whatever reason, the Tribune chose to feature this story. There was a lot to cover, and oh, how they covered it. They have given the Republican Party a chance to reconsider its position on the 2016 Senate race.
There are still over three months to go before nominating petitions are filed for the US Senate. That’s enough time to find a former congressman, a big city mayor, a state rep, maybe a state senator who’s not up in 2016 (always the most desirable choice) to enter this race and save Illinois from disaster in the fall.
The top of a ticket is the most important position; the vigor of a party’s candidates for President and Senator mean the world to everyone downballot. Since it’s well established that Republican candidates for President don’t even bother to try in Illinois, the position falls to the Senate candidate.
With the Republican candidate for US Senate rides the hopes and dreams of our congressional nominees, our state legislative nominees, our county and local nominees, in November of 2016.
We have been given a second chance to make sure that standard-bearer on top of the ticket is someone who has a chance, someone other than the unelectable Mark Kirk.
Will the party have the judgment to accept this second chance and do the right thing at last?
Copyright 2015 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago based Customs broker and international trade compliance trainer. Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included. Follow John F. Di Leo on Facebook or LinkedIn, or on Twitter at @johnfdileo, or on his own site at johnfdileo.com.
Kirk is worse than useless. I won’t vote for him under any circumstances.
Where IS Aaron Schock?
Sure, once you get out of prison.
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