GOP Senate candidate Steve Sauerberg -- down in the polls and low on cash -- has not run what one could call a smooth campaign. Even fellow conservatives are starting to get angry. Yesterday at Illinois Review, Curt Mercadante complained
that Sauerberg hasn't put forth "an aggressive e-strategy" since
winning his party's primary, which could have helped raise money,
recruit volunteers, and communicate the campaign's message efficiently.
But he's got one last bullet in the chamber: the culture wars!
In the Republican underdog role against two-term veteran [Dick] Durbin, Sauerberg, a physician from Willowbrook, repeatedly has sought to label his opponent as too liberal. On one of his campaign’s Web sites, Sauerberg noted Durbin’s opposition to a Constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning and said the nation’s founders never included one "because they never had to deal with ultra-liberal Americans who hate their own country."
Asked whether he was referring to Durbin, Sauerberg said Thursday, "I think he’s an ultra liberal. Whether he hates his own country, I cannot determine for the gentleman.” Sauerberg said voters "wonder a lot" about Durbin’s patriotism.
A Durbin spokesmen says the personal attacks shows a "frustrated" political candidate. It's hard to argue with that, especially considering he doesn't share the values of the majority of Illinois residents and he consistently demonstrates a shallow knowledge of public policy. From the same Tribune article:
Labeling the nation's energy problems a top voter concern, Sauerberg restated his call for a federal gas-tax holiday as the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has proposed. Sauerberg said money lost to the federal highway construction fund could be replaced by finding "another wasteful program that government runs."
Asked to name a specific wasteful government program to cut, Sauerberg said, "I can’t answer that" and apologized, before proposing a freeze on federal hiring or a 2 percent cut in federal agency spending.
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