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Dold, Schneider sensitive over political attacks
Election 2012
Bob Dold
Party: Republican
Age: 43
Lives: Kenilworth
Family: Married with three children
Education: Master’s from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management
Website: www.doldforcongress.com
Brad Schneider
Party: Democrat
Age: 51
Lives: Deerfield
Family: Married, two children
Education: Master’s in Business Administration from Northwestern University
Website: schneiderforcongress.com
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Updated: November 2, 2012 10:22AM
It isn’t too tough to get U.S. Rep. Bob Dold going.
Just ask the 10th Congressional District Republican representing the North Shore whether he’s affiliated with the Tea Party, as his opponent, Brad Schneider, a Democrat, has repeatedly said in mailings.
Dold walks intently across the length of his Highland Park campaign office, stretching out a printed voting analysis of Congress members published by the Washington Post. He points to his name, which, in a long list of names, is toward the bottom of the rankings. The percentage of times he voted with Republicans on key votes: 82 percent. That’s compared with other members who notched in the 90s and even 100 percent.
What it proves, the Kenilworth congressman says, is that he’s more than willing to break with the party when necessary.
Schneider is “just misinformed or he’s just trying to mislead the voters. Either is unacceptable,” Dold said. “I would say that you can take it from me or you can take it from independent analysis: I’m one of the most independent members of not just the freshman class but of the party.”
Schneider’s campaign counters that Dold has voted with the Tea Party on some key votes. Schneider is just as easily riled. His sensitive topic? His work background.
DISCLOSURES SHOW NO INCOME
The Dold camp questions why Schneider campaigns as a savior to small business when recent disclosures from his Cadence Consulting company shows he has made no income.
“My opponent has said he’s a business person. What’s his business? Zero revenue. Zero employees. Zero clients,” Dold said.
Schneider bristles at the question, saying he may have not shown revenues in the last couple of years, but that’s not unusual. He says his opponent doesn’t understand what it is to be an entrepreneur.
“My focus was looking to find opportunities for investment and spending time to cultivate the deals to look at ... A great deal of my time was spent on that. While looking for businesses to invest in ... they’re not generating revenues,” he said. “I was able to go off on my own to make a decision to put my energies to look for a business to buy. I didn’t need to have income for that time.”
Sensitivities are high as the pair duke it out. On the one hand, the 10th District has more than 30 years of Republican representation. On the other, Dold is now facing a new, more Democrat-leaning district in his first attempt at re-election.
After a congressional remap controlled by Democrats, Dold’s new district contains about 60 percent of the old areas. However, that is a relatively high percentage compared with other remapped districts.
The district has long demonstrated that it will back strong, pro-Israel candidates — something with which both Dold and Schneider say they identify.
Both candidates say they support the extension of Route 53 to help relieve congestion and build infrastructure in Lake County — as long as it is done in an environmentally sensitive way.
While it has launched a TV ad and campaign material casting Dold as a Tea Party sympathizer, Schneider’s camp says it isn’t calling Dold a Tea Partier but one who votes with the Tea Party on key votes. That includes voting to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul. However, Dold — among the few Republicans who uses the term Affordable Care Act rather than “Obamacare” — said he would like to see more compromise in the health plan.
