Posted on 10/25/2010 2:25:15 PM PDT by Maelstorm
By Jonathan Weisman
Illinois Democrats are using the long-shot candidacy of libertarian Mike Labno to peel off conservative voters in the southern end of the state from Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk.
A flier obtained by Washington Wire appears to be a Labno promotion. The first page is a picture of Rep. Kirk, asking “Congressman Mark Kirk, not a conservative?” with a quote from Mr. Labno questioning Mr. Kirk’s political beliefs. The next panel touts “Conservative Mike Labno” as “the only pro-life, pro-gun candidate for U.S. Senate.” It then portrays Mr. Kirk as a tax hiker who voted for President Obama’s climate change legislation and opposes Arizona’s restrictive, anti-immigration law.
Only on the last panel do readers see Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias. “While Labno and Kirk fight over labels, Alexi Giannoulias is fighting for Illinois jobs.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Oh come on. He’s running for Senator, not Supreme Court Justice. He’ll have next to nothing to do with the issue of abortion. Why cut off your nose to spite your face? Kirk is far from my ideal candidate, but he does have a 57% lifetime voting record on conservative issues from the American Conservative Union which means we’ll be able to count on him more than half the time. How often will be we able to count on Giannoulias, the Democrat, in the Senate? What is his pro-life record? Check the Libertarian’s record on issues of life—many of them are pro-choice.
Yes, where is that poll showing COD down only 6%. I think we will see that right about the same time we finally see the satellite evidence the One Nation rally organizers claimed prove their gathering on the Mall was as big as Beck's. Basically, never.
Mark Kirk has a 48% ACU rating, which is the same as Mike Castle’s.
Labno is the only candidate in the race a conservative can vote for.
Well, I have taken shots at the establishment for failing to support Christine but only because the hypocrites have spent years yelling at conservatives about doing the right thing and honoring the primary and voting for the “R” regardless. If not for that hypocrisy they’d be open to a “conscience” vote.
Personally I don’t think she was a great candidate and only supported her because I wanted Castle to be sent home in retirement. I didn’t expect her to win the general and I’m fine with that. If Angle lost I’d be less then okay.
Kirk’s only value to me is IF he held firm on filibustering legislation during the lame duck session. I’m not sure I believe he will. Then you have to figure is it worth it to have him there for 6 years used as a prototype by the establishment of what a Republican should be? I’m inclined to say no if Raese wins since he can provide a much more reliable filibuster vote and not do anywhere near the damage another Chafee or Specter could
I am inclined to believe Kirk is going to win for those of you that are concerned principle will knock him out. My hope is that if he does win it’s by a much smaller margin then the candidate for Governor. Wouldn’t hurt at all afterwards to use the contrast of how a competant conservative can outperform a liberal in a blue state..
Your issue is with Republican primary voters who made a choice you don't like. Sounds like you may be expecting moderates/RINO's to comprise when a conservative wins the Republican nomination (such as COD), all the while refusing to compromise yourself when a moderate/RINO wins the nomination.
By refusing to vote for the GOP nominee and voting 3rd party, your essentially throwing your vote down a rat hole and helping elect the Democrat. In politics, you have to compromise - period. There is no way around it. Don't want to compromise in politics? Prepare to be an angry, bitter citizen who wonder's why they are always in the minority and have no ability to shape our political future.
The libertarian candidate, Labno, is not going to win more than a tiny sliver of vote, but it may be enough to make sure Giannoulias wins. And why I am reading so many pro-lifer's thinking Labno is the better option? The guy is a libertarian. The Libertarian party is as pro-choice as you can possibly get. Maybe he is the exception, but his party is very pro-choice.
The thing is, the TCJ polls were never serious.
But there was some detail on the tea party express polls that they conducted for the primary. And they were good polls and we got to see some of the details. They were accurate polls as well. It just confuses me. Why are they moving away from providing the details of this TPE poll?
Presumably it’s an “internal” poll, and the crosstabs do provide valuable info that they don’t necessarily want to share. But they can give some information, especially since the TCJ polls are the only other “recent” “polls”.
The "establishment" didn't get behind her because they knew she was going to lose. If your political mission is to get Republicans elected, it is kind of disheartening when your popular, well vetted candidate loses to lightweight who is not only going to get crushed, but will do great damage down ballot and, as it may be turning out, hurting us in neighboring states. COD is 10-20 points down in all reliable polling and that is precisely what every political expert both right and left expected.
Still, she did win. All Republicans in Delaware should get behind her - including the "establishment". I've had people moaning and complaining that I am not sufficiently supportive of her and I don't even live in Delaware.
Now some of these same people who would scream about moderates and RINO's not rallying behind our Delaware primary winner, Christine O'Donnell, are busy yapping about how THEY can't get behind the primary winner in Illinois. It is just completely hypocritical.
Personally I don’t think she was a great candidate and only supported her because I wanted Castle to be sent home in retirement. I didn’t expect her to win the general and I’m fine with that.
In my opinion, that is just sort of childish. Vote for the most conservative candidate that CAN win. The reality is there are many districts, cities and states where that candidate probably won't be very conservative - but it's better than the alternative far leftist the Democrats will have on offer.
