Tag: juliana stratton

Then in the ad, Stratton speaks about how she will stand up to Trump in Washington, D.C., and closes with another three people, including Duckworth, saying, “F−−− Trump,” before Gov. JB Pritzker appears briefly to say, “Vote Juliana.”

The campaign said a version of the ad that bleeps out the “F” word was being sent for broadcast TV stations to air. But an unredacted version was sent to reporters and appears on the campaign’s “YouTube” website. The campaign did not say if the unbleeped version would be used on cable or digital platforms.

The ad is the first produced and paid for by Stratton’s own campaign, though her candidacy has been bolstered by millions of dollars in ads from an allied political action committee largely funded by Pritzker, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune.

While potentially attention-grabbing for its shock value, its use of repeated profanity raises questions about how effective it will be with Democratic voters in the March 17 primary as she faces two main rivals, U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg and Robin Kelly of Lynwood.

All three candidates have sought to portray themselves as the strongest contender to take on the Trump administration if elected in November. But Krishnamoorthi, a prolific fundraiser, has spent millions on advertising since July and had the TV airwaves to himself until the Stratton-aligned Illinois Future PAC began advertising in mid-January. Kelly has not aired any TV ads and has been relying on social media.

Federal Communications Commission rules and communications law generally prevent licensed broadcast TV stations from editing or censoring political advertising content from legally qualified federal candidates unless it is legally obscene or violates a felony statute.

The new ad served as the backdrop for the latest debate among the three Democratic contenders vying for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in January. The hour-long debate, hosted by WGN Ch.-9, was also broadcast statewide on Nexstar-owned stations in Champaign, Rockford, Peoria, the Quad Cities, St. Louis and the Terre Haute, Indiana, market.

Stratton defended the ad in the debate, saying, “It captures exactly what people are feeling right now.”

“They feel like, look at Washington. People aren’t happy with what’s happening in Congress. They’re wondering why nothing is changing in their lives,” she said. “Everything is getting more expensive and here they are wondering, ‘When are we going to stand up and not let this president just get away with what he’s doing?’”

Asked by moderator Micah Materre what happened to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2016 admonition that “when they go low, we go high,” Stratton responded, “Well, we’re not talking about a normal president. We’re not even talking about a normal person.”

Kelly, in her 13th year in the House, added her own colorful language to the debate as she explained to voters she was running to make life more affordable.

“Frankly, it pisses me off that Donald Trump and his billionaire, millionaire friends have only gotten richer, while others have struggled and are being squeezed. It also pisses me off to be seeing millionaires and billionaires are trying to buy this election and that should piss you off too,” she said.

All three of the candidates said they would support efforts to see Trump impeached for a third time.

“When the president said the other day that the only thing that’s holding him in check is his own morality, we know that we’re in trouble,” Krishnamoorthi said. “He doesn’t have morality. He doesn’t have a moral compass. He’s about himself. He’s about putting his private, personal interests above those of the public.”

Kelly said her decision to push for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over her leadership of Trump’s aggressive federal immigration enforcement policies was “a way of getting to” Trump.

“We can start working on his secretaries, whether it’s (Attorney General) Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, (Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.) Kennedy — all the incompetent leaders that he has surrounded himself with,” Kelly said. “But yet, he definitely is worthy of impeachment because of all the things that he’s doing.”

Kelly and Stratton said they supported efforts to enact Medicare-for-All legislation, with the lieutenant governor saying she wanted to make sure “people understand that health care is a way that we can address affordability and we need to be bold and courageous in pushing to make sure that happens.”

Krishnamoorthi said Medicare-for-All was “an excellent goal” and would vote for it if a bill were presented but said there was a more immediate need in restoring Trump cuts in Medicaid funding and the elimination of tax subsidies for people under the Affordable Care Act.

“Right now we have a five-alarm fire that’s consuming our health care system that we need to address,” he said, citing the eventual loss of health care insurance for 17 million people.

On foreign policy, Kelly was the only one of the three who said she believed the killing of Palestinians by Israeli military forces in their effort to remove Hamas after the group’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack constituted genocide.

“It may not have started off being like that, but I believe that is what it turned into,” Kelly said.

Stratton said what happened in Gaza was “horrific and the devastation and the suffering that we have seen is terrible.” Krishnamoorthi said he feared that supporting a resolution to label the Palestinian deaths “genocide” could “get in the way of progress right now in this fragile ceasefire.”

“If that gets in the way of progress, then we’re going to go back to war and we can’t let that happen,” Krishnamoorthi said. “That would be the worst outcome right now.”

All three agreed a Trump military strike in Iran over that nation’s nuclear program would be illegal without the invocation of the War Powers Act by Congress.

“I actually feel like he’s looking for trouble and that he wants to get us into some type of arms issue, because it’s a distraction for the things that he’s not doing in his own country,” Kelly said. “American people are sick of our soldiers dying overseas.”

Prior to the debate, Kelly announced the backing of several congressional colleagues, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.