From a NYT story on Illinois freshman Republican Bobby Schilling:
[…] He voted with his Republican colleagues to eliminate a $230 million federal grant to build an Amtrak line from Chicago to Iowa City, long coveted in the district.After the vote, Mr. Schilling told local reporters that he actually supported the rail line and believed that the Senate would not allow the cut anyway. Mr. Schilling now says the rail project is good, just not now. “Right now it’s all about prioritizing,” he said.
In other words, he was for it when he voted against it. IL-17 is a D+3 district, so, yeah, he’s in trouble if he keeps up this lame-ass bullshit.
One of the factors that wasn’t mentioned in the Times’ article is that this is a redistricting year, so a few careful moves of district boundaries can make or break a one-term teabagger. For example, in NY-25, where Ann Marie Buerkle beat Dan Maffei, a little bit of redistricting plus better turnout could push her out of office. New York’s registration is trending Democratic and we’re losing seats, so I’m expecting Republicans to keep one safe district in western New York, and Maffei has a good chance of winning back his old seat in the new NY-25.
(That’s a NYT link and it’s the first day of the paywall, so let me know if you have problems with it.)
Superluminar
To be fair to the guy, at least he’s in touch with reality enough to know the rail link is needed. Actually, this probably makes him worse…
salacious crumb
hey mistermix, can you put a posting up about the Kill Team story just printed by rolling stone?
dmsilev
I dunno about the press in his district, but the Chicago papers pounded on him for his “have it both ways” stance on the rail funding. Not too surprising, really. The rail infrastructure is pretty important around here, and anyone who pays any attention to the matter knows that it’s very crowded and congested and badly needs upgrading (there’s a *lot* of traffic, both passenger and freight).
dms
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Sadly, considering the states that are gaining seats, we’re going to see more teabaggers made more than we’ll see them broken. :/
Redshift
@dmsilev: Good for them. I can’t imagine either the Teabaggers or sane people would react favorably to his open admission that he’s just pandering to views that he knows are contrary to the best interests of his district.
On the other hand, maybe this will help clue the TPers in to the fact that this is what most Republicans in Congress are doing, they’re just not admitting to it.
Redshift
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Not necessarily. The location and ethnic makeup of a lot of that growth (urban and Latino) work counter to that, and it’s going to take a lot of gerrymandering to make those gains red even in the short term.
PurpleGirl
I took the Times subscription when I had one of the Lincoln offers while reading the Times last week. I’ve been to the Times for a few articles this morning and no problems so far.
jrg
@salacious crumb:
Holy shit. They hate us for our freedom, indeed.
So sick. So sad.
jwb
@jrg: Odd how a music magazine is evolving into one of our better sources for long-form news reporting.
shortstop
Schilling sees no reason why Shimkus should keep getting all the press for being the biggest asshole in the Illinois delegation. Two different styles, though: Shimkus is dumber than a box of rocks and actually believes his own global warming and evolution denials, whereas Schilling openly admits it’s party uber alles. As Superluminar notes, hard to tell which is more revolting.
Joey Maloney
@jwb: Nothing new in that. RS was the original forum for some of the Hunter S. Thompson essays that became Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, and for much of P.J. O’Rourke’s best work (that ended up in Holidays in Hell).
When RS’s journalism got a little flaccid in the mid-to-late 1980s, that’s where Guccione’s upstart Spin went after them – a lot of groundbreaking early writing about AIDS ended up in that magazine.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, I could click into the NYT article with no problems. So you must be doing it the right way. :-)
joe from Lowell
These people are deliberately harming their constituents.
They are pursuing a policy of preventing good things from happening in the hopes that the electorate will blame “government” and “incumbents” during the presidential election.
Mary Jane Leach
Am I the only one who found it frustrating that the article didn’t list the 14 congressmen being targeted, after referring to them a number of times?
Omnes Omnibus
@joe from Lowell: It is for their own good. They have to destroy the village in order to save it. Yada, yada, yada.
Crusty Dem
I grew up in the 17th. This teabagging moron is quite possibly the dumbest, least qualified jackass to ever enter congress. His qualifications are 1) he used to be a union steward in the 80’s (seriously) 2) he’s owned a pizza place in town for ~15 years (not looking it up) and 3) he’s married with a ton of kids.
