Missing in Action -- Again

Tom DeLay is no longer a member of Congress. He keeps himself busy with plans for brainswashing TX-22 voters into allowing him to represent them – again. Karl Rove is busy with his Scheherazade Strategy. Someone else now has to concentrate on raising funds for the midterm elections in November. Money alone is not good enough. They also want to increase their numbers in Congress. Patrick O’Connor of The Hill News has the scoop:

[. . .] Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has been tapped to helm the Battleground program, the GOP’s final fundraising push of the 2006 election cycle.

Cantor, the chief deputy to Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), is tasked with raising $17.5 million, the GOP’s target for the program.

[. . .] “We have to raise money to sustain and to win,” House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) told a group of reporters after the conference meeting. “People are anteing up, and we’re looking forward to increasing our majority next year.”

[. . .] Cantor will be assisted in his fundraising efforts by seven deputies: Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Adam Putnam (Fla.), John Shimkus (Ill.), Todd Tiahrt (Kan.), Cathy McMorris (Wash.), John Mica (Fla.) and Lamar Smith (Texas).

Members have varying targets based on their seniority in the conference, from the lowest level of $70,000 to the top level for leaders and A-level committee chairmen of $550,000, said Carl Forti, the communications director for the NRCC.

The money goes directly to the NRCC, GOP aides said, and members can either write checks directly from their own campaigns accounts or ask individual donors and political action committees to write checks to the campaign committee in their name.

Hastert, Blunt and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) offered Cantor checks worth $150,000, $500,000 and $550,000, respectively, during yesterday’s conference meeting to get the fundraising drive off to a good start.

Rep. John Shimkus (IL-19) already has over $1.1 million in his account. Among his numbers are $507K from political action committees (PACs) and only $135K from in-state donors. PACs are generous.

Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL-14) to the north. Rep. Shimkus to the south. Neither bothering to campaign for themselves. Both busy creating North Texas out of Illinois.

It is a foregone conclusion that Rep. Shimkus is missing in action in IL this campaign season. He chose to campaign for Justice Lloyd Karmeier in 2004 and did almost nothing for himself. At least the voters in IL-19 officially know that their Republican representative will ignore them this year. Nothing new in that John Shimkus can win prizes for ignoring Central and So. IL. Taxpayers should remember that he will receive a $3,300 pay raise that will increase his salary to $168,500. The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate. He has to pay for his million-dollar condo in Washington, D.C., some how.

It is quite imprudent for a person to break his pledge to leave Congress after 12 years and continue to ignore his constituents. More and more people in IL-19 now refer to him as Shamkus. Some simply refer to him as Dimkus (maybe they saw this tie) or they know he was not good enough to be the class goat. Those references probably work better for his critics than using the anagram (Hum Kiss).

How fortunate can Central and So. IL residents get with Dan Stover on the ballot? He is a Democratic candidate, and his name actually spells Voters!