Newsflash:
Inoculating Our Children Against Fear and Hatred "Ewww. Don't do it, Patrick. Don't do it. Dogs pee here." A woman was giving my husband a hard time because our 10-month-old son had dropped his banana on the ground. Patrick picked it up, licked it and was about to hand it back to our boy. Seamus grabbed for it eagerly and scarfed it down. A minute or two later, he was grunting for more. Read the Full Story
Pentagon officials ask Congress to shift $9.6B The Pentagon wants Congress to shift $9.6 billion of this year’s Defense Department budget toward expenses for the Afghanistan war, transportation and other items. Read the Full Story
Syria: the threats, costs, claims and lives What the civil war in Syria has exposed is that the massive political and social transformation, and real regime change under way is led by people themselves. US military involvement serves only to escalate the destruction. Read the Full Story
Pentagon Said to Seek $80 Billion for War Amid Withdrawal The Pentagon will ask Congress to approve about $79.5 billion for combat operations, the least since 2005, as U.S. troops withdraw from Afghanistan, according to administration officials. Read the Full Story
Jerry Brown: California’s Mystery Man One of California’s great mysteries is the state’s governor, Jerry Brown. In a time when America’s politicians strive to be everywoman and everyman, Brown goes his own way. While a nation frantically chases youth, the 75-year-old governor who glories in his age and experience, is at the top of his game. Read the Full Story
No Koch News: A Movement to Unsubscribe After years of mismanagement, the Tribune Company newspapers -- including the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times -- are up for sale.  And one of the potential buyers? The Koch brothers.  And wow are people outraged! Read the Full Story
Video: Pentagon Accused of 'Rewriting Constitution' to Wage Endless War in Senate Hearing Pentagon officials today claimed President Obama and future presidents have the power to send troops anywhere in the world to fight groups linked to al-Qaeda, based in part on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Read the Full Story
An urgent message to 200 members of Congress They fanned out across the country from Los Angeles to Phoenix, Chicago, south to Atlanta and Miami, to the towns of Western Massachusetts, in New York City and beyond, and they entered offices on Capitol Hill in a national “Educate Congress” letter-drop campaign. Read the Full Story
When the IRS targeted liberals Under George W. Bush, it went after the NAACP, Greenpeace and even a liberal church.                          Read the Full Story
Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 1--donors on the record Here's who is buying America's democracy The spark that ignited tea party wrath in 2008 was not such right-wing bugaboos as "Obamacare," the federal deficit, or states' rights, which were added on later by Koch-created front groups. Read the Full Story
Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 2--donors OFF the record, or off the radar The money swamp created by Citizens United: Dark Money, corporate shell games, and SuperPAC plutocrats Some of you might remember "CREEP" from 1972's Nixon-McGovern matchup. It could've been an apt code name for Tricky Dick himself, but instead it referred to the "Committee to RE-Elect the President." Read the Full Story
H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act” Since 2000 more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. have closed and roughly 50,000 industrial jobs have been lost each month.  Now service sector jobs, where the remaining two-thirds of all workers are currently employed, are disappearing.   Read the Full Story
image Inoculating Our Children Against Fear and Hatred
image Pentagon officials ask Congress to shift $9.6B
image Syria: the threats, costs, claims and lives
image Pentagon Said to Seek $80 Billion for War Amid Withdrawal
image Jerry Brown: California’s Mystery Man
image No Koch News: A Movement to Unsubscribe
image Video: Pentagon Accused of 'Rewriting Constitution' to Wage Endless War in Senate Hearing
image An urgent message to 200 members of Congress
image When the IRS targeted liberals
image Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 1--donors on the record
image Logo Lowdown from the 2012 elections. Part 2--donors OFF the record, or off the radar
image H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act”
Monday, 26 March 2012 05:54

Bernard Schoenburg: Will Gill’s liberalism play in new 13th?

Written by  Bernard Schoenburg | SJ-R
Bernard Schoenburg: Will Gill’s liberalism play in new 13th?

The November race in the new 13th Congressional District, which includes much of Springfield, is shaping up to be far different than some Democrats — like U.S. Sen. DICK DURBIN, D-Ill. — had hoped.

The candidate Durbin endorsed in last week’s primary, MATT GOETTEN, is state’s attorney of Greene County (crime-fighter) and an Afghanistan war veteran (hero). He joined the race long after DAVID GILL, an emergency room doctor from Bloomington, decided to make his fourth try to topple U.S. Rep. TIM JOHNSON, R-Urbana. Wouldn’t it be better to have a fresh face, instead of someone who could be called a three-time loser — even though Gill argues that the new congressional map gives Democrats a real shot this time?

