Kirk: I get the message on global warming vote

The Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale) ^ | July 21, 2009 | ASSOCIATED PRESS

[fieldmarshaldj]

If this person gets in, he will prove more embarrassing to us than a Democrat voting scarcely different than he does (and I already said if he gets in, he will feel even more emboldened to move leftward and make his party switch official). It is imperative he doesn't make it past the primary. I'm no longer going to aid and abet the party with its goal of electing liberal Democrats under our label.

[Clintonfatigued]

Mark Kirk has an ACU rating of 56%. I’m not aware of any Illinois Democrats who have anything close to it. Your agitation against him is understandable, as his support for the Cap & Trade bill is a vote to gag over and he does pander from time to time. But it’s not the entirety of his record.

[Arizona Carolyn]

~ROFLOL~ good for you!

[fieldmarshaldj]

56% is going to likely be the highest he'll ever be at from this point onwards, but it also shows the ACU ratings don't tell the whole story. Kirk is personally repugnant to me, and that went well before his recent vote. His going out of his way to aid the illegal criminal invasion guarantees I will not endorse him under any circumstances. This pig lives in a nice community where he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his votes, while places like where I live have transformed into 3rd world bordertown status because of "politicians" like him who couldn't give a damn. I don't feel safe to leave my house and take a walk in my neighborhood, and sometimes even in my own yard because of this. The house cannot even be left unattended (as it used to be when I or my parents went on vacations for upwards of a month), so that gives you an idea of the situation. Support Kirk ? No way in hell.

[PhilCollins]

Since Rep. Kirk is my congressman, I know that most of his record is liberal. His latest rating from Planned Parenthood is 100%, and his latest rating from Gun Owners of America is 0%. He voted against an amendment that would have banned gay marriage. He voted against a bill that would have required hospital employees to notify ICE agents, when they treat illegal aliens. In May 2007, when 11 republican congressmen went to the White House and told Bush that they opposed the Iraq surge, Kirk was the group’s leader. He says that he opposes all congressional earmarks, but he ensured that the federal government spent at least $5 million, each, in our district, for HUD, Headstart, local police departments, and commuter trains. He’s a hypocrite and a liar.

[BillyBoy]

>> Mark Kirk has an ACU rating of 56%. I’m not aware of any Illinois Democrats who have anything close to it. Your agitation against him is understandable, as his support for the Cap & Trade bill is a vote to gag over and he does pander from time to time. But it’s not the entirety of his record. << <

I thought I'd chime in here.

First, while Mark Kirk's “lifetime” ACU rating is 56%, it doesn't tell the whole story as Kirk has veered significantly leftward since the RATs took over Congress in 2007. He's gone from Colin Powell type centrist to Jim Jeffords in training. His RECENT rating for the last two years was a pathetic 48% and 40%. He's voting with the enemy more often than he votes with us, and as long as the Dems are in power he will continue to suck up to them. I see him only getting worse.

Second, yes the ACU is only one organization. Their ratings are not infallible. You have look at Kirk's scores from other advocacy groups to get an idea just how “moderate” or extreme he is. His recent Club for Growth ratings were abysmal. He voted with the nuts at the American Civil Liberties Union more than half the time lately. He's really become a liberal pain in the @$$.

Third, the ACU ONLY rates federal officials, so while it's true that none of the current RAT Congressmen in Illinois have “overall” ratings more conservative than Kirk, it certainly NOT true that there's “any Illinois Democrats who have anything close to it”. Many of our state and local officials in Illinois are Democrats who vote equal to, or better than, Kirk. This is especially true of the blue dog Dems in southern Illinois, which is culturally more like the bible belt than Chicago, and of Dems representing heavily Republican coller county suburbs or socially conservative Chicago suburbs like mine (my state Senator's “overall” record is not better than Kirk, but he's FAR better on key social issues conservatives care about like abortion, traditional marriage, and immigration). I looked it up and counted over a dozen elected RAT legislators in Illinois whose overall records were “better” than Mark Kirk in 2007 and 2008. Even one Chicago RAT legislator's overall record was “more conservative” than Kirk's 40% ACU rating last year.

The “state” equivalent of the ACU is the URFI (United Republican Fund of Illinois)

Their mission statement:

United Republican Fund - Illinois’ oldest, independent, Republican organization. Founded in 1934, the mission of the URF is to advance conservative principles, policies, and people by equipping and electing to office men and women who endorse and promote the Republican values of individual freedom and responsibility, limited and ethical government, the rule of law and free markets.”

