CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
Joe Walsh put his high-energy campaign style on parade across the West and Northwest suburbs on Wednesday.
The hyperkinetic congressman seemed to ignore the withering weather, bounding from one group to another at Independence Day celebrations in Hoffman Estates, Villa Park and several other communities.
Some he greeted, though, told a reporter they were offended when Republican Walsh accused his Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth of campaigning on little else but her Iraq War wounds.
Walsh: It's like she's just running on her service. We don't elect heroes. We respect heroes. If we elected heroes, John McCain would be our President. She's gotta tell people where she stands.
Flannery: What are the issues you think she's not talking about?
Walsh: One, this country's not working. We're not growing and we're in debt. And she has had nothing of substance to say about any of that.
Duckworth says Walsh's accusations simply are not true.
"Go to my web page. I say exactly what I'm going to about jobs and the economy. It's right there on the web page. We get the infrastructure bill going. We invest in the economy. We give business owners a tax credit for hiring people who've been unemployed for more than six months. We make sure we give employers a tax credit to keep jobs here in the United States," Duckworth said.
Duckworth is a close ally of Presidential advisor David Axelrod, making it all the more surprising when she called for changes last week in the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
I think that every single person in this country should be able to have access to affordable health care," Duckworth said. "Now we just have to figure out a way to get there that is equitable, that doesn't have one group paying more than another, but also allows Americans to have basic health care."
Duckworth told FOX Chicago News that she plans to sit down with restaurant owners to see what can be done to make sure that the healthcare plan is affordable for them, and can continue to cover all of their employees.
Walsh claims that Duckworth is avoiding picking a side on the issue.
"I think that what she's trying to do is cling to people in the middle. She supports government-run, single-payer health care. She can't run from that," Walsh said.
