Thursday, January 28, 2010

Patrick Hughes Senate Campaign "Infuriates" Republican Township Chairmen By Misrepresenting Them As Supporters

The Patrick Hughes for Senate Campaign is floundering a week out from the primary election and is looking for a lifeline. This week, the Hughes campaign put up a desperate appeal on the Internet for a "moneybomb," which is essentially a nationwide appeal for a lot of money. Hughes was looking for $50,000; it appears that he fell far short, the last word on his Facebook page being that he was able to raise something over $20,000. To put it bluntly, even Fifty Large wasn't gonna do anything, especially given that as of January 13th, Hughes has little over $22,000 in the bank. And that's just weeks before the election. Not good planning for a state-wide campaign.

Another lifeline that Hughes grasped for was some support from 'regular' Republicans, namely, the support of County or Township chairmen in the Republican organization, since the vast majority of Republican officials, not to mention every single major newspaper in Illinois, have endorsed Congressman Mark Kirk over Hughes and the rest of the Republican primary field.

Hughes has gotten so desperate, however, that his campaign has simply started making stuff up. There's no other way to put it.

Earlier this week, a group called the Will County Tea Party alliance had an event for Hughes, which it touted in an e-mail and a post over at Illinois Review that it was going to unveil anywhere from 11 to 18 Republican "county chairmen" who supported Hughes (depending on what you read, the term "endorsement" was also used). At this event, Hughes campaign representative Charlie Johnston addressed the room (I can't say it was a crowd as the event seemed pretty sparsely attended) and blatantly lied when he said that he had a list of people "that wanted me to mention their names in case they couldn't be there" (you can hear him if you click on the video link and go to the 6:20 minute mark). He repeats the statement that a bunch of the people he listed couldn't be at the event at the 7:20 mark when he introduces them. I watched the video and a few names from Lake County stuck out at me: Nancy Kubalanza from Grant Township (not county, as it stated on the Will. Co. e-mail announcing the event) and David Pfeifer from Waukegan Township (again, he's a township chair, not a county chair). Amusingly, both of their names were misspelled in the e-mail.

Being from Lake County, and having served on the Republican Central Committee for several years with both Nancy and Dave, who are both friends of mine, I called them right away to see if they had actually given permission for Johnston to publicize their names as Pat Hughes supporters in an advertised campaign event like this. Not only did they both tell me they had NOT, they were both pretty upset. Dave e-mailed me to tell me he was "infuriated."

Both Nancy and Dave told me: they had been given NO notification of the event; they had never asked for their names to be put on a list and read because they had told Johnston they could not attend the event; and most importantly, they had NOT given permission to use their names in this fashion.

To me, the whole thing reminded me of when Hughes also botched his so-called major endorsement by former Bears Coach Mike Ditka, when, if you will recall, his campaign announced an endorsement (and a claim that Ditka would be on Hughes' finance committee) without checking with Da Coach. This led the Coach to deny the endorsement, which then made a bit of a stir among the national political circles. After it blew up, Hughes and Ditka's camps circled the wagons and came out with a very terse statement that 'as of that day' Ditka was endorsing Hughes but would not be on the finance committee, and 'they would answer no more questions about it'. Heh. By the way, our review of Hughes' FEC disclosures revealed that Ditka NEVER gave Pat any money, so it seems that the Coach doesn't have a lot of love for Pat. So much for that endorsement.

In any event, we now have shades of the Dikta debacle plaguing Team Hughes, as they have simply misappropriated township chairmens' names without permission and really ticked them off. (Interestingly, the lesson that Hughes did not seem to learn from the Ditka kerfuffle was that when you throw peoples' names around, you can actually call them up and confirm endorsement claims. Thus, ya better get it right). Here is an e-mail from Dave Pfeifer, who only found out about the misappropriation because I called him to tell him:

This is in response to the e-mail titled "GOP Chairman Stand up for the Tea Parties" sent by the Homer-Lockport Tea Party Organization. My name and endorsement was used in this event and e-mail without my knowledge or explicit approval. Additionally, I did not attend this event nor am I a member of any Tea Party organization. I was only aware of this event via a second-hand forwarding of the event notice. (emphasis mine)

As an individual voter, it is irrelevant regarding my views/support for the Tea Party movement or the Patrick Hughes campaign. It is unfortunate that this group extrapolated what they believed to be my personal views, and in essence, applied it to the entire township organization. This infuriates me as we (Waukegan Township Republican Organization) agreed not to endorse any candidates. It was left up to each individual precinct committeeman to make "recommendations" within their own precinct if they chose to do so.

