Kirk Feared Becoming a "Moderate Victim"
Politico reports:
Illinois Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk expressed concern about being "the next moderate victim" well before the tea party made its imprint on the 2010 cycle, according to a campaign memo he wrote last fall that was leaked to POLITICO.
The memo revealed that Kirk, a North Shore congressman who ended up winning his February primary by a wide margin, also canceled a press conference on health care reform around the same time "due to the damage to the moderate label."
The e-mail, sent from Kirk to campaign manager Eric Elk during the morning of Nov. 3, 2009, was provided to POLITICO by a Democratic operative who claims to have received it from someone close to Kirk's inner circle.
The thoughts expressed by the congressman provide a rare look inside the candidate's political positioning as he prepared for a potential primary challenge from the right in an otherwise solidly Democratic state.
The memo also bolsters the image of Kirk as a hands-on conductor of day-to-day campaign operations.
"Eric - Taskers — I am concerned that we are meat on the table for the next moderate victim. Fast work will point the gun elsewhere. I canceled the health care press due to the damage to the moderate label," the e-mail begins.
"We can work FAST with Jason to communicate with conservative elites that we are the only candidate that can take the president's Senate seat, leading to a tough go in the next two months but smart conservatives want the humiliation of the White House when and where it counts — November 2010 in Obama's home state of Illinois," he continues.
The congressman then makes a six-point list of items that need to be addressed on policy, polling and press strategy. The third task informs Elk that there will be "no health care press by moderates today."
"The moderate brand has to be rebuilt after Scozzafava implosion," Kirk writes, referring to the liberal Republican nominee in New York's 23rd Congressional District who was all but forced out of the race after Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman mounted a viable third party bid in a special election last year.
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