If Angle lost I’d be less then okay.
There is no guarantee Angle will win. There is no guarantee Miller will win. We could lose many of these races. The goal in politics is to win EVERYWHERE you can, even if your candidates aren't always suitably pure. How do you think the Democrats managed to have enough votes to ram through all their socialist legislation? They ran a 50 state strategy that left them with a ton of blue dogs (they call them DINO's). These people cause the liberal base fits, but when needed, there were enough of them that Obama/Pelosi/Reid could find enough votes for even their most ambitious monstrosities (example, Obamacare).
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the only reason -I’m- advocating voting for Kirk is because neither of the other two Republicans in instant-seating Senate races hold a significant lead. If Raese and/or O’Donnell had a lock, I’d be the first one to throw Kirk to the dogs. I live in PA and I’ve had to suffer through Arlen Specter for years, so I know what it’s like.
The lame duck session is the “big one”. It’s going to be full of everything so controversial that the Democrats wouldn’t dare try it any other way. It will be our opportunity to slam the door shut on them once and for all with the filibuster and Kirk CAN be a part of that plan. Remember that Scott Brown, who voted for universal health care in Massachusetts, came out against Obamacare.
After the lame duck session, the most likely scenario is that we’ll fall short of a majority in the Senate but have enough to filibuster even if Kirk decides to vote against us. With his influence mitigated, we’d be in essentially the same situation that we would if he lost - but with less to suffer through until we can gain the ability to fully repeal in 2012.
We should bear in mind what a fight ahead of us we have to repeal Obamacare. It’s far from certain! Justice Kennedy might be swayed to support it in the court and the left may find a way to hold the Presidency in 2012 - say, if Hillary were to run as a ‘centrist’. What then? Are we really so eager for punishment that we’d throw away an opportunity to prevent 10+ such nightmares from coming to pass in the worst-case scenario?
In the end, we have to remember that RINOs will have gotten the message regardless of whether Kirk wins or loses. Remember the article where Olympia Snowe tried to sympathize with the Tea Party? She knows her time as coming. She’s seen what the American people have already done in this year’s primaries and she’s scared to death about what they’ll do in two years.
That’s how I see it.
DEFEAT SOCIALIST MARK KIRK !
Bookmark.
There are two options for voting for Senator in Illinois. One is for a 6 year term the other is for the lame duck session. If you don’t like Kirk but want him for the lame duck session, you can, VOTE FOR LABNO FOR THE 6 YEAR TERM AND VOTE KIRK FOR THE LAME DUCK SESSION.
Yes, they appear to be garbage. It almost looks like someone just makes up some almost believable numbers and plasters them on a blog.
Presumably it’s an “internal” poll, and the crosstabs do provide valuable info that they don’t necessarily want to share.
It's probably one day's worth of internal polling which was considered an outlier by all the professionals within the campaign who are analyzing these numbers. Technically they got a good poll result so were using it to drum up enthusiasm amongst the faithful and perhaps positively affect the news cycle for themselves. This is common in the business. It's done all the time. Technically such a result exists so they aren't actually blatantly lying by making these claims - but everyone inside the campaign knows its BS.
Yeah, take the best poll for the candidate, add 3.
Good plan. You just provided a perfect example of the thinking that brought us the zero administration. If Labno had a fighting chance, then sure, play it out. But don’t vote for a non-starter that results in giving the people of IL a fascist.
I understand the problem with Libertarian ambivalence on abortion, and I am not happy with Labno on all counts either. I debated him on Facebook, and while he’s better than most libertarians (if I understood him, he actually supports life as an inalienable right that trumps a Paulish federalism), he was unwilling to consciously identify abortion as a moral issue, which I found very troubling.
What you’re not hearing me say, that I really want you to hear, is that for me it is a distinctly moral issue, such that voting for Kirk is a spiritual impossibility for me. No Christian can allow themselves to compromise on certain things without walking away from God. Why would I do that? It’s not like compromising on funding sources for schools, or whether the speed limit should be 65 or 70. It’s more like compromising with the devil; you always, always, always come out on the wrong end of that bargain, and I ain’t gonna go there, thank you very much.
I agree with you.
I couldn’t care less about Kirk. He’s a Specter/Chafee/Jeffords waiting to happen.
Hope he loses. Go, Mike.
Yes I get the risk factor in Labno’s party affiliation, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, I debated him on FaceBook and found him better than most Libertarians on the issue.
But you’re missing my larger point. All of the “hold your nose” arguments would and should work for candidates where the stink is something they did during their college years or their energy policy or their penchant for gaffes or some other morally neutral attribute.
But a candidate’s position on life as an inalienable right is so fundamental to his moral coherency that I simply cannot spend my vote on that person no matter what the earthly consequences, because God Himself will hold me guilty if I use my vote to sanction such evil.
So no, I am not expecting good results from my choice, pragmatically speaking, but there’s nothing else I can do and still be able to stand before God. If I lose that, nothing else matters.
Amen. I know as a Catholic there is no way I can vote for a pro-abortionist. I voted the 1st day of early voting.
Kirk is a Chicago Combiner.
He and Giannoulias are both members of 0bama’s party.
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