Congressman Oberweis?

Charlie Johnston says look out: Jim Oberweis is going to run for Congress, and this time he's the front-runner:

Now comes the 2008 primary for U.S. Congress in the 14th District. Besides the fact that Oberweis has gotten significantly better with each race he has run, this one plays to all of his strengths and few of his weaknesses. Much more manageable than a statewide race, his skill at grass-roots politics will play a much more decisive role. While the media will almost certainly see him in the old Oberweis template, the portion of the district that is in the Chicago market is on his home-turf. The rest of the district is divided between the Rockford and the Quad Cities market. Oberweis can buy up nearly all the TV time in both of those markets and largely control his message. Besides the grass-roots advantage of running in the geographically smaller district, Oberweis can do a lot more one-on-one campaigning, and he has developed into a formidable stump campaigner. Finally, he has done very well in that district in all of his state-wide bids.

Right now his most likely primary challengers are State Sen. Chris Lauzen, a solid grass-roots conservative candidate himself and State Rep. Tim Schmitz, who some of the establishment are lining up behind. Neither has the money Oberweis can bring to bear. While both have had electoral success in low-profile races, neither has been in the sort of high-profile race this will be. Lauzen was the nominee for comptroller in 1998, but though statewide, that is still a low-profile race.

Oberweis will start with at least double the name recognition of any other candidate and has the money to keep it that way through election day. His toughness, which makes him the candidate you love to hate when you support someone else in a primary, will likely become a mark of unity when he is a nominee. And I predict he will be as magnanimous in victory as he usually is gracious in defeat. Because of the low expectations the media and some others have assigned to him, he will turn out to be a pleasant surprise to most of his critics after election and will rapidly become a leader in state Republican circles.

The 14th District is currently represented by former Speaker Denny Hastert, and there's widespread speculation he won't run again in 2008, if he doesn't resign his seat even sooner than that.

My problems with Oberweis have always revolved around two points:

• Generally, I don't like Republicans who attack other Republicans during Primary campaigns.
• Generally, I don't think that Governor or U.S. Senator is an entry-level position in politics.  Oberweis is rich, and even though he'd never been involved in the GOP grassroots, he thought that he deserved to be our nominee for statewide offices in 2002, 2004 and 2006.  I don't mind if you're rich, but I do mind if you first involvement with the Party is when you start writing checks to your own campaign for the US Senate.

As Charlie says, it's possible - even likely - that Oberweis could win the 14th.  It's even possible that he could pleasantly surprise me by being a GOP leader that builds the grassroots and is a unifying presence.  But at this point in his political career, I'm going to need to be convinced.