Duckworth Slams ‘Tasteless’ GOP Tweet

Rollcall ^ | March 8, 2016

[BillyBoy]

Kirk's been a good little combiner and turned traitor whenever his masters in Washington needed him to provide key "Republican" support for some controversial thing.

The only reason I think they gave their blessing for a real RAT to run against Kirk this time is because he's been ineffective in the public spotlight since his stroke. Kirk is no longer the lovable boyish "decorated navy intelligence officer" they can put before the cameras for the liberal media to fawn over. Anytime Kirk gets on camera for more than five minutes, its clear that he still suffers side effects from the stroke and is only able to articulate the limited talking points he's told to say.

Combiner Kirk vs. Combiner Duckworth is a win-win for getting a U.S. Senator who will do their bidding and vote the "right" way, but Tammy "I lost my legs in Iraq because Bush lied" Duckworth is likely seen as someone who would be better as the face of their agenda than Kirk.

I really can't see any good scenario for us here.

James Marter is an unknown, zero-funded, token conservative primary opponent for Kirk and has zero chance of winning (though I think he will STILL do better than Pat "he has money and therefore is magically electable even though he is totally clueless about politics" Hughes did six years ago).

Andrea Zopp is the same thing on the Dem side -- the unknown, zero-funding, token "progressive grassroots" candidate against RAT establishment candidate Duckworth. Duckworth will be the nominee.

Kirk is in no condition to mount a re-election campaign, and will likely be a weak foe in November. His one upside is that Duckworth is also a lousy campaigner who couldn't even win a congressional seat until the Dems hand drew a "safe" RAT seat for her, so its possible Kirk could squeak to victory solely due to a flawed Duckworth campaign.

With the GOP Presidential ticket (doesn't matter who it is, even if you went with some far fetched scenario like Kasich being the nominee or Romney being drafted in a "brokered" convention) writing off Illinois, Kirk will get no help at the top of the ticket, and Kirk has given conservatives zero reasons to support him six years later. I expect the media will still pimp Kirk, because they like having him in Washington as a "model" Republican.

Overall I'd say 60% chance of Suckworth winning, 40% chance of Marky Mark winning.

No matter who wins, we lose.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Unless there is the likelihood the Dems are to win the Senate for the long term, the Combine would prefer Kirk as their puppet in the majority R caucus. He could also effortlessly switch parties when the order is given to. It would make little sense for them to be shut out of influence in the majority.

BTW, do you expect Trump to write off contesting IL if he is the nominee ? I expect him to be the first person since Bush, Sr. in 1988 to contest nearly every state. Humiliating the Butcheress of Benghazi in her birthplace ought to be paramount.

[stars & stripes forever]

I voted against KIRK in the primaries. Anyone would have a better voting record than KIRK.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Do you happen to live in IL? Do you know the backstory to the dead beat Dad meme?

As for ducky, she is a vile lying pos who depends on her handicap to garner votes. Sadly, it works. Wondering wth she doesn’t try to get reelected to the HOR, but leaping over to the Senate.

[BillyBoy]

Illinois is no longer a contested state nationally like it was in '88 because the Cook County suburbs used to lean Republican and now they are almost all uniformly RAT. Chicago will give ANY Dem 70%+ without blinking, and the suburbs will help pad the Dem majority. The Dems can "win" the entire state simply by winning Crook County, as Pat Quinn demonstrated when he stole the state from Bill Brady in 2010. Illinois WOULD be "in play" nationally if electoral votes WEREN'T winner-take-all, since a Republican presidential candidate could theoretically get a big chunk of electoral votes out of Illinois by doing well downstate. Sadly though, this is not an option.

It would be interesting to see the numbers in the suburbs when Rauner "won" this state 4 years later in 2014. I'd be willing to bet that Rauner got more votes than Brady in my pct., though I worked my butt off to help Brady and didn't lift a finger for Rauner. The combine knows how to manufacture votes for their chosen one. The combine is not going to support Trump over Hillary. Their only involvement will be to try and tie local Republicans to Trump in order to weaken them, as already seen here:

If he is the nominee, I expect Trump to do very poorly with hispanics, blacks, and independents. He will also lose about 30% of Republican primary voters, but this will be cancelled out by Hillary losing about 30% of Dem primary voters (the hardcore Sanders people will not vote for Hilderbeast). Overall I think Trump will do worse than Romney did in Illinois. I will be shocked if he gets 40% overall in this state.