In short, he’s exactly what you get in an undereducated district during poor economic times in a low-information midterm election. I recommend keeping an eye on him, he’s Michele Bachman without the smarts, and could provide a great deal of entertainment from now until Nov 2012 when he’s voted out.
JasonF
@jwb:
What are you talking about? I’m watching MSNBC right now and they’re telling me all about the new iPad app they’ve developed to give me all the details on the upcoming wedding of Prince William. There’s pictures of dresses, maps of London with all the key areas, pictures of jewels with information about their history, the royal family tree …
And now Chris Jansing has thrown the story to NBC’s Royal Family Commentator. I bet Rolling Stone doesn’t have a Royal Family Commentator.
stuckinred
@Crusty Dem: Forgotinia! I used to fish in Hamilton below lock and dam 19. Plenty of nutbags in that AO!
Crusty Dem
I actually grew up about 8 blocks down from this idiot’s pizza place, behold the awesomeness. Look around that google street view, take in the beauty of your surroundings; I can’t describe how happy I am to have left that shithole town. I could do a socioeconomic version of “It gets better”.
Omnes Omnibus
@JasonF: RS could use some fact checkers/research editors though. Throughout the story, I kept being jarred by the fact that they were describing officers as being in jobs that were not commensurate with their rank (e.g., a Lieutenant Colonel as second in command of a battalion, a major’s job, and a Captain as commanding a platoon, a lieutenant’s job). These kinds of errors are not central to the story, but they detract from the credibility of article as a whole.
If Stryker Brigades have an entirely different command structure than the rest of the army, I will withdraw my criticism.
daveNYC
@joe from Lowell: Not just any incumbents though, the other imcombents. It will probably work though, since polls tend to show that while people hate Congress they also tend to like their own congresscritters.
shortstop
@Crusty Dem: That is depressing. Congratulations on your great escape.
Crusty Dem
@shortstop: The sad thing is, it used to be a decent town. There was a sign on the ride in from the airport that proudly read “The farm equipment capital of the world”. Major factories for John Deere, International Harvester, Case, etc, lots of good union jobs. In the 80s there was a big downturn, the companies broke the unions (they still exist, but no power), International Harvester went out of business, and the money left town. Factory pay went from ~$25+/hr to $9/hr and never really came back. The brain drain there is amazing, almost everyone I know who went off to college moved on somewhere else..
Pretty trite, unfortunately. There’s probably not a town in the Midwest that doesn’t have the same story.
johnsmith1882
From what I understand, this two-faced doofus’s district is going to be the one that gets divvied up. District 17 is the gerrymandered district that runs along the Mississippi River, and then sorta curls east around and underneath the district to the east of it. Illinois is losing one seat this year, and the (ghost)towns along the Mississippi are prime suspects for population loss.
Served
I’m in Schilling’s district (WAH) where this guy replaced a reliable progressive, Phil Hare, with this asshole based on a massive Teabagger turnout, mostly old white people. The state district booted out our D state rep as well, in favor of a 23-year-old Republican who had been on the city council for 6 months and didn’t run in the primary.
We were one of the few state districts to get caught in the wave in Illinois, and now we have no state representation at all. Both houses are D controlled, and the Rs here have joined the “No solutions, just criticize what any D proposes” bandwagon. Teabaggers have effectively ruined any chance of improving our city with stimulus funds or necessary improvements (like an Amtrak stop for instance), but hey, gotta stop those Welfare Queens. Yes, that term was actually used in debates here.
Sorry, went off on a tangent. Schilling was also a sponsor of that “rape isn’t rape unless Republicans say it’s rape” bill, and that was the first time I had to call my representative since I’ve been voting age. In the past, I didn’t have to deal with a psychotic pizza restaurant owner whose campaign amounted to “Taxes are gay and Nancy Pelosi is coming for your guns.”
Is it 2012 yet?
Walker
Can we get a decent candidate down here for NY-24?
David Koch
@daveNYC: In a presidential re-election year, “incumbents” translates to “the president’s party” if there is anti-incumbent feeling.
rikryah
This clown, had the nerve to vote against it, then come up with the bullshyt that he wanted Senator Durbin to find a way to get the money back..
I was like…HELL TO THE NAW.
Nobody’s gonna bail your ass out.
That vote is going to be made to stick to you..since you’re all big and bad.