ERA gaffe at Batavia forum will stick to her like “Taliban” has stuck to Jim Oberweis for 18 years
As has been told elsewhere, 14th congressional district Republican candidate Catalina Lauf had one of those moments which, for the forseeable future, will follow her anytime she is in electoral politics beginning in 2020.
Her gaffe had to do with the question asked of her nearly 30 minutes into the League of Women Voters (LWV) candidates’ forum on January 30th in Batavia.
Lauf was up first to answer the question on supporting a congressional resolution extending the time for states to approve the ERA (the resolution is H.J. Res. 79).
Click the video below, and the Lauf portion starts at the 32:03 mark and pause after 15 seconds:
While a commenter here on McHenry County Blog asked a valid question if Lauf was confused by the TLA (three letter acronym) of “ERA” and would Lauf had been better had the moderator asked the question spelled out as “Equal Rights Amendment”, the damage is done to Lauf.
Definitely makes the many Lauf detractors giddy, but they were never friends of her anyway. It’s the people whose first impression of Lauf will be set now and in the future, by the gaffe.
Those 15 seconds in Batavia will define Lauf for the rest of the primary campaign. And in the remaining 36 days of the campaign if her campaign is seen as a threat by Jim Oberweis’ frontrunning campaign, know those 15 seconds can easily be dropped into a 30 second negative commercial/video.
Speaking of Oberweis, he still has his detractors trying to turn the pro-life community against him by resurrecting the 18-year old “Taliban” comment, which he long ago, like shortly after he said it, confessed, made amends and apologized.
In 2020, Oberweis has thus far, earned the only two pro-life PAC endorsements, so most mainstream pro-life supporters have forgiven Oberweis of the Taliban comparison.
Getting back to Lauf, Blogger and 14th district resident Jeff Ward of Geneva did not mince words in his tweets last Tuesday:
And then his general tweet introducing his article on Batavia’s debate:
Then on Friday, Ward wrote his article titled “Catalina Lauf’s Candidacy is a Farce!”, and the worst one yet about Lauf, which hit multiple points of the truth because Ward knows how to find the truth, and sift through candidates’ embellishments. He did a real master stroke here.
His article received over 20,000 hits once it was published on Friday.
Here are some lines:
“No 26-year-old on this vast planet has nearly enough job or life experience to become a national economic advisor.”
“Put more simply, in an effort to make the rest of us believe they really do love brown people, Republicans ferret out female trophy candidates who somehow buy into their…world view while lacking the intelligence that would make them difficult to control.”
“The plain truth is, Catalina Lauf is nothing more than a political bimbo.”
“…but more than one GOP observer told me her recent candidate forum responses were ‘always a bit off.’ “
Jeff Ward, “Catalina Lauf’s Candidacy is a Farce!”, The First Ward, 2/7/20
.
I admit, Mr. Ward came to the edge of being sexist in his article on Friday. That is part of his schtick, and he clearly got frustrated by the pro-Lauf people who bombarded him trying to defend Lauf in his article last Tuesday, in the face of her 15 seconds of shame at the Batavia debate which he includes in his Friday post.
About 3 weeks ago, I began asking a question about Lauf in Twitter: as the objective hiring manager, would I hire/vote for a candidate who cannot explain gaps in her resume or provide professional references?
The gap in Lauf’s resume’ she refuses to talk about is her 10 months working for Citizens for Rauner in 2018. And of the 48,000+ Twitter followers, no one she worked with at the Commerce Department last year, Citizens for Rauner in 2018 or Uber would go on record and provide a professional reference.
Even former Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti would not publicly write an endorsement, which would have been a professional reference since Lauf worked with Sanguinetti while working for Citizens for Rauner.
Some may ask what about the other candidates?
Take the other Millennial, Jerry Evans at age 36. He has a thriving small business in his name he’s built for over 8 years that has grown. Don’t need professional reference, his small business accomplishment speaks for itself. He also has relevant life experiences like marriage (5 years), home ownership (2 1/2 years) and fatherhood (19 months) not to mention his unapologetic faith in God.
Most other candidates are same way.
Ward’s language used in his tweet is a bit crass and his article, and his articles’ links in the 14th from last week are below for reference. Here’s a tweet I sent, because his was unprintable:
The Catalina for Congress campaign, that kicked off to much fanfare last August and raised just under $105,000 in its first 38 days, but raised just under $66,000 in the following 92 days and ended 2019 with less than $32,000 in the bank, taught me much once facts were revealed.
Her policy/platform rollout first promised in October, and then early January never materialized through today. It’s not needed now.
She was heralded as the “anti-AOC”. She ended up being a “Beto O’Rourke” who 11 months ago started out very strong, but quickly fizzled when it was clear the former 3-term congressman didn’t have substance to be President of the United States and people saw through him.
