Posted on 12/20/2009 2:47:06 PM PST by chicagolady
2010 Voter Guide | U.S. Congressional Candidate Survey
1 | Tax Increase/Cap and Trade — will tax energy consumption to combat “global warming.”
2 | “Hate Crimes” legislation — allows 2 identical crimes to be prosecuted differently if one victim is homosexual, a cross dresser or transsexual.
3 | Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA) — gives homosexual and transsexual individuals protected class status in the workplace.
4 | REPEAL of Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — the repeal of the only federal law that prevents homosexual “marriage” from becoming legal across the country 5 | Government Health Care — A government managed insurance plan that includes a “Public Option” similar to Medicare.
6 | Defund A.C.O.R.N. Act
7 | Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2006 — requires abortionists to tell mothers about fetal development and the capacity of preborn children to feel pain.
8 | REPEAL of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — would repeal the law that prohibits openly practicing homosexuals from serving in the military.
9 | Requiring the 2010 census to include the question “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”
10| Transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to U.S.. facilities. (H.R.2647, Sec. 1041 of Conference Report - 2009)
Key to Parties Key to Responses O - Oppose * - Qualified Response NV - Did Not Vote S - Support NR - No Response
Illinois 5th District Party Candidate:
5th USC R Ashvin Lad
1)O 2)NR 3)S 4)NR 5) O 6)S 7)S 8)S 9)S 10)O
5th USC R David Ratowitz 773-897-5800 1)O 2)O 3)O 4)S* 5)O 6)S 7)S 8)NR 9)S 10)O
5th USC R Rosanna Pulido 1)O2)O 3)O 4)O 5)O 6)S 7)S 8)O 9)S 10)O
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoisfamily.org ...
Thanks to the Illinois Family Institute for their voters guide!!
Now we know were they stand.
We report, YOU decide who is the Conservative in this race!!
According to them, the hand picked RINO Senate candidate, Steve Sauerberg, was rated 100% on pro-life and pro-family issues (making him the "best" candidate in the race, even better than the Constitution Party nominee!) despite the fact he had hired a radical Bush-hating gay marriage advocate as his campaign spokesman and said abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances and he "qualms" about overturning Roe v. Wade.
Several other RINOs with medoicre records were listed as "100% pro-family", while a great deal of vocally conservative candidates (who had held those views for years and were quite clear where they stood on their webpages) were listed as "unknown" on the issues simply because they didn't return the IFI "survey" on time.
If the IFI institute ever used to be a reliable social conservative organization, they're not anymore. The Illinois Federation for Right to Life is also pathetic... they too, had no problems endorsing the likes of George Ryan and Steve Sauerberg but refused to endorse Jonathan Wright in 2004 when really did have a 100% perfect pro-life voting record. Freepers complain about the NRA endorsing marxist Democrats who happen to be pro-gun, but at least they stick to their single issue. If the NRA behaved like the IFI and the IFRTL, they'd be telling us candidate who favor assault weapon bans are "100% pro-2nd amendment"
Billy boy, I suspect my opponents answered truthfully, I know I did.
Did Steve S. lie on his survey??
Sauerberg does not lie. I heard him speak on several occasions. He conveniently qualified his positions with phrases such as “at this time” or “with the information currently available”.
Eg I oppose X at this time. I support Y with th information currently available.
One reason for that phrasing is the DOCTOR’s newness to politics. The first 3 times I heard him speak he was unable to be articulate on HEALTHCARE. But by the 4th speech a couple month’s later he had become somewhat articulate on that issue.
Several of the "positions" candidates answered on your survey clear conflicted with their voting record or their other public statements. If a candidate says one thing and does another, this should be taken into account by your organization while rating them.
Would you "report" that Obama's health care plan does not cover abortion or fund illegal aliens, because Obama claims that, or report the actual policies of the legislation? Based on your logic here, the mere fact Obama claims it, therefore makes it so and you have a duty to "report" inaccurate "facts" about Obama's plan based on his statements to voters.
I also confirm numerous candidates have told me they would have answered your survey but were not aware of it. Perhaps you sent one copy and it was lost in the process but there was certainly no follow-up attempt, nor any attempt to research conservative candidates who had stated their positions on your issues numerous times publicly. This flies in the face of your claims the IFL attempted to contact candidates through numerous faxes and phone calls but were ignored.
Feel free to post your 2008 general election guide "voting guide" and I will happily back up my post with numerous examples showing where your rating process was inaccurate and flawed about the candidate's actual positions.
You may want to get the facts before you disparage those of us who are simply trying to provide good information to the voters of Illinois.
- IFI does not rate candidates -- we merely report their survey answers in our voter guide.