There are many who definitely know where I stand on the political spectrum. However, I consider myself to be a pragmatist and the tone of this e-mail seems to imply that I am an ideologue. I consider this to be very damaging as we (Republicans) can't waste any time after the February primary mending fences amongst ourselves when the November 2nd General Election will be here before you know it.

Regards,
David Pfeifer
Chairman
Waukegan Township Republican Organization


Dave is "infuriated" and should be. Nancy told me not only that she's not supporting Hughes, she specifically told me "I don't think he can win."

Hughes doesn't need a black eye like this days before the election. If he and his people can't tell the truth, they don't deserve your vote, friends.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Team, I am a big fan of yours from the days of catladys lair when you and king louis would unload on her and lucky mom and baxter only to be banned, but this is kind of silly.

Mark should have debated pat on television at least once. The right wing is not going away and every vote on every judge mark takes is going to ignite a new pat hughes type challenge. He should have confronted him, destroyed him and moved on.

We also have bigger fish to fry than this. I am still waiting for you to endorse for the governor's mansion so I know whom to vote for-I am leaning towards proft, and also to start talking about the down ballot people like hamilton chang who we need in springfield to start exterminating the soccer mommies like nekritz,ryg,schoenberg ect.

your fan.

FOKLAEAPS

Team America said...

FOKLAEAPS - I hear you, but when you catch such a blatant lie (eerily similar to the Dikta issue), someone needs to call bullsh*t.

The good news is this will all be over Tuesday night. Maybe see you at the Kirk victory party?

Anonymous said...

When I ran a couple of campaigns, I always made sure I got an endorsement in writing, even if it was just one line.

How is the Hughes campaign lining up their endorsements?

Louis G. Atsaves

Team America said...

=== How is the Hughes campaign lining up their endorsements? ===

I think they claim anyone who ever said anything nice about them, in some cases.

Anonymous said...

I would never critique you, especially on your turf, but we need to keep in mind that on tuesday night at 701 pm when the polls close and Mark is declared the nominee, the hughes people will be needed to be Kirk footsoldiers, and the last thing we want to do is piss them off saying why would I want to work for those jerks who were trying to run up the score on us. They are fellow republicans and in this state where we are beggars-for the moment-we can't be choosy. You know every scumsucking democrat is going to be working for alexi. You have every right to destroy your former classmate for this act of self rightoussness, but keep in mind what the larger goal is. Displine is key.

Remember, we have a common aim of donkey extermination and the conservtives bring a lot of energy, great grassroots organizing skills and help turn rural illinois into roadkill for alexi.

Also Rick Santorum, a conservative, went all out for arlen specter in 2004 and if not for that we might not have had the senate majority in 04-06. And you never know, they might actually like team kirk.

FOKLAEAPS

Team America said...

FOKLAEAPS - don't worry about the constructive criticism. I'm a big boy (and getting bigger, sadly), and I can handle it.

But, I think the Hughes campaigners have a lot more to apologize for than I do. Every time I start to feel a bit sad about the positions I take with regard to Pat (and don't get me wrong, I stand by everything I say as the truth), I open up the one fundraising letter he sent out and re-read the swill he's trying sell about our Congressman. The shrill cries of "RINO, RINO!" and far worse indicate that he's going to have a lot of fences to mend with the party if he ever wants to have a future. We do all have to remember that after the primary, we still all have to play in the same GOP sandbox together.

And, we should remember that I'm just a humble blogger. I'm not a Kirk staffer. So, this is my opinion and people can take it or leave it.

I think perhaps you have a better grasp of the big picture, which is sometimes hard to get when you feel as if you are in the trenches. I would be happy to make a citizens appointment for you as ambassador to the rest, after the fire dies down.

Anonymous said...

this site just came up in a search i was doing. wow - this is nuts. http://whoishughes.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I'm a friend of one of the people you mentioned. That person told me some of your people said they were going to knock the person out as chairman if the person didn't get in line.

