Uphill challenge in Senate race

Feb. 28--The two Republicans running to unseat Democrat Dick Durbin in the U.S. Senate have starkly different challenges: One is fighting to erase a losing image, and the other is fighting to establish any image at all.

State Sen. Jim Oberweis, 67, is a multimillionaire from Sugar Grove who won a legislative seat after five unsuccessful runs for major office -- twice for the U.S. Senate, twice for the House and once for governor.

Doug Truax, 43, from Downers Grove, is a West Point graduate billing himself as a "new face" with "new ideas." It's his first run for office.

Whoever wins the March 18 primary will face an uphill battle against Durbin, who spent 14 years in the House before serving 17 years so far in the Senate, where he is No. 2 in the Democratic leadership.

Oberweis slams Durbin as a "pure career politician," and Truax seems to agree.

"A lot of people, they're getting tired of professional politicians," Truax said. "I want to beat Durbin and get him out of there."

Oberweis, part-owner of a dairy and ice cream business and two investment firms that carry his name, has a clear advantage over his younger rival in name recognition. His bid is also better financed. Oberweis lent his campaign a half-million dollars and began the year with almost $590,000 on hand, campaign reports show. Truax had only $44,000.

Truax has been endorsed by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., but Truax's lack of experience makes him a decided long shot. Not since Republican Charles Percy won in 1966 have Illinoisans elected to the U.S. Senate someone who has not previously held public office.

A Tribune/WGN-TV poll this month showed Oberweis with a commanding lead over Truax, 52 percent to 15 percent. The poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, tapped 600 registered voters likely to cast a ballot in the GOP primary.

Aside from name recognition, the two Republicans have a lot in common. Both own businesses, play golf, admire Ronald Reagan and have staked out conservative positions on fiscal and social issues.

They dislike the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, whose launch has been troubled. Both want to cut the deficit with spending cuts, not revenue increases. And both would put the brakes on entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

Neither supports same-sex marriage. Neither wants more restrictions on guns. Neither would give illegal immigrants a special path to citizenship, though they would make an exception for those brought to the U.S. as young children.

Both oppose abortion. Truax said he favors overturning the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Oberweis said he supports parental notification when minors have abortions, opposes "taking children across state lines" for abortions and is "generally in support of right-to-life issues."

Truax has a special vantage on the health care issue. He is majority owner of Veritas Risk Services LLC in Oak Brook, a 12-person consulting firm and insurance broker that helps companies reduce the costs of employee health care, retirement plans and other benefits.

Truax's salary for all of 2012 and half of 2013 reached $693,000, which works out to about $450,000 a year. The sum is on a financial disclosure form required of Senate candidates.

The Affordable Care Act, according to Truax, is a "regulatory monstrosity" with "no chance of working correctly."

As an alternative, Truax proposes for the uninsured to get free or low-cost care at clinics he envisions staffed by young doctors working off student loans and older doctors nearing retirement.

"Fatally flawed" is Oberweis' take on Obama's health care law. Still, Oberweis would keep some provisions intact, including letting young adults remain on a parent's insurance policy until age 26.

Oberweis started two investment firms: Oberweis Securities Inc., a stock brokerage, and Oberweis Asset Management Inc., a money-management firm for wealthy people and institutional investors that oversees about $1.3 billion in assets.

One son runs the financial firms; another operates Oberweis Dairy Inc., which processes milk for home delivery and runs ice cream parlors.

Oberweis said that for the past 36 years he's lived in the same house, in what was Aurora and became Sugar Grove, and that he bought a condo in Bonita Springs, Fla., in 2010 thinking he would winter there and play golf.

But Illinois politics beckoned him, and he won a state Senate seat in 2012. Oberweis said his top accomplishment in his first year as a legislator was sponsoring a bill that raised the rural interstate speed limit from 65 to 70 mph.

He said he now visits Florida over long weekends and, if he beats Durbin, would spend the "overwhelming majority" of his time in Illinois when he's not in Washington.

Truax was born and raised in Deming, N.M., about 30 miles from the Mexican border. He said an Army recruiter visited his school and got him fired up about West Point. He graduated in 1992 and spent six years as a field artillery officer, becoming a captain and Army Ranger. He never saw combat. He served at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he and his wife adopted their first child, and later at Fort Carson in Colorado.

Oberweis is Catholic. Truax said he became a born-again Christian in his early 30s.

