President Obama addressed a House Republican retreat in a question-and-answer session on Friday. Health care, partisanship and the national debt were discussed at length and in one response, Obama mentioned the attack ads in the GOP race for Illinois governor.
Rep. Peter Roskam, a Republican who represents Chicago's western suburbs, asked Obama a question about the partisan spirit in Congress, reminding him of days when the two worked together in the Illinois Senate. Obama responded:
Well, first of all, Peter and I did work together effectively on a whole host of issues. One of our former colleagues is right now running for governor, on the Republican side, in Illinois. In the Republican primary, of course, they're running ads of him saying nice things about me. Poor guy.
That "poor guy" is Kirk Dillard. Dillard is currently running neck-and-neck with Andy McKenna and Jim Ryan for the Republican nomination for governor. McKenna's ads frame Dillard as an Obama supporter, citing a 2007 ad on behalf of Obama's candidacy during the Iowa caucuses. Dillard originally did the spot to discuss Obama's bipartisanship in the state legislature.
Watch Obama's response to Roskam here: