January 14, 2008
Iraq not big focus of many Illinois congressional campaigns
Associated Press, Dennis Conrad
Garrett Anderson doesn't hear much talk about the Iraq war these days in the small southern Illinois town of Centralia, especially since the local National Guard unit came home.
But residents do worry about jobs, said Anderson, community development director in the town of about 14,000, which has watched factories close and 2,000 jobs disappear in recent years.
"Jobs would be a good (issue) for us because we've had jobs lost overseas," he said.
Whether the war, or something else, will determine how voters cast their ballots remains to be seen.
Nationally, Iraq is still on voters' minds, but the economy has caught up as a top worry, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released last week. And in Illinois, many of the state's congressional candidates don't appear to be making the war a top issue, though there have been no recent Illinois issue polls.
Constituents who rely on the Internet for candidate information, for example, will find little or nothing on Web sites of many candidates about their views on the war, an Associated Press review found. Many say they don't talk about it much publicly, either, because voters are more concerned about jobs, health care and immigration.
A spokesman for Jim Oberweis, who is seeking the Republican nomination to succeed retired GOP Rep. Dennis Hastert, said there's a simple explanation why the Iraq war isn't mentioned on the candidate's Web site.
"It's an issue that's not an issue that comes up frequently on the campaign trail," spokesman Bill Pasco said.
Oberweis' primary opponent, state Sen. Chris Lauzen, counters that the war is very much on voters' minds, and offers detailed views, including a plan to divide Iraq into different factions.
"This is a life-or-death issue for a lot of people in our district," said Lauzen, who has two sons entering military service and has gone to the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq.
There is some sentiment that it is unwise to become unnecessarily involved with a topic as divisive as the war, particularly in a district that may lean to the party of the candidate's opponent.
Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean - who won her GOP-leaning district in 2004 - lists much on consumer credit and Internet safety issues on her Web site, while the home page of her primary foe, Randi Scheurer, includes a running counter on the war's almost half-trillion-dollar cost.
In Illinois' 6th Congressional District, incumbent Peter Roskam, a Republican, uses his Web site to spotlight issues from border security to taxes, but not the war - even though his potential Democratic challenger, retired U.S. Army Reserve Col. Jill Morgenthaler, is an Iraq veteran. Morgenthaler has cited her experience in discussing the Iraq issue.
And while few could claim Rep. Mark Kirk's credentials for addressing the Iraq issue, the Republican has shown virtually no interest in bringing it up, though each of his potential Democratic challengers do.
Kirk, a former House International Relations Committee general counsel and State Department aide, is a Persian Gulf War veteran and serves regularly as a Naval Reserves commander in the Pentagon's war room.
Even so, Kirk makes no mention of the war as a key issue on his congressional or campaign Web sites, while Jay Footlik and Dan Seals, running in the Democratic primary for a chance to take on Kirk, repeatedly attack the congressman for his support of the war.
Kirk, who came close to losing re-election in 2006, was among 11 GOP congressmen who met with President Bush last May to tell him of their concerns that the war could lead to more GOP losses in 2008. And Kirk since has embraced a bipartisan House bill that calls for removing most U.S. combat brigades from Iraq in 2008.
Kirk and Roskam did not respond to e-mail and phone messages from The Associated Press to discuss the Iraq issue. Bean's spokesman declined comment and said the lawmaker was not available for an interview.
There are incumbents who do talk about Iraq.
Republican John Shimkus - a West Point graduate whose district includes Centralia, has been a supporter of the war and is widely viewed as a safe bet for re-election - talks a lot about Iraq and veterans' benefits, according to Anderson, the Centralia planning director.
Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski, facing criticism that his war views are in lockstep with Bush in a TV commercial and campaign mailings sent out by primary opponent Mark Pera, also mentions the war on his House home page.
The focus is on a vote he cast last month against funding military operations in Iraq without restrictions, citing his opposition to giving Bush a "blank check" with no conditions on funding.
GOP Rep. Judy Biggert said she wants considerable information on the Internet on her Iraq views so they are easily accessible to constituents.
"Until our troops are home safe and relative peace has been restored in the Middle-East, Iraq should remain a top priority," she said.