They follow the LIFT principles based on the principles of conservatism by Fred Thompson and formulated for grading. by Steve Rauschenberger. In order to determine a legislator's overall “conservative” record, they grade based on the following four criteria:

1) Limited Government
2) Individual Liberty
3) Free Enterprise
4) Traditional Values

The results of those four criteria are as follows:

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/08Scorecard.pdf <-— 2008 RATINGS
http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=3690 <-— 2007 RATINGS

Some of the RAT politicians in Illinois who voted “more conservative” than socialist Mark Kirk overall last year:

ILLINOIS SENATE
State Senator Gary Forby (D) 66%
State Senator Linda Holmes (D) 66%
State Senator David Koehler (D) 50%
State Senator Jeff Schoenberg (D) 50% (interestingly enough, a Chicago RAT who also votes to the right of the RINO State Rep. , Beth Coulson, who represents much of the same district)

ILLINOIS HOUSE
State Rep. Daniel V. Beiser (D) 50% (52.5% lifetime average)
State Rep. Fred Crespo (D) 63%
State. Rep. Lisa M. Dugan (D) 63%
State Rep. Robert F. Flider 63% (56.3% lifetime average, higher than Kirk's entire lifetime score)
State. Rep Jack Franks (D) 75% - Illinois’ biggest Blago critic, has threatened to defect to the GOP at least once.
State Rep. Careen Gordon (D) 75% (55% lifetime average)
State Rep Gary Hannig (D) 75% (62.5% lifetime) Gene Taylor type blue-dog Dem from southern Illinois. Votes more conservative than Kirk has ever been or ever will be.
State Rep. Jay C. Hoffman (D) 50%
State Rep. Tom Holbrook (D) 50%
State Rep. Frank J. Mautino (D) 75%
State Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D) 63%. Represents the southwest suburbs, where politicians always win on those supposedly “unelectable” socially conservative platforms.
State Rep. Phelps (D) 75% (62.5% lifetime) Another southern Illinois blue dog.
State Rep. Dan Reitz 63%
State Rep. Mike Smith 50%
State Rep. Pat Verschoore (D) 50%

Now, you may say none of these blue dog Dems have any chance of being the RAT nominee for a statewide office, especially Senator, and you're probably right. But it just goes to show that Kirk's lakefront limousine liberal “values” don't represent Illinois as a whole. Not only is Kirk to the left of the nearly every Republican, but even many Illinois Dems are socially, and sometimes even fiscally, more conservative than Kirk. And the reason the RATs aren't going to run any of those Dems statewide is they don't represent the Dem party platform as a whole so the Chicago machine wouldn't tolerate it. So why should we tolerate running a socialist statewide who doesn't believe in anything OUR party stands for?

BTW, of the legislators running for Governor, Kirk Dillard scored a 50% conservative rating in 2008 and a 37.5% lifetime average. Bill Brady scored an 89% last year and an 84% lifetime average. Matt Murphy scored a 100% last year and a 90% lifetime average, but he's only been in office 3 years.

[Impy]

I don’t trust Jack Franks a whole lot. I believe he’s flipped flopped on guns.

But he’s one of the very few rats I could even consider voting for directly.

Alas he is not running against Kirk (might try for Governor).

Chris Kennedy is still not officially in the Senate race. If he is the rat nominee I will be first in line to vote for RINO scum Kirk next November. I can’t stomach the thought of a new Senator Kennedy.

If he doesn’t run then it appears mob accountant Alexi Giannoulias will be coronated in the rat primary. He could be a future Bob Torricelli if he’s elected. If I were him I’d already have fled the country.

[PhilCollins]

These are some of Rep. Kirk’s 2007 interest group ratings: NARAL, 100%; NEA, A; National Taxpayers Union, 47%; ACU, 40%; John Birch Society, 36%; and Gun Owners of America, 0%. Maybe his ACU rating increased, since then, because he hopes that will help him win a republican primary, statewide.

[spintreebob]

BB,
Great analysis. However, I submit that if Jack Franks were to run statewide ... as a Dem or R or whatever ... he would have the support of many conservative Republicans. He could win both a primary and a general against the right opponents. If he were one-on-one with Quinn he would win. If he were one-on-one with Dillard or Kirk he would win as Republicans would go to him in droves in November.

As examples, in the past both Tom Roeser of WLS, Republican Assembly, Chicago Observer and Jack Roeser (no relation) of Family Taxpayer Network have spoken supportive of Jack Franks.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Kirk’s ACU rating would have to double in order for him to become remotely acceptable.

[BillyBoy]

Based on the voting records I found, it looks like any RAT representing some area in the bottom third of Illinois (except perhaps the St. Louis area, but even there they tend to be pro-life) is overall “more conservative” than Kirk. Elsewhere in Illinois, some of these RAT politicians, like Fred Crespo, are voting 60% conservative because they represent super Republican areas that used to be represented by a Republican for decades until the RAT landslides of 2006 and 2008. They might pull a Kristin Gillibrand (or Dick Durbin for that matter) and veer leftward if they ever got a statewide office.

Here in southwest Cook County, it tends to be blue collar salt-of-the-earth folk and traditional Catholic. It used to be a swing area divided between the two parties (my state Senator was Patrick O’Malley) until the RAT takeover of this state in 2002. It's since been redrawn and the districts added to Chicago neighborhoods to make it safe RAT. All the state reps. out here (Brosnahan, Joyce, McCarthy, etc.) are well to the right of Kirk on social issues and often on “law & order” issues. Orland Park has a population explosion lately and is probably upper middle class, so McCarty looks to be the best in the region. As I noted to Phil Collins (who's in the north suburbs) a week or two ago, both his state Rep. and my state Rep. scored a “35%” conservative rating last year, but for entirely different reasons. My guy is a social conservative and his gal is a Kirk clone.

Some of the more conservative RATs who represent districts near Kirk are Schoenberg (he shares Winnetka, Kenilworth, Wilmette and Northfield with Kirk, and represents the far more liberal Evanston and Skokie... he's Jewish and probably just as bad as Kirk on social issues, but my guess is he's probably more fiscally conservative and would not have voted for Cap n’ Trade... how about that? A guy on the north shore with a district to the LEFT of Kirk, is voting to the RIGHT of Kirk. Hmmm. But Kirk is “the best we can get” up there. Sure.) And of course Jack Franks (who was trying to impeach Blago for years), representing neighboring McHenry county that Kirk has a chunk of. The Dems don't trust Franks one bit but he's a little nutty and probably our side couldn't trust him either. But certainly he'd be better than Kirk.

An ideal scenario would be to recruit a southern Illinois DINO with a 75% conservative rating to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010 (ala the more conservative Poshard being George Ryan's general election opponent in 2002), but this is a non-starter unless we have at least 3-4 big name RATs in the primary to split the moon-bat vote. Poshard won his primary due to huge support among downstate RATs (he was the only downstater in the race) , and the Chicago vote being split among four liberal Chicago machine candidates. Right now, Alexi Giualannis is the only announced RAT candidate.

Gary Hannig has been announced as Governor Pat Quinn's choice to be Illinois's Secretary of Transportation, so he's out. State Rep. Brandon Phelps is the son of former Congressman David Phelps, who was Glenn Poshard’s successor until the district was eliminated. State Rep. Frank J. Mautino might be ideal... he's 47 years old, been in office since ‘91, a Catholic representing a central Illinois district. He got a 100% rating for Illinois Right to Life, an A rating from the NRA (GOA gave him an 86%), 67% from National Taxpayers United of Illinois (better than Kirk) and an 80% rating from the Republican-leaning Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

At the very least, since the media is trying to shove a leftist down our throats in the GOP primary, we could give the Dems a taste of their own medicine if they had to deal with a Virgil Goode trying to get their party's nomination.

[PhilCollins]

I agree with almost everything you said. However, none of Rep. Kirk’s district is in McHenry Co. The westernmost part of Kirk’s district is eastern Barrington.

[spintreebob]

BB,
Fred Crespo is genuine in his sonmewhat conservative positions. His district is not that Republican. To show who can be elected there, his St Senator Noland is far to the left of Obama and even CPUSA.

Fred was previously a Republican in Froehlich’s organization and well to the right of others in STAR such as Tim Hennegan. Despite the fact that Fred is relatively anti-illegal alien while Froehlich was always pro-illegal, Fred was made to feel unwelcome in the GOP organization by the same people who forced Froehlich to follow Crespo in switching parties.

We conservative Republicans need to carefully consider how big our tent is. Crespo was forced out of the Republican Party despite being more conservative than Froehlich. After Terry Parke lost to Crespo, Froehlich was the most conservative Republican in the House from Crook County, more conservative than Bassi, Mathias, Mulligan, Savianno, etc. But Froehlich was forced out of the GOP also.

It should be noted that Froehlich was not forced out of the GOP due to favoring low taxes for constituents. All of the current anti-Froehlich critics were very supportive of Froehlich’s cutting taxes for people when Froehlich was a Republican. It was the same thing that Totten’s people did when Maureen Murphy was allied with Totten pror to being allied with Froelich.

So the current Froehlich controversy is a separate and unrelated topic to my main point that we need to consider how big our tent is.