Robert Abboud, the village president of Barrington Hills is the Democratic Party candidate for the 16th congressional district seat held since 1992 by Republican Don Manzullo.
In its first installment, McHenry County Blog covered his reason for running, plus how his pitch closely resembled those of fiscally conservative Republicans I have heard in the past.
Abboud spoke Wednesday in the McHenry County Farm Bureau Building to over fifty McHenry County Democrats.
One of his topics was communication with constituents.
He laid out a new form of electronic communication that he intended to implement, if elected.
”How many of you have ever been called to ask your advice?”
There laughter in the room.
He mentioned education and wanting feedback from teachers. I’d guess a fair number were in the room. I know I saw retired teacher activist Marti Swanson of Ringwood in the front row.
“I know they’re calling you for money, because I’m doing that.”
He told of how he asks his Barrington Hills constituents for advice using email and “within an hour” he has answers. He proposed using the same technique in the 16th congressional district with its 55 municipalities.
Abboud suggested that there were probably experts on most of the subject matters considered by Congress in the 16th district.
“Why are we not tapping that expertise?”
“In engineering, you can’t do things by yourself. You need to build a team,” the nuclear engineer said.
“If we can harness the atom, we can fix (less complex problems.)”
Returning to the loss of manufacturing, the candidate said,
”We’ve got to recover our strategic manufacturing.
“I’m the mayor of the village with the largest concentration of capitalists. The Secretary of the Treasury lives in our village.
“The only country that China has a positive trade balance with is the United States.
“Do you think Japan has a lower cost of labor than we do?”
He added several other costs of doing business, including land.
Then, a harder core financial pitch.
“I’ve got to raise two million bucks. It comes from individuals.”
Maybe I misunderstood Abboud, but I think he was more than hinting that opponent Don Manzullo’s campaign contributions came from individuals connected with companies.
Abboud then criticized the lack of taxation of profits made overseas.
Tomorrow: Environmental and Energy Policy
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The pictures are of Robert Abboud. In the top one, it looks like the back of Patrick Murfin’s head. The bottom shot is of the McHenry County Democrats attending the meeting.