Clearly last fall, most people, especially the donor community, figured out the same thing and short of a real act of God, Lauf is no longer in this race except in name only and it’s been this way since the fall.
The candidate vetting has worked.
Links to blogger Jeff Ward’s 14th district articles week of Feb 3:
- Friday’s article: https://thefirstward.net/2020/02/07/quick-hits-catalina-laufs-candidacy-is-a-farce
- Tuesday’s article (Batavia debate, Sue Rezin’s mailer): https://thefirstward.net/2020/02/04/quick-hits-supplemental-feb-4-2020
- Wednesday’s article (Jim Oberweis’ mailer): https://thefirstward.net/2020/02/06/quick-hits-newspaper-campaign-mailers-dont-work
“Clearly last fall, most people, especially the donor community, figured out the same thing and short of a real act of God,” This is an opinion and has zero basis. In fact, the facts would make your opinion completely false.
Compare her FEC reports to the rest. She has the largest amount of in-district contributions all raised in the last quarter. Those are real people who support her, who have met her and view her as an amazing contribution to the Republican Party. I’ve heard more people supporting her now more than ever. Rezin, Gradel and Oberweis who all have maxed out checks from the rich friends, are not who we need as Representatives. And as someone who supports her, the ERA question is a complete non-factor. Her one of on one conversations I’ve had with her, her measured tweets and insight on important national issues and not to mention her very warm, great personality is exactly why I’m supporting her. I trust her to defend my interests in Washington a lot more than ANY of these other people. She is incredibly intelligent and shame on you for trying to create this negative buzz surrounding her candidacy.
Q: When did the GOP become the party of glorified stupidity?
A: It occurred in 2008 when Sarah Palin was put on the GOP ticket.
Mr. Common Sense, like I said to Mr. Silverman in the tweet from yesterday, I admire you and any Lauf supporter who’s willing to go public and defend Lauf.
No basis in fact? Compare Lauf’s (38-day) 3rd quarter FEC report with her 92-day 4th quarter and if my math is right, I see a 45 to 47% drop in contributions.
And as for my core question about Lauf, did you work with her at the Commerce Department? At Citizens for Rauner? At Uber? I think you’d have said so if you had, but that’s the huge fallacy in your defense of her.
No one who has worked with her in previous jobs have come out to support her candidacy. This is a seat in the United States Congress, and we Republican primary voters will vet everyone. No exception.
And last, many have learned the hard way because of the current congresswoman, Lauren Underwood. A nurse? Wasn’t until a day or two before the 2018 election the truth came out and people learned there is a difference between a patient-facing nurse and a back-office policy administration nurse.
As many 14th district voters say, “fool me once…”.
I stand by what was published.
Why do you give this pottymouth Ward attention? He didn’t do basic fact checking when he wrote about Lauf which erodes his credibility. (I’m referring to his comment about Uber losing money last quarter when that has nothing to do with Lauf because she hasn’t worked there since 2017.) He’s way late to the party — just starting to write in detail about her in February when she’s been making headlines since August. He has almost no engagement on his own blog or on Twitter, yet he highly inflates his own importance. He’s a nasty guy. He called her a “political bimbo” and said she shouldn’t reproduce! I’m not a supporter of Catalina Lauf, but he is out of bounds. Jeff Ward deserves no credit whatsoever for vetting her. Her resume had already been criticized by many and her ERA “gaffe” was in public.
Correcting, you ask a couple of valid questions, like why give Jeff Ward any attention?
As I said in a tweet yesterday about him having flaws, he also has a record as a campaign consultant, a former local journalist and lately, as an author about winning local elections. Several high profile public officials are in office today because of, or in part, of him (Aurora mayor 2017, Kane County sheriff 2018).
He’s been around the 14th district race since last summer, when he was successfully baiting the Jim Oberweis campaign team by openly being a troll in Facebook, and getting Oberweis’ people to “take-the-bait” and get in an online argument. Oberweis did that with others in social media, including Joe Ptak, on Ted Gradel’s Facebook page.
Ward’s also been a realist, and much to my chagrin that we both think Oberweis has no chance in the fall against Underwood, he is firmly, to the point of taking high wager bets, ready to put his money where his mouth is that Oberweis will be victorious in the primary next month.
Another reason Ward carries a little weight is nearly all of the Lauf detractors, and I mean the higher profile of women who had their pictures taken around a sign that said “mean girls” back on January 4, can use a lesson of how to effectively discredit someone, in this case, Lauf. The big one, don’t make it personal.
Ward doesn’t personalize it based on blog author or someone promoting a candidate, he focuses on the candidate. Some of Lauf’s detractors took narcissistic shots at me, and to a lesser degree, Cal since last August. Few tried to take shots in private email, too.
