Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, has a fundraising luncheon every year, usually at Cliffbreakers or Giovanni’s. But this year’s event took place Monday at Super Democrat Sunil Puri’s Radisson Hotel and Rockford Conference Center. RAVE Chairman and Mayor Larry Morrissey confidante Mike Dunn introduced Syverson, perhaps indicating a shifting of the political winds around here.
Puri, a strong supporter and friend of both President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, was seated at the head table with, among others, Syverson, Chief Road Ranger Dan Arnold and the featured guest, conservative commentator and author Dick Morris. He believes the Obama presidency and the Democratic Congress are twin disasters of monumental proportions.
Talk about strange bedfellows, or in this case lunch fellows.
Morris, a frequent contributor to Fox News Channel, spoke without notes for nearly an hour on a variety of topics, centering on the ballooning national debt, the growth of government and the outlook for the Nov. 2 election.
Morris was an adviser to President Bill Clinton. He said he used to be a conservative Democrat but became a Republican “because there are no conservative Democrats in the age of Reid, Obama and Pelosi.”
Morris said he’s been campaigning lately for GOP candidates. He predicted Republicans will retake the House and maybe the Senate.
“What’s going on out there is unbelievable. It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve gone into 12 (congressional) districts in the last few weeks, all represented by Democrats. And in every one of those districts, the insurgent Republican is at least tied and in some places ahead of the incumbent Democrat,” Morris said.
“I believe this year’s election will not just be a cyclical change, but it will really amount to the obliteration of a generation of Democratic politicians in the United States,” he said.
“You may see literally 70 or 80 seats change hands in the House, in addition to 20 Democratic retirements where Republicans are likely to win. You could literally have a situation where half the white Democratic incumbent congressmen lose,” Morris said.
“And in the Senate I think the changes are going to be just as profound … but you definitely have Republican wins in Delaware, Indiana, North Dakota and Arkansas. In Illinois Mark Kirk should win … In Wisconsin, Russ Feingold has been searching for a safe district, but has been unable to find one other than Havana and Caracas,” he said.
Also in the audience were the two Syverson Democrats on the Rockford City Council, Aldermen Lenny Jacobson, D-6th, and Nancy s, Johnson, D-8th. This pair have attended just about every Syverson event there’s ever been.
We can only hope that Morris is more accurate now, than with his book “Condi vs Hillary”, forecasting the 2008 election matchup.
I am cautiously optomistic that he is correct, but a lot can happen in these last 84 days.
I don\\\\\\\’t think this a dem or rep issue…I think it is an incumbent issue. Dave Syverson is the epitome of what is wrong in Springfield or in Washington for that matter. Party line hack. Going home without a budget. Collecting his money & pension down the road, and working hardly at all for it. A big gravy train. Let\\\\\\\’s face it – put any politician in any suit – they are all the same in the end.
@ Mary Allen: I have to disagree, somewhat. The Leftist Democrat/Socialists spend our money, and take away our freedoms with their nanny-state agenda, at a much faster rate than the last batch of Republicans. Hopefully, the newer Republicans have learned, will follow a more conservative path, and cut all this wasteful bloating of our government.