Establishment he may be, with support from the usual suspects among the GOP hierarchy, but Andrew McKenna Jr., 46, Roman Catholic and father of four (the only Catholic candidate in the lists who is not divorced), differs from past hierarchical favorites who lost their primaries to insurgents: Bob Kustra, defeated by Al Salvi, and Loleta Didrickson, defeated by Fitzgerald. Kustra and Didrickson were pro-choice. McKenna is wholeheartedly pro-life. At lunch with me, he quickly disposed of any notion that he is a social liberal. He is against abortion except in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother. He is against gay marriage and is opposed to domestic partnerships. He took a swipe at opponent Jack Ryan by saying he understood that Ryan regards abortion as a state issue, while McKenna would consider supporting a constitutional amendment banning the practice. Intriguingly, Ryan does too, although he has never publicly corrected an article that appeared in the Tribune that said he opposed an amendment. A look at Ryan's transcript of the ''At Issue'' program on WBBM, the basis of the news story, has Ryan saying ''you mean a constitutional amendment? I would consider it. Before, Roe vs. Wade was a state issue, and I think most of those issues should reside in the states.'' This puts Ryan, McKenna, Oberweis and Cox in agreement. Why Ryan never officially corrected the misimpression generated by the story is a mystery. In any event, McKenna makes no bones about his willingness to support an anti-abortion amendment, which is a litmus test that candidates take to gain support from social conservatives.

Where McKenna differs from other colleagues is his position on trade. He believes in free trade, but where there is the leveled playing field. McKenna, president of Schwarz Paper company in Morton Grove, notes that between 1998 and 2002, Illinois lost 135,000 manufacturing jobs. He declares that he will be ''a jobs senator.'' He makes a higher priority of America purchasing goods from U.S. manufacturers. He supports a jobs tax credit for small businesses and spurs to investment, including an increase on the limits of tax-deferred savings. He wants health care reform, tort reform and a new energy plan that highlights renewable sources such as ethanol. He endorses a federal education tax credit to help defray high education costs for children in public, independent or home schools.

His critics say he contributes to Democrats. Not so, says McKenna. That's his father, also Andrew, who is CEO of Schwarz. Candidate McKenna has donated to George W. Bush and played a key role in Mark Kirk's winning campaign for the 10th Congressional District. He says he discussed the abortion issue with Kirk; they disagreed, but McKenna backed him because of Kirk's strength on other issues. McKenna contributed to Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey, a Democrat, but Casey was a pro-lifer who was denied the opportunity to speak to the 1992 Democratic convention because of his beliefs.

One rap against the thoughtful, cerebral McKenna is that he is a quiet, rather low-key campaigner. It is said that his speeches do not excite. But his lack of hype is refreshing, and his emphasis on saving Illinois jobs has struck a spark with some. In his first seven weeks as a candidate, Andy McKenna raised more than $490,000 from those who must see some inner fire or they wouldn't give to him.

''I will be the jobs senator,'' he repeats. ''The land of Lincoln needs to become the state of opportunity.''

North Korea started the "Forgotten War" June 25, 1950, when it invaded South Korea. Before the conflict ended, 34,000 Americans died, including 5,535 from Illinois. More than 100,000 Americans were wounded in the three-year war.

Sadly, the threat posed by North Korea persists today. The brutal military dictatorship has no legitimate economy, a horrid human rights record, and, the public is now learning, a government-sponsored drug and counterfeiting enterprise. Of course the biggest threat to the region and the world is North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles that can deliver these weapons to the United States.

Since the war ended on July 27, 1953, the two countries have embarked on widely divergent paths. South Korea, one of the poorest nations on earth at the time of the armistice, today is a thriving democracy with the 13th largest economy in the world. North Korea, meanwhile, is a totalitarian dictatorship with its economy in shambles and its citizens still reeling from the effects of a famine that killed nearly two million citizens in the 1990s and forced thousands others to flee to China to survive. Under the brutal rule of Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean people face a grim future of human rights abuses and scant economic hope.

U.S. political will backed by military strength has made it possible for democracy and free enterprise to flourish in South Korea. The United States committed troops to South Korea 50 years ago and has kept them there ever since. The 38,000 U.S. troops who are stationed there today keep alive the commitment 6.8 million Korean War veterans – including 300,000 from Illinois – started in 1950.

Our political will must not abandon us now. North Korea, under the despotic leadership of Kim Jong-Il and his father Kim Il Sung before him, poses a serious military threat to countries in the region. It also has become a country that sponsors drug production and trafficking, tolerates drug smuggling by its diplomats and uses the money it gains from these criminal enterprises to produce weapons of mass destruction.

I chaired a hearing earlier this year in Washington where defectors from North Korea painted a grim picture of that regime’s criminal activities. Most governments exist to protect their citizens from harm. In North Korea, the leaders are in effect a crime syndicate masquerading as a government.

One of the defectors testified that the North Korean government requires each collective farm in the country to devote 25 acres to raising poppies, which the government manufactures into heroin for sale abroad. Testimony also indicated that most of the country’s hard currency receipts come from drug and missile sales.

The world witnessed a graphic example of North Korea’s role in drug trafficking in April when Australian police arrested 26 crew members of a North Korean ship, the Pong Su, after the ship was observed trying to off-load approximately $80 million of heroin to a fishing boat off the coast of Australia. Australian officials have now identified one of the crew as a senior member of the North Korean Workers' Party, and continue to investigate the links between the captured freighter and the North Korean government.

I have urged the Bush administration to enlist neighboring Asian countries such as China and Japan to help us detect, monitor and ultimately choke off the flow of any illegal drugs the North Korean government is exporting.

We must also press those same countries to avoid becoming unwitting accomplices to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. I urged Secretary of State Colin Powell to speak to Japanese leaders about testimony from a former North Korean missile scientist who said 90 percent of that country’s missile program used illegally sourced Japanese electronic equipment. Tougher export controls could prevent such a dangerous flow of technology in the future.

With its one million active troops and approximately 4.7 million reserves, North Korea has a foreboding military presence in Northeast Asia. And it has resorted to criminal activity to make up for its lack of a legitimate economy. We have to work with other countries in the region to neutralize the military threat and curb the flow of drugs and counterfeiting.

Fifty years after the end of the "Forgotten War" our message to all Americans who served their country in that conflict is that we have not forgotten you. We remember and honor your sacrifice and heed the lesson of that conflict – that our nation must remain vigilant in confronting the threat posed by North Korea.

*HELPING AMERICANS GET STARTED
3,104,000 married couples and single filers will benefit from the acceleration to 2003 of the expansion of the 10-percent bracket scheduled for 2008.

*HELPING ALL AMERICANS WHO PAY TAXES
1,336,000 taxpayers in Illinois will benefit from the acceleration to 2003 of the reductions in income tax rates in excess of 15-percent scheduled for 2004 and 2006.

*HELPING MARRIED COUPLES
1,563,000 married couples in Illinois will benefit from the acceleration to 2003 of provisions that increase the standard deduction for joint filers to double the amount for single filers and increase the width of the 15-percent bracket to twice the width for single filers. These two provisions were scheduled to phase in between 2005 and 2009.

*HELPING PARENTS
1,139,000 married couples and single parents in Illinois will benefit from the acceleration to 2003 of the increase in the child tax credit from $600 to $1,000 that was scheduled to phase in between 2005 and 2010.

*DIVIDEND TAX RELIEF
1,190,000 taxpayers in Illinois will benefit from the tax cut on dividends paid from previously-taxed corporate income.

==>Thomas Jefferson