I hope we don't have to test my theory in November to prove I'm right. Most polls have already confirmed Trump would lose to Hillary nationally and has the highest unfavorables of any Republican.

[Impy]

I hope Cruz does well enough to keep Wheels out of the Senate.

[BillyBoy]

Wheels. Heh. I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the first X-men movie:

Professor X: This is Storm and this is Cyclops.

Wolverine: And what do they call, huh? Wheels?

[BillyBoy]

Wheels. Heh. I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from the first X-men movie:

Professor X: This is Storm and this is Cyclops.

Wolverine: And what do they call you, huh? Wheels?

[Impy]

IL primary poll

Chicago Tribune

32 Trump
22 Cruz
21 Rubio
18 Kasich

Ugh, this is just what I speculated could happen

[Night Hides Not]

What is the difference between a ‘tweet’ and a fart?

140 characters?

[BillyBoy]

Damn. I wish we could combine Cruz & Rubio supporters into one candidate. I’m surprised Rubio is doing so well in Illinois after the backlash from the Romney robocall and his terrible numbers in the last round of primaries.

[Impy]

It was taken March 2-6, so Rubs might have lost ground since then.

[BillyBoy]

We need to get at least half the Rubio supporters in IL to switch to Cruz.

[MinuteGal]

The only thing that keeps RINO Kirk from "making the rounds" is less than sterling health....otherwise he'd be much more fervent in spreading his poisonous liberal agenda throughout his GOP party. He's more Democrat than Republican.

The GOP has virtually written him off in his re-election bid next year...he's such a blatantly poor Republican. The Democrats look on Kirk's seat as their best pickup opportunity in 2016...nationwide!!!

I'm from his area in Illinois and I ought to know.

Leni

[BillyBoy]

>> The only thing that keeps RINO Kirk from "making the rounds" is less than sterling health....otherwise he'd be much more fervent in spreading his poisonous liberal agenda throughout his GOP party. He's more Democrat than Republican. <<

Agreed. If Kirk hadn't had his stroke, he'd be more than happy to go around lecturing Republicans that our platform is "too extreme" and to trash his "fellow" Republicans as racist, anti-woman, homophobic, etc., etc. His mini-me Bob Dold is more than happy to make the rounds and gloat about what a "forward thinking" Republican he is for stabbing "his" party in the back. Mostly people like Kirk and Dold just bask in the fawning coverage from the mainstream media and let the media do their dirty work of smugly reporting that the rest of the GOP needs to "get with the times" and follow their lead by embracing gay marriage, Obamacare, "climate change", illegal alien amnesty, etc.

As for Suckworth, one of her favorite tactics is playing the victim card and claiming every comment about her record is somehow a personal attack on her disability. I remember when she cried fowl because Peter Roskam said she wanted to "cut and run" from Iraq and her campaign was screaming "That's soooo hateful!!! He's using the word RUN to insult her cuz she doesn't have legs!!"

Kirk's camp uses the same tactics to hold up his military career as a shield against ANY criticism of his treasonous voting record, so I'm actually enjoying him getting a taste of his own medicine. That's karma, Marky.

And I stand by what I said earlier. If Kirk was faced with a Scalia-type judicial nominee, he'd side with the Dems in crying "too extreme" and Bork that candidate in a New York minute as long as it got him favorable coverage from MSM.

As for Impy's scenario of a hypothetical Cruz nomination: I think Cruz would likely do better than Trump than Illinois (only because groups like Hispanics won't turn out in droves to vote AGAINST him), but again, a Republican has no shot at carrying Illinois in the current climate and realistically I don't think Cruz would come within 10 points of taking this state. I don't think Cruz on top of the ticket will "help" Kirk at all. Kirk wouldn't be caught dead in public with an "extreme right-winger" like Cruz (remember he avoided Bill Brady like the plague when every poll showed Brady was far more popular than Kirk) and I can't see many people (other than straight ticket Republicans) checking the "Kirk" box after the "Cruz" box, or vice versa.

