Steve Shearer defends Schock in "debate debate" tiff

I received the following email responses from Steven Shearer, State Rep. Aaron Schock's campaign manager, to information that Schock will not attend the Peoria Area World Affairs Council debate next month. Callahan has criticized Schock for not agreeing to debates in the race for Congress from the 18th District. The response:

Aaron Schock and his campaign never committed to this proposed World Affairs Council debate in Peoria in the first place. Aaron has agreed to do a World Affairs Council debate in Jacksonville. He already did one for the Peoria World Affairs Council in the primary which was broadcast on radio.

As you can see on the list posted on your blog of the 10 debates Aaron Schock has agreed to do, there is one in October which the co-sponsors, WEEK-TV, the Journal Star and the League of Women Voters, are still working out the date for. This will be held in WEEK's studios and broadcast live on television. WEEK has a very large viewership in the 18th Congressional District, so it is false that Aaron Schock is not willing to debate in a televised debate.

He will also participate in the Peoria Chamber and WMBD's debate which will be broadcast on WMBD radio.

There will be both a televised and a radio broadcast debate. Aaron Schock has agreed to 10 debates, which is a level not many congressional campaigns do. They will be held by diverse organizations that are each well respected; several of the debates have multiple organizations co-hosting the event; they are spread out among the district, and one will be televised and one will be broadcasted on radio. All in all, we feel the line up Aaron Schock has agreed to will allow for a thorough airing of the candidates views on subjects across-the-board. Colleen Callahan can disagree all she wants as to what Aaron Schock should do but she is running her campaign, not this one. Most objective observers will agree that ten debates are a solid commitment.

Debates are an important component of a congressional campaign but not the only component by far. Again, there will only be three presidential debates because Barack Obama has only agreed to three.

Colleen Callahan needs to make the most of these 10 debates and figure out on her own how else she will take her message to the voters. Aaron Schock is not going to walk her hand in hand throughout the district, taking up one third of the evenings left in the campaign.

The Callahan campaign's first press release on the subject of debates wrongly said "Schock has agreed to exactly zero debates." That point was proved flat out wrong. Now, when given ten separate opportunities to debate, Callahan and her campaign clings to another false notion that Schock pulled out of a debate. The bottom line is that she has ten opportunities to debate Aaron Schock, including both a televised and radio broadcast debate.

The Callahan campaign has said the "debates" to which Shearer refers are actually forums and joint appearances, and not true debates in which candidates take turns answering questions. Many commenters have expressed similar sentiments. In the interest of fairness, I asked Shearer to respond:

They all have either questions from the audience which each candidate will answer, or a moderator or panel asking questions. Debate rebuttals will be included in at least the formats of the: WEEK-TV/Journal Star/League of Women Voters televised debate; the Peoria Chamber of Commerce/WMBD Radio debate broadcast on radio; the Jewish Federation of Peoria Debate; the World Affairs Council and League of Women Voters debate in Jacksonville; and the Southwest Kiwanis Debate. AARP has not yet determined its format. Each of the ten events will allow for a side by side comparison of the candidates on the issues.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.

Read more...

Schock will miss Peoria World Affairs Council debate

State Rep. Aaron Schock will not attend the Peoria Area World Affairs Council debate, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 10, at the Peoria City Council chambers. There's no word yet on whether the debate would proceed with other 18th District Congressional candidates Colleen Callahan (Democrat) and Sheldon Schafer (Green). It's guessing it will, and will post when I find out.

Callahan's campaign manager, Terry Towery, says they were notified by the PAWAC by phone earlier today. No explanation was given. He speculated that Schock may be trying to avoid being videotaped by the television news media during a debate with Callahan.

Towery reiterated the campaign's position that Schock is ducking the debates by either not committing to actual debates or by committing and then not showing up. And Towery said that Schock's campaign manager, Steve Shearer is "playing word games" by citing forums and joint appearances when refuting the accusations.

I've sent an email to Shearer and I am awaiting his reply.

Both campaigns have been trading snippy press releases over the debate debate issue this week.

