Late afternoon email in clear response to Oberweis’ 4th quarter FEC report, can you guess who wrote it?

Guess who wrote this email.

If you received it, you already know, but if you didn’t, can you guess which of these not-so-well-heeled opponents of Jim Oberweis wrote the email?

Ted Gradel is excluded since his two FEC quarterly reports from 2019 clearly showed money will not be an impediment for him. Gradel has yet to file his Year-end 2019 report. Anthony Catella is excluded because his year-end FEC report confirms he will only play spoiler by taking votes away from someone else.

Here’s the email:

My establishment opponents are pulling out all the stops to try and put a stop to our campaign, because they know the real conservative Republican base is hungry for a choice and a fresh Republican face to win back this critical seat in November.

Here’s the simple truth. My opponents are losing significantly to Lauren [Underwood] in recent polling – not only that, but they’re anti-trump “Republican lite” fakers who are too afraid to embrace our conservative principles to earn the trust of you, the backbone of the conservative Republican party. They are trying to close the gap by buying this primary with their own personal big dollars.

Let’s be clear – this is the easiest pickup in the US House this year. If we have any hope of winning back the People’s House in November 2020 and supporting President Trump’s America First agenda, we need to win back Illinois’ 14th District.

But that won’t happen without the support of our conservative MAGA base like YOU, [insert recipient first name] and that’s what the establishment RINO’s don’t seem to understand.
 
We are tired of being preached at by “Democrat lite” and we won’t stand for it anymore.
 
Will you continue to stand with me?

Sincerely,

Email verbiage from 14th congressional district Republican candidate
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Can you guess who wrote the email?

Jerry Evans’ campaign issued the following statement in response to Oberweis’ fundraising, which was published in the Oberweis-Catella FEC article yesterday:

“Republicans in the 14th District know that failed career politician Jim Oberweis is not the candidate to take on Lauren Underwood in November.

“However, the release of today’s FEC report shows he is doing everything he can to buy the Republican Primary—including writing himself a $600,000 check in the 4th quarter, which now totals $1 million of his own money to date. 

“However, the 14th District has an alternate candidate and fighter for conservative values with Jerry Evans.

“Jerry is working hard every day to meet constituents, earn their support, and offer them a fresh message of hope to Illinoisans.”

Jerry Evans for Congress campaign spokesperson 1/15/20
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While the author’s identity of the email is forthcoming, in yesterday’s article about the Republican candidates needing to publish their policy/position statement papers, commenter “Correcting” asked what was being sought from the candidates and inferred the term “wonk”. Here is my reply in a comment which is relevant to both the email and Evans’ campaign statement:

I’m not looking for “wonk” or draft legislation, but I’m looking for more substance than just the platitudes, sound bites, abstracts, slogans, talking points and bromides that we’ve been hearing from the candidates to date, with the exception of Jerry Evans on human trafficking.

And since these Republican candidates are all trying to show primary voters they will have the best chance to beat Lauren Underwood on November 3, they need to show where her record, or her policy proposal(s) are compared to their own. And the candidates need to take apart legislation Underwood has proposed, passed in the House, or passed into law, and show how they will compete against that messaging which Underwood will, and is already, using to make the case for a 2nd term.

Those two short digital ads from Protect Our Care is only the beginning to the intense campaign Underwood and her allies will be spending millions to get across to voters later this year.

Look at Underwood on prescription drug prices. She issued her 5 point plan, her position paper, on October 18. Wasn’t wonkish, but detailed, and included specific legislation as components to implement her plan.

She felt 7 current legislative bills will achieve the goal of lower prescription drug prices. Sean Casten believed only two bills were needed, H.R. 3 and H.R. 987, which both passed but will not go anywhere in the Senate.

Underwood is even going further, and late last month, started talking about the Senate proposal on prescription drug prices in some detail, and how some components of the House bill and the Senate bill can be negotiated to become law.

That is what Republican candidates need to be doing, and I know during the fall they were trying to get on the ballot, stay on the ballot in Catalina Lauf’s case, and raise money. But some of these candidates have established campaigns now, Lauf being one of them.

But they are starting to move in the direction I want to see, albeit slowly.

– James Marter, through Illinois Review sent a detailed policy stance on immigration, and challenged all the Republican opponents to do the same.

