As much as Republican strategists sought to downplay the national importance of the race -- mostly accomplished through bad-mouthing of their candidate -- it's clear that the race was fought on national, not local, issues.
The winner, Democrat Bill Foster, focused heavily on the troubled state of the economy and hit his Republican opponent -- dairy magnate Jim Oberweis -- as a willing advocate for the President Bush and the administration's policies on Iraq. Oberweis and national Republicans, on the other had, cast Foster as a tax-and-spend Democrat willing to throw money at any problem to make it better.
The fact that voters in an exurban district that went for Bush by double digits in 2000 and 2004 opted for the Democratic national message is telling. It suggests that the national political landscape is decidedly tilted in Democrats' favor -- that the uneven playing field of the 2006 election is still alive and well.
Internall polling during the Maryland 4th primary also indicated that the election was oriented around national and not local concerns, indicating another change election in 2008. Cillizza looked for Republican-held districts with a PVI of between R+1 and R+5, which is basically a measure of districts that are slightly Republican to fairly Republican, and listed them as possible on the table. 21 of them alone were in Ohio, Michigan, and Florida, which suggests that Clinton might have some serious House coattails.
One interesting note about the FISA fight is how it is politicians from more conservative areas who are both holding the line and calling for retreat. I won't go deeply into the Bush Dogs, 21 of whom signed a letter calling for immunity for telecom companies who broke the law. More interestingly are people like Nancy Boyda and Bill Foster, who bravely spoke out on the issue and asked Democrats to hold the line. Foster did so during a close fought election, and Boyda, I'm told by several reliable sources, spoke out strongly in a caucus meeting demanding that Democrats hold the line despite the advertising run against her in her district. It is these politicians who we should laud for their work just as we criticize those who choose what is easy.
And now on to Foster, and how his race intersects with FISA and Iraq. Blue Majority bet big on both the Robin Weirauch OH-05 special election and the Bill Foster IL-14 special election. Weirauch lost, and Foster won.. More interestingly, the trends that Chris and I noticed in the 2006 MyDD/Courage Campaign polling project - that mentioning you are a Democrat and mentioning Iraq tend to drive support - still seem operative. Weirauch ran an antipartisan 'Washington is broken' campaign, not mentioning Iraq in her ads and refusing to run as a Democrat. Bill Foster, by contrast, ran with 'Businessman, Scientist, Democrat' on his web site, and put withdrawing troops from Iraq front and center in his paid media. And the results seem fairly clear. Weirauch did not shift her losing margin at all, whereas Foster took a district held by Speaker Dennis Hastert and won it by a clear majority.
National security was front and center in the IL-14 race, and when given the choice, even voters in a Republican district chose the Democrat because he was clear and strong on the core challenges of the Bush administration, Iraq and elite lawlessness. Oberweis accused Foster of raising the White Flag, but it didn't work. Now, critics of the theory of why Foster won will point to a bloody Republican primary in IL-14, arguing that Oberweis was weakened more than Latta, but there was an equally bloody primary in OH-03. And while Latta was a better candidate than Oberweis, it's hard to imagine that could account for the entirety of the shift in IL-14 and the fact that there was no shift of margins in OH-03.
The fact is that national security, and specifically, Iraq, is a winning formula for Democrats. Bill Foster ran as a Democrat and ran on Iraq. He also ran on retroactive immunity, as I noted before our endorsement:
"The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that's wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law."
Any nonsense that Bush Dog Democrats, especially people like Melissa Bean who are in similar GOP-leaning areas need to hold the interests of telecom companies because they have to vote with their district is just cover for them enabling more power to Bush. In Bill Foster we have a Democrat winning in a blood red district calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and protection for civil liberties over fake claims of urgency by his opponent. There can be no more crystal clear proof than taking Dennis Hastert's district that the Republican fear fear fear message does not work as long as it is called out by strong and forceful Democrats.
Democrats should hold firm on issues like FISA and Iraq, not just because it's the right thing to do but because that is precisely what voters are clearly demanding. And candidates should run on these issues; Iraq is not off the table, voters don't like lawbreaking from their leaders, and everyone wishes George Bush had never happened.
I think Bill Foster's got this one, with 88% of the precincts reporting he's holding on to a 53-47 lead and a 4300 vote margin. There are only 10,000 to 15,000 more votes to count, so unless Oberweis takes 65-70% of the remaining vote, he can't win. I find that scenario extraordinarily unlikely.
Update: Foster is up 53-47 with 93% of the precincts reporting. Unless Oberweis takes 9 out of every 10 votes, he's lost. And that's not going to happen.
Congratulations to Bill Foster. We have one more seat in the House, one more Democrat who said the following.
The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that's wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law.
And this wasn't some one-off statement on national security; Bill Foster ran strong on Iraq the whole campaign, with several ads focused on withdrawal and the costs of the war. This was a heavily Republican district that turned on an anti-war and pro-civil liberties message to a Democrat.
... I'm talking Bob Creamer, and he tells me that Moveon had 150 volunteers on the ground. A whole lot of Republican seats are now in play.
