A third candidate has now entered the primary battle against Dan Lipinski in Illinois' 3rd. Jim Capparelli is by all reports a good guy. He was in the army and is currently a Lt. Col. in the reserves. He followed that with a position in the Will County State's Attorney's office before taking a position as Veterans’ Rights Bureau Chief for Lisa Madigan. He's now in private practice. He's against continuing the war in Iraq (though without details it's hard to say what that means) and dislikes the nepotism that got Lipinski his position.
That said, I can't for the life of me understand why he got into the race. He doesn't have a history as an elected official and his positions don't seem to be substantially different from those of already declared candidate Mark Pera. He admittedly has no money and his supporters are reported as consisting primarily of a "large extended family".
I don't begrudge anyone the right to run. And while I like what I've seen from Mark Pera already, who's to say that it wouldn't have been exactly the opposite if Capparelli had declared first? I don't have any reason to believe that there are any motives behind his candidacy other than attempting to better represent the people of the 3rd (who it would certainly seem deserve a better representative than Lipinski). I still have to wonder though, are we just seeing a replay of the 2006 primary where two candidate split the anti-Lipinski vote while the incumbent skates through without a worry?