After leaving the Army, Truax worked briefly in Colorado Springs, Colo., at Current Inc., which sells paper and home decor products. Next he joined a recruiting firm that places veterans in civilian jobs, working first in Atlanta and later in Chicago. He's lived in Downers Grove since 2000. He was with an insurance brokerage from 2003 to 2008 until he struck out with a partner to start Veritas.

Truax complained that "unnecessary" federal regulations are "killing our economy," and he wants every one "justified" by Congress at least every five years.

He is more hawkish on defense and foreign policy, calling for a no-fly zone over Syria and new sanctions against Iran, a country he said is "intent on building a nuclear weapon" and "just buying time" during negotiations over its nuclear program.

Oberweis said he supported Obama for keeping the U.S. out of Syria. "I think America is tired of being the one and only superpower and being the one and only world policeman."

He said sanctions against Iran have made life difficult there and he would be reluctant to take military action against that country without a "clear, short-term objective."

Both candidates oppose Obama's call to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

Truax, asked about his lack of government experience, said the Constitution doesn't require it to run for Congress. He notes that in 2010 the voters of Wisconsin did not re-elect Sen. Russ Feingold -- like Durbin, a three-term liberal Democrat. Feingold was defeated by Republican Ron Johnson, a plastics company owner who had never held office.

But Johnson sank millions of his own money into his race. Truax, by contrast, had lent his campaign only $18,000 as of Dec. 31, reports show.

Oberweis has dropped more than $8 million into his past campaigns, according to reports. His net worth is between $12 million and nearly $60 million, according to his financial disclosure, which lists the value of assets in broad ranges. He declined to pinpoint his worth.

Truax listed his business, worth between $1 million and $5 million, as his top asset.

Durbin voluntarily makes public his tax returns, but Truax and Oberweis would not release their 2012 returns, despite a Tribune request.

Truax said he's the better bet of the two Republican challengers because of Oberweis' failed races. Oberweis called Truax well-intentioned and added: "I hope to see him succeed in a campaign for public office in Illinois -- just not this year."

The two met voters at competing receptions Feb. 10 at a GOP gubernatorial debate at a banquet center in Hoffman Estates.

Oberweis scored a room just outside the debate hall, and his backers lured people in for a snack and chat. He worked the crowd with practiced efficiency, talking for a minute or so about the Middle East, immigration or gun control before reaching out for a conversation-closing handshake.

Truax was left with a room down the hall, where visitors emerged with a glossy flier featuring his boyish face.

"Oh, I've heard of Oberweis," Steve Michaels, 50, a Navy reservist from Hoffman Estates, said with a scowl. "Who's the other guy?"

Oberweis' reputation has been damaged over the years, Michaels said, as his wife, Carol, dug a Truax flier out of her bag and enthused, "This guy looks great!"

Oberweis drew fire in his 2004 run for the Senate after TV ads showed him flying over Soldier Field in a helicopter and asserting that enough "illegal aliens" cross the border and steal jobs to fill the stadium every week. Also during that campaign, his dairy aired a TV ad that showcased him in the weeks before the primary. It led to a $21,000 fine from the Federal Election Commission, which called the ad an unreported corporate contribution.

In his 2006 run for governor, his campaign used TV ads with the nameplates of newspapers -- and doctored headlines.

Though the assertion in the Soldier Field ad was disputed, Oberweis in an interview stood by his math but acknowledged, "We did a lousy job in the commercial." As for the doctored headlines, he said his campaign manager had placed the ad and it was "pulled immediately" when he learned of the inaccuracies.

"Hopefully I've learned from those mistakes and will do better," Oberweis said.

Truax, as a newcomer, may be unblemished, but to many he remains unknown.

"That's a name I don't know," David Acuff, 74, an Arlington Heights artist, said at the gubernatorial debate. "I'll be voting for Oberweis, because I know his name. Let the other guy get his name out there, but he's got some work to do."

Acuff regards both Republicans as long shots in the general election.

"Durbin has been there so long, it's going to take a lot to get him out of there," Acuff said. "He's an established guy in Illinois, and in Chicago. It's going to take a really good candidate, and I haven't heard of anyone who can do that."

Oberweis and Truax will appear at a candidate forum from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Monday at the Prairie Lodge, 12880 Del Webb Blvd., Huntley.

kskiba@tribune.com

kgeiger@tribune.com

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