a year ago, i am told, harper sat in a room full of illinois bloggers at yearlykos and started thinking about what he could do to help defeat bush republicans. thursday, scott harper, democratic candidate for il-13, met with a room full of labor leaders to talk about his campaign to defeat judy biggert. it was clear that not only scott, but dreams for throwing out a dupage gop congress, had come a long, long way.
labor leaders representing iam, the carpenters,unite-here, the building trades,ibew and others came to hear scott speak about his race and his take on various labor issues. before the meeting began, scott worked the room vigorously, introducing himself to those he did not know, saying hello to those he did, and engaging everyone in conversation. people talked about the war, biggert's support of check card legislation, recent democratic and labor meetings, how scott's fund-raising is going.
scott was given a lengthy introduction by his host from iam. he talked about the importance of grassroots activity and fundraising to winning campaigns. "that's how we win," he said simply in his remarks. he talked about judy's distance from union issues, that she has a 13% support rating on union issues and that "she won't even talk to us, even local union members." unions are basically shut out in the biggert office.
jotham stein got the endorsement of harry katz, dean of cornell university's school of industrial and labor relations, which i failed to mentioned before.
there's been a slew of news in this race, for everybody running. rep. lipinski got the afl-cio endorsement [PDF] and the afscme endorsement. this isn't a surprise given the association of speaker madigan with lipinski, and madigan's closeness with the unions. lipinski also got the endorsement of pipefitters local 597.
mark pera got the endorsement of NARAL/Pro-Choice America as well as the endorsement of forrest claypool, who won almost 70 percent of the vote in four il-03 townships during the 2006 primary. pera was also endorsed by reformers ald. manny flores, ald. brendan reilly, ald. scott waguespack, st. sen. dan kotowski, st. rep. john fritchey, and mwrd commissioner debra shore.
You Don't Have to be a Rocket Scientist to Run for Congress -- But It Can't Hurt
former senator warren rudman famously said that there are three kinds of senators: about a third of the senate know why they are there, know what they want to do and understand how to accomplish it. another third, he opined, know why they are there, know what they want to accomplish, but are clueless to how to do it. and the final third, he generously noted, may not even know why they are in congress. and they wouldn't know what they wanted to do or how to accomplish it, if they did. the same thing, it seems to me, can be said of the house.
which brings me to bill foster. bill foster is a physicist. physicists like to understand how things work. that's what physics is, describing how the world works. physicists understand systems -- even systems where humans are the primary components. which is a good thing, if you want to see people in congress who are capable of accomplishing something. this was all made clear when bill foster sat down with a group of bloggers on saturday to talk about his run for congress.
simply put, bill foster isn't your typical politician. good politicians know that voters are lazy (aka stupid). they want quick, simple answers to their questions, answers that they can put up on the right self in their mental cupboard. voters trust (for the most part) politicians to find the answers, they even hope that the answers politicians find are the right answers, but they don't necessarily want to know about the dirty work involved. 'just get it done,' is the message that uninformed voters send to the politicians they elect. 'we don't need to know how you do it,' is the undercurrent to that message.
Democrats in the Illinois 19th Congressional district think Republican incumbent John Shimkus is more vulnerable than ever this year which is why three candidates are running in the Democratic primary. Shimkus' involvement in the Foley page scandal cover-up, the violation of his term limit pledge, his offensive statements about Iraq, and the likelihood that 2008 will be a good year to unseat a Bush rubber-stamp gives new hope to local residents who are tired of John Shimkus. So far only one candidate, Joe McMenamin, shows signs of being a serious threat to Shimkus.
One indication of his strength as a candidate is the support he's receiving from Senator Dick Durbin. Durbin states in a letter on McMenamin's campaign website:
each race has a lens through which a political campaign can be viewed. in the il-03 race, the lens is the emergent scandal surrounding dan lipinski and whether any challenger can coalesce their social and political networks before the bombardment of advertising begins. in the il-14 race, that lens is the concurrent special election.
But Illinois law also sets periods for collecting signatures, for filing candidacies, and for challenging candidacies. It's my understanding that when you add up these discrete periods, you end up with a time frame of 50-57 days as a minimum requirement before ANY election -- including a primary election -- could be held.
the respected capitol fax blog reports "Congressman Jerry Weller is not yet circulating his nominating petitions." for those who don't know, candidates have to collect signatures to get their names on the ballot in illinois, collecting an equivalent of .5% of the number of partisan voters in the last primary election. the daily southtown, a local paper of sorts for the northern end of the 11th congressional district in illinois, also notes:
Rumors are circulating that Weller may decide against another term, particularly in light of the bad press he is receiving over his Guatemalan financial interests. Phone calls, I'm told, have been made to his top donors indicating he may be preparing to "hang it up." His family, after all, lives in Guatemala. That's a long commute.
well, i don't know what stays in vegas. but since we have some passing interest, maybe i should talk a little about a conversation i had today with some d-trip people. i'm here for the dnc summit, and got a few minutes alone with howard dean. there are a couple of people from illinois here, and i will blog about them later, but some people here might be interested in our conversation about the 2008 house races. they asked me for my opinion, and you know i was happy to give it.
so there's this little house race up on the northshore, and they were very interested in my take on this. everyone knows that i like dan seals, who's clearly run the best grassroots campaign in illinois in 2006. his was named the most valiant effort by cq politics and a "netroots hero" or future leader by yearlykos. i outlined my observations on seals and the campaign, and concluded that this was still a work in progress. i promised i'd follow up more on our next conference call.
no one said a word about jay footlik, and i wasn't going to bring him up.
(an inside look of a real campaign. i'd have preferred that tom tie everything together, but that's me. i'd front page a similar laesch or stein strategic memo, too. it's refreshing to see campaigns respond to the power of the netroots... - promoted by bored now)
The following is a memo regarding the real political story in IL-14. The mainstream media has decided that the spin coming from the NRCC that this seat is red should be reported as fact.
The truth is, this seat is very vulnerable to a Democrat with Bill Foster's background and experience.
Full memo after the jump. Learn more about Foster here
second quarter filings are now in. as expected, mark kirk, who is vulnerable to dan seals, raised the most in illinois ($616,612). nor is it a surprise that melissa bean, who may be perpetually vulnerable in IL-08, raised a half million ($552,126). other top incumbent fund-raisers:
one note: the state disclosure for bobby rush may be more interesting than his federal disclosure. as the ward committeeman for the second ward in chicago, he is thought to be vulnerable to the ambition of bob fioretti, who is said to be interested in running for rush's committeeman position. all reports, after the jump:
Centrist Republicans in the House, concerned about their dwindling ranks, have set up a new political action committee (PAC) to protect their seats and elect new lawmakers who share their ideology.
the threat that dan seals represents to mark kirk features very prominently in this development. the pac, the tuesday group pac, held a samll event last week. it started fundraising in may.
i participated in a one hour and forty minute conference call -- people who know me know how much i hate conference calls, but -- with more than two dozen political groups and a representative from the dccc this morning. the subject was the beginnings of the 2008 congressional cycle.
one of the reasons (i think) i was asked to participate was because i've been bitching furiously with east coast contacts about the illinois cycle moving up the primary to february 5, and how that meant that some of these groups need to be ready to endorse early, at least in illinois.
