Three Republicans vying to replace longtime Sen. Dick Durbin in the U.S. Senate stressed their tenure in Illinois as businessmen or through grassroots involvement, while saying the pillars of President Donald Trump’s approach were solid.
Don Tracy of Springfield, Casey Chlebek of Park Ridge and Pamela Denise Long of Edwardsville participated in a candidate forum broadcast Thursday night on WTVP and presented by the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria and the League of Women Voters of Illinois.
Tracy
Tracy, a longtime lawyer and small-business owner, went straight at Democrats, running to “defend the American dream from the far-left radical-based Democrat party and their extreme agenda.”
He promised to reduce the cost of living for Illinois working families “and to champion common-sense solutions in Washington, D.C."
Chlebek
Chlebek, who immigrated legally from Poland in 1967 after completing high school, spent most of his career in IT, but he also works in real estate with his brother.
He said he’s running running because of experience with an oppressive communist regime. And he sees parallels here:
“Unfortunately we have in the United States today a brand new byproduct of communism called cultural Marxism, which kills brains of our younger generations, not by bullets, but by skillful implementation of corrosive and toxic ideology, such as woke or DEI,” he said.
Chlebek wants to lower taxes and address the rising cost of food, housing and health care. He says he'll these ends by supporting the MAGA (Make America Great Again) agenda.
“I know this nation represents still opportunity, but that is slipping away for far too many,” he said.
Long
Long, an occupational therapist, political commentator and doctor of organizational development, says she’s “worked tirelessly, for several years, putting meat on the bones of this beautiful slogan called ‘America First.’”
She said Trump is “trying to do amazing things for the American people,” but her goal is more personal: to make America a better place for generations to come.
Within 90 days of taking office, she plans to introduce legislation to prevent families without a will or clear title of possession from losing “generational wealth,” while protecting them from predatory practices. She also touts a “native sourcing plan,” to make sure American citizens and legal immigrants are prioritized in employment.
Trump agenda
All paid lip service to supporting Trump, but found instances where they did not. Chlebek, for instance, thought tariffs were a misguided policy.
“In the end people pay for it,” he said.
Tracy, meanwhile, said he saw diversity and inclusion as part of equal opportunity, but policies that were in place amounted to “illegal quotas.“
"I think DEI has been a bad thing for our country, and I think it takes away from diversity, inclusion and equal opportunity,“ he said.
And Long said there should be accountability over abuses of power by ICE. “We’re not abolishing ICE, and ICE is not the KKK,” she said, adding that enforcement should be “humane but get the job done,” and that people in supervisory roles should be held accountable for problems.
Other topics included helping the cost of living, how to improve infrastructure, the budget deficit and the revised vaccine schedule.
When discussing the cost of living, Long suggested tightening the labor market — in part by removing undocumented immigrants — would drive up wages.
Tracy’s answer was simpler: “Everything Democrats do increases the cost of living," so the solution was to “elect more Republicans."
The format of the event was question-and-answer, so there was no direct back-and-forth among the candidates. But there were occasional jabs from Tracy.
He called the race an “uphill dogfight,” acknowledging Durbin’s longtime Democratic presence, “and it is certainly no job for a political novice. Everyone running for this seat in the Republican primary is a political novice, except for me,” he said.
Candidates were chosen for the forum based on their fundraising amounts and “evidence of an active campaign, as determined by their website.” Other Republican candidates include R. Cary Capparelli, Jeannie Evans and Jimmy Lee Tillman II.
The forum, along with one for Democratic frontrunners, are available to stream on demand or via the PBS app.
The primary election Tuesday, March 17.
