Chris "Star of Romania" Lauzen is down and out and with any luck he'll take some of the Christo-Cop vote with him. But what of Jim Oberweis? What can we expect? What's his message? Where is he weak?
As many of you may know, John Laesch held a press conference this morning to discuss the unresolved election in IL-14. At this point Laesch still trails his primary opponent by 355 votes in the general primary, although all the absentee ballots are not counted (in fact, County Clerks must wait until February 19th for their return) and there is still an outstanding question as to whether all the provisional ballots have been counted in all nine counties.
John Laesch has conceded the special primary to his opponent, who will run against Republican nominee Jim Oberweis on March 8 to decide who will fill the remaining ten months of Hastert's term, but he has not conceded the general primary, which is still undecided until all votes are counted. This morning Laesch held a press conference to answer the many questions the campaign has been bombarded with regarding his intentions. I attended it. And since the campaign has made it clear they will make no further statements, I will share my observations and the text of his remarks below.
What happens in Podunk shouldn't stay there. Or at least if it does, the Democratic Party Establishment, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs among us, will have won one more unrecorded battle against those of us who want real change.
What's happening most immediately in the IL-14 corner of Podunk (a term I use here to describe anything not directly inside the DC Beltway) is a primary and a special primary on Tuesday, between the DC insider "pick" for our district, an attorney who is a relative newcomer to both politics and our area, and John Laesch, the nominee against Denny Hastert last time out, and the only progressive in the race.
At this point, I'd call it a significant bellwether for the upcoming Congressional elections that virtually no one outside of IL-14 is paying much attention to in the glare of the presidential race, as well as a bellwether event in the battle for control of the party. So while I don't expect this diary to get much attention, I want to leave a record of what has happened in this primary. Bellwethers, however unobserved at the time, sometimes have a way of becoming useful history for those who follow.
Some thoughts on the upcoming presidential election.
There are really three mainstream political parties in the United States today. There is a big business party that straddles the center of the Democratic and Republican parties. This is the real majority party in Congress. To the right of this party is a smaller religious conservative party. To the left is a smaller anti-big business "progressive" party.
Our presidential politics is about which representative of the big business party will be able to capture enough religious conservative votes (if he is a Republican) or progressive votes (if she is a Democrat) to win the overall election.
Just found this late-breaking set of endorsements on the Laesch for Congress website. I say late-breaking, not just because of the time of day, but because we are a mere four days out from the both the primary and the special primary to replace the retired (i.e. completely gone and no longer my congresscritter - Yay!) Hastert.
I just learned today that the primaries in Illinois this year are special for this reason: unlike other super Tuesday states, Illinois is also conducting our Congressional primaries on this date, making them not just the earliest in the nation, but the earliest Congressional primaries in national history, per Congressional Quarterly.
I bring this up because events are happening at a wicked pace here: on March 8, this district will send a new Congressperson to the House, and we need to make sure it is the only real Progressive in this race.
For your viewing pleasure, here's an old post from my now-defunct blog, Citizen Kane, in which I lament the excessive use of lobbyists by the Kane Co Board (rammed through by Chairman McConnaughay) to provide us with "representation." Somehow seems relevant all over again. (originally posted Feb. 12, 2005) --------------------
Hastert is apparently doing such a poor job of representing our interests Kane County now needs an expensive lobbyist ($138K/year plus expenses) to 'represent our interests.'
This campaign has been a long, fun, exciting road, and while the road ahead is short, it's about to get even more fun and exciting. The primary is 16 days away. That's two weeks and two days. We are doubling tripling our efforts on getting yard signs out, on identifying voters, on fund-raising... everything that will be crucial to our GOTV efforts on Feb 5th and then again on March 8th in the special election to replace Denny Hastert.
We have quite a bit of news to report this week. Follow me below the fold for the full update, including our exciting new endorsements, upcoming events, and online action opportunities for you to help out the campaign!
Chris Lauzen brags in his campaign literature about all of the times he was the lone dissenting voice in a full Senate vote. Since he seems to have an almost unique talent for getting both political parties to bury their differences in order to oppose him, could Lauzen be the man we need to send to Washington in order to bring bi-partisanship back into the House?
You know, it's very kind of bored now to keep us all in the loop by providing Roundup diaries. Of particular interest to me is the race in IL-14, so of course when I came back for a pit stop between trips today and saw that he had posted an IL-14 Roundup #3 diary, I took the time to scan it.
Hmmm. There seems to be very little going on in the Laesch campaign, to hear bored tell it. Could have sworn I heard about more endorsements recently than those bored now mentions in his coverage of the Laesch campaign, which amounts to this:
john laesch woke up to good news this morning: state senator mike noland has endorsed him.
and this:
booman tribune has an old interview of john laesch that now comes up on google search. his campaign continues its periodic campaign updates here and here. laesch's former blogger also talks about Podunk,IL vs. the New Chicago Machine, the laesch youtube page covers his simmons appearance (broken into multiple videos and quentin young's endorsement.
and...
no, I guess that's about it - all the news bored could find the space or time to bring us about Laesch...
I know the eyes of the world are on Iowa today, but here in Illinois, we were just treated to this bombshell from a local paper:
Election officials in at least seven Illinois counties plan to ask a federal court to intervene because they believe the dates set by Gov. Rod Blagojevich for a special primary and special general election will not give them time to meet federal and state statutes that govern elections.
The election is to replace Hastert, who has retired. The special primary is set for February 5 and the special general March 8. From the story it appears that the objection from the counties comes not to the primary date but to the March 8 special general date.
