McHenry County Blog

Here is a press release I missed earlier today from the McSweeney camp:

Candidate's spouse, Al Salvi, "Machine guns" David McSweeney on the Al Salvi Radio Show: Levels personal attacks McSweeney campaign asks for apology

Barrington Township: David McSweeney, candidate for Congress in Illinois' 8th Congressional District, was attacked personally by the spouse of one of his opponents in the Republican Primary. Al Salvi, Personal Injury Trial Lawyer Kathy Salvi's spouse, used air-time from his radio broadcast to personally attack McSweeney. In a February 22nd broadcast Al Salvi called into question McSweeney's integrity and relentlessly misrepresented his position on abortion.

After inviting McSweeney to appear on his show on February 21st Al Salvi, also a personal injury trial lawyer, tried to "badger" his guest during a live interview. After defending his wife's position on Lawsuit Reform and taking a question on abortion, Salvi began a relentless line of questioning of McSweeney's position on the issue, at times interrupting the answer and mischaracterizing that position. Salvi later apologized on air for his behavior after a series of callers complained.

The next day Al Salvi once again used his radio show to level personal attacks, make false accusations, and once again mischaracterized McSweeney's position on abortion. The following are excerpted quotes from Al Salvi from the Al Salvi Radio show on WKRS radio out of Waukegan:

"For some reason the newspapers still don't acknowledge that David McSweeney ran as a Pro-Choicer in 1998."

" If I weren't Kathy's husband I would have really pursued that even more. It had nothing to do with abortion. It had to do with integrity."

"I could have moved onto the next issue but it was B.S."

"I don't like when someone B.S.'s me."

"It goes to integrity."

(A copy of the audio file is available via e-mail upon request)
(more)

"I think that the Salvi campaign should apologize for the personal attacks on Dave McSweeney and the misrepresentation of Dave's position on an important issue. Al Salvi questioned Dave's integrity and that is about the lowest personal attack you can level on a fellow candidate. We are making the audio file available to anyone who asks because it is important to know the truth," said McSweeney Campaign Manager Jim Thacker.

"Salvi's misrepresentation of Dave's positions on the issues is also reminiscent of the false allegation against wheel chair bound former Reagan Press Secretary Jim Brady. In his 1996 bid for the US Senate, in an 11th hour act of desperation, Al Salvi falsely accused gun control activist Brady of being a machine gun dealer in a past life. The accusation was absurd and it was false and the Salvi campaign publicly apologized for it. The Salvi campaign should apologize for the verbal 'machine gunning' of Dave McSweeney's character," said Thacker.

"When you place your name in nomination for a public office you expect to be scrutinized and taken to task for your positions on issues. I don't, however, believe that there is room for personal attacks and misrepresentation of another candidate's positions. The voters deserve to know about where the candidates stand on the issues and it is an insult to those voters to think that they can be manipulated through misrepresentation," said David McSweeney.

David McSweeney resides in Barrington Township within the 8th Congressional District with his wife Margaret and their two daughters.