Below the fold is a list of times and places for canvassing and phonebanking as we come down the stretch. Some are in the city for people who don't want to drive all the way out to the burbs. Please look them over, see what fits in your schedule and if you can help please do.

Roskam can count on thousands of fundies, racists and gun nuts (the NRA is providing bodies and $$) to GOTV in the final weeks. We have to match him to get all those drop off voters to drop in at the polls this time.

Even if we could match him flyer for flyer, commercial for commercial, nothing compares with person to person contact face to face to get them to the polls.  

Duckworth for Congress

Volunteer Events:

Election Day and Election Weekend Get-Out-The-Vote Volunteering

This November, Tammy Duckworth needs your help to win. Come volunteer on Election Day, November the 7th, going door-to-door to make sure that the voters get out to the polls and that Tammy gets into office. Come out the weekend before too, on November the 4th and the 5th and on Monday the 6th, to remind everyone in the district that their chance to make a change in Washington is coming. The final four days of this election will decide who goes to Washington to represent the 6th District, and Tammy will only win if she gets your help.

Please RSVP for all these events at 630-629-0480.

Volunteer Canvassing Rally, Saturday the 21st, here in the Sixth District of Illinois:

Come out this Saturday and go door-to-door through the sixth district talking to voters and spreading Tammy's message. Let the people know how great a candidate she really is and join in the fight to set our nation back on course this November.

9 am: We meet at our Des Plaines office, at 50 W Oakton St, in the Machinists Union Hall. Tammy will stop by to talk with volunteers before we go out.

10 am: We meet at our Hoffman Estates office, at 2500 W Higgins Road, Office # 1035. Tammy will stop by to talk with volunteers before we go out.

11 am: We meet at our Main Field Office, at the corner of North Avenue and Rohlwing Road, in the North Avenue Shopping mall. Tammy will stop by to talk with volunteers before we go out.

Please RSVP to 630-629-0480.

Canvassing, Sunday the 22nd

We will be out the following Sunday as well, walking precincts and making sure that everyone in the district knows their chance to send Tammy to Washington is coming.

11 am: We meet in Lombard at our Main Field Office, at the corner of North Avenue and Rohlwing Road, in the North Avenue Shopping mall.

Please RSVP to 630-629-0480

1 pm: We meet at our Hoffman Estates office, at 2500 W Higgins Road, Office # 1035.  

Also at our Des Plaines office, at 50 W Oakton St, in the Machinists Union Hall.

Get-Out-The-Vote Volunteer Training, Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th

One week before the election, come to a volunteer training session to learn everything you'll need to know to be part of our Election Day GOTV Volunteer team. This election will be won or lost depending on how many doors we knock on during the final four days. Come find out what it takes to win.

We meet at 10 am Saturday and 12 pm Sunday, at our Main Field office in Lombard, at the corner of North Avenue and Rohlwing Road in the North Avenue Shopping Mall.

Please RSVP to Alex at 630-629-0480.

Election Day Lawyers Training

We meet on Sunday, October 29th, at 3:30 PM in our South Office, at 416 W 22nd Street, Lombard.

Please RSVP to Alex at 630-629-0480.

Poll Watcher Training

We meet on Sunday, October 29th, at 5:00 PM in our South Office, at 416 W 22nd Street, Lombard.

Please RSVP to Alex at 630-629-0480

Phone Banking:

We have regular phone banks around the district throughout the week. In our main office in Lombard, we call voters all day every day and every night of the week but Friday.

Lombard: 1000 Rohlwing Road, at the corner of North Ave and Rohlwing, in the North Avenue Shopping Mall. Feel free to call us at 630-629-0480, or just to stop by with whatever time you can spare.

Hoffman Estates: Every Tuesday and Wednesday from 5 to 9 pm, in our office at 2500 W Higgins, Office # 1035.

Des Plaines: Every Saturday from 10 to 3 pm, and every Sunday from 1 to 9 pm, at the Machinists Union Hall, at 50 W Oakton Street.

Chicago: We have downtown phone banks coming up on October the 17th, the 24th, and the 26th, from 5 to 9 pm, in the IBEW 134 office, at 600 West Washington Blvd.

Evanston: We also have a phone bank every Thursday in Evanston, starting at 5:30 pm, at 826 Custer, Evanston, IL 60202.

And, just in case we run out of phone-lines, please bring your cell-phone!

Well the Oct. 15 quarterly FEC filings are in. First the good news. Duckworth outraised Roskam $940,175.90 to $561,202.81 in the quarter. The bad news is she trails him in cash on hand $206,381.91 to $1,500,950.95.

