Progress Illinois

At a recent DuPage County GOP rally, U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk remarked that, if elected to the U.S. Senate, he would not repeat his vote in favor of cap-and-trade legislation because he would no longer be representing the "narrow interests" of the 10th Congressional District.  Of course, we already knew that Kirk was backtracking from that cap-and-trade vote, so it's not surprising that he would pledge to oppose it going forward.  Still, the video is worth a watch (the statement in question comes at the three-minute mark):

KIRK: I voted for [cap-and-trade] because it was in the narrow interests of my congressional district. But as your representative representing the entire state of Illinois, I will vote no on that bill coming up and that’s because we are a manufacturing, agriculture, and coal state and that’s a path I think we need to build.

Today, Capitol Fax, Talking Points Memo, and Greg Sargent all highlighted this "creative" maneuver and noted how it appeared to lead the crowd from booing to cheering.  However, one thing that hasn't been noted yet is that the above statement doesn't exactly jibe with Kirk's previous explanations of his shift in position. For instance, here he is on WIND Radio on July 20: 

Internal mp3

KIRK: If this [cap-and-trade bill] comes back [to the U.S. House] -- and I don’t think it will, I think this bill has died in the Senate -- I will be going through every detail and thinking about all of my constituents who got a hold of me on this issue. Because there has been an issue that I’ve heard nothing else about in the last couple of weeks. 

So back in July, Kirk said he would reconsider his vote due to the outrage he heard from his 10th District constituents. Now he's saying that he voted for it because of his 10th District constituents' "narrow interests."  Makes perfect sense ...