Jim Walz at Indivisibles Joint Meeting – 4.23.17

by , posted on Sunday, April 23rd, 2017 at 8:42 pm

Indivisible Fox Valley and Indivisible Kane County held a joint meeting today at The Finery in St Charles. They invited Jim Walz, 2016 Democratic Candidate for IL-14, and Corinne Pierog, 2016 Democratic Candidate for State Senate to speak.

I went to the meeting primarily to hear where Walz is on the issues, as I’ve now heard more than a few people propose him as the candidate most likely to take on Hultgren in 2018.

Although she spoke second, I think I will get to Corinne Pierog first. Pierog did not seem to be making a case for a next election so much as she seemed to be giving a bit of a primer for how it feels to run for office. She went over her several races and offered some advice for those thinking about running. To be honest, she lost me at “you have to get to the center” once you’re in office. I get her point – that a representative has to represent all of her constituents, once elected. I just disagree that you do that best by getting to the center.

Besides, as I said, I went mostly to try to get an idea of where Walz is on the issues as most people I know seem to think he will be running against Hultgren again, and most seem to think he will be the likely nominee. I think that remains to be seen, as I have now heard of three other candidates by name, and today heard a rumor of a possible fourth, with no name attached. I’m confident this would be an additional candidate, as the four I’ve heard named (if we include Walz) are all men, and this new rumor was about a woman candidate.

In any case, with this many names floating about this early, it appears as if it may be a very crowded primary field. I’m not ready to pick a candidate yet, but today I began to try to get a grip on who stands for what. Walz did not disappoint me, although I think it should be noted he stated he is not quite ready to declare. I think Walz is pretty reliably progressive on the issues. He only had two things to say that I questioned.

The first being that he indicted he would take a gradual approach to Medicare for all without expanding on how he’d bring that about. I had a chance to ask him after the event and he said he’d like to see the age lowered each year until everyone is covered. I think that’s a not unreasonable course, particularly if we were to immediately lower it for those 55 and older, as that’s precisely the group who are driving up the cost of Obamacare.

But it troubles me because I think at some point, while we are age-lowering, we are likely to once again see branches of government in control of those who’d like to stop that absorption of the entire population into Medicare. I think the process would always be in danger of being stopped by the next congress or the next administration.

The other item that troubled me was his statement that he would not decline all corporate contributions, but would rather decline selected ones, such as contributions from big pharma, oil companies – he managed to list virtually any corporation a progressive would have trouble with him taking cash from. Walz also committed to return any corporate contribution that slipped through his net of those deemed acceptable.

It may be unreasonable of me to think so, but I really do want to support a candidate who will refuse any corporate donations outright. I don’t want a representative who is only beholden to good corporations, I want a representative who is only beholden to his or her constituents. I think it’s very hard to get to be that rep if you accept corporate cash.

Still, I was, for the most part, pleased by Walz’ positions on the issues.

You can watch his remarks in three parts on YouTube, via the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I will do my best to capture remarks from the other potential candidates as the opportunity arises. I want to thank Kane County and Fox Valley Indivisible for making this one possible!

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