UPDATE: Elaine Hopkins reports that the debate will go forward with or without Rep. Schock. The debate will be carried on WCBU-FM and streamed over the Internet as well.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.

Read more...

Man bites Dog | Madigan backs single-payer?

A strange thing happened in Springfield Tuesday night. The moon set, the sun rose, and rain began falling upwards. That, and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan signed on as a chief sponsor of House Bill 311, which would create a single-payer healthcare system in Illinois.

Has he gone Mad? Has the “revolution begun”, as some single-payer fanatics are saying?

No. It seems to be typical Madigan - playing another game. We just aren’t sure which game he is playing this time. Is it:

1. Build the majority? Allow his members to vote for healthcare to help them in the fall elections.
2. Appease Rep. Mary Flowers? Is she going to jump to the Green party after endorsing their presidential candidate? Madiganneed to hold on to as many members as possible.
3. Provide cover for his members on healthcare? The House has worked for almost a year now to destroy Governor Blagojevich’s healthcare for all plans. Is this the Madigan’s way of allowing his members pretend they are for healthcare to avoid more heat?
4. Stick it to the Governor? Seems the most likely - after the Governor’s healthcare expansions ran into resistance in court yesterday.

Nine times out of ten, its going to be “Stick it to the Governor,” the Lincoln to his Lee (or is it vice versa?).
But let’s give the Speaker the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s pretend he actually cares about the policy. And let’s pretend that the man who killed single-payer in Illinois 16 years ago (and killed healthcare for all again last year) has finally grown a heart. Is HB311 the single-payer we have all been waiting for?

UPDATE: HB311 sailed out of committee with an 8-4 vote. What makes this more suspicious are all the “subs” that were put on the committee last night to vote in place of normal members. The subs who served last night:

• Rep. Jefferson
• Rep. Riley
• Rep. Ford
• Rep. Graham
• Rep. Boland

Normal committee members not attending were Rep. May, Rep. Crespo, Rep. Dugan, Rep. Golar, and Rep. Howard.

CROSS-POSTED AT WONKISH.COM

Read more...

Bill Foster files for the special in IL-14

Bill Foster will file 1,832 signatures this morning for the special election in IL-14. They like to point out that's after a week with two ice storms and 8 inches of snow. I like to point out that it's a perfectly sufficient number to avoid a challenge.

I think they needed 870 or so, so 1,832 pads their total nicely and they were still able to do other stuff the past week.

I was out helping the Foster campaign in IL-14 yesterday. I was struck by a few things.

Something I had wondered about with the Foster campaign early on was whether or not they would be able to expand their base and their volunteer pool sufficiently. As I read through their volunteer board on the wall of the office yesterday, I really got it that they are doing the right things to diversify their support. I suspected they were doing all the right things before and I had no reason to think otherwise, but yesterday seriously cemented it in my brain.

Like every campaign should, they started out building upon Bill's personal and professional relationships for financial and volunteer support. One of the things that I look for in candidates is whether or not the candidate's former colleagues like and respect him or her enough to invest time and money in the campaign. Bill certainly passed that test with flying colors! How many candidates can you think of who have world class scientists (and their families) writing checks AND pounding the pavement for them?!

The Foster Scientific Brigade have continued to be out in full effect for Bill and the campaign has managed to recruit many new, enthusiastic supporters form very diverse communities! I've met college kids from Aurora University and Northern Illinois University. I saw several of the Fox Valley Forge strikers and their families. Teachers from Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles and Elgin. Nurses from DeKalb, Aurora, and Oswego. At least two Kane County Board members and several other elected officials and their families. And, perhaps most importantly, many people who I know from firsthand experience who have the ability to influence large chunks of the voting bloc.

Couple this with the fact that Bill has raised the most money of any Democratic or Republican candidate (aside from his personal contribution) and has picked up some very impressive endorsements (AFSCME Council 31, Planned Parenthood, Senator Dick Durbin, and 19 Nobel Laureates among them!) and things are looking pretty good for the Foster campaign. I'm pretty happy with their progress thus far.

