Doug Truax.
Take note of that name, because it might be the last time you hear it. You see, Truax is planning to run against Sen. Dick Durbin, which would put him in the same company as Al Salvi, Jim Durkin and Dr. Steve Sauerberg, whose names you also don’t hear much. Salvi is now a personal injury lawyer, Durkin a state representative (oh, the obscurity) and Sauerberg is a physician in private practice.
Durbin is considered one of the safest bets for re-election in the Senate -- Illinois is “Solid Democratic” on all political handicapping sites. Durbin is Majority Whip, the number two job in the Senate, and is a ubiquitous presence on Sunday morning talk shows. The senator may feel even safer after learning what inspired Truax to run: the Affordable Care Act. Truax, a West Point graduate who lives in Downers Grove, plans to campaign against Obamacare in President Obama’s home state.
“I’m just thinking, I can’t watch this anymore, I’ve got to do something,” Truax recalled to the Daily Caller.
Here’s more from the Daily Caller profile:
He describes the healthcare law as “not built to last,” saying it needs to be repealed, or at least postponed – as Senate and House Republicans are currently asking. The business he started and owns now, Veritas LLC, consults with companies and brokers their benefit plans for employees, so he has become intimately familiar with law, which he said brought his industry to a grinding halt when it passed.
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On guns, he calls for enforcement of existing laws, saying: “I don’t think that putting new regulations on gun owners is going to make our communities any safer.”
He strikes a libertarian tone on the issue of National Security Agency surveillance of U.S. citizens.
“You shouldn’t invade somebody’s privacy, period,” he said.
The fact that NSA officials claim it prevented multiple attacks on U.S. soil, he said, is not relevant.
“What also would have prevented dozens of attacks is just doing the hard work that needs to be done within the FBI, within the CIA, all these different places talking to each other,” he said.
“And Dick Durbin is okay with the NSA, he’s okay with targeting by the IRS, he’s okay with the president doing whatever he wants even though congress has said this is what the law is, and now he’s ok with determining that maybe you don’t get your first amendment right as a journalist,” he added.
“He’s chipping away at our freedoms,” he said.
You can bet Illinois Republicans are thrilled to have an outsider such as Truax run against Durbin, because that means none of them have to sacrifice their offices or their future political viability to get trounced by the senator.
Ward Room looks forward to bringing you an interview with Truax, because anyone who runs against Dick Durbin is going to be so desperate for publicity he’ll even talk to a blogger.
