Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth made a stop in Galesburg today as a part of her campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.
Duckworth, who is looking to oust Republican Senator Mark Kirk, joined Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, Illinois Comptroller hopeful Susana Mendoza and a number of other Dems. for a meet and greet at the Trades and Labor Assembly.
Duckworth sat down with WGIL for an in-depth interview and took aim at Kirk on a number of issues, including his opposition of free community college.The Hoffman Estates Democrat says her opponent “calls free education a hand out” and she “couldn’t disagree more.”
“You’ve got Carl Sandburg College that is such a great feeder program and then you’ve got Knox College right there,” Duckworth says. “We could find ways to make certain programs at Sandburg free community college so that anyone who qualifies can go to school for free. It helps lower that debt burden so that we don’t have people from college graduating with huge student loan debt.”
Duckworth also commented on a recent ad from her campaign that ripped Kirk for “embellishing his military service record.” She says his claims of being shot at and being deployed to Afghanistan are untrue.
Today’s event was met with criticism from both sides. A number of protesters joined 17th Congressional candidate Patrick Harlan outside.
Harlan says the protest was to show that Duckworth and Bustos don’t represent the group’s ideals.
