Negative Campaigning Backfires on Bassi

Illinois Review ^ | 01/24/2010 | John F. Di Leo

[jfd1776]

by John F. Di Leo

How do you best judge the strength of a challenger, when the race isn't "important" enough to have national interest and national polling? Sometimes a single negative flyer can reveal all.

In the quiet, Republican northwest suburbs of Chicago recently represented by Rep. Philip M. Crane and the late Bernie "No New Taxes" Pedersen - roughly Palatine, Inverness, and South Barrington, Illinois - the Republican state representative for the past decade or so has been Suzie Bassi, a moderate who moved up to the general assembly from a school board. Like hundreds - or perhaps thousands - of such seats across the country, the state rep is therefore more liberal than her district, but wins primaries because of the difficulty of unseating an incumbent, and wins generals because of the "R" after her name.

In his first run for office, Tom Morrison is seeking to defeat Bassi in the Republican primary. Morrison is a former elementary school teacher, having left education for entrepreneurship, spending the past four years as owner of a ServPro franchise (full disclosure: I have known Tom slightly for several years; he used to teach at the school my children used to attend).

As Republicans go, Morrison is conservative, Bassi is liberal. One might expect Bassi to dismiss his candidacy (why bother to even acknowledge the challenger unless you have to?)... or to just overwhelm by comparing public service experience ("here's my extensive political resume... do you really want a novice in these difficult times?" or something along those lines)... but he must be scoring some points, because she responded today with a very tough hit piece, one well worth analyzing... and one that tells us something about liberals, something about how they see conservatives.

Continue reading at http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2010/01/negative-campaigning-backfires-for-bassi.html

[Retain Mike]

Too many politicians consider liberal politicians colleagues, instead of enemies. These adversaries represent by philosophy a latter day Vladimir Lenin who said, “Probe with a bayonet. If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

The key poin is that if one encounters steel Lenin’s instruction is to stop. He does not counsel retreat. Instead, wait until the steel changes to mush. Politically active people who want smaller government and greater freedom do not understand they are in a war without bloodshed against an implacable enemy. The town hall meetings and Tea Party movement seem to indicate some folks are willing to acknowledge, for now, a long standing declaration of war by the liberals. They must remain steadfast and only support leaders who have a genetic predisposition to freedom equivalent to the men who wrought the Miracle in Philadelphia.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*IL politics ping*

[bcsco]

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Thanks.