Clearing the truth from the chaff in 14th Dist. campaign
You've probably filled a recycling bin with 8-by-11-inch fliers from campaign committees for Jim Oberweis and Bill Foster, who seek to succeed Dennis Hastert in a special election Saturday in the 14th Congressional District.
There's the one with "TAX RAISER" emblazoned in red type over Foster's face.
Or the one of a mother holding a little girl while a doctor speaks with them, with a jagged rip and "Jim Oberweis wants to eliminate employer-based health care, forcing you to buy your own insurance."
Then there are the TV and radio ads.
"Ten years. They could be in college by then. Jim Oberweis says we need to be in Iraq 10 years," intonates Foster, while images of children flash over the screen.
"We're already in trouble, and Bill Foster wants to raise our taxes? That's crazy!" proclaims an incredulous woman in an Oberweis ad that claims families would pay $8,000 a year more in taxes if Foster was elected and his plan approved.
What can you believe? Is Oberweis a hard-hearted man looking to get elected to anything, firing American workers and sending their jobs to China, willing to smear anybody who opposes him, including fellow Republicans in the primary?
Is Foster going to spend-spend-spend us into the poorhouse, take away your ability to see the doctor of your choice, surrender to terrorists and allow your daughter to get an abortion without telling you about it?
After sifting through the fliers and commercials, we came up with some of the main things each candidate is charging the other with.
Then, checking newspaper articles, Daily Herald questionnaires, videos of endorsement interviews and candidate Web sites, we tried to determine if the accusations hold water.
The mailings are targeted; not every house gets every mailing, depending on what audience the candidate wants to appeal to with that particular message.
Wednesday, for example, Foster released a flier that accused Oberweis of breaking Ronald Reagan's infamous "11th Commandment," "Thou shalt not speak ill of fellow Republicans," when he attacked Lauzen in the primary. Foster had a news conference Saturday with local Republicans who support him.
An anti-Foster ad, on the other hand, features Foster quotes criticizing Hastert. "Did James Carville say it? Did Hillary Clinton say it? No," it says.
Oh, and as for the talk that they are a couple of rich guys looking to buy their way into office?
Campaign finance disclosure statements as of Feb. 25 show that Oberweis has contributed, through loans, $2.3 million of the $2.9 million given to his campaign, or 79 percent.
Foster's lent $1.3 million of his campaign's $2.1 million, for 61 percent.
The median per-capita income of their constituents? $23,406, as of the 2000 census.
And the cost of those 8-by-11s? About 35 cents to $1.25 apiece, estimated a Foster campaign worker.
Ads, accusations … and the truth
The mud is flying furiously in the 14th Congressional District as Saturday's special general election gets closer. The ads and mailings are full of emotionally loaded words: liberal, threaten, Chinese, change, tax raiser, whopping, extreme, white flag, extremist. We try to cut through the clutter.
Charge: Jim Oberweis' Social Security plan will have you working until age 72 and force you to gamble in the stock market, costing you $60,000.
Reality: He has suggested offering workers the option to transfer half of the employee contribution into an investment account. They would then draw from this account for the first seven years of retirement, before guaranteed Social Security retirement benefits kick in. Currently, a person born in 1960 or later isn't eligible for full Social Security retirement benefits until age 67; if that person is earning $35,000 a year, the monthly benefit is estimated at $1,259 per month.
Charge: Jim Oberweis thinks employer-sponsored health insurance should end and you should pay for your own health insurance.
Reality: Oberweis advocates moving away from the present third-party-payer system, which he says create "perverse incentives" and offers users no incentives to manage health-care costs better, since they aren't the ones paying. He suggests individuals and small businesses that can't afford health insurance premiums join together in trade associations to negotiate health insurance or that states create health insurance exchanges for these users. And he calls for medical malpractice tort reform as a way to hold down costs.
Charge: Jim Oberweis has broken campaign finance and advertising laws repeatedly.
Reality: He's broken it once and been accused several times. The Federal Election Commission fined Oberweis $21,000 in 2007 for an incident during his 2004 campaign for the Senate, in which he appeared in an ad for the Oberweis Dairy business. Democrats last week filed a complaint accusing him of failing to obey the Millionaire's Amendment, which states that when a candidate loans a certain amount of money to his own campaign, he has to notify his opponent and the national opposition party.
Charge: Jim Oberweis wants to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for 10 years.