- I called Chad Koppie personally -- at his home -- a number of times to solicit a response from him. (I even call Randy Stuffelbeam to see if he could get Chad to return the survey to us.) We finally recieved his survey after multiple conversations with him and AFTER our deadline. We went the extra mile to make sure his answers were included in our voter guide.
- Chad Koppie’s signature is on his survey. He approved his answers before he faxed it to us. His answers -- as he submitted it -- were published.
- If the candidate made a mistake, the candidate must submit an affidavit correcting it. If we do not receive an affidavit from the candidate, we cannot change the answer on our voter guide. We cannot take calls from just anyone telling us to change a candidate's answer.
- Every state and federal candidate received our survey by mail -- at the address they listed with the ISBE when they filed to run for office -- at their home! We follow up with every candidate with multiple phone calls to their campaign office (when available), emails to their campaign office (when available), and sometimes with faxes (when available). I've complained about the lack of response before.
- Incumbents who have a conflicting answer with a vote have an asterisk placed by their answer. The answer key clearly states that this means that their answer conflicts with that candidate's voting record.
2008 SurveysAs you can see from the candidates' own surveys and their own signatures -- IFI did NOT falsely report the candidate's positions on the issues.
Thank for your posting the candidate's own responses. I invite FreeRepublic readers to view the survey's for themselves.
What it showed me is proof that Mr. Koppie was indeed the only U.S. Senate candidate who affirmed in writing that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. According to your OWN survey you received back, Steve Sauerberg refused to answer whether he would overturn Roe v. Wade. He responded with a footnote claiming the U.S. Senate had no power to do so (I guess he's never heard of constitutional amendments?), and merely noted he would only confirm "strict constructionist" judges. Which, by the way, was the same "pledge" Richard Nixon made in 1968 ("only strict constunctionist judges"), before appointing 3 out of 4 judges that created Roe v. Wade in the first place.
Why did you not simply "report" the actual survey responses to pro-family voters -- that Mr. Koppie had gone on record in "SUPPORT" of overturning Roe v. Wade and that Mr. Sauerberg had "DECLINED TO ANSWER" whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?
It should be noted that Illinois Citizens for Life asked the same question to candidates, and concluded that Koppie was the only U.S. Senate candidate fully committed to oveturning Roe, and that Mr. Sauerberg was "Not Fully Committed". Were they "lying", or was your organization not reporting the same data correctly? I'll leave that to FreeRepublic posters to judge for themselves. Personally, I have to agree with Illinois Citizens for Life that a candidate who won't check "SUPPORT" on a question on whether he'd overturn Roe v. Wade is not "fully committed" to our side on that issue.
I'm not even going to get into an argument about how Sauerberg "committed" to upholding traditional marriage when the mouthpiece of his campaign was the biggest gay marriage advocate in the GOP. You only report conflicting answers in cases of incumbents, you say? It seems to me any sensible organization would be even more concerned about putting an "asterisk" next to responses of NON-INCUMBENTS since voters have no record to judge and can only guess a candidate's sincerity based on their actions in public. Would a radical gay rights group issue a "voting guide" telling their base that a Democrat who has Jerry Falwell as his campaign manager "supports" gay marriage because the candidate himself promised them that in writing (despite showing the opposite in public)? I highly doubt it.
I stand by your remarks that the "voting guide" you issued to pro-family voters did not accurate reflect the candidate's actual policies they had committed to, and was not in anyway helpful to me in making an informed decision on which candidates supported my issues. I had to careful research their track records on my own, since the IFI is not vetting candidates well enough.
Sorry if feel this is "slander" but I will be happy to point to numerous places where your "voting guide" was incorrect. I will happily subscribe to IFI's newsletter again in 2010 if you do a better job reporting the facts about pro-family candidates.
You may be reporting what a candidate says to get people's votes, but certainly not reporting the "facts" about the positions a candidate actually takes.
I'll stick to the "lies" provided by other conservative organizations that report a candidate's actual beliefs.
No doubt radical homosexual activist Chris Barron was pleased that you duly "reported" his candidate was 100% solid on pro-family issues. Thanks to "conservative" organizations like yours to rubber stamp Republicans in bed with liberals, you paved the way for the IL GOP to promote even worse candidates. Now we have Mark Kirk, who will be sure to tell you on your "survey" that he's absolutely 100% "against" cap and trade. I'm sure when you "report" this "information" about Kirk's "position" it will be most helpful to voters in choosing the right candidate.
You have only yourselves to blame when you prop up Republicans in bed with the left.
WOAH!
Dude the large majority of internet posters don’t use their real name (Hi Phil! Merry Christmas).
And Billyboy’s “real identity” is not a secret. He’s run for local office, ran as a POTUS delegate in last year’s primary. Served on the board of the Illinois Center right coalition I believe.
“You have only yourselves to blame when you prop up Republicans in bed with the left. “
This holds true anywhere in the country.
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