Well, actual voters have a way of dashing plans like that of Durbin and other party engineers. It turned out that Gill had a base of support in areas he’s run in before, such as Champaign-Urbana, and he explained his views with knowledge and passion. He directly took on the perceived “war on women” coming from RUSH LIMBAUGH and others, while Goetten tried to stay non-controversial, agreeing to only one broadcast debate and trying to talk about jobs when asked about some touchier issues. Barring an unexpected turnaround based on as-yet-uncounted absentee ballots, it didn’t work. Gill held onto a 143-vote advantage following unofficial election night results.

So, the question is whether Gill, who supports a form of national health care, strongly supports abortion rights and thinks gay marriage is a matter of simple justice, can win in a district that includes swaths of rural territory not known as liberal hot spots.

Time will tell, of course, but in a post-primary conversation, here’s how Gill framed some of those issues himself.

On health care, Gill said, “It’ll be important for me to get across to the voters that I’m not talking about anything like the Affordable Health Care Act, or what’s commonly known as Obamacare.” He said his plan for “improved Medicare for all” would be a way for people to have better health care, while also “hanging on to more of their money (by) stopping the flow of 40 percent of our health-care dollars into a black pit known as the private health insurance industry. And so, I don’t consider that an extremely progressive position. I consider it a people-oriented position.”

For more than 20 years, he’s been a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization that supports single-payer national health insurance.

Gill emphasized during his primary campaign that he won’t take campaign money from corporate political action committees or Wall Street lobbyists. But what about labor unions?
Gill said he views labor PACs in a different light.

“I don’t think corporations are there to make people’s lives better,” he said. “The multinational corporations that take jobs out of this country, their primary goal is not to make the lives of middle class and all Americans more comfortable.”

But don’t they make products people like?

“Their dominance of politics and government has resulted in the gains in productivity in this country, but the vast majority in gains go to a very tiny sliver of our society,” Gill said.

Labor unions can be called interest groups, he said, “but I think their primary interest is in promoting the well-being of the vast majority of Americans.”

Gill said he does not think being for gay marriage today is too progressive, because attitudes on the issue have changed rapidly.

“Support for it is growing exponentially, and I think these politicians who refuse to get on board are really falling behind the curve,” Gill said. “It’s part of our national character to be interested in fairness and justice, and I think it’s not going to be too much longer … before we’re looking back at the question of consenting adults getting married who (are) of the same gender … the same way we look today at the laws in Virginia in 1967 that a black adult and a white adult couldn’t get married. I think we’ll be saying, ‘What was that all about?’ So … I’m forward thinking, but … politically, I don’t think it causes harm. And again, I think people appreciate my integrity.”

It was in 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Virginia law banning interracial marriage.

Johnson has a long political career as a Republican, but he isn’t always mainstream in his views. His strong advocacy of his friend RON PAUL for president, for example, doesn’t put him in the middle of the GOP road. And even Johnson said, on election night, that Gill is “a committed person of great principles who gives voters a choice.”

“Nobody’s going to agree with any other person on every single issue of the day,” Gill said, adding that even if people don’t agree with him on some things, “I think just the fact that I’m out there giving them a straight answer is appreciated.”

It promises to be an interesting campaign.

Wins ahead?
U.S. Rep. STEVE ISRAEL, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, had a conference call with Illinois reporters Wednesday to announce five U.S. House races in Illinois that the DCCC is emphasizing through what it calls the “red-to-blue” program. That name indicates a shift from the GOP to Democrats, though also included is the new 12th Congressional District, where the seat is open because of the coming retirement of Democratic Rep. JERRY COSTELLO of Belleville. The new 13th wasn’t included, though Israel said that’s because the name of the Democratic nominee against Johnson wasn’t yet certain. But he also said he wasn’t ruling out a party push for Gill.

“Oh no, not at all,” Israel said. “I just haven’t made that assessment yet.”

He said he expects Democrats to win at least two of three races under the new map: Democrat TAMMY DUCKWORTH of Hoffman Estates vs. GOP Rep. JOE WALSH of McHenry in the 8th; Democrat BRAD SCHNEIDER of Deerfield vs. GOP Rep. ROBERT DOLD of Kenilworth in the 10th; and CHERI BUSTOS of East Moline vs. GOP Rep. BOBBY SCHILLING of Colona in the 17th. Bustos is a daughter of GENE and ANN CALLAHAN of Springfield.

Also “in play,” Israel said, are races featuring former Democratic U.S. Rep. BILL FOSTER of Naperville vs. GOP Rep. JUDY BIGGERT of Hinsdale in the 11th; and Democrat BRAD HARRIMAN of O’Fallon vs. Republican JASON PLUMMER of Fairview Heights in the 12th. Plummer was the 2010 GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.

Link to original article on SJ-R

 
Read 3822 times Last modified on Monday, 26 March 2012 06:25
Published in Dr. David Gill
back to top

PDA In Your State