Tea party group: Dold campaign worker asked for low rating

http://www.dailyherald.com ^ | 9/27/2010 | By Russell Lissau |

[Maelstorm]

Republican congressional candidate Robert Dold is under fire for comments his campaign reportedly made to a tea party group preparing a voters' guide.

The guide, compiled by the Northern Illinois Patriots and published last month in The Conservative Magazine of Illinois, said Dold's campaign "asks that he not be rated highly by our voter guide (indicating that he wishes to be viewed as a moderate)." The parenthetical comments were included in the guide.

In a public debate in Glenview last Wednesday, Democrat Dan Seals criticized Dold for the entry, while the Republican said he knew nothing about it.

During a meeting with Daily Herald editors and reporters on Friday, Dold acknowledged someone with his campaign told the group he is a moderate, but he denied asking for a low ranking.

The campaign representative later was identified as campaign manager Kelley Folino. On Monday, Patriots member Joan Seifert, who spoke with Folino about the guide, confirmed Folino didn't want Dold to be rated highly by the group.

"They wanted to be sure he wasn't perceived as a conservative, and I was more than happy to oblige that," said Seifert, of Grayslake.

The group would've given him the same rating - three stars out of a possible five - whether Folino had made the request or not, Seifert said.

"He's a 3 any way you slice it," she said.

[Maelstorm]

This is an example of how not to win. Behaving as if something is wrong with being conservative or the teaparty isn't a long term strategy for winning elections. It is a cowards way. Its the Mark Kirk school of politics though for him it is the reverse. He is pretending to not be a liberal.

Mike Labno for U.S. Senate

[Crichton]

I used to have a hard time remembering whether Ray LaHood was the liberal Illinois Republican I didn't like, or whether he was fine and I was thinking of Mark Kirk.

Finally, I realized it was both.

Though, if push came to shove, I'd take Kirk since in his spare time he likes to serve in the military, while LaHood enjoys thinking of new places to put warning labels and spit-shining Obama's shoes.