Illinois Mid-Day Buzz

Gubernatorial Race

• Obama is campaigning in what looks increasingly like a purple state this week. This is probably why Pat Quinn and Alexi Giannoulias need his help so much. Quinn and Giannoulias should count themselves lucky to have Obama, though, because Rahm Emanuel isn’t getting his endorsement. That said, Quinn can’t rely on Obama to do everything — he will need to perform well against Bill Brady in the upcoming debate first. And given that Brady is debuting some new campaign initiatives, that’s not necessarily going to be straightforward.

Senatorial Race

• Chicago-area papers are in the middle of a death match surrounding the Senate race. The Chicago Tribune is backing Kirk, while the Sun-Times is backing Giannoulias.
• Meanwhile, President Obama (who will be joined in his visit by his wife) is slamming Kirk for being backed by business and Karl Rove. In the president’s estimation, Giannoulias doesn’t “shift in the wind.” No, that’s just his tax returns.

House Races

• Progress Illinois shows us all what happens when you let economic illiterates try to defend an economically embarrassing statement. Specifically, they’re complaining about the video of Phil Hare from IL-17 saying it’s a “myth” that the country is in debt and you “just can’t spend” because the quote was taken “out of context.” Well, with context it’s worse. Here’s the full quote:

We will see a terrible price that we will pay years down the road for letting our children down when they need us the absolute most.

I’m not going to be part of that, so every minute I have here is going to be spent on trying to debunk the myth that this country is in debt, and we just can’t spend. Well, you can spend, and every investment that we make–the two things this government makes a lot of money on is when we invest in putting people back to work. And if you didn’t even care about the human toll, every 1 percent of unemployed people costs this country billions of dollars anyway. So it’s an investment. So let’s get people back to work.

• Meanwhile, Hare and his challenger Bobby Schilling clash on Medicare. I’m sure Hare will do his very best to debunk the myth that Medicare is close to being insolvent and you just can’t increase funding for it. I would suggest he also take steps to debunk the myth that John Deere PAC endorsed Bobby Schilling over him, because that myth could do him some damage with Illinois workers.
• The Canada Free Press has a devastating article on why Jan Schakowsky from IL-9 is unfit to keep serving in Congress. As if on cue, the Pollak campaign debuts a new website slamming Schakowsky for her radical views.
• And Randy Hultgren is ahead of incumbent Democrat Bill Foster in IL-14.