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ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The lunchtime crowd is thinning at Portillo's Hot Dogs near O'Hare Airport when the candidate arrives. Leaning on a cane, she moves slowly on her $120,000 bionic legs with a stooped and halting stride. Tammy Duckworth lost both legs while serving in Iraq. After more than a year in rehab, she's campaigning for Congress.
By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
"Hi! I'm Tammy Duckworth, the Iraq war veteran running for Congress. You might have heard of me?" she says, extending her mangled right arm to shake hands.
Indeed, many here in Chicago's western suburbs have already heard of the Illinois National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs and full use of her right arm when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her Blackhawk in a 2004 attack in Iraq.
Maj. Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth, 37, spent nearly a year at Washington's Walter Reed Army Hospital, and her rehabilitation has been chronicled in national media, including USA TODAY.
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7 comments:
She's facing a tough primary and getting a hard time of it from the Liberal Democratic establishment in DuPage who support Christine Cegelis. The Liberals are blaming Cong Emanuel for forcing her on their District --she's not a resident-- and talking tough on Emanuel... mostly cause it's awfully hard to talk tough on Duckworth.
It's not pretty to watch.
Here's a classic against Duckworth.
Austin writes,
Emanuel just wants her to run because he can control her and use her in photo opportunities for the party.
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...he is putting up a war veteran in the hope of winning the sympathy and patriotic vote despite the fact that the majority of Americans now want to get out of Iraq.
The national Democratic Party would do better to send money and support to Cegelis. She, her more than 100 campaign volunteers, and the Democrats and Republicans in the 6th District who voted for her last time, have earned the right to run this race.
The anti-war (sometimes sounding awfully pro-Baathist) left in Dupage would have you think Emanuel had recrutied Don Rumsfeld himself.
yes I am freightened as to what these elections will do to the image of Military members. However she is just one of the many of ex-military people who are going into politics, and their politics are as diverse as anywhere else in America.
That in itself is heartening.
I saw her in a c-span interview at Walther Reed. She's a powerful candidate.
I think the question is will her stamina hold up through all of it.
A Christian Evangelical from Wheaton College running against Duckworth said her Military Service would be a liability among Democrats in the Primary.
I blogged on it here... it steamed me.
Duckworth won but just barely. The Moveon.org crowd may demand a recount... chatter now is election was stolen.
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