Mark Kirk is a Republican congressman from the Chicago area -- the district he represents voted for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. A key reason he has been able to win re-election is that he has aggressively wooed Jewish Democrats and has succeeded just enough to win re-election three times.
This election cycle, Mark Kirk has a problem, and that problem is me. I'm running for his seat -- and frankly speaking, I'm his worse nightmare.
I'm a Jewish Democrat, supportive of Israel's security needs and absolutely certain of the need for a much more intelligent national security policy than the one we have (the one Mark Kirk keeps rubber-stamping). I'm also a strong progressive on social and economic policies -- I was raised by a single mom, so I know what it's like to live paycheck-to-paycheck and what it means to get even a small scholarship to college. A lot of people in the 10th district believe what I believe -- plenty, I think, to turn the seat around next year.
What do all Republicans do when they can't beat you on the issues? They try to beat you with your own biography.
They did it to Max Cleland.
They did it to John Kerry.
And they are trying to do it to me.
Here's how it played out: Last weekend, I attended the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago -- something I very much enjoyed. I saw many old friends there and I made many new ones. I saw a whole convention filled with people who are passionate about their politics and their country.
Let's face it: Considering the cynicism and disinterest in most corners of American politics, it was refreshing to see a convention hall full of people who all paid their own way to Chicago to meet and talk about the future of this country.
Just as the convention ended, one of Congressman Kirk's most ardent supporters, a guy named Andy Lappin, sent an email to a long list of recipients, calling me anti-Semitic for attending the YearlyKos convention. That's right -- he said I wasn't Jewish enough. So what was that bris all about?
Kirk's lapdog took a few isolated posts -- posts that I personally find abhorrent but sadly are part of the backwash of online chatter -- and basically tried to stick them to me.
So, here we go again -- Mark Kirk must have figured that it worked with Cleland, it worked with Kerry, so it will definitely work with Footlik.
Tell the Jew he's not Jewish enough? Now, that's chutzpah.
At the risk of dignifying a personal insult, here are my Jewish deets: I was raised in Skokie, among one of the biggest communities of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. I went to Ezra Habonim synagogue and my mom still works at the local Jewish Community Center. My beautiful wife was raised in Israel and served in the Israeli Air Force.
I lived in Israel -- during some of the most difficult years that country ever saw. I worked with former Israeli Prime Minister and current Israeli President Shimon Peres -- and am on the board of the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
Frankly, if I'm not Jewish or pro-Israel enough for Mark Kirk, the Pope's not Catholic enough for him either.
I want to be generous of spirit here; maybe Mark Kirk didn't know his longtime supporter would come after my Jewish bona fides... maybe Mark Kirk doesn't think I need to defend myself... maybe Mark Kirk will apologize.
But I doubt it.
I think Mark Kirk thinks he'll get away with it, just as the Republicans got away with sliming Max Cleland, and just as they got away with questioning the courage of John Kerry.
But they won't get away with it with me. He thinks I'll stop talking about my close connection to the Jewish community and to the Israeli people. He's wrong. Frankly, come November 2008, he'll see just how wrong he was.