But as I said publicly, let the vetting process work. And whether it’s Jeff Ward, or Patch writer Mark Konkol, all raised valid questions. Ward’s experience as a campaign consultant allowed him to discern very quickly what was “off” about Lauf’s bio on her website and his network of political contacts, particularly in Kane County filled in the rest. BTW, I did not discuss Lauf in any private forum prior to him publishing articles.
And coupled with promptings from what both Ward and Konkol had done, I started asking the question about gaps in the Lauf resume’ and no professional references about the time of the 1st debate. In many ways, Ward’s piece last week was the denoument on Lauf, the real story was published early Friday afternoon on the 31st with her year-end FEC filings.
Hope that helps.
Q: When did the DEM become the party of glorified stupidity?
A: It occured in 2016 When Hillary lost a sure thing.
Apparently Ohon supports the stupid, inept people of the Democrat Party which is imploding.
The Democrat Party is the party of stupidity as evidenced by 8 years of Barak Hussein Obama including his selection of VP, the moron Biden. The guy who violates women in public with unwanted hugs, kisses and smelling of hair of women. The guy who on Feb 9, 2020 in New Hampshire AGAIN greatly insulted a woman, this time a 21-year old college student. He said to her face: “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
The stupidity of Obama was apparent when as candidate for president he said that he visited/campaigned in 57 U.S. States.
In his first term in office while making a speech at a prayer breakfast, he mispronounced corpsman. He said CORPSE-MEN rather than CORE-MEN. It was a prepared speech and no doubt his handlers were having a heart attack because they knew that the word appeared again later in the prepared speech. And again, the dope Obama said CORPSE-MEN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPYpQzyvZcU
There were dozens of instances of incompetence and stupidity by Obama including ignoring US Military advise to NOT get out of Iraq too soon. Obama did and then ISIS took over. Obama had totally underestimated ISIS capability by referring to them as JV, or Junior Varsity.
Of course there was the famous Red Line he warned Assad of Syria not to cross in using chemical weapons. Obama backed down and then let Putin and his people go into Syria to look for chemicals.
Just a few examples of dozens of instances of incompetence and stupidity by Obama.
Catalina so-called gaffe on era is absolutely nothing. It is and will be inconsequential in whatever her future path, career, etc. We went through 8 years of the worst ever president of the U.S. and endured his and Biden’s stupid comments, statements and decisions. The mostly left wing media AND Democrats have given them a pass and largely have forgotten or want to forget everything bad about those 8 years.
In hindsight, McCain/Palin would have been 1,000 percent better than the dope duo of Obama/Biden.
So much incompetency by these two guys not to mention Biden’s continuing harassment of women over the years. Such as giving them unwanted hugs, kisses and smelling their hair. He greatly embarrassed a Nevada woman politician running for office by getting behind her and smelling her hair. She later said that on that particular day, she skipped washing her hair in the morning and was mortified when he smelled her hair.
Biden is the guy who has been wrong on many things including the majority of positions he took on foreign affairs.
Finally, maybe American Democrats in the primaries will say they had enough of this guy and Obama’s huge mistake at selecting him for VP.
Perhaps Biden himself put the primaries’ nail in the coffin when he insulted to the face of a 21-year old woman by telling her, “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier”.
Top Democrats such as Schumer, Pelosi, Hillary and Bill, the Obamas, should ask Joe to immediately withdraw from the primaries. Enough is enough. He alone is doing damage to their party.
Vote James Marter!
Smart, Conservative, we’ll versed on the issues
Seriously?
People think this is a big deal?
ERA could me many things and considering her age, I’m not surprised it didn’t register.
Boomers know “ERA” immediately…..it was the failed movement of the 60s/70s/80s.
But the new generation aren’t stuck in our failed politics.
The boomers are bothered by this?
If they are, they’re old dinosaurs.
SHE’S 26 HOW IS SHE SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT STUFF
Maybe she was set up?!
—But I’m still voting for Marter.
– Jen ????
Rick Perry couldn’t remember the name of the Department of Energy, but he became Energy Secretary.
So maybe she’ll be the next republican governor’s Director of Women’s Issues.
The GOP is dying.
I have been telling the readers of this blog for multiple months now that the JimmyO money train is what will win this nomination and also what will lose the general election for the GOP in the 14th.
The GOP is the party of the old.
Young conservatives (like Lauf) are the fringe of their generation and the loud ones get attention but they are the exception to the generational rule.
There are now more Millennial votes than Boomers.
The end is near. The state of IL is already lost.
Once Texas immigration reaches a tipping point (predicted this decade) the national elections (electoral college) will be lost as well.
