My take on what Joe Walsh is going to do is run for re-election where he lives, that is, in the 14th Congressional District against fellow freshman incumbent Randy Hultgren.
Hultgren has already announced his candidacy.
Walsh has signaled his intention to run in the 14th by holding two Saturday “Joe with Joe’s” in Crystal Lake (Country Donuts and Richard Walker’s Pancake House).
Joe Walsh listens as constituent asks question at the Woodstock VFW Town Hall Meeting last Thursday night.
He has also held three Town Hall meetings in Crystal Lake, most of which is located outside of his 8th Congressional District. (The first was with Mark Kirk and Mike Tryon right after the election and before the congressional districts were redrawn by Illinois Democrats.)
Just last week, robo-calls inviting people to his Woodstock VFW Town Hall Meeting were made to Crystal Lake households outside of the 8th District. (Only one precinct in the southeastern corner of Dorr Township has Crystal Lake addresses.)
I even received a call from Walsh and I’m not in the new 14th District. Instead I live in almost the most northwest home of the new 6th District, now represented by Congressman Peter Roskam. (Guess phone numbers are not zoned by precinct by whoever made the calls.)
In any event, it appears to me that Walsh is trying to appeal to those Republicans who are very, very upset with Barack Obama as President.
He is doing so by actively attacking the President.
He did it by calling the President out for suggesting that Social Security checks would not be sent out if the debt ceiling were not raised. That was in the video characterized as calling the President a “liar.”
Next Thursday’s “Jobs” speech will be the second he has skipped using the same reason, that is, that he did not want to be a prop to a political speech.
Do people agree?
Or the better question, “Do those likely to vote in the Republican primary election agree?”
Yesterday on Illinois Review I found a reader poll that asks whether people agree with Walsh’s decision to boycott the speech.
It’s 60-40.
That’s an inexact proxy for 14th Congressional District primary voters, but it is an indication that Walsh is not making a dead bang stupid mistake.
But Illinois Leader does bill itself as the “Crossroads of the Conservative Community,” so it does have some significance.
Monday, Walsh’s skipping the President’s speech showed it still had legs. Lynn Sweet wrote the following story in the Chicago Sun-Times:
When a story has legs, it means that it lasts more than one day.