Again, regardless of who's on the top of the ticket, I'm guessing around a 60% chance of Suckworth winning, about a 40% chance of Marky winning.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Overall I think Trump will do worse than Romney did in Illinois. I will be shocked if he gets 40% overall in this state."

I know you're no fan of his, but I reject that outright as ludicrous on its face. Willard motivated no one to vote for him, and he was offensive to over half the party base. He was running to lose. Trump is the polar opposite and is running to win. It would literally be impossible for him to perform worse than Willard's 40.7% (rounded UP). For a lot of people, he's the first motivating candidate on the "R" side since Reagan. I also expect him to come close to Nixon's 1960 performance amongst Blacks. Again, where he cannot possibly do worse than Willard's nothingburger appeal outside of the brie and champagne country clubber set.

As an aside, I'll add that to a large % of the Democrat base, Hillary is their Willard. Not that I'd call her a ringer, but that the leftist base is as tired of her as we are of the Bush family. I expect a lot of the Bernie populists will swing to Trump or simply not vote. Frankly, I think there are some in the Dem Establishment skittish enough that they'd like to see Hillary taken out before the general election with an indictment so they can substitute Plugs on the ticket. We shall see.

[fieldmarshaldj]

That makes no sense. They’re complete polar opposite candidates. Cruz is anti-Establishment, Bubbles is an Establishment meatpuppet.

[BillyBoy]

Aside from opposite track records on immigration (Rubio was lying about immigration to get elected and only I was sounding the alarms to the "tea party" idiots blindly supporting him at the time, whereas Cruz was the lone "Tea party" candidate to actually stick with his campaign pledge), Rubio and Cruz appeal to much of the same electorate.

They are both pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, small government, "young Hispanic rising stars" in the Senate whose voters tend to be very devout church going types. The establishment would prefer Rubio to Cruz, of course, but Rubio's getting very lukewarm establishment support. Look at the IL delegates, nearly every big shot GOP official in this state is pledged to Kasich, ESPECIALLY after Jeb Bush bailed on them. Most of Rubio's delegates tend to be misguided grassroot conservative figures in the state. There are only a handful of exceptions, like LaThug Jr. being in the Rubio camp (the actual conservative who ran against LaThug Jr. in the primary is now a Cruz delegate. Go figure.)

Rubio is basically Ted Cruz lite. Ted Cruz is the real deal. Combine their numbers and they beat Trump.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Except that Bubbles is a total fraud, and that would show up the moment he got to the White House. Once you go native on open borders, everything else is expendable. I’ve seen that dog and pony show way too many times.

[BillyBoy]

Don't blame me, I was wary about trusting Rubio the instant he announced his Senate candidacy, unlike all the other FReepers here who learned nothing from the Martinez fiasco and didn't even hesitate a second before letting Lucy hold the football for them again.

But the difference between Rubio and Martinez (who both pulled the same "tell gullible FL conservatives I'm against amnesty and they will blindly accept it if I portray myself as heroic Hispanic GOP savior and cry racism if anyone doubts me") is that Martinez quickly turned traitor on all sorts of other issues once he showed his true colors (no pun intended) on immigration. I think Martinez started off with a 100% ACU rating his first year in office, and was down to a pathetic 60% ACU rating the last year of his term.

Rubio still has a respectable 98% conservative rating from the ACU. Now, the cynic might say that he maintains such a strong "conservative" voting record only because he needs to have it for a Presidential run -- and that is an entirely valid point -- but it does not change that the fact Rubio and Cruz are drawing the same TYPE of voters.

The Pat Brady, Bruce Rauner, and Mark Kirk wing of the IL GOP won't touch an guy like Rubio with a 10ft pole because they think his views are "extreme", "scary", "offensive to women", "homophobic", etc., etc. They are completely in the Kasich camp.

Again, combine Rubio and Cruz's voters, and they beat Trump. Realistically will such a scenario occur? I don't think so.