IL-14 At Stake Today
Written by Sam on March 8th, 2008
Today is the special election for Hastert’s former House seat in Illinois and the race has been polling neck and neck. This should be an easy GOP hold, but the Democrat, Bill Foster, has campaigned hard and I have heard grumblings from Republicans on other Web sites of some dissatisfaction with our candidate, Jim Oberweis, over an alleged incident of him employing illegal immigrants at his dairy farm and paying wages slightly over $3 an hour. Oberweis denied the allegations and claimed it was a smear job. I don’t know that it was ever proven one way or another.
Update: With 74% of precincts reporting, Frost is leading Oberweis 53% to 47%. We’re going to lose this seat. The Illinois GOP will once again prove to be incompetent.
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Is it just me or does it seem like democrats run better candidates then republicans in general. By better candidates I mean life stories, experience, likeability, their ability to run a campaign etc.
I think this race would be one example of that.
After reading the bios of both the candidates and from what I know about them, I couldn’t help but think if I lived in the district that I would vote for Foster.
I think the presidential race is an exception to this trend of course. McCain’s experience and life story is hard to match.
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People are “Mad as Hell” at the Republican Party. This is happening all over the country.
George W. Bush and his Republican rubber stamp congress from Jan 2001 to Nov. 2006 did so much damage to this nation. That people will not forget it for a long time.
People in this country are sick of this war and sick of the Corporate Welfare that is destroying our middle class.
They are mad that they are being spied on (yes average Americans, not terrorists) they are tired of being told that the terrorist will attack us if we don’t give into this administrations tactics…. which have shredded our constitution.
“This is a political earthquake — who would have thought?” U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky said at Foster’s victory party. “One would have thought that the DNA of this district is Republican. This means there’s not a district in America that’s safe for the Republicans.”
People are not stupid in this country. People are MAD in this country.
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You know, Tallytown, we went down this same road, for 38 comments I believe, in a post of mine. I can see that some things never change - rather than respond to requests for factual proof and explanation of your charges, you just re-post the same rant in another thread. Nice.
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Langley, this is “proof” of what I was trying to tell you in our prior discussion.
But, you just continue to stick your head in the sand.
And Langley, this was a Special election in a Republican dominated district. Which is even more telling!
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Look, you can read in our loooong discussion in my prior post that I can completely understand (and comprehend!) election results, but thanks. I have no problem seeing the GOP lose races because I’m not as emotionally committed to a party or group of people as you and many other people are. Switching the letter besides someone’s name from “R” to “D” doesn’t mean much to me so long as the GOP machine continues to be corrupt and very un-conservative in its actions.
What I was referring to was your nonsensical rambling about what you previously labeled as the Bush administration’s “fascist” government (speaking of which, I wonder if you know what the term means, since you never could explain to me what neoconservatism is). I mean I’ve explained to you before the whole “spying on Americans” thing, and you keep on plugging away acting as if you can just make outrageous stuff up. There are plenty of things about this Administration to complain about (of course, like I established before, a good many of the things I dislike you would probably wholeheartedly agree with in your desire for an ever-expanding government), and “spying on Americans” isn’t one of them.
PS. “Corporate Welfare” that is “destroying the middle class”?!? Uh, wow. Tax the bastards until they can’t make a profit, that’ll teach em! Haha.
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I love the way you say that, I support the expanding of government…. YOU by, excusing this administration’s tactics of using the Telecom companies, to do their dirty work, of spying on U.S. citizens… not International communications… but Domestic communications!
They have politicized this… Just as they have the Justice Dept. Their tactic, of Fear Mongering works with the far right wing of the GOP… Which is YOU!
As far a Corporate Welfare, What, HAVE YOU BEEN ASLEEP FOR THE PAST 7 YEARS? Just this week, on Capitol Hill there is a hearing is going on about the record severance packages that have been paid to the CEO’s of the companies, whose tactics have bankrupted hundreds of thousands of American families. Who… was in charge of regulating these companies? Where… was the oversight? HUH????? Oh yeah, the Bush administration with the help of his CRONEY Dept. Heads, and his RUBBER STAMP CONGRESS. Not to mention, the tax cuts given to companies that, are sending our jobs overseas.
