GOP Rep Gets Loudly Booed By Right, Performs Creative Flip-Flop
Okay, this flip-flop deserves some kind of award for sheer ingenuity.
GOP Rep. Mark Kirk, a top-tier candidate for the 2010 Illinois Senate race, appeared before a crowd and got pelted by loud boos when he mentioned that he’d been one of a handful of GOPers who voted for cap and trade last spring.
Kirk calmed the angry crowd with an intriguing explanation: He voted for it because it was in the “narrow interests” of his district. After that, Kirk, who took some heat from the right for the vote and may face a primary, turned around and said as Senator, he’d vote against cap and trade. The key moment starts around the three-minute mark:
“Briefly about cap and trade: I voted for it because it was in the narrow interests of my Congressional district,” Kirk said. “But as your representative, representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote No on that bill.” Kirk’s formulation got its desired effect: The crowd abruptly pivoted from loud boos to loud cheers.
I’m genuinely unclear on what this means. Does his district’s “narrow” interests run counter to those of his state, and will they be forgotten if he makes it into the Senate?
By the way, this gives me a chance to remind you that we’ve created a new Health Care Reform Tracker to track the health care positions of all members of Congress, precisely because so much positioning happens under the radar, as it did with Kirk here. We need your help to do this. So please check out our Health Care Reform Tracker.
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Hmmm…. a nihilist senate candidate… very interesting
He was holding the meeting in DuPage county. That is far more right wing than his north shore(by Lake Michigan) district.
DuPage is the district that kept electing Henry (”A Youthful Indiscretion”,by having an affair with a married woman, for five years, when was in his late forties,) Hyde.
Haha, I guess he somehow already knows that the people of IL are against it. Or he’s a shameless panderer. One or the other.
I found an interesting article discussing the conservative argument for single payer.
I know, it’s off topic buy I haven’t been able to get in since this morning. I was thinking of Scott C. when I read it but it might be interesting to others here.
http://www.watchblog.com/thirdparty/archives/006056.html
Kirk’s district is almost exclusively suburbs with no coal-mining or heavy manufacturing. By contrast the rest of the State of Illinois does have heavy manufacturing and coal mines, and people who depend on those industries for their jobs.
When you look at it that way, Kirk’s repositioning makes sense.
I don’t see how this is a bad thing.
What would you rather have: a senator who makes up his mind and won’t change it, no matter what you say? Or a Senator who is willing to listen and change his mind if he’s wrong?
I prefer the latter, which is why I support Kirk.
Except Kirk did not listen and change his mind. He bragged about his vote, and when he got booed, he immediately capitulated to mob rule.
He is just a double talking, windsock. The booes were just the slight gust of hot air that was required to blow him around.
I didn’t hear him bragging. The people in the crowd wanted him to address cap and trade so he did.
He bragged about it in his district. He got heckled about it as he was starting his speech, and when he said that he had voted for cap and trade, he got booed, so he then windsocked immediately.
Look at how he claims that he wants to controls the government spending, and then go take a look at how he voted on President Bush’s budgets, which squandered the budget surplus situation he inherited, and ran up huge deficits.
After that pandering speech, to the extremists in his own party, he has no chance of winning in Illinois.
O my god – I’m actually here. For now.
I hope it lasts. Thanks Greg.
‘I’m genuinely unclear on what this means. Does his district’s “narrow” interests run counter to those of his state, and will they be forgotten if he makes it into the Senate?”:
I’m with you on this – makes no sense. But then, the Right quit making sense sometime around 1974 or so.
lmsinca, you haven’t been able to access the site? what happens?
Well, the thing about Kirk is he has been a fairly moderate Congressman, and that is the nature of his constituency.
Like in most other states, the extreme right of the Republican base controls the primaries, so he is pandering to them, just like Grassley is doing in neighboring Iowa.
Remember the Republican operatives in Illinois are the ones who imported that Alan Keyes crackpot, to run against Barack Obama. That should tell about what Kirk has to deal with in his own party, and he would rather be Senator, than be courageous, and stand by his principles.
“Like in most other states, the extreme right of the Republican base controls the primaries, so he is pandering to them, just like Grassley is doing in neighboring Iowa.”
And Fluffy Hutchison in Texas. She talks out of both sides of her mouth – first she came on in an interview in the Dallas Morning News like the old Moderate Fluffy. Then she must have heard about it, cause she immediately turned around and started talking crazy.
Yeah, come on! What red-blooded Republican wants to protect the environment? Let’s all swim in our own sewage! Whoopee!
I liked that when the boos started he immediately invoked a dead serviceman.
This guy sounds like a d-bag, but I will say it is still better politics to go ahead and do the flipflop when your feet end up pointing where 70% of the public opinion is pointing. Cap and trade is only popular with the same partisan Democrats that Obamacare is; that is why it is not moving in the Senate either.
And even if you worry about carbon emissions, why go about it in this Rube-Goldberg-style “market” where you give away 85% of the “carbon offset” credits before the game even starts? It can’t lower CO2, it will only grow the government. No one favors this plan unless they are getting their beak wet.
If you believe CO2 is a problem, then you should push for a carbon tax. But you won’t because then people see what the governing clique’s carbonophobia are costing them.
Exactly the same as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on guns.
You have to stop mining, drilling, endless waste. Pull it together’folks.
This won’t be the last time a candidate in this Senate race changes positions. Keep track of all the candidates’ activities on this timeline-
http://timelines.com/topics/us-senate-race-illinois-2010