The GOP is dying… but keep lying to your undereducated self if you must go down with the ship.
Sad!
And yet again … Crickets!
Thank you suburban Rino for pointing out the obvious.
We need people like Lauf and no, we shouldn’t just sit and accept Jim as the nominee.
The power is in our votes.
She may be young, but she has integrity, good character and a lot of wisdom for being 26.
I trust her 100% to represent me in Washington but also know she has the power to take it to the Squad.
That’s important to me. We need people like her in this stale party.
Mr. Lopez,
When will you report things other than your not so convenient half truths? Catalina’s q4 donations were impacted for an entire half quarter when her opponent unsuccessfully tried to kick her off the ballot.
Many big fundraisers had to be canceled.
Considering the circumstances and still having the highest number of in district contributions is not only impressive but outstanding.
Day by day Catalina is rising to the top.
Look no further than her latest performance in Bolingbrook.
The entire bench fizzled and Catalina steamrolled the entire bench and strongly made clear (as did her opponents inadvertently) that Catalina is the only one that can defeat Underwood.
Report the facts John or sit down.
Martin – Nice!
Doubtful, since the League always asks questions about their favorite issues, such as abortion.
ERA is one of those issue for the last year or two.
I could see a younger man missing the ERA question being that they grew up with earned run average, but a woman should know the real ERA, hands down.
She is young and hot so I will give her a pass, had this been Pam, I would be more troubled, but we all know that with the milk man’s money, he will stick his teat out for Jumbo Boy and sail to victory, one commode at a time.
That’s ok just hold out until Duckworth time is up then we can get some new blood in there… cause she is gone!
just like Durbin byebye… when her time is up soon.
Probably time for Lauf to join me in my favorite political fantasy, Mad Max.
Ms. JenSmith,
Actually, I did take the petition objection into account, and looked at itemized contributions throughout the quarter, and the month of December was the highest fundraising month during the quarter.
The petition objection cannot be said for October and November, but the Mark Konkol article was published, and the series here on McHenry County Blog openly questioning if Ms. Lauf is a woman of faith was published, too.
Seeing how she’s reacted to blogger Jeff Ward in Twitter, my doubts about her faith have arisen again, given how she has responded to Ward, in a way that does not show she’s a God-fearing woman.
What she should have done is completely ignore Ward, and keep her campaign about her message.
She only demonstrated she let Jeff Ward get to her.
Going to be 100x as bad with people in DC, if she were elected.
Right now, I do not see a pathway to victory for Lauf, given she’s has very little money, has nothing on TV and likely doesn’t have enough for a mailing.
That’s just the hard facts of a campaign.
He probably got 20,000 views because Catalina shared one of his tweets and she has over 49 thousand followers.
He has less than 150 followers.
Why does anybody care about putting the ERA provisions into the Constitution? It’s a dead issue. The U.S. Congress had set a deadline of the year 1982 by which 75 percent of the States had to ratify the ERA. Did not happen.
Do women of today really want the implications of the ERA? Such as having BOTH men and women registering for the Draft?
Who besides busybodies even brings up the ERA today?
Mr Lopez – You are noticeably silent regarding Lauf’s stellar performance last night in Bolingbrook when she emerged the clear winner.
What’s going on?
— Cat got your tongue, Mr. Lopez?
No pun intended.
Ms JenSmith: actually, the flu-bug struck me down for 2nd time in 2 months, so didn’t see debate.
But just received the video link, and will watch and judge all the candidates for myself.
** Many big fundraisers had to be canceled.**
Huh?
She canceled big fundraisers because her petitions were being challenged?
That was a poor decision.
Suburban RINO, time to change those adult diapers.
I’d help, but the stench is rather overpowering.
Sorry about what happened to your false idol: Lizzie Warren.
Jen, c’mon, Lauf is passé
I am certainly not surprised that Republican candidate Catalina Lauf had one of those moments.
I attended the Harvard Meet and Greet to learn more about candidate Buehler for County Chairmen.
Lauf also attended and she was talking with a group of young men, and what caught my attention was that she was very flirtatious.
Later on that evening, Lauf was speaking with three other young men, and I overheard one of them asked her a question that what made her different from all the other candidates, and her reply was “that I offer a new face”.
I thought to myself, you need to offer more than a pretty new face, you need to offer more than a box of rocks for brains.
Lauf has a long ways to go, and she should take that time to become educated.
Eric, please.
Did Catalina Lauf reject you as a potential suitor?
Grow up kid!
Catalina is easy on the eyes.
Do you really think AOC knows how to answer political questions?
AOC has less brians than a scrambled turnip.
Shes the abodiment of a living meme.
You have one clip of Catalina Lauf making a mistake.
Big deal.