I know that you are just a kid (meaning under 30) but, when you grow up and have a family to raise, mortage to pay, college tuitions to pay, retirement to save for. Maybe, you will understand why people in this country are “MAD AS HELL!
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Sorry, Sam, but I think this is bigger than the Illinois GOP’s incompetence. The NRCC is getting its clock cleaned by the DCCC and dumped about a third of its warchest into this race. Republicans are viewed as the party of corruption in large part because our scandals get more coverage than the other party’s in the media. So long as people like Cole go on defending the likes of Renzi and the NRSC goes to bat for Stevens, it is extremely difficult to change that perception. Yes, the IL GOP is incompetent, but there are much larger problems at the national level, and I don’t mean the ones that Tallytowngal is talking about.
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Ah, more rhetoric - you’re still ignoring the most basic facts of the “spying” that you reference, but whatever, I’m not going to explain it to you again.
I fail to see what your argument is as far as CEO severance packages… last time I checked it was none of the government’s business.
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Tally: “People are not stupid in this country.”
Yes, yes they are. You are living proof.
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Dave that’s how you reply?
You are showing your lack of maturity.. Grow up!
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Immature, maybe. But thats always better than stupid! Gotta go…..the govt is watching what I type!!!!
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Sean is right. We should throw anyone who remotely stinks of corruption under the bus immediately.
I think few are remembering the fact that the Republican candidate in this race was a poor choice to say the least. The Democrats across the nation are running a better candidate selection machine. Instead of running party hacks, they get people with little political experience but good real world stories. The Republican in this race was a party hack. Unless the Republicans can get candidates with better life stories, they will be in the opposition for years to come.
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Yes, Sean is correct about the corruption, but as Ryan pointed out, Oberweis was a poor candidate and lots of people said that from the get go. That is why I place a lot of blame on the GOP in Illinois.
If Clinton is at the top of the ticket in November we can possibly steal this seat back, but if Obama is at the top it’s out of our sites at least until 2010.
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In my opinion, Hastert deserves a lot of the blame for endorsing Oberweis over Chris Lauzen. I am not sure if I agree with calling Oberweis a party hack though.
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Yeah, Oberweis certainly isn’t a party hack - although he aspires to be one. I live out here in the 14th, so I was able to see the race from the perspective of being a voter in that regard.
The way I understand it all, from what some of the players out here have kinda told me, the endorsement of Oberweis had more to do with Hastert despising Lauzen as opposed to supporting Oberweis. Because Oberweis had a lot of money to throw at the race, I believe Hastert endorsed him (the other option was Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns before he dropped out).
Problem is that Oberweis is a perennial candidate, so it’s evidence to me that he doesn’t care about doing the right thing - he just wants his name on the marquee. The man will not rest any election cycle until he’s elected to something “important.” Twice for Senate, I believe, once for Governor, and now Congress. Four straight election cycles he’s lost. We’ll see how the general in November works out, though.
Lauzen should have been our candidate. Not only is he a very, VERY good conservative (on most things), but he’s just one damn nice guy, too
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I live in Illinois, though not in the 14th district, and I have watched Oberweis (known on local blogs as Obie) lose 3 statewide primaries after running horrible negative campaigns, and now he’s lost a special election after another horrible negative campaign. Obie is a total embarrasment, now a 4-time loser, and wasted 1.6 million of the NRCC’s under 7 millions cash-on-hand. Running Obie through the general will just lead to another loss because his high negatives won’t come down…ever. The NRCC should push him out of the race and run Lauzen instead. If Obie doesn’t agree, then the NRCC should not spend any money on that race and instead use it on one of the other 20+ open seats we will be defending. Republicans should really pressure Tom Cole to do the right thing and dump the loser before its too late.