-By Warner Todd Huston
Fred Barnes, editor of the Weekly Standard published a piece that 8th District candidate Joe Walsh referenced this week. Barnes didn’t just talking about Walsh, though. Here is the except of what Barnes had to say about several other Illinois Republican “Rebels on the Right.”
The grass-roots revolt in the Illinois primaries was all the more telling because it was a near-total surprise. Ethan Hastert’s name, rather than an asset, “actually worked against him,” says a Republican official who supported him. The Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times endorsed his opponent, Hultgren—another surprise.
For Hultgren, the key to winning was staying to the right of Hastert. “I believe we need real conservatism in Washington,” he declared. “I’m proud to call myself a real conservative.” He won, 55 percent to 45 percent. He faces Democrat Bill Foster, who won a special election after Hastert’s father resigned, in the general election on November 2.
The success of Dold in the House seat being vacated by Representative Mark Kirk “came out of nowhere,” Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois told me. Schock had endorsed the favorite, Coulson. Dold defeated Coulson, 39 percent to 30 percent, in a multiple candidate race.
Once again, the winner ran against Washington and excessive spending. Dold labeled Coulson “a Springfield insider” as a legislator and one who voted for “tax and spend” bills. As a social moderate, Dold nicely fits the district, which President Obama won with 61 percent of the vote in 2008. Kirk, by the way, won the Republican primary for the Senate seat once held by Obama.
What distinguished Walsh’s victory was the role of tea party activists. Without them, he would have had little chance of winning. After his victory—Walsh got 35 percent in a six-way race—he traveled to Nashville to speak at the National Tea Party Convention. “I ran as a tea party candidate in the primary, and I’m going to run as a tea party candidate in the general,” he said.
When Melissa Bean, the Democratic incumbent, learned that Walsh would be her opponent, she expressed relief, regarding him as the weakest of the Republicans in the primary. Her reaction was reminiscent of how pleased aides of President Carter were in 1980 when Ronald Reagan emerged as his Republican opponent. They were happy to have escaped the awesome juggernaut of a Howard Baker campaign.
Please do go on over to Barnes’ piece and read what he had to say on races in other parts of the country.
Continue reading “
Weekly Standard on Illinois Rebels”
Well, it is sure to cause the Gay Lobby fits, but Peter LaBarbera, President of 
News on Mob Banker Alexi Giannoulias’ bank mess from the Ill. GOP…
When Obama says that his Obamacare healthcare plan isn’t a big government take over of healthcare he really is simply lying outright to the nation (well, let’s be honest, it’s not really his plan because the Democrats wrote it and he had no real input into it).
The liberal media’s newest meme is to claim that the tea party movement is made up exclusively of John Birchers, militia types, racists, and “birthers.” Politico, for instance, had an 
The Daily Herald is 
Southtown Star columnist Phil Kadner tried on his high dudgeon at 11th District GOP Congressional candidate Adam Kinzinger in his March 2 editorial headlined, “
WJBD radio of downstate Salem (just east of St. Louis) 
I deeply appreciate the landslide support that voters in the Republican Primary provided for me and our volunteers. It is a privilege to work for you, and I will do my best for you and your family.
On February 24, 
Incumbent Democrat Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii’s first district is expected to resign his seat in Congress in order to make a run at Hawaii’s gubernatorial seat. That leaves his House seat open and it is looking as if the Republicans have a good chance to win it with the candidacy of Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou.
-By Congressman Peter Roskam (R, Illinois)
CHIGAGO – February 25, 2010 – Four Chicago-based Republican candidates will host a joint fund-raiser on Thursday, March 4 at 6:00 p.m. at The Stretch, 3485 North Clark St. in Chicago. Illinois state hopefuls David Anderson, Adam Robinson and Scott Tucker will join federal candidate David Ratowitz in a mass muster of support for their individual General Election campaigns.
From the campaign of Joe Walsh for Congress, 8th District…
Two weeks ago the U.S. Senate passed new rules that would require new spending to be offset somewhere else in the budget, the so-called paygo rule. They did this because Democrats and Obama got tired of being called big spending socialists and wanted the veneer of fiscal responsibility with which to cloak themselves. It lasted two weeks before the 
A group made up of some of the biggest names in contemporary conservatism got together a few days ago and crafted what they are calling the “