He knows how to play the media like a concert violinist.
He makes potential opponent State Rep.Jack Franks, a potential candidate for Congress, look like an amateur.
After last month’s Chicago Sun-Times child support attack on a dispute filed months before, right after he was elected, any ordinary politician would have rolled up into a fetal ball and disappeared.
Joe Walsh didn’t.
When President Barack Obama tip-toed into Western Illinois last month, Walsh invited him to meet real people at a joint Town Hall Meeting in his district. (A friend who was in Henry County the day before the President was coming asked farmers if they were planning to go. “No. Got better things to do,” was the answer.)
Walsh agreed to a feature interview on Chicago Tonight Wednesday before an appearance before the Nunda Township Republican Precinct Committeemen. Obviously, he knew personal questions would be on the table.
Joe Walsh fielded policy and personal questions calmly on WTTW August 31, 2011.
And they were in the long interview on WTTW.
Watch the full episode. See more Chicago Tonight.
Walsh replied calmly throughout the interview.
He pointed out that the Chicago Tribune ran no articles on his campaign last fall, when he was talking about his personal problems “day after day.”
The questions were thorough. His critics will quibble with Walsh’s answers, but they can’t say that he was not calm–not exactly the image the media is trying to pin on Tea Party folks.
Last night he grabbed what may have been the lead story on ABC’s Channel 7.
The Town Hall crowd shown on ABC Channel 7 on Thursday night.
In late afternoon, Walsh sent out a press release saying that he was not going to attend the long-promoted speech on jobs that President Barack Obama is giving next week.
Certainly no reason to go to hear the President’s content. It will be everywhere, spread by a mainstream media that desperately wants Obama re-elected.
The question was asked by WTTW’s Eddie Arruza about whether he would run in the 14th Congressional District against Randy Hultgren.
Walsh demurred, said he had not decided, but that he was running for re-election.
So, what’s Walsh’s strategy?
My guess is that he is going for the red meat Republicans who cannot stand having President Obama in office–the kind of people who would wear an “OMG” tee shirt with the initials standing for “Obama Must Go.”
Will that be enough to get past local Republican Establishment support of Hultgren, should Walsh decide to run in the district where he lives?
Hard to tell in a two-way primary.
It worked in a mufti-candidate field in 2010.
these ‘town hall meetigs’ are not listed on his Congressional calendar and his office says they are “political events.” One again, William seems to be using the media to his advantage with a bit of deception. How many of these public financed schools, libraries and municipal facilities are paying for clean up and giving him free rent?
No comment on the content or veracity of Joe Walsh’s message? Your best comment is to attack Joe for actually being in his district listening while the hero of the Democratic movement, Nancy Pelosi, uses a private jet to traverse the country to tell her constituency to “eat cake” while living in luxury? No comment on the entirety of this “Representative Government” hiding from their people while Joe flies straight to his people? Then the comment goes further to say our public facilities have to “pay for clean up”(does this mean individuals in their public offices have to actually clean their office space rather than waiting for their Mommy’s to do it?) Then the comment goes even further to whine about a Congressman having an office while ignoring the fact Joe Walsh helped spearhead the initiative to cut Congressional budgets unilaterally while sleeping in his office. The insane hypocrisy and unmitigated nerve of people who want to comment without foundation and then expect us to stomach it without calling them on it is arrogant to say the least. I have watched ignorant comment after ignorant comment by you, Larry. Please stop, or please start making comments which are founded in facts and not your emotional desire to see us all in slavery to a group of people in Washington who neither care for our opinions nor even want to pretend to listen.
No comment on the content or veracity of Joe Walsh’s message? Your best comment is to attack Joe for actually being in his district listening while the hero of the Democratic movement, Nancy Pelosi, uses a private jet to traverse the country with public money to tell her constituency to “eat cake” while living in luxury on the taxpayer dime? No comment on the entirety of this “Representative Government” hiding from their people while Joe flies straight to his people? Then the comment goes further to say our public facilities have to “pay for clean up”(does this mean individuals in their public offices have to actually clean their office space rather than waiting for their Mommy’s to do it?) Then the comment goes even further to whine about a Congressman having an office while ignoring the fact Joe Walsh helped spearhead the initiative to cut Congressional budgets unilaterally and voluntarily while sleeping in his office. The insane hypocrisy and unmitigated nerve of people who want to comment without foundation and then expect us to stomach it without calling them on it is arrogant to say the least. I have watched ignorant comment after ignorant comment by you, Larry. Please stop, or please start making comments which are founded in facts and not your emotional desire to see us all in slavery to a group of people in Washington who neither care for our opinions nor even want to pretend to listen.
Here’s my comment: Walsh is not a prop. He is a tool. He is creating the same problem for himself that Palin has: overexposure. I’ll tell you this and I am as Republican as ANYONE: Walsh is a narcisstic jackass and the only thing he is going to change is for his district to be a Dumbocrat seat again. Walsh stands for Walsh and Walsh alone and I am so disillusioned with this guy. I hope he runs again Hultgren, as Hultgren will send him home.
Soooo, Paul. Do Republicans all stand for emotional rants about nothing and the denigration of reasonable debate with the other side ala “dumbocrats”? SO thankful you could join the debate about Joe Walsh and the policies he espouses and positions he takes politically. Wow. I’m converted from thinking of Mr. Walsh may be a bit narrow to thinking all Republicans like you may be too self involved to care about anything but themselves.
Priest: I’m not a hypocrite.
But Walsh’s failure to provide for his family based on not providing spousal/child support and criticize the President is hypocritical.
And to try to deflect the blame by saying someone has it out for him deflects his failure to be a responsible individual to make it look like someone else’s fault is hypocritical and the same behavior the President practices.
Maybe I should be more clear, I think the message is OK, but the messenger is the wrong one.
Glass houses, stones.
Someone with the title of “Priest” should think about it.
Walsh is a phony, even if the issues are not.
If we vote for the man, Walsh is not much of one.
Tell me the difference between a politically corrupt individually and a personally corrupt one.
Excellent points Paul. Thank you for elevating the conversation from “poopie head”.
Without getting into any specifics about Joe Walsh, as I am not an apologist for things which I know nothing about, I will simply say anyone can accuse anyone of any crazy thing they want to in court.
It is up to the court to decide which hypocrite standing before them is telling more of the truth on any given day.
Since I am standing in a glass house with a plank in my eye looking in the mirror thinking I am just about the same color as a certain pot in my kitchen I will simply say I respect a man in the same circumstance as many in this world today(divorced, struggling with money, lost a house, fighting with his ex in court….) who steps out and wants to get his teeth kicked in just for the opportunity to serve the rest of us, not just himself.
If there is a better person for the job then we still have the vote and should express ourselves at the ballot box.
To judge a man for circumstances many of us have experienced and few have survived unscathed is beyond my ability to do.
Walsh is a corrupt, economic terrorist, deadbeat dad and an enemy of everything the USA stands for. He can’t hack anything short of a mutual masturbation session with teabaglican lunatics so he winds up looking like a low functioning moron when covered by real news organizations (ie anything but faux News).
Personally, I think you are all due for a statesman in McHenry County. Not every politician has to be on the front page to get things done.
Go ahead and add showing the President of the United States the respect he deserves to the list of Shit Joe Walsh Won’t Do—along with paying more than 100K in child support owed to his ex-wife.