{"id":272375,"date":"2010-02-03T13:27:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T18:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a8587c31970b"},"modified":"2010-02-03T13:27:19","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T18:27:19","slug":"giannoulias-kirk-already-scrapping-in-contest-for-obamas-old-senate-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/272375","title":{"rendered":"Giannoulias, Kirk already scrapping in contest for Obama&#8217;s old Senate seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by John Chase<\/em> at 12:25 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>With the battle for President Barack Obama&#8217;s former U.S. Senate seat just hours old, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk wasted little time slamming each other and setting a tone for the fall campaign.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Kirk, a five-term North Shore congressman, criticized state treasurer Giannoulias&#8217; management of a college savings program and his work at Broadway Bank. Giannoulias hammered Kirk for &quot;ridiculous political attacks&quot; and not being focused on the economy.<\/p>\n<p><\/br>Standing outside a shuttered General Electric appliances factory in Cicero, Giannoulias said the plant closure is the result of failed Republican initiatives in Washington, D.C.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#8217;m the only candidate talking about jobs and moving this country forward,&quot; Giannoulias said. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a Republican unity breakfast, Kirk said \u201cthe whole fate of this<br \/>\ncountry and the upper chamber rests\u201d on his battle with Giannoulias.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate contest, which is expected to be expensive, already has begun to garner national attention. At the GOP unity breakfast, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour praised Kirk as being &quot;the right man at the right time.&quot;<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Giannoulias criticized Barbour as being a longtime Washington lobbyist who represented the Mexican government during ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>National Democrats already engaged in the race as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When asked if he expected to get significant backing from President Obama, Giannoulias said he did and even got a phone call from the man he&#8217;s known for years and played basketball with. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;President Obama called and apparently I missed it but the White House called to congratulate us last night and we&#8217;re going to do everything we can to make sure we keep this seat,&quot; Giannoulias said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by John Chase at 12:25 p.m.With the battle for President Barack Obama&#8217;s former U.S. Senate seat just hours old, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk wasted little time slamming each other and setting a tone for the fall campaign.Kirk, a five-term North Shore congressman, criticized state treasurer Giannoulias&#8217; management of a college savings [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}