Progress Illinois

We know GOP Rep. Mark Kirk doesn't have much sympathy for the unemployed. But now he's trying to count Democratic opponent Dan Seals as a member of that population. From a Roll Call article published Monday:

“After losing his bid for Congress, Seals did not return to GE Finance and was unemployed,” according to a Kirk campaign memo out last week. “Near the end of the 2006 campaign, Seals paid himself $25,000 out of his campaign donor funds — an act that is legal but strongly discouraging to donors ... in May, Seals filed his 2008 financial disclosure with the U.S. House showing only $3,300 in earned income through the first quarter of the year.”

It's an odd criticism, especially considering that most candidates for Congress take leaves of absence from work to focus on hotly-contested campaigns. Archpundit agrees:

One of the most bizarre argument by the Frank Burns of the Blogosphere and Kirk is that a candidate should be employed full time while running -- which is convenient if you are an incumbent who is paid by the constituents, can mail to constituents with franking, can use your position to get your name out there, and generally have every advantage of incumbency.

But leave it to Kirk to mislead constituents. As the Seals campaign points out in the Roll Call piece, the suggestion that Seals is unemployed isn't even true:

“Mark Kirk entirely overlooks the fact that Dan Seals has worked as a business consultant and lecturer at Northwestern since 2006 and that Seals’ wife serves in a senior level corporate position,” the Seals campaign memo states. “So the question is, what does Mark Kirk find so objectionable that the Seals family, like many families in the 10th district have two working parents?”

Not convinced? Rob at Illinois Reason reminds us that we can look to the local conservative blogosphere for more proof.

Team America again carries water for the Kirk campaign with this goofy rant that Congressional Candidate and Northwestern Professor Dan Seals is “unemployed”…

Wasn’t it just a few short weeks ago that TA was griping about Mr. Seals’ very employment at Northwestern University? Yes. Yes it was.

It’s really an either/or — partisans can’t complain that he’s both employed and unemployed. Then again, that would mean that TA would have to pick just one distortion to infopimp rather than simply shake the Magic 8 Ball and see what pops up.

It's not entirely clear why the Kirk campaign would peddle such trash about a candidate with loads of teaching and business experience and degrees from the nation's best universities. DailyKos' BrownSox fears the worst:

Who do they think they're kidding with the "unemployed" line? Who do they think would buy the idea of Dan Seals as a freeloader?

Please tell me it doesn't have anything to do with Seals being African-American, running in an affluent white district.

Because if it does, Kirk is guilty of engaging in the most shameful and vile brand of politics imaginable.