10th Congressional District

Voters in the 10th Congressional District have a choice between two of the best-prepared candidates we've encountered. Republican incumbent Mark S. Kirk, 49, of Highland Park is an energetic representative who works to protect Lake Michigan and is a lead advocate for embryonic stem cell research.

Democrat Dan Seals, 37, of Wilmette is an articulate candidate who appreciates the complexity of protecting our borders and ports and in improving our schools.

All that said, neither candidate is perfect and the highly competitive nature of this repeat contest to represent part of Northwest Cook and Eastern Lake County has exposed their weaknesses. Both men have resorted to ads that go too far. Kirk is not the George Bush mouthpiece Seals would have us believe. He is, as we have stated before, one of the most independent members of Congress. Seals is not responsible for our financial crisis because he once worked for GE Capital, as Kirk's ad suggests.

That said, we believe Seals should have supported from the start efforts to rescue our ailing bank system as Kirk did.

For his part, Kirk was wrong to have voted to authorize the Iraq war and, ironically, blames that mistake on faulty intelligence, though he himself serves admirably as a Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer. (Kirk suggests the structure of our Central Intelligence Agency is the problem with bad intel.)

Both men do strongly reflect the district's and our values of social moderation and fiscal conservatism.

We wish Kirk had stood up to the Bush administration on the Iraq war, but his independence in many other areas and his record of working to solve local problems like Lake Michigan pollution and flooding give him an edge.

At a time when Democrats' power may grow, Kirk is endorsed for the critical role he can play in providing checks and balances.