conservativeBrand

Interesting to note that Mark Kirk voted “yea” on the Stupak amendment to ObamaCare in the House - that amendment gave “Hyde Amendment” cover to pro-life Democrats by banning Federal funding of abortions. It is considered unlikely to remain in the bill beyond this preliminary vote. Check out the House roll call: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll884.xml

CBS News’ Mike Flannery asked conservativeBrand for an interview today on the subject of “why conservatives are so angry with Mark Kirk.” It seems likely that the question came up in response to the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times articles today reporting that Congressman Kirk had reached out to Sarah Palin, asking for her endorsement.

Before responding to CBS, it seemed as though a quick phone call to Kirk’s office might be in order. Campaign spokesman Eric Elk reported that the “request” to Sarah Palin did not represent anything more than the same memo any national Republican figure (or pundit or media representative) would get asking for their support. Sarah Palin will be in town for the Oprah show on Nov. 17th - so that was the impetus for the request. Kirk does not appear to be a likely fit to the social conservative side of Governor Palin, but there might be a lot more congruence between their views on international and fiscal issues. Time (only a week) will tell whether that endorsement is forthcoming.

Tuesday’s election did represent a kind of mini-epiphany for conservativeBrand with regard to how the New York District 23 election turned out. After quite a bit of soul searching, the following statement (inconclusive as it may be) seemed the best response to CBS:

I’ve been working hard to influence Mark Kirk to vote in a way that better represents my views as a conservative. There was a lesson for Illinois conservatives in the NY 23rd election - and it is that abandoning the Republican Party is counter-productive; the two-party structure remains the only effective way to run elections. Mark Kirk’s record in Congress frequently does not reflect the values that I think a Republican should embrace. His vote for Cap & Trade legislation was remarkable in that it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the importance of free and for the most part unregulated markets for American business (because of the vast new government regulation that would result from that legislation.) On several family issues (abortion for one) his positions resemble Dede Scozzafana’s and are to the left of many Democrats. On national defense, however, Mark Kirk is uniquely qualified to represent the conservative point of view in Illinois, with positions much to the benefit of the entire country. His stand with Rep. Peter Roskam asking the Obama administration to disentangle itself from American banks and the automobile industry is commendable.

Yes, Patrick Hughes (Hinsdale, candidate for Senate) articulates views that fit better with my own – but he is a candidate without any record. Mark Kirk does have a record that is problematic, and he needs to convince me that he will not waver from the conservative message his campaign has chosen in recent weeks. I am a conservative who has positions that are nuanced; the value of primaries in our political system is that candidates have an opportunity to persuade voters, and voters have a chance to remain flexible up until the day of the election.

Alinsky for Dummies

You’re invited!:  Chicago Townhall Meeting, Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Topic:  Alinsky for Dummies

Speaker:  Joseph A. Morris - please read Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky

Rules for Radicals:  A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky is on many peoples’ minds these days.  Examples include:  ACORN, SEIU, Czars, the government’s demonization of opponents (both individual Americans and private enterprises), actors conducting illegitimate press conferences to forward the big and bigger government (less freedom) agenda, government officials illegally accessing private information of US citizens, voter intimidation, voter registration fraud, etc.  Could all of this be an outgrowth of Saul Alinsky’s ideas?  Come find out.  Before you come, visit: www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

Joseph A. Morris is a Chicago attorney who served under President Reagan as Chief of Staff and General Counsel of the U.S. Information Agency, as a delegate to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, and as Assistant Attorney General.  He is Director of the American Conservative Union and has been the Chairman and President of the United Republican Fund of Illinois.  A frequent lecturer and debater, he has appeared on such national and local television and radio programs as ABC’s “Good Morning America”, NBC’s “Nightly News”, the syndicated “Entertainment Tonight”, CNN’s “Day Watch” and “Crossfire”, C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal, and WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Time:  6:30 pm cocktails and/or dinner & networking

             7:15 pm  announcements

 7:30 pm  program begins

 9:00 pm  adjourn

COST:  The Lincoln Restaurant requires a minimum order from each person of $5.00 to secure our private room.  A suggested donation of $3.00 would also be greatly appreciated.  All donations cover the costs of holding each meeting such as handouts, nametags, door prizes, PR, small gifts of appreciation for the speakers, etc.

RSVP PLEASE (with head count / names) – this is very helpful for everyone!!! by sending an email to:  TownhallChicago@aol.com  or call 312.420.3115

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!! – Help spread the word

****** DOOR PRIZES !!! – FOR EARLY ARRIVALS ******

Please arrive before 7:15 PM, so we can start and respect those who are on time.