Update: The Beacon News calls it for Foster, as does CNN. This is a big boon for Obama's coattail argument.
Foster's 53-47 margin is holding, with 64% of the returns in. The vote margin is expanding slightly, at 35,619 to 31,960. Oberweis needs to take 55% of the remaining vote to win this.
The AP has their numbers here, the Beacon News is here, and dmsilev is liveblogging all the individual counties here. The largest county, Kane County, has returns here.
Update: Foster Up 53-47, with 74% reporting. Oberweis needs to take 58% of the remaining vote, I don't know where he can find that kind of margin. The district is Republican but not that Republican.
Update 2: 79% reporting, Foster up 53-47: Oberweis needs 61% of the remaining vote.
Update 3: 88% reporting, Foster up 53-47. This one's done.
Let's see how it goes. According to Prairie State Blue, Foster had a good GOTV operation out, while Oberweis people were "nowhere to be found".
While I'd like to see that as a sign of optimism, it's not really useful information without more context, especially in a Republican leaning district. GOTV operations are not always visible.
UPDATE: It looks like the layout of the ballot favored Oberweis, as the first comment in this blog post suggests. I doubt that matters much, since this is a special election and people know who they are voting for. I'm talking to a friend on the ground, he says that Foster has around 650 people on the ground, and Oberweis doesn't have much GOTV out as far as anyone can tell. Turnout is low in Elgin, which is one of Foster's base areas...
UPDATE 2: Foster's up 55-45, 3603-2917 with 2 of 568 precincts reporting.
UPDATE 3: Oberweis up, 55-45 4,173-3,358 votes with 1% reporting. Kane County is showing a slightly narrower margin. It does not look great for Foster tonight.
UPDATE 4: 3% reporting, 53-47, 5047-4389
UPDATE 5: Slightly better news for Foster, Illinois reports returns county by county, and Foster is making up ground in Kane County, the largest county in the district and the place where some of his base areas are. That gap closed to 50.48 to 48.5, a 360 vote gap. Kane is still a Republican County, so this could be a good sign.
UPDATE 6: Foster Up 56-44, 14% reporting, 13606-10769 votes. The margin has not closed in Kane, so other counties are reporting in.
UPDATE 7: Foster Up 54-56, 16% reporting, 14,549-12,213 votes in. Kane County has basically evened up. For a frame of reference, Kane delivered 77k-60k votes for Bush over Gore.
UPDATE 8: Ok, Foster took a 50 vote lead in Kane County. It's not relevant to the overall total, but it's a good sign.
UPDATE 10: 35% reporting, Foster up 54-46, 22,039 - 18,440. Oberweis needs to bring in 52.3% of the remaining vote to win this, Foster only needs to pull in 47.6% to take a majority. Foster has taken a lead in Kane County of 300 votes.
Some of the more significant GOP counties, including Kendall and Lee, have yet to report. So don't get your hopes up. And can I say that Illinois's non-consolidated county-by-county returns really make this annoying. This is my second live-blog of an Illinois Congressional election, and neither was easy to follow. The AP, the Beacon-News, and the Kane County website all have different numbers.
Update 11: 55% reporting, Foster up 53-47, 31,423 to 28,210. While it looks like Foster is going to win, I don't trust these aggregate numbers to be that accurate. It does look like Foster is cleaning up in suburban Kane County.
In the poll of 517 likely special election voters, conducted by Survey USA exclusively for Roll Call on March 3 and 4, physicist Bill Foster (D) led dairy company executive Jim Oberweis (R) 52 percent to 45 percent. The poll had a 4.4-point margin of error.
Foster appeared to test particularly well with women and independent voters, who preferred him by a 3-2 margin. The survey also suggested Foster had locked down his party's base, taking 97 percent of likely Democratic votes and perhaps stealing 10 percent of likely GOP votes.
In contrast, Roll Call's poll suggested that 89 percent of likely Republican special election participants pulled the hypothetical lever for Oberweis, owner of a eponymous multi-state retail ice cream chain. The survey also showed that Oberweis drew dramatically fewer potential party switchers than Foster - just 3 percent.
Self-defined independents, who are expected to make up one-quarter of Saturday's electorate, picked Oberweis 38 percent of the time in Roll Call's hypothetical matchup.
Obama's favorable/unfavorable in the district is 49/35, which is good. But what really matters is whether voters are persuaded by Obama's endorsement, and the poll doesn't reveal that information.
It's a Republican district and a Saturday election, and in situations like that the incumbent party is at an advantage. This is a goo drace for two reasons. One, FISA and Iraq are core issues, and two, we'll get to see if Obama has coattails for other Democrats. According to the polls here, it looks like Foster is getting party switchers and independents. But the vote hasn't happened yet.
Republican businessman Jim Oberweis ripped his scientist opponent Bill Foster as a man who understands the atom but not economics while debating a final time before a March 8 election to fill Dennis Hastert's congressional seat.
"I'm afraid that while Bill is very, very smart when it comes to quantum physics, his lack of understanding of how the economