What may have been the major political event of the run-up to the March 20th primary election took place Saturday morning at D’Anrea’s Saturday morning.

Politicians everywhere courting voters.

It was the third annual Pro-Life Unity Breakfast put on by Patriots United.

With reapportionment having sliced and diced McHenry County, three of the four United States Congressmen who have present or future ties with the area were in Crystal Lake.  Congressman Don Manzullo, the 19-year U.S Representative in whose present district the banquet hall lies, was in LaSalle County duking it out with freshman Congressman Adam Kinzinger

Making his first foray into the McHenry County part of his 6th congressional district (Algonquin Township) was Peter Roskam.

Roskam, as Deputy Whip in the House Republican Leadership, is in high demand all over the country.

It’s his job to rev up the Republican base and he did a good job of it at the sell-out crowd of almost 300 people.

With Roskam, his wife Elizabeth, and his former colleague Al Salvi, plus bride Kathy, and yours truly, it was almost old home week for conservatives elected to the Illinois House in 1992.  Only Tom and Ginny Johnson were missing.

I wish my wife had been there, but she down the road at a retreat run by the United Methodist Women of the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake.

Roskam was the first speaker.

“The Left wants to disarm you.

“It want’s to convince you that can’t make a difference,” Roskam told the crowd.

He pounded on President Barack Obama’s denigration of the Conscience Clause.

He cited Obama’s controversial speech at the University of Notre Dame in which Obama famously said, “We can agree around those issues of conscience.”

“He has not just moved away from (from that position), but he is “thumping us on our chests saying

‘We’re going to jab you in the chest.  What are you going to do about it?’

“That is a provocation that cannot go unanswered!”

Roskam was referring to the announcement that the Catholic Church’s hospitals, universities and other non-church institutions would have to provide birth control in their health insurance in contravention to Church teachings.

Roskam recommended a book by Britisher Paul Johnson, “A History of the American People.”

Summarizing, Roskam told of the author’s comparison of the leadership in England and America during the Revolutionary War.

American had “all of the A-Team…unbelievable gifted people.

“But was unique was their ability to come together.”

Roskam said conservatives have to be able to do that this year, because “the most important thing is the people who are in charge at the top.”

He was on a rhetorical roll.

“Our choice is to recede (or go forward).

“It’s just too big (an opportunity) to squander.  We can’t squander the Freedom God has given us…the opportunity (to keep) economic freedom, political freedom and economic opportunity.

“That’s what this crowd is all about.

“Thank you for what you’re doing in these sharp-elbowed times.

“We need you to work together (and not to be defensive about being a conservative.”

There was much more, of course.  I try to get to it in the coming days.