Betraying GOP cost Kirk, Dold

How could it have occurred, amid Tuesday's Republican romp, that Messrs. Kirk and Dold lost their seats in Congress? The common thread is that each of them vocally separated themselves from their party's candidate and, in doing so, separated themselves from their jobs.

Mr. Kirk hasn't been a de facto Republican since he refused to support Senate nominee Oberweis versus Democrat Durbin a few years ago, and how betrayed some of Dold's contributors must have felt when their campaign dollars were spent on an ad bashing the party's presidential nominee.

I can't think of a better contemporary example of Benjamin Franklin's admonition to the Founding Fathers that "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Their ads crowed over and over that they were independent - and that's how they're hanging.

Roger M. Pretzel

Lindenhurst