Progress Illinois

During the "Future Leaders" panel at Netroots Nation yesterday, Dan Seals said congressional Democrats "caved" by voting for the recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill:

Here's my interview with 10th District Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals at Netroots Nation yesterday:

Stay tuned for more video from Austin, TX in the coming days.

Could it be that many 10th Congressional District voters are starting to sour on GOP Rep. Mark Kirk and his repeated lies and distortions? In an email to supporters, Democratic challenger Dan Seals reported today that his campaign raised $635,000 from over 2,000 contributors in the second quarter, a personal record for the North Shore Democrat. The numbers are even more encouraging when compared to the second quarter of his 2006 bid for the 10th District seat, when he raised $391,250. From the release:

"Dan's message of bringing change to Washington continues to build unprecedented momentum across the 10th district," Seals Campaign Manager Patrick Mogge said. "While Mark Kirk has relied on playing the fear card against Dan and Barack Obama, 10th district voters have turned out in overwhelming numbers to volunteer and contribute to Dan's campaign to show that they are fed up with this type of politics. Like Dan, they know our country can do better and that it is time for a new direction in Washington."

Seals has raised approximately $2.1 million during the 2008 cycle, more than he did during his entire 2006 campaign for Congress.

UPDATED (7/8): Yikes. Kirk's second quarter numbers came out today. He raised $900,000 and has $2.85 million cash on hand.

Congressional candidate Dan Seals has a new web ad up, which incorporates our clip of Rep. Mark Kirk repeating the debunked claim that China is drilling for oil off American shores. Take a look:

During an appearance on WLS' Don Wade & Roma last Wednesday, Rep. Mark Kirk asserted that China has been drilling for oil just off American shores -- in the Cuban-controlled section of the Gulf of Mexico. But as we noted, that claim is blatantly false. In fact, it had been earlier used by Vice President Dick Cheney, who then had to retract his statement. Apparently that wasn't enough to keep Kirk from peddling it days later. Have a listen:

Internal mp3

Yesterday, Ellen of the Tenth live-blogged a teleconference Kirk held with constituents and, lo and behold, the GOP congressman apparently repeated the China drilling claim. From her post on the call:

More on gas prices. Open up areas off Am shorelines to oil drilling? (That question is misleading--see why by looking at my recent post on why that is not the real question -- and he's making reference to the already proven false comment about China drilling offshore Cuba again--unbelievable).

Unfortunately, there's no audio of the call, so we can't check Kirk's exact language.

Today, the Seals campaign put out a statement calling on Kirk to retract his assertion about Chinese drilling in the gulf. From their press release:

"For weeks, Mark Kirk has engaged in tired scare tactics to justify his support for environmentally destructive drilling," Seals Communications Director Elisabeth Smith said. "Once again, he has shown how far he is willing to go to enrich the big oil companies that have funded his campaigns. Mark Kirk owes it to his constituents to apologize for these grossly misleading comments after even Dick Cheney acknowledged this information to be false."

It should be noted that Kirk isn't the only GOP member of Congress repeating this garbage to his constituents. Reps. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Sam Graves (R-MO) have also been caught repeating the claim, despite Cheney's retraction.

During a Q&A with OpenLeft readers yesterday, 10th District congressional candidate Dan Seals was asked by Matt Stoller if he would sign on to The Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq: "a comprehensive legal framework to end the war and prevent the reoccurence of the mistakes in our national security decision-making that led to the war in the first place."

Here's Seals' answer:

I don't like to sign onto a plan until I know all the details of it (as my staff well knows!), but from what I do understand of the plan -- its emphasis on responsibly ending the war in Iraq, offering non-military solutions to the war, rebuilding our military, and having a new approach to energy policy -- it makes a lot of sense.

As we noted yesterday, while over 50 candidates nationwide have endorsed the Responsible Plan, 16th District Democrat Bob Abboud is the only congressional challenger in Illinois to do so. Hopefully, once he reads through the details, Seals will become the second.