Read more...

Aaron Schock playing fast and loose with election rules?

I've written before about how Republican Party loyalists are a bit annoyed at Aaron Schock. Less than a year after they spent millions getting him re-elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, he decided to abandon that seat to run for the one being vacated by U.S. Rep Ray LaHood.

This means that the GOP is more likely than not to loose the seat to the Democrats. Until Schock defeated Ricca Slone, the 92nd was considered a safe Democratic seat. But Schock -- who has a knack for picking opponents who have weaknesses in their base -- won back in 2004.

And now Schock is making tongues wag yet again. This time, some of his fellow GOPers are upset at the special favors he's getting from the party organization, and for possible violations of campaign finance rules.

Here are some of the complaints I'm hearing:

• The Shock for Congress campaign is passing out the same literature, they say, that was distributed by the Schock for State Representative campaign. Presumably, that literature was purchased long before anyone knew Ray LaHood wouldn't run for re-election and long before Schock officially entered the race. So the literature must have been bought with money raised for a state race. That's a big no-no.


• The Schock for Congress campaign is using the same phone number from the state rep campaign. This account with the phone company was opened with money raised for the state rep campaign. Unless Schock office gave up that phone number, and handed it over to the congressional campaign and paid for with federal campaign funds, it might not be exactly legal.


• And some of the ire is directed at the Peoria County Republican Central Committee. They have allowed Schock to set up his Congressional campaign office inside their offices. That's a no-no too, apparently. In fact, sources say the desire to separate state and federal election efforts was one of the reasons the county GOP moved its offices away from its location next to Ray LaHood's local offices at 4238 N. Knoxville to its new location at 8835 N. Knoxville Ave.

Via Schock's own Website:



Here's a closer look:


And here is an image from the Peoria County Republican's homepage:



It's exactly the same address. Right now, I'm not sure if this means that "state" campaign funds are being used on behalf of a "federal" campaign. If so, it's a violation of federal campaign finance laws, or so I'm told. If not, then it's ethically questionable.

What I do know is there is serious talk about making a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission. THAT is a big deal, unlike the allegations that passed back and forth when Schock ran against State Rep. Ricca Slone. Those were treated like most allegations of cheating are treated in Illinois -- with a certain amount of amused interest by the media, but with no real consequences (at one point, they were debating the ethics of free hot dogs and soda, for crying out loud).

But this is a federal race, and the national media is looking at it. And the media looooves to write about Republicans accused of campaign violations. Those guys have no sense of humor.

While 11 out of the 20 Republican county chairs in the 18th district have reportedly endorsed Schock, that doesn't mean that Schock is endorsed by the party as a whole. The GOP and the Democrats alike pick their parties' nominees through primary elections, not in smoke-filled cloakrooms.

Letting Schock set up an office inside the county's party HQ months before the primary sends a message to the rank and file: What you want doesn't matter. The powers-that-be have pre-selected their favored candidate, so just give up and go home. It's a great way to de-energize the party faithful.

And I'm sure that those folks who have contributed to or are working as volunteers for either Jim McConoughey or John Morris are absolutely thrilled (note the sarcasm, please) that their party itself is using their money to provide facilities to Schock.

And I'm also hearing that one of the people who is a bit POed is none other than Ray LaHood. As an incumbent, LaHood is very much aware of the effect this sort of nonsense is having on the GOP's chances of recapturing Congress.

And the thing is that Schock has a history of bending if not breaking what should be simple and easy to understand campaign rules. With the media and voters hype-sensitive to crooked electioneering, one wonders what other rules Schock might break or bend.

I'm recalling the history of the district. In 1956, Rep. Harold Velde endorsed his top aide Bob Michel, who won the party nomination in a crowded field. In 1994, Michel in turn endorsed Ray LaHood, his aide, instead of the more conservative Judy Koehler.

Perhaps LaHood might want to consider doing the same thing. Considering that everyone is assuming what whoever wins the GOP primary is going to win the general election, they may as well pick someone who acts like a grown-up and plays by the rules.

Read more...