I think you've lost any sense of perspective. Yeah, I think Kirk will win and I have no problem supporting him in November. But what my friend, a chairman, told me, has persuaded me to vote for Hughes. Obviously, I won't mention the name so the person doesn't get any more furious calls from you. You need to lighten up.

Team America said...

Well, Anon 2:00, maybe you ought to tell you "friend" to call me and tell me that. Neither Nancy or Dave said that to me, and I am confident that neither would kowtow to anyone's bullying. So I call bullsh*t.

Anonymous said...

zambuca?

Anonymous said...

Team America,

Its fairly obvious that this is a pro-Kirk site. That's ok.

Having said that, I think the prior comments of pissing off the Hughes supporters is an accurate one, but maybe irrelevant in the end.

Should Kirk win, conservatives will not support him in the GE. Count on it. With an ACU of 48, no true conservative would support Kirk since it won't matter that much if a Democrat were to get elected. Kirk votes 52% of the time with Democrats.

With 74% of Illinois GOP primary voters describing themselves as center-right or conservative - voting day will be interesting.

Anonymous said...

1. Point well taken.

2. After hughes loses on tuesday. conservatives have 2 doors open to them.

door 1. You sit home, tell kirk what a jerkoff he is. Alexi takes the seat, and you are ignored for the next 6 years. Effectively you lose your only shot to shut down obama for the next 2 years and barring some act of god where obama loses in 2012 and durbin is defeated, your only chance to stop obama for the remainder of his presidency-the seat is next available in 2016 when he is gone. You put yourself on the line for taking the blame for any vote the gop loses in the senate by one seat the next 6 years. With the gop likely to take 6 seats this year and come close in 2012, you risk handing control of the senate to chuck schumer rather than mitch mconnell.

door 2)you work your ellen off for kirk. He gets in, you hold his ellen to the fire and put the fear of god into him on every issue that he will get a conservative challenge in 2016-aka a pat toomey and be foreced to leave the party. He votes your way on most things and you take your shot if you are dissapointed at him in 2016 or better yet just whack durbin in 2014, after 40 years, he's got more trash in his campaign than a nuclear waste dump. Having kirk you realize that he at least is a vote for mitch mcconell and that he will at least listen to you on judges-you already got him to switch positions on cap and tax. You recognize that when reagan did his work with a senate majority in 1985 there were still a lot of moderates who voted for scalia and that the one that fucked up-specter was the star of the roberts and alito hearings because conservatives in his homestate held his ellen to the fire.

3. after the democrats turn their guns on kirk and try to scare voters that he is a conservative, I am sure much of your fears will be allayed. As well once the choice becomes one between a navy vet and another corrupt ethnic liberal chicago brat, you will rethink your concerns.

your friend and cpac fan.

foklaeaps

FOKLAEAPS

Anonymous said...

Nah, that's just traditional textbook dogma.

Regarding door #1, Conservatives will sit out. Count on it. Though, they may just back Hoffman and Alexi doesn't get in. Hoffman is to the right of Alexi and marginally insignificant to Kirk. The Tea Partiers and Conservatives will 'not' pull the lever for Kirk. Who knows, maybe the Tea Partiers, of which, Kirk has zero endorsements from, will wake up between now and Feb 2. Illinois may just snooze right through Feb 2.

With November so far off there is plenty of time between now and then for Alexi bones to surface. If Kirk wins, resources will be spent in other states.

Door #2 has too many traditional assumptions in a non-traditional election cycle. In politics, a week is eternity. I won't predict the makeup of the Senate other than to say it will be much more conservative. McConnell will move right as long as the House and Senate move right and it will - as the electorate has.

But, Illinois can be a wash; its a blue state. Obama's seat for an Obama puppet regardless of who gets in and the mapping won't reflect your scenario in Congress. Though, Shumer may be Majority Leader but with a slimmer margin. Illinois likely, is few election cycles away from sobering up.

Thanks for the response.

brewster73 said...

Or, we can choose to stand up for our principles and stand behind a 3rd party candidate. Many of us will NEVER vote for Kirk because he does not in any way represent our values as conservatives.