– Catalina Lauf, through social media this past weekend, alluded to policy/platform rollout (her campaign first said this was coming in October, but that never materialized), and cited a current bill for Veterans she supports.

– Sue Rezin campaign has redesigned her website. Now Rezin told the Daily Herald in November one of her main priorities was lowering prescription drug prices, but to date, no details.

– Lauf’s campaign web site was slightly modified today, outlining 3 main issues abstracts, but no detail, yet.

I know, in light of his financial support, Jim Oberweis thinks he can run out the clock, and ride his name ID and money to the nomination without breaking a sweat. I do not think that is wise, because at worst, he would be right but he would have won the primary battle but lost the war, as far as losing to Underwood in November.

The debates are going to start in earnest next week, and the candidates can breathe a sigh of relief I will not be the one asking the questions.

Hopefully, discerning voters will be asking tough questions, and we’ll see which candidate is best prepared to take on Underwood in the fall.

So the author of the email at the top of this article? Here’s the masthead:

Yes, it was Catalina Lauf, and here’s an additional graphic used in the body of the email appeal for funds:

So Lauf’s campaign has degenerated to using the “RINO” moniker, and she calls herself a “fresh Republican face”? The “RINO”, or “Republican in name only” is nothing fresh or new, but has been used by Republicans to impugn Republicans for over 20 years.

In addition to releasing position papers, the remaining 5 Republican candidates (Evans, Gradel, Lauf, Marter, Rezin) need to release their own year-end 2019 FEC reports in advance of the January 31 deadline. If Jim Oberweis can release his report 2 1/2 weeks early, the other candidates can release their own campaign’s FEC filing well in advance of month-end, too.

But speaking of Lauf, she published the audio of two radio interviews on her YouTube channel earlier this week, one an in-studio interview with newly minted in his new time radio host Steve Cortes, who doesn’t hold back saying he endorsed Catalina Lauf:

In the Cortes interview, while Lauf takes calls from listeners, she pulls no punches when it comes to Jim Oberweis as the 8-time loser, Sue Rezin as the Democrat and Ted Gradel backed by establishment politicians (this exchange started at the 10:25 mark of the nearly 23 minute commercial-free interview), the latter whose name she couldn’t pronounce correctly.

Clearly, she ignores Marter, Evans and Catella.

Additionally, this past Saturday Lauf was interviewed on the Black and Right radio show with John Anthony and Ceasar Leflore:

The call-in interview by Lauf was nearly nine minutes long, so not the depth as the Steve Cortes interview. But the last question had to do with Right to Life, since the March for Life was taking place in Chicago during this broadcast.

Lauf reaffirmed her strong pro-life conviction, but when she does this, Lauf raises a question which she has continually avoided, but Republican primary voters will not ignore.

Lauf touts herself as the supporter of President Trump and worked for the Commerce Department for 8 months.

Lauf does not ever talk about, nor share in interviews with the exception of the October Mark Konkol interview, her nearly 10 months working for the Citizens for Rauner campaign from late January to mid November of 2018.

In the recent interview with Gabby Hoffman in The Resurgent, her 2016-inspired move to leave the private sector goes straight to the Trump Administration job, but skips the nearly 10 months working for then-Governor Bruce Rauner’s reelection, which included about 2 months for the primary.

She cannot ignore and skip/gloss over that point in her employment history or her record, especially given the ideological differences in her campaign for Congress in 2020, and the Rauner record.

And she needs to begin to share what she did for that campaign, particularly in Rauner’s successful primary campaign in 2018.

It’s been written before here on this blog, whom a 2020 candidate backed in the past should have no bearing to the present. That position is still held, but denying/ignoring what one did is pretending it didn’t happen. Candidates need to own what they’ve done in the past, especially when being paid for it as Lauf was in 2018.

All the candidates need to start laying out their detailed policy positions. The March primary is 2 months from tomorrow, and early voting begins three weeks from today.

And if a Lauren Underwood 2nd term victory over a Jim Oberweis nominee doesn’t stir the candidates to begin to be more substantive on the issues, a couple of commenters are already seeing Oberweis’ TV commercials on FOX News. Apart from Ted Gradel, no other Republican candidate has commercials, let alone released them, yet.