The Hound has been told that once in this great nation, gas wars used to take place. That was when competing stations on catty-corners would keep lowering their prices to attract customers. And some gearhead pumped your gas for you!
According to The Hound's geezer sources, this was when gas hovered in the 29-cent-a-gallon price and gasoline was leaded. Generation Xers and beyond saw a hint of that Thursday when Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals let 10th District incumbent Mark Kirk know there will be a war for his congressional seat. This one began at the gas pumps at a Lincolnshire Mobil station on Milwaukee Avenue, close to Half Day Road in what should be the midst of Kirk's GOP constituency.
Seals stumbled upon a great gimic: Use his hefty campaign war chest to sell gasoline (capped at 10 gallons for an hour between noon and 1 p.m.) for $1.85 a gallon, about the approximate cost of gasoline when Kirk was first elected in 2000. Gas at most Lake County locations currently is over $4 a gallon. The intimation is that Kirk has done nothing to help his gas-pained constituents.
If Seals thought Cmdr. Kirk was going to ignore this attack, he doesn't know the man who defeated him two years ago when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won the 10th District handily over Republican incumbent George W. Bush.
Kirk quickly went on the offensive, contending Seals' photo-op was mere bagatelle. He's asked the Federal Elections Commission and the U.S. attorney's office to investigate what his campaign staff contends was a vote-buying stunt. Ah, and it is only the end of May.
While some have already "sold postcards to the hanging", as Dylan sings, and anointed Seals as the next 10th District congressman, they don't live here. If the presidential campaign is a marathon, the Kirk-Seals race is a decathalon. Seals would have been smarter to use a Waukegan gas station or one in Highland Park, rather putting it together in less than two days in transient Lincolnshire.
Perhaps his campaign staff has learned nothing in two years. Perhaps they're ignoring President Clinton's mantra: "Values trump economics."
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