JOEL POLLAK…ANOTHER RISING REPUBLICAN STAR IN ILLINOIS

Posted By on November 11th, 2009

YouTube star vies for House
By: Kendra Marr
October 16, 2009 05:17 AM EST

The former Harvard law student who won widespread notoriety for his videotaped clash with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) now wants to join him in Congress.

Joel Pollak, 32, who gained national attention after his heated exchange with the House Financial Services Committee chairman hit YouTube and Fox News, is hoping to unseat Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky in Illinois’s 9th District.

His bid caps a whirlwind six months that began in April when, after Frank’s speech at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Pollak asked the congressman if he acknowledged responsibility, if any, for the financial crisis.

Frank’s peevish reaction — and Pollak’s cool responses to the fearsome debater — turned Pollak into an instant conservative cult hero.

“So I do want to ask you,” Frank demanded of Pollak at one point, “when you suggest that I should apologize for something or take responsibility, what is it you think I should have done that I didn’t do?”

Pollak calmly replied, “Well, after spending the entire speech blaming conservatives — I happen to think of myself as a conservative, and I rent and I think of myself as someone who cares about poor people — I’m just interested in whether you think you have any responsibility —”

“Well, I’ve answered the question,” Frank cut in. “Sir, I think you’re not being fully honest with us. You clearly are implying that I do. And I’m asking you. I have given you my record.”

While Frank got the last word, he unknowingly launched Pollak’s political career.

The clip blazed across the blogosphere and Facebook friend requests suddenly piled up for Pollak. Supportive phone calls, letters and e-mails poured in. At first, Harvard Law School forwarded letters to Pollak’s apartment, but the barrage of mail became too much and the school told him to come pick it up.

Pollak said not long after the episode, a man leaned out of his car window and shouted, “Hey I saw you on Fox News!” Two weeks later, he said, while visiting Hollywood, a passerby on the street gushed, “Oh my God, you’re a huge rock star.”

They weren’t the only ones who responded to the video. Illinois Republican National Committeewoman Demetra DeMonte said she was mesmerized by the clip and kept rewatching it on YouTube. She logged onto Facebook, searched for a Joel Pollak at Harvard and tapped out a short message: “Are you the Joel Pollak that took on Barney Frank?”

“I was so impressed with his tenacity — his respectful tenacity,” she said. “He did not back down at all.”

Michael Menis, chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Chicago, spotted Pollak’s yarmulke in the video. And shortly after the clip aired on Fox News, Menis received an e-mail informing him that the law student hailed from the Chicago suburb of Skokie. Menis called his national office and quickly got Pollak on the phone.

“I was very impressed by what I saw — his poise, the fact that he was very articulate, persistent,” he said.

The truth is, Pollak was never much of a debater. His family immigrated to the United States from South Africa shortly after he was born and he later returned to work there as a freelance journalist, tutor and speechwriter to the South African Parliament’s opposition leader. He also earned a master’s degree in Jewish studies at University of Cape Town.

The closest public speaking training he ever got was in an improv comedy troupe. “You have to roll with the punches,” said Pollak, who is also the author of two political books.

And for most of his life, he called himself a Democrat. Volunteering for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, he said, was actually his first dip into Republican politics.

But it wasn’t long before DeMonte flew him to Chicago to speak at a young Republican event. And at a Republican Jewish Coalition chapter event, 100 people showed up to hear Pollak.

“He was mobbed three people deep,” Menis said. “People rushed the podium to meet him and talk to him. At that time, people were asking him to run for office. They were saying, ‘Run for office, I want to work on your campaign.’ It was very exciting. There was already a buzz about his candidacy.”

Yet Pollak wasn’t quite ready to run. He had just graduated from law school and moved back to Illinois to work for the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

According to Pollak, a Schakowsky town hall in August finally persuaded him to run. There, the media-savvy Republican videotaped a Health Care for America Now organizer instructing people how to block critics from being heard. The organizer tells them, “If they stand up and start asking questions, and you’re in the area, simply stand up and start chanting, ‘Health care now! Health care now!’”

That clip also went viral on YouTube. Last month, Pollak returned to Fox News and announced he would challenge Schakowsky, one of the most liberal members in the House.

“Jan Schakowsky believes she’s invincible and she doesn’t have to listen to the district,” he told POLITICO. “That was the last straw.”

There’s little sign, however, that the congresswoman is in any way vulnerable to challenge: She’s never won reelection with less than 70 percent of the vote in her solidly Democratic Chicago-area district.

“So far, Joel has been invisible in the district, while Congresswoman Schakowsky is recognized constantly for her commitment to serving the public and representing her constituents,” Schakowsky’s communications director Trevor Kincaid wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “It might be news to Joel that the voters vote, not the right-wing anchors at Fox News. The Fox News endorsement in the Illinois 9th is like a Bush endorsement of an economic plan. It will only hurt.”

Pollak’s long-shot campaign still has a long way to go. Two other residents have also announced intentions to run in the Republican primary, though neither has officially filed. Pollak’s sparse website, which gets a face-lift next month, includes only a short biography, footage of his appearances on Fox News and a “donate now” button.

But he’s been busy introducing himself to the district, speaking at events and hoping to win support in the African-American community. Pollak, who is passionate about Israeli-Palestinian relations, has also been frequenting synagogues.

“For a while, I’ve been that Barney Frank guy,” Pollak said. “But in 2010, I hope I’m that guy who beat Jan Schakowsky.”

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

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