WHERE:  Lincoln Restaurant

                  4008 N. Lincoln Ave. & Irving Park Rd. & Damen Ave. (4000 N, 2000 West)

                 Chicago, IL  60618   Tel:  773.248.1820

Directions to (type in your location at the following link and click “Get Directions”):

http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?src=maps&1sb=revise&2l=%2bVynOP3r%2bBFt2jo%2fWecs9Q%3d%3d&2g=qUOHWvLXuOeHKjZZ5eqnMg%3d%3d&2v=ADDRESS&2a=4008%20N%20Lincoln%20Ave&2c=Chicago&2s=IL&2z=60618%2d3010&2y=US&2pn=&2pl=&cat=&q=

FREE PARKING:  behind restaurant – entrance off of Irving Park Road going west from Damen; get ticket as you drive into lot and exchange for token at cashier inside the Lincoln Restaurant.  There is a rear entrance to the restaurant from the parking lot.

Back at an early town hall-type meeting with Mark Kirk in Kenilworth, he bemoaned a vigorous primary, fearing that the debate would “pull him to the right” - and that was just what happened, with numerous challengers entering and exiting his Senate race. The campaign rhetoric from Rep. Kirk is decidedly more conservative than his district has heard through his past two terms in congress. He focused on the “suburban agenda” that avoided addressing national defense (although it is his strength), family issues (such as vouchers for DC public school students, which he voted for only reluctantly) and the conservative fiscal issues that are the backbone of his affluent district. How quickly can he ask his constituents forget the shock and awe that Kirk expressed after his helpful-to-Democrats vote for Cap and Trade legislation engendered horrorified reactions in the majority of 10th District voters?

The ultra-liberal Huffington Post website includes Kirk in the group of candidates who may be under even more stress following Democrat losses in today’s off-season elections in VA, NJ and NY (and Sarah Palin will be the least of his worries):

“In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.”

“Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.”

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/sarah-palin-is-now-the-go_b_343653.html

… and Education Secretary Arne Duncan should pay attention as well. E.D. Hirsch has been writing about core education values for several decades; now an experiment in traditional teaching begun in Massachusetts in 1993 has produced the kind of results that the edublob (that would include administrators, teachers unions and education schools) only talks about.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_hirsch.html

A brief taste of the article: “Hirsch’s description of the Founders’ educational views is both reverential and elegiac. Most American leaders, well into the nineteenth century, believed passionately that schools’ main task was “the making of Americans,” Hirsch writes. He refers here not only to the millions of European immigrants arriving throughout the nineteenth century but also to native-born Americans from different regions and religions, who needed common schools as the means of acculturation into the “common language community” of a still-new country.”

“Lincoln’s famous Lyceum speech of 1838, Hirsch notes, was primarily about common schooling and shared knowledge as democratic touchstones. In the speech, Lincoln assigned schools the task of teaching the American credo of “solidarity, freedom, and civic peace above all other principles.” Let these principles, Lincoln said, “be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges—let it be written in Primmers [sic], spelling books and almanacs.” These beliefs were already reaching young Americans through Noah Webster’s grammars and dictionaries and William McGuffey’s readers.”

Saturday night date night (plus) yesterday was at the new Happ Inn in Northfield Square - that revolving door restaurant space finally has found a congenial and successful enterprise via owner Carlo (of Carlo’s of Highland Park fame.) One nice feature, besides a comfortable menu and prices, is the opportunity to bump into friends almost whenever one visits. Last night it was Cook County Board President canididate Roger Keats and his energizer bunny wife, Tina. The GOP in this neighborhood always has benefitted from representation by former State Senator Keats - kudos to Paul Vallas for talking Roger into running for this important (to your tax bill) office.

Richard Viguerie: Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP

As reported earlier in the Illinois Review on line, the following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, concerning the withdrawal of GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava from the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district: 

“In her statement announcing suspension of her campaign in the special election for New York’s 23rd congressional district, Assemblywoman and liberal GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava refused to throw her support behind a fellow Republican, Doug Hoffman, who is running on the Conservative Party ticket in this particular race.

“That was one more example of the ‘closed tent’ mentality of big-government, establishment Republicans who have worked long and hard to keep conservatives out of power at the national, state, and local levels.

“The GOP leadership’s backing of Ms. Scozzafava was a slap in the face to Tea Party activists, town hall protesters, and conservatives across the country. The Washington GOP establishment’s abandonment of fiscal responsibility led directly to the election of Barack Obama as President and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. The American people see the GOP leadership and establishment every bit as much a part of the problem as the Democrats.

“Doug Hoffman and NY-23 is an earthquake in American politics, and is the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond. The stupid decision by Republican leaders to pour $900,000 into the NY-23rd race against a conservative has unleashed a fury that will lead to new GOP leadership.

“Conservatives’ anger at Washington-establishment Republicans will cost the national committees tens of millions of dollars as conservative money will start flowing directly to the Tea Parties and their candidates.”