Today was the special election for the seat of retired former GOP Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.
This is the Illinois GOP though, so of course they ran Alan Keyes's twin brother to run for the seat. Here's Oberweis (R) on the left and Foster (D) (the winner of the election) on the right:
Some people may not be able to see the resemblance to Alan Keyes:
The trick is to look real close. Once you look real close you'll see the resemblance as both are nuts, vile, and a sure bet to lose whatever general election he’s running in. They even wear the same color tie.
Meanwhile the Illinois GOP has not only lost another solidly Republican district to the Democrats, giving them an extra House seat, but they suffered yet another humiliating defeat compounding the fact that they lack even a single statewide office and are the minority in both houses of the Illinois General Assembly to the point of having the Illinois Democrats having a supermajority in both.
It really doesn't matter what the Illinois GOP do... their opinion is entirely irrelevant in Illinois and they apparently mean to keep it that way by running these sure-bet losers like Oberweis and Keyes. Meanwhile almost every state office, General Assembly leadership and committee chairs are run by Chicago Democrats who ensure that no piece of legislation or policy isn't Chicago approved prior to passage, in spite of the rest of the State having more voters and population. The downstate Democrats help propagate this entire dismissal of downstate issues by voting to keep the Chicago-centric legislature leadership and committee heads in power.
Amazing. Sad. But in an amazing way.
It's like watching a train wreck. But less fun because you're on it.
What's amazing is that the Democrats continue to grow in power despite completely bungling management of the state government. What's even more amazing is that given the alternatives, it seems logical to continue to elect these folks as the lesser of two evils. When are we going to get some decent candidates?
When you say that Chicago has a minority of voters, what are you counting? The city limits? Cook county? Or the whole metropolitan area? Either way, your point is still good, but downstate and the Northwest together don't outpace the population of the NE section of the state.
Of course, that shouldn't matter on many issues. When we talk about Education for instance, downstate and inner city Chicago actually face similar challenges. Why do we continue to allow the Chicago suburbs to dictate policy for the whole state against the best interests of BOTH downstate and urban Chicago?
"What's amazing is that the Democrats continue to grow in power despite completely bungling management of the state government."
Yes.
I wonder if there are any Republicans on the state stage who are willing to stand up and say, "These are our ideas. Here's what we stand for, and what we should do."
Instead, we've gotten 5+ years of "I'm not Rod" and abandoned principles for pork, and have fallen further into irrelevancy.
I think y'all should just pick some Democrats to run as Republicans. I can think of several I'd love to let you have real cheap.
It is even less fun, when you try to make a difference and receive $0.00 campaign contributions from the SRO.
To that end, I am, and shall always remain;
Rex Bradfield
Ya get what ya pay for. Somethings just ain't worth buying.
"Instead, we've gotten 5+ years of "I'm not Rod" and abandoned principles for pork, and have fallen further into irrelevancy."
You can't fall lower than zero. There's no falling, just revelation of the complete irrelevancy.
Mr Oberweis proves the expression-what goes around comes around. He lost because he is a real jerk. I covered for Judy Baar at a pancake breakfast at a St. Joe's church during the primary and stood next to him with her literature. We had a chance to talk at some length. He knew very well that the 12 year old deal to sell the hotel in Springfield was a deal Topinka inherited from Quinn's staff. All Topinka did was renegotiate the deal from 6.5 to 10 m. He knew it, we discussed it. I even briefed Joe Brickett on it. It was not very secretive because all you need to do was look up the published legal cases. Despite knowing the real facts he ran a negative and untrue commercial. The voters in Chicago in a district near Judy's remembered this when he ran another negative campaign both in the primary and in the general election. I am not surpised at all that he lost. I would not vote for him to clean up elephant poop after a 4th of July parade.
John,
Yep, spot on point. My feelings also.
2:53 PM, Anonymous
Very clever, especially the courage of your name signature
To that end, I am, and shall always remain;
Rex Bradfield
This might be a bit of thread-necrophilia, but I came across this on RealClearPolitics this evening: "Why the GOP Lost IL-14". To wit, the state GOP organization sucks.
(I know, not exactly earth-shattering, but it's topical...)
HG