CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
June 19, 2009 – 5:23 p.m.
First-Time Candidate Plans Ahead — Way Ahead
By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff
Sam Spradlin, an Illinois truck driver and a political unknown, is biding his time with his planned campaign for the U.S. House. That’s because he’s not running until 2012.
Spradlin, a Republican, recently filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to initiate his unusually early campaign in Illinois’ east-central 15th District, currently represented by five-term Republican Timothy V. Johnson .
Spradlin’s anonymity in political circles helps explain why he is undertaking a campaign more than three years ahead of a 2012 general election in which he hopes he’ll be the Republican nominee.
“I am totally unknown,” Spradlin conceded Friday. “In order to raise the money, it’s going to take a massive effort on my part to even have a prayer.”
Spradlin also said that he wanted to run in 2012 because he thinks he will be helped by a higher vote turnout in a presidential election year. President Barack Obama , a former senator from Illinois, should dominate the vote in his home state in the November general election that year, though there could be a competitive Republican presidential primary that coincides with the party’s primary for the House seat.
Spradlin thinks that immigration may be an issue in the 2012 campaign. He supports securing the nation’s southern and northern borders and increasing funding for the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol. But, unlike many Republicans, he also supports “either a worker program or even an amnesty” for the millions of illegal immigrants currently in the United States.
“I can’t think of any way that you could justify rounding up that many people and try to send them out of the United States,” Spradlin said. “I think it would be a humanitarian disaster. And I don’t think the United States should be involved in such Gestapo tactics within its own borders.”
“I think we should legalize them and get them on the tax rolls,” he said.
Spradlin also stated his opposition to Obama’s plans for overhauling health care policies.
Spradlin said he was aware that the next round of congressional redistricting will occur before the 2012 election and will reshape the boundaries of Illinois’ districts. Illinois’ 15th presently takes in the cities of Champaign and Urbana and part of Bloomington.
Spradlin lives in Springfield, outside the boundaries of the district, but says that he constantly works in the 15th.
It’s unusual but not unprecedented for a House candidate to organize a campaign in the election cycle prior to the one in which he or she actually runs. Republican Charles Djou, a Honolulu city councilman, formed a campaign committee in November 2007 to begin preparing a 2010 run in Hawaii’s 1st District, which Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie , as widely anticipated, is leaving open to run for governor.
Comments
E-Verify should be a permanent part of the arsenal against the illegal immigration invasion. It should be implemented as mandatory and upgraded with modifications and added tools? Their should be no exemptions with the risk of severe penalties. Every workplace should use it, from it's oldest workers to new hires? THE MAJORITY OF--THE PEOPLE--MUST SPEAK UP OR WE SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES? The American public are kept in the dark, while secret discussions happen behind closed doors. The only way that illegal immigration occupational army will be--ERADICATED--for good, is the paramount overwhelming pressure of public awareness, bearing down on their Senators and Congressman? It will also forcibly remove the nefarious activities of criminals. THE COST TO SUPPORT THESE ILLEGAL PEOPLE IS ASTRONOMIC! Say--YES--to e-verify! It will empty the workplace of illegal labor stealing jobs. Errors can be resolved at the Social Security office, where illegal workers wouldn't dare to go. Tell our corrupted legislators to seal THE BORDER. TELL THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT THE BORDER FENCE AND HALT WEAKENING IMMIGRATION LAWS AND STOP PANDERING TO THE OPEN BORDERS, FREE TRADERS AND SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS. Say--NO--to any AMNESTY. Outside of this--NOTHING WILL HAPPEN--EXCEPT ANOTHER PRE-ARRANGED AMNESTY, THAT TAXPAYERS WILL GET THE BILL IN INFINITY. Digest more of the facts and unbiased truth at NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIALWATCH,CAPSWEB, ALIPAC, AMERICANPATROL. Find out undisclosed news and the numbers of illegal aliens in the penal system at THEDARKSIDEOFILLEGALIMMIGRATION & ILLEGALIMMIGRATIONDAILY.
Spradlin would allow an illegal invasion and attack upon the United States simply because the invaders are not soldiers! Yeah we really need more non intellectuals like him representing "us" in the Congress. What about the Holocaust that is happening to Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans and the founding stock of the United States. When are public officials going to show some concern about what is happening to us and our culture when we are forced to share our inheritance with the hordes of the third world. What do we need with Spradlin in Congress? We don't. We need someone who will fight against Globalization and out of control immigration. By the time 2012 rolls around Americans may very well be lining people like Spradlin up and putting a bullet into their brains along with the nation's "journalists". Good riddance to all of you.
Don't you think that is a little harsh to say? The illiegals are geting more bennifits than the hard working American gets. As someone m age is looking at, I'm looking at how am I going to get to college, as an average immigrant can cross the border and he or she is welcomed with a full scholarship to college.
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