Duckworth/Roskam Wrap Up

I was planning to mention this last night, but the hour got too late. Here are a final few notes about the Duckworth-Roskam race for Henry Hyde's Illinois Congressional seat. The RNCC fed the beast over the weekend with $1,066,400.61 for attack ads against Duckworth. I'd say that officially identifies them as worried. That cash was used to support ads such as the one that Greg Sargent took apart at TPMCafe's Election Central (which came on twice as I was writing this post). Despite the fact that Roskam is on the record in both support of (to the National Taxpayers Union) and opposed to (to the AARP) privatizing Social Security, the ad accuses Duckworth of potentially undermining Social Security in three separate ways, all of which are incorrect. One of the falsehoods, that Duckworth would cut benefits, misrepresents an answer she gave to an AARP questionnaire. The AARP even sent a letter to district voters alerting them to the Roskam ad's dissembling.

And finally, I should mention the VFW's endorsement of Roskam, who's never served in the armed forces, over Duckworth, who not only served but lost her two legs in Iraq. Kos has the lowdown. Apparently no local VFW chapters were consulted on the endorsement (they support Duckworth) because it was all handled behind closed doors. Although the VFW notified Roskam of their choice earlier in the week, he held it until Friday to build some last-minute momentum going into Tuesday's vote. Too bad it backfired. Kos probably has the best summation:

As is, this endorsement is blowing up big time in Roskam's face. If nothing else, it gives Duckworth yet another chance to hold press conferences surrounded by vets and have her story repeated in newscasts.

The latest poll I've seen was a Zogby/Reuters poll from Friday, which put Duckworth up by 14 points. That sounds a bit excessive to me, but as they say, you only need to win by one.