Jim Oberweis and Chris Lauzen interviews
December 7th, 2007Each of the 14th District candidates sat down with Jeff Berkowitz for one-on-one interviews:
If you dig through the related videos list, you’ll also find interviews with other candidates including Geneva mayor Kevin Burns, John Laesch and Jotham Stein. There’s also an interview with Elgin’s former state senator Steve Rauschenberger.
According to polling done by Lauzen’s campaign, he and Oberweis are each at 38% for the Republican nomination.
My impression from the YouTube videos is that Oberweis will have an edge over Lauzen in any debate, if they debate. Lauzen has a tendency to speak in whispers, say “uh…uh…” and doesn’t seem to have a firm idea on where he stands. He said he doesn’t know if he would have voted for NAFTA, for example. I mean how many years do you need to figure out if you would have voted for NAFTA? It’s been thirteen years, for gosh sakes.
I’ve met Lauzen before. He seems like a nice guy, but I’m just afraid the Democratic nominee–whoever it’s going to be–is going to pound him into oblivion in any debate. Oberweis, on the other hand, looks like he can hold his ground. He knows where he stands on the issues, and when he talks you have no problem hearing him.
But then again debate performance may not matter that much since television coverage will not be anything like what it is for the national debates, and Lauzen has a significant home ground advantage.
