Hastert-wannabes exchange barbs
At their first public forum together, the five front-runners for the 14th Congressional District exchanged barbs Friday on everything from the Iraq war to government transparency.
In his opening statement at a St. Charles event sponsored by local chambers of commerce, Democrat Bill Foster called out Republican Jim Oberweis for his Iraq war stance.
"Jim, one of the first things that you said when you announced your candidacy this August was that the right approach was to keep our troops in Iraq for the next 10 years," said Foster, who is calling for a withdrawal of U.S. military troops. "And you don't even discuss any plan to bring our troops home."
Foster later went on to criticize Oberweis' proposal to create a public, searchable Web site of all federal spending, saying such a database already is in place. Sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, the Web site created from the so-called Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act launched Thursday at USASpending.gov.
In response, Oberweis called that measure "watered down" and "fluff." GOP candidate Chris Lauzen, a state senator, used that comment to point out Oberweis' lack of political experience.
"It's very easy to criticize when a person's never made a vote and can spend millions of dollars on these campaigns," Lauzen said.
Democrat John Laesch took a jab at Oberweis' unsuccessful campaign record, which includes failed runs for U.S. Senate and Illinois governor.
"To hear some of my friends and opponents in the Republican party say that the problems are in Springfield, perhaps they should be taking a second run at the governorship instead of (seeking political office in) Washington, D.C.," said Laesch, who is running his second congressional campaign. He lost to incumbent Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, a year ago.
Democrat Jotham Stein, meanwhile, stayed above the fray and tried his best to appeal to a crowd he viewed as mostly Republican
"I'm confident that even though I'm a Democrat and maybe many of you here are Republican, what we need is an innovative economy and the only one answer to the question, 'Which candidate … can bring strong economic growth for our future in the 14th Congressional District?'" he said. "The answer to that question is Jotham Stein from St. Charles."