January SVTP Meeting
Tuesday, January 24th, 6:30 pm
Sterling Township Youth Building, Sterling
Our Guests will be Bill Albracht, Candidate for Illinois' 36th Senatorial District and Richard Morthland, incumbent Candidate for Illinois' 71st Representative District. Join us to hear from and ask questions of these two men who wish to represent you.
Sauk Valley Voter Information Fair
Sunday, February 26th 1-4pm
Sauk Valley Community College
We have had great response from candidates regarding our upcoming Voter Information Fair! If you know of a candidate who would like to be included, please email me at saukvalleyvoter@gmail.com
Would you like to help keep voters in the Sauk Valley up-to-speed on their choices in the upcoming elections? If you would like to help make our non-partisan voter site THE place for local election information, we could use your help researching the candidates and issues. Please email SaukValleyTeaParty@live.com if you would like to help. Visit SaukValleyVoter
Kinzinger vs. Manzullo
I know that SVTP members are very split between these two candidates, but I wanted to share a little information regarding these two fellows, recent events and the race for the 16th Congressional District Seat.
Adam Kinzinger was a county board member in McLean County from 1998 to 2003, then served full time in the Air Force. After his 3rd tour in Iraq, he returned to Illinois to campaign full time for Congress. He defeated Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson in the 11th Congressional District in the 2010 general election and is generally considered to be well-spoken and charismatic. He boasts that he is a "Tea Party Republican", however, he has not actually shown much interest in the opinions of the Tea Party. He was presented with an open invitation by an Illinois Tea Party group to speak at their meetings whenever it was convenient for him. This invitation was greeted with a response which amounted to, "don't call us, we'll call you". Since then, there have been several incidents where Tea Party activists have been slighted or downright disrespected by Kinzinger's campaign and congressional handlers.
On the day of our December meeting, I received an email a few hours before the meeting requesting that Congressman Kinzinger be allowed to participate in our meeting with Congressman Manzullo (Kinzinger's campaign had ignored our earlier invitations to address our meetings). When they found out that Manzullo would have our undivided attention, they decided they wanted to be included. I responded to them saying that we had a pretty tight agenda, but I would check to see if we could rearrange a few things to fit him in and get back to them. Just a few minutes later I received another message saying that he would just stop by anyway.
The following week, the Bureau-Lasalle Tea Party had Manzullo scheduled to speak at their meeting and his appearance had been publicized weeks in advance. Kinzinger's campaign has refused invitations to address the BLTP previously. Instead of inviting themselves to the Tea Party meeting as they did with the SVTP, they scheduled their own meeting to take place just down the road at the same exact time as the Bureau-Lasalle meeting was scheduled. In order to steal Manzullo's audience, they hit the area with advertising and robo-calls to promote their hastily organized 'town hall' meeting. When a constituent (who is affiliated with Manzullo's campaign) tried to attend Kinzinger's 'town hall' he was thrown out.
Now, it has come to our attention, that it is not only grassroots Tea Party groups that Congressman Kinzinger has been dissmissive of, but he has now attacked Illinois Conservatives, following their endorsement of Don Manzullo. Read More: Grassroots vs. the Machine
Illinois Conservatives Response to Kinzinger Kinzinger's mocking of a grassroots conservative group with over 4,000 members and dismissal of their endorsement of his opponent based on the age of the organization's founder, shows a distinct lack of respect for ordinary, every day voters! Heritage Foundation Legislative ScoreCard
Don Manzullo was an attorney in Oregon, IL before running for Congress in 1992. He has been reelected 7 times. He initially supported term limits but has since come to the conclusion that it takes time and experience to get things done in Washington and that voters are responsible for enforcing the term limits they want to impose with their votes. He is often criticized for his length of time in office, however he seems to have a voting record that his constituents support. He has not been loudly outspoken during his time in office, but has consistently voted for less regulation, spending cuts, tax cuts and constitutional principles.
When informed about the turn in events for his scheduled appearance at our December meeting, he was not happy about the intrusion, but he was respectful and openly friendly toward Kinzinger. He shared with us examples of how he has worked and continues to work to return common sense to Washington. Although there are many things that I disagree with Manzullo on, every time I have contacted his office, he has been prompt to respond to my concerns and has even hand-written responses to me on several issues (well before I became involved in the Tea Party). While I do not always agree with Manzullo and I feel he should be a bit more outspoken on important issues, I cannot fault him on his overall record and I believe that he truly appreciates the efforts and influence of grassroots activists and groups. Heritage Foundation Legislative ScoreCard
This is probably the most important election cycle that most of us have ever voted in....please do not base your decisions on media portrayals, personality or sound bites! Do your homework and vet these folks thoroughly before you make up your mind!!!
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