Here's a video featuring many of the plan's endorsees:

On Monday, the Illinois Board of Elections bumped Green Party candidates off the ballot in three Illinois congressional districts -- the 8th, 10th, and 14th. The decision came after "objectors" petitioned to have them removed, citing the Greens' failure to properly follow state nominating rules in slating the candidates.

Because the Green candidate in the 10th District fought in Iraq, Illinois GOP chairman Andy McKenna decided to accuse Democratic candidate Dan Seals of "car[ing] more about himself than Iraq war veterans":

“Yesterday, Dan Seals and his campaign succeeded in kicking Iraq war veteran David Kalbfleisch off the November ballot. David Kalbfleisch fought to defend Dan Seals’ freedom and all he asked in return was a chance to participate in our democratic process. Unfortunately, Dan Seals cares more about himself than Iraq war veterans. Voters should know this is how Dan Seals treats our veterans.”

Capitol Fax's Rich Miller hits the nail on the head in his response:

Republican Congressman Peter Roskam is running against an Iraqi War veteran, Jill Morgenthaler. So, will the state GOP now blast Roskam every time he does something negative to his opponent?

Tenth district Democratic challenger Dan Seals has taken a lot of heat for a campaign event two weeks ago in which he offered motorists the chance to buy as many as 10 gallons of gas for $1.85 per gallon (the price on the day his GOP opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk, took office in 2000). Not only did the event stall traffic for over a mile, but Kirk subsequently suggested that Seals had violated federal law. On Friday, Seals joined Fox News' Neil Cavuto to defend his gas giveaway (video here):

CAVUTO: Mr. Seals, did you buy votes?

SEALS: Of course not.

If anybody's vote has been bought, it has been my opponent's. He has taken over $40,000 from oil companies, and has voted to subsidize them with taxpayer dollars to protect them from investigation.

I think we have a joke of an energy policy. And I what to see it changed. And I'm going to fight for that.

CAVUTO: All right, but you had to know that by offering people to get gas for $1.85, and you were trying to pay off the difference to make sure they got that, you were effectively paying for their vote.

SEALS: No, what we were doing was buying people gas and talking about energy policy.

We've seen, actually, these events happen -- both Republicans and Democrats are doing this across the country.

I mean, when you look at our energy policy, basically, we're borrowing from China to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. And I think that's got to change. So, I have been talking about what I think we should do with our energy policy. And we have been getting a lot of interest for it.

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Last week, Rep. Mark Kirk voted against an amendment to the House's homeowner protection bill -- the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 -- offering first-time homeowners a tax credit of $7,500 to be paid back over 15 years.

Yesterday, Kirk's Democratic challenger in the 10th Congressional District, Dan Seals, put out a videotaped response slamming Kirk for "siding with the Bush administration against middle class and working families." You can watch it here.

10th District Congressman Mark Kirk boasts of his title as "Top GOP Fundraiser in the Nation" on his campaign website. Considering his apparent fundraising prowess, it's impressive to see that Democratic challenger Dan Seals is keeping pace.

Statements released this week indicate that the Kirk campaign raised $715,000 in the first quarter of the year while Seals raised 613,000. Seals' fundraising ability at this early juncture shows that he may have a broader base of support this time around.

In 2006, Kirk narrowly beat Seals in a hotly contested race. During that election cycle, Kirk raised $3.1 million and Seals brought in $1.9 million.

As the Tribune reported this morning, the first quarter figures vindicate the DCCC, which -- unlike in 2006 -- decided to designate the 10th District as a "Red-To-Blue" race in mid-March:

The campaign totals also justify the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's decision to place Seals on its Red to Blue list of congressional races it believes are winnable.

But Seals will need to start out-fundraising Kirk in order to marshall the same resources as Election Day approaches. The Tribune also reported that Kirk has collected a total of over $2.8 million for the 2008 election, while Seals raised $1.4 million.