Will County Tea Party to host Bachmann

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Eaton

Updated: November 10, 2011 2:50PM

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is building her 2012 presidential bid by going straight to the people. On Monday night in Homer Glen, she’ll bypass the Illinois Republican Party leadership that’s for the most part committed to other GOP contenders.

To find an Illinois location open to her independent grassroots effort, the Bachmann campaign reached out to Tim and Deb Kraulidis, a Joliet couple who have been the energy and direction behind the Tea Party’s Joliet Area Tax Day for the past two years.

The Kraulidises and their team’s efforts drew national attention at a Labor Day 2009 rally when thousands of Tea Party activists converged in New Lenox. Since then, the group has joined with others to form the Will County Tea Party Alliance, including Homer Township and Lockport area Tea Partiers.

Bachmann will appear Monday night at DiNolfo’s banquet hall, 14447 W. 159th St., Homer Glen.

“We’re hoping to host several presidential candidates before the March primary,” Tim Kraulidis said. “This will be a part of our Taking Back America 2012 series and a part of taking back Will County, too. We’re happy this area has become a hotbed of political activity.”

Kraulidis emphasized that the group is not endorsing Bachmann but is excited that she’s stopping by Will County while building support in Illinois.

Bachmann has been developing her campaign since becoming the first woman to ever win the Ames, Iowa straw poll. She has been focused on early 2012 primary states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina. The congresswoman swipes away concerns about her campaign stalling since Texas Gov. Rick Perry entered the race, saying in 2008 GOP latecomers Rudy Guiliani and Fred Thompson sparked interest for a while but fizzled out in the end.

Bachmann’s appearance in Will County hints that she plans to connect with possible Chicago-area donors and potential delegate candidates while in the region.

And while she’s in Will County, she’ll find an audience familiar with, and sympathetic to, a topic that Bachmann used to turn up the heat on Perry during last week’s CNN/Tea Party debate in Tampa, Fla. — the controversy surrounding the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who represented the 11th District, got caught up in the HPV vaccine scandal in 2007, before she was elected to the U.S. House in 2008. As a state senator, Halvorson sponsored legislation that required all girls ages 11 and 12 to get the three-shot HPV vaccine series in order to attend school. During the discussion surrounding such a requirement, Merck Pharmaceuticals, the vaccine’s manufacturer, launched a full-scale lobbying effort involving, among others, a legislative action group with which Halvorson was affiliated.

Merck used heavy-duty pressure tactics, including calling in national Republican and Democrat operatives to lobby — what Bachmann accurately refers to as “crony capitalism.” That’s when your friends, contributors and key supporters get preferential political treatment.

Merck needed states to require that preteen girls have the Gardasil vaccine shots for two reasons: It would help cover research and development costs for the HPV vaccine, and it would relieve Merck of any financial burden if the vaccine produced detrimental side effects. When a vaccine is mandated, the federal government, not the drug maker, pays the victims’ claims.

During last week’s debate, Bachmann confronted Perry about his executive order mandating the vaccine for all 11- and 12-year-olds in Texas. Bachmann contended that the order was an abuse of power and reeked of insider deals, the type of which most Americans have had enough.

Since then, Bachmann has been quizzed time and time again about her attack on Perry. Late-night talk show host Jay Leno asked her what’s so bad about a vaccine that would ward off cervical cancer? Shouldn’t she, as a woman, want young women protected from a dangerous virus like HPV?

The Center for Disease Control’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERs) website clearly outlines the serious nature of the HPV vaccine.

Of the roughly 35 million doses of Gardasil administered, 18,727 adverse effects were reported to the CDC as of June, 92 percent of which were classified as non-serious. But VAERS reports that 68 died after receiving the vaccine.

HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that may affect up to 75 percent of sexually active females ages 15 to 49. Most of the time, an HPV infection is not harmful, but some strains may develop into cancer. Two strains, HPV-16 and HPV-18, are responsible for approximately 70 percent of cervical cancer cases worldwide.

More than 11,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed each year with cervical cancer contracted from those types of HPV. Gardasil, while immunizing against those strains, does not prevent cancer.

Bachmann made it clear that she’s concerned about young women’s health, but she’s also concerned about parents’ rights and keeping an overbearing, demanding government under control.

And that’s the kind of stance that conservatives, independents and Tea Partiers like to hear.

Fran Eaton is a Southland resident who co-founded and edits a popular conservative political blog, illinoisreview.com