8th District candidates clash over presidential comments on Libya
Candidates in the 8th Congressional District race clashed over presidential campaign statements responding to the killings of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, with Democrat Tammy Duckworth blasting both candidates and Republican Joe Walsh defending GOP bidder Mitt Romney.
Duckworth, of Hoffman Estates, said she was “disappointed” by both President Barack Obama's and Romney's campaign statements.
“This is not a time for campaigns to be putting out statements,” Duckworth said. “It was time to take a deep breath and have clear heads, and figure out how to come together as a nation.”
Romney faced a backlash for targeting the president in a campaign statement shortly after the attacks in which he called Obama's handling of the situation “disgraceful” and “akin to apology.”
Obama responded later that Romney, a former two-term governor of Massachusetts, has the tendency to “shoot first and aim later.”
Duckworth made the comments in a meeting Thursday with the Daily Herald Editorial Board. Walsh meets with the editorial board later this month.
By phone from Washington, D.C., the McHenry Tea Partyer said news organizations are “more interested in what Romney said than in a vicious breach and strike on our embassies where Americans were killed.”
Walsh said Romney was “right to remind our president that we have a Constitution and you can say freedom of speech here gives you the right,” Walsh said.
The 8th Congressional District includes parts of Northwest Cook, eastern Kane and central DuPage counties.
Duckworth-Walsh debate tonight
8th Congressional District opponents Tammy Duckworth of Hoffman Estates and U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of McHenry have their second televised debate at 9:30 p.m. today on FOX Chicago.
And tune in at 9:30 a.m. Sunday on WBBM-Newsradio 780-AM to hear Daily Herald Politics and Projects Writer Kerry Lester and WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore interview Duckworth on the station's “At Issue” program.
An “At Issue” interview with Walsh, taped earlier this summer, is at <a href="http://chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/976-at-issue/">chicago.cbslocal.com/audio/976-at-issue/</a>.