Reality: Daily Herald article, Aug. 26, 2007: "At least some troops will need to remain for 10 years or more as Iraqis start taking over responsibility for their country, said Oberweis, arguing 'that's the right approach.'"
On a Daily Herald questionnaire distributed in the fall, Oberweis said he agreed with Gen. David Petraeus' troop withdrawal plan: "I don't want to see U.S. combat troops in Iraq any longer than they have to be.
"That is not to say, however, that I agree with those who demand from Congress a date certain beyond which no U.S. combat forces will remain in Iraq. Setting a date certain for withdrawal would be nuts -- it would telegraph to our enemies our strategy and would greatly enhance both the threat of attacks against our withdrawing troops and the risk of strategic disaster."
Charge: Jim Oberweis invests in firms that send American jobs to China.
Reality: Oberweis Asset Management does offer portfolios that invest in companies in China, other Asian countries and countries throughout the world.
"Nothing the U.S. government can do can stop the forces driving global competition. We might as well stand on the shore and demand that the tide not come in; the forces driving competition are inexorable," Oberweis wrote in response to a Daily Herald questionnaire.
Charge: Jim Oberweis says he wants to crack down on illegal immigrants, but illegal immigrants were working at his own dairy stores.
Reality: In 2005, two illegal aliens that worked for a subcontractor cleaning three Oberweis Dairy stores spoke out against Oberweis (then running for governor). Oberweis said his company, Oberweis Dairy, had never knowingly employed illegal aliens.
Charge: Jim Oberweis used false advertising in previous campaigns.
Reality: True. Oberweis' campaign fabricated headlines in television ads in his 2006 gubernatorial run against Judy Baar Topinka. A spokesman for that campaign said at the time the headlines were text excerpted from stories, but, in fact, they were paraphrases.
Charge: Bill Foster's company sent jobs overseas.
Reality: Electronic Theatre Controls has sales offices in Hong Kong, Denmark and Italy. It has bought companies in Germany and the Netherlands and has a controlling interest in a French company.
Charge: Bill Foster welcomed the endorsement of NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Bill Foster doesn't think parents and children "should make life decisions together," such as whether a minor should have to notify her parents before seeking an abortion.
Reality: Foster's Web site, foster08.com, lists endorsements from NARAL (first known as the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws, then the National Abortion Rights Action League) and the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, which became Planned Parenthood Illinois March 1.
Charge: Bill Foster wants to reinstate the death tax; eliminate the child tax credit; force new taxes on low-income families.
Reality: Foster favors letting some of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire, as planned, in 2011. That means the estate tax (which opponents call the death tax) would go back to its pre-2001 rate of up to 55 percent.
Charge: Bill Foster is "raising the white flag" in calling for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Reality: From foster08.com: "We need to end our involvement in the war in Iraq, and begin bringing home our men and women in uniform. They have done all that has been asked of them and our soldiers are not the answer to a religious and sectarian civil war. We now need a political solution, not a military one. … Under all circumstances, American ground forces must begin the process of coming home as soon as possible."
Charge: Liberal Democrats are giving money to Bill Foster's campaign.
Reality: Campaign committees for Democratic U.S. representatives Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and Jan Schakowsky have donated, as has the chief of staff for Congressman Patrick Murphy, the Iraq war veteran whose campaign Foster supported. Playboy Enterprises Inc. CEO Christie Hefner has donated, as has Act Blue, a Democratic fundraising organization.
Both candidates have received contributions and aid from national party committees.
Charge: Bill Foster said, "There's nothing in life that you can't improve by throwing money at it."
Reality: True, but taken out of context. It was in response to a question about improving airline safety, at a Jan. 8 public forum. Here is the full quote: "Air traffic control is a perfect example of the huge improvements you can make with the appropriate technology. I think also that air traffic control is an example where, if I recall correctly, some rather poor efforts in improving the software and hardware systems have occurred over the years. I, as a scientist, will take a scientific approach to not just safety for air traffic control, but through out our society. There are ways you can -- there's nothing in life you can't improve by throwing money at it and so I would take (a) scientific approach to the way the federal dollars are spent in a way that improve human life and human safety in the most cost effective way. There are very good publications that regularly review all the different programs that the federal government spends money on some are very cost effective some are frankly wastes of money that are just done for political reasons. This is one way I would save taxpayer dollars."
Jim Oberweis then said, "I find myself in the almost embarrassing position of tending to agree with Bill on some of his comments there."