With six days remaining in the race, Congressman Kirk has pulled his one positive television ad and has gone completely negative, with more than $2 million in false, misleading attack ads.

In stark contrast, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias has gone completely positive for the final week with an ad that features President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, his mother and workers from Hartmarx, with each of them noting his compassion and character.

“Just as Alexi has gone with a purely positive television ad in the final week of the campaign, we learned today that Congressman Kirk pulled his positive commercial and is spending more than $2 million on false, negative ads that have been denounced as smears by independent fact check organizations,” said campaign spokesman Scott Burnham. ”Instead of focusing on the issues, Congressman Kirk has a record he can’t defend. That’s why Congressman Kirk, the Republican party, Karl Rove and the Chamber of Commerce are spending nearly $5 million on negative and misleading attack ads this week.”

Learn more about Alexi Giannoulias.

Giannoulias Pulls All Negative Ads for Final Week of Campaign is a post from Illinois Tenth Congressional District Democrats

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Rather than address the deficiencies in Kirk’s character, Kirk’s supporters tell us that even without the lies, embellishments, and misrememberings, Kirk has a good military record. They’re missing the point. Kirk’s military record is relevant only because he lied about it. If Kirk hadn’t revealed himself to be a serial exaggerator, his military record, whatever it is or isn’t, would be utterly irrelevant.

Most of us have never served in the military. I would never disrespect anyone for serving in the military, but neither would I hold lack of military service against anyone. Military service is not a prerequisite for holding public office, nor is military service—or the lack thereof—an indicator of how well someone will do in public office.

For example, Republican presidents Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower were elected on the strength of military resumes far better than Kirk’s, and both proved to be mediocre presidents. That’s not because of their military records, obviously—the point is that there is no correlation, nor should one expect there to be a correlation, between a good military record and performance in office.

There are much better predictors of how someone will do in Congress: character, stands on the issues, and—if available—(hold your breaths, Kirk fans)—previous record in Congress. Kirk fails on all three counts, which is why Kirk needs to change the subject.

In an effort to deflect attention from his “misrememberings,” Kirk tried to shift the attention to Alexi, but in doing so, Kirk only highlighted the lengths to which Kirk will stretch the truth.

On July 12, the Chicago Tribune described Kirk’s criticism of Alexi’s tax refund as “baffling,” and summarized Kirk’s position as “instead of going to a tax accountant to determine what to pay, Giannoulias should ask his opponent. (Never mind that Giannoulias said he would donate his $30,000 refund to charity.)” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/edit-taxes-20100712,0,6933199.story

From the July 14 Chicago Sun-Times: “Just when you thought Mark Kirk couldn’t be more disingenuous. The Republican Senate candidate who tried to pass off a series of exaggerations in his military record as honest errors now is smearing his Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias, with a blatantly misleading TV ad that links him to the Gulf oil spill.” Read the entire editorial here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2495126,CST-EDT-edit14b.article

The non-partisan Factcheck.org concluded that Kirk’s ads “make unsupported claims about the role Giannoulias played at his family’s troubled bank and strain to tie him to BP, among other dubious statements.” http://factcheck.org/2010/07/loans-to-mobsters-ties-to-bp-kirks-attack-ads-go-too-far/

The Pulitzer Prize-winning non-partisan Politifact.com concluded that Kirk’s ads were “partly true” and “barely true,” while Alexi’s ad was “true.”http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mark-kirk/

See also: http://www.alexiforillinois.com/blog/there-he-goes-again-2-new-ads-2-new-lies

Character counts.  Kirk has proven again and again that he will say or do anything to get elected.  As Alexi Giannoulias has noted, “like a weather vane, Mr. Kirk’s votes on the issues can be predicted by the direction the political winds are blowing at this time.”

Nothing sums up Kirk’s unprincipled politics better than his reversal on the American Clean Energy and Security bill (ACES), also known as cap and trade. When Kirk voted for cap and trade, he justified his vote by saying “It is time to break the boom and bust cycle of high gas prices and the need to deploy three separate armies to the Middle East (Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom). As you may know, I am a veteran of the Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom missions.” Of course, we now know that Kirk isn’t a veteran of Desert Storm, but putting that aside, Kirk’s justification seems pretty compelling—if he believed it.  Read Kirk’s couldn’t-be-clearer explanation of why he voted for cap and trade here:
http://lakecountyteaparty.com/2009/07/01/congressman-mark-kirks-response-on-cap-and-trade-vote/

Given that, you’d think if anything was set in stone, it was Kirk’s support for cap and trade. Then the political winds shifted and Kirk totally flip-flopped, claiming that he only voted for cap and trade because “it was in the narrow interests” of his congressional district. I never realized that high gas prices and national security were “in the narrow interests” of only the 10^th Congressional district. There was nothing in Kirk’s lengthy original explanation that even remotely suggested that these issues were unique to the 10^th district. If you have just 19 seconds, you can see the essence of Mark Kirk:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpLOdIL2BD8

Contrast Kirk’s unprincipled statements with the composed and dignified way Alexi Giannoulias handled the controversy over Broadway Bank. Contrast Kirk’s flavor of the hour issues management with Alexi’s consistent stands in support not only of Israel, but of the other issues we care about, including abortion rights, women’s issues, LGBT issues, environmental issues, and economic issues.

Alexi beats Kirk on character and Alexi beats Kirk on the issues. Kirk’s career in Congress is proof positive that one’s military record has little to do with how one performs in Congress—but Kirk’s dishonest attacks on Giannoulias do prove that lies about ones military record speak volumes about a candidate.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters—all bi-partisan organizations, some of which have backed Kirk in previous elections—are now backing Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate over Mark Kirk. So if you’re supporting Alexi, you’re in very good company.

http://www.alexiforillinois.com/blog/naral-supports-giannoulias-over-kirk
http://www.alexiforillinois.com/blog/human-rights-campaign-endorses-giannoulias-senate
http://www.alexiforillinois.com/blog/two-major-environmental-organizations-endorse-giannoulias-over-kirk-us-senate

“I simply misremembered it wrong”—Mark Kirk, June 3, 2010 is a post from Illinois Tenth Congressional District Democrats

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