Roskam in USAToday

Peter Roskam:

"Republicans were just discouraged about the (federal) spending" being out of control.

How does he plan to curb federal funding? As a supporter of the war in Iraq and with tax cuts. Errr...that's what he used to win the election.

Roskam refuses to be critical of Bush and continues to flaunt his Republican bonafides while claiming he doesn't like the federal spending. Republicans have overseen the five largest deficits in American history with the current President presiding over the top four. As a fiscally responsible Republican he should be against this but as a member of Republican business as usual in Washington, he won't.

Roskam blames fiscal recklessness as the reason his party lost control of the House and Senate last week and why, instead of joining the majority party, he now must settle for minority status.

This man supports tax cuts which helped create the current budget crisis, the mishandled war on terror which ballooned the deficit more, and the Iraq War which secured our status as a super-debtor country. For some reason he sees himself as Mr. Smith when his party's corruption and mismanagement is the reason they are the minority party. It is possible for him to be a reformer and a Republican but that is not the platform he ran on and does not match his history. Socially he is one of the most conservative elected members of the incoming Congress supporting the most radical agendas such as no gun control of assault weapons, against human rights for the gay, against minimum wage hike, against embyonic stem cell research, and of course wants rape victims to carry the child to term. As for his fiscally responsible credentials, they include repeated investigations into fundraising irregularities and supporting a local Republican political machine illegally raise funds.

Roskam was an aide for the indicted Tom DeLay and for the 16 term serving Henry Hyde. He his anything but an outsider and prefers Republican business as usual over helping out the general population. The reason he gives for his victory center on him being a native of the district.

"If you're running for Congress, being in the Lombardian is where you want to be," he said. "I knew that (and) it worked."

This of course completely ignores the fact that every single local paper supported Duckworth. All Roskam had to run on was the fact that he was part of the crumbling Illinois Repulican machine and even that barely helped him win the district with a mere 2% edge over Duckworth. When Hyde was in office, he routinely carried the district by wide margins with the closest competitor being Christine Cegelis who closed the gap to 11% before her grassroots campaign was booted in favor of Rahm and the Blue Dog's failed attempt to take the district.

The only reason Roskam won was because Duckworth ran a weak campaign despite the massive amount the money spent on her behalf. It had nothing to do with Roskam being the more favorable candidate but it looks like he is already moving on something analogous to Bush's 2004 "mandate".

Since the 110th Congressional session hasn't even started it is too early to tell exactly what Roskam will be like. From his history, how he ran his campaign and how he is talking now, it looks as if he is leaning towards being another yes man to failing Republican policies that continually do a diservice to the Ameican public's needs.

Welcome back to Washington Peter Roskam.