This morning, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee held a press conference at the Veterans Memorial in Chicago to highlight congressman and GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk's troubling explanation for his flip-flop on the cap-and-trade bill.  As we highlighted earlier this week, a YouTube video caught Kirk saying the following after a crowd of DuPage County Republicans booed him for supporting the bill in the House:

KIRK: I voted for [cap-and-trade] because it was in the narrow interests of my congressional district. But as your representative representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote no on that bill coming up and that’s because we are a manufacturing, agriculture, and coal state and that’s a path I think we need to build. 

Greg Hinz subsequently pulled out Kirk's original explanation of his vote back in July, in which he cited "national security" considerations (i.e., the need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil) as the reason for his support.

At today's press conference, two veterans and former Democratic congressional candidates, Jill Morgenthaler and Jan Donatelli, demanded that Kirk explain why national security is apparently a "narrow interest" limited to the 10th Congressional District.  Watch some excerpts:

In other news, after announcing their support for 10th Congressional District candidate Julie Hamos earlier this week, EMILY's List has decided to support Cheryle Jackson in the Senate race.  From a Hill article:

Ellen Malcolm, EMILY's List's president, called Jackson "an experienced executive dedicated to fostering economic growth" and "a dynamic and charismatic leader who is hands down the best candidate to keep President Obama's former Senate seat in the Democratic column."

Meanwhile, the EDGE news network devoted an article this week to Alexi Giannoulias' stand in favor of gay marriage:

"This is something I believe in," Giannoulias said. "These aren’t special rights, they are equal rights. Loving, same-sex couples deserve to be treated no differently in the eyes of the law than opposite-sex couples. It’s not fair to deny some long-term, committed couples and their families the protections that others enjoy." 

Giannoulias is scheduled to head out on a downstate road trip this weekend.  More details to come. (UPDATE: He will be rolling through Murphysboro and Sparta tomorrow.)

Finally, WTTW's Carol Marin interviewed David Hoffman on Chicago Tonight this week. Here were his comments on the public option as a component of health care reform:

HOFFMAN: I'm in favor of the public option. I think we need to take a strong stand. I saw that the Finance Committee proposal that came out today did back away from it significantly and I disagree with that.  I think the president gave a great speech the other night and he was fairly strong on public option.  And I would encourage them to stay as strong as they can. 

It's an important and criticial element of this reform package in terms of making insurance companies accountable, in terms of adding competition to the system.  And you know, the right-wing talk shows that have tried to make much of this and say it's going to be mandatory and people will be taken out of their current health care plans -- it's just not true.  It's an option.  It's a government-run non-for-profit that will be allowed to compete with the private insurers and will be there to help the people who can't afford insurance. 

And I tell you what, we're one of the wealthiest nations in this world, and that we can't come up with a system that provides health insurance for 46 million people who are uninsured is an outrage. We need to do something to change it.

You can watch the full segment here.