He's using this cash advantage right now to swiftboat Tammy with some of the most despicable ads you're ever likely to see. Read on for links and some other news and a pretty important recent endorsement.

First of all Petey's ad. This is a typical Roskam/Republican smear. As the NRCC commercials have been saying he claims she supports Teddy Kennedy's "amnesty bill" for illegal aliens. Ted Kennedy has no "amnesty bill", he's a co-sponsor of John McCain's "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" which doesn't call for amnesty at all. It calls for earned legalization. BTW McCain gave Roskam $2,500. He ought to get it back. While not a perfect bill, of the alternatives it's a damn sight better than the Sensenbrenner bill Roskam apparently favors. How dishonest are these ads? Ask the Chicago Tribune which has this to say today about them in an editorial called "Don't quote us on that" which also blasts Blagojevich for using the same tactic:

Roskam's ad refers to a Sept. 23 story that mentions Duckworth's support for the U.S. Senate's immigration bill. The story says the bill "would allow illegal immigrants to apply for citizenship after learning English, staying employed for a prescribed length of time and paying a fine and back taxes." Not a word about welfare or Social Security. Roskam may think that's a fair extrapolation, and he's free to make that case. But those statements are coming from his campaign, and his ads shouldn't suggest otherwise.

In other words, Petey you're lying and don't drag us into it, we're not backing you up.

They've also got another editorial today that excoriates the same kind of racist, exonophobic cretins taking Petey's position on a local level in Carpentersville IL and Arcadia WI called Mayberry I.N.S.

But that's not all that's in that commercial. If you freeze and zoom on the frames where Tammy is in black and white under a shower of dollar bills (free welfare and social security for illegal aliens!) and look at her face they've done a real bad job of photoshopping her eyes to make her look more asian than she is. Why not just put a cooley hat on her head Petey?

We're getting buried under a blizzard of these ads rights now. That includes the $1.8 million the NRCC has pumped into this race and Petey's $1.5 million warchest.

Jon Carson the campaign manager tells me our ads will soon hit the airwaves. He says they are going to set the facts straight and if you read the early versions of this diary you'll notice I've revised them. It's safe to say Roskam is going to be xposed for what he is. I have no idea how much the DCCC is going to back us with, but I can tell you Tammy can't count on the DCCC and Rahm Emanual riding to the rescue. There's just too many races to fund right now.

Tammy needs money to make up some of that $1.3 million dollar difference and boots on the ground knocking on doors and making phonecalls. We had some college people up from Champaign on Saturday and I understand there were others I didn't meet already out in the field when I got to the office. But we need more of everything and everybody to put Tammy over the top.

You can contribute here or volunteer here.

BTW a good endorsement from the Daily Herald, a widely read local paper out here. Another one Petey likes to misquote in his ads.

For the open 6th District House seat: Duckworth

 

We are closer to agreement with Duckworth than with Roskam on the war and several other key issues. She is in favor of the Senate immigration bill that charts a clear pathway to citizenship rather than the House bill Roskam supports that unilaterally and we believe unrealistically would try to send all undocumented immigrants back home.

Roskam is opposed to reinstating the federal assault weapons ban - a stance that puts him at odds even with the conservative Hyde - while Duckworth backs the ban, which expired in 2004. Roskam supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Duckworth sees the folly in amending the constitution for that issue. Duckworth supports embryonic stem cell research; Roskam is opposed. Duckworth has indicated a willingness to be an independent voice in Congress, despite the heavy backing of her party. If she is elected, we will hold her to that pledge. We believe Roskam, on the other hand, based on his tenure in the General Assembly, would contribute to the polarizing
atmosphere now exhibited in Washington.

That's not to say Roskam isn't a viable candidate. Indeed, we have supported him in some, but not all of his past elections. But when we have, he has not had a strong moderate opponent.

It's true that Roskam is more in line with the outgoing Hyde, whom we have supported for years. But it is also true that the district Hyde was elected to for so many years has undergone dramatic change in its demographics and its political leanings. Hyde's toughest election was his last, two years ago.

That's why this district is so important on the national stage. And with an open seat, there is not the added burden of a challenger needing to make the case to unseat a sitting congressmen. In this case, between two challengers, we believe Tammy Duckworth is the better choice on Nov. 7.

The next debate is

Date: 10/19/2006

Time: 9:05 p.m.

Details: Tammy debates Peter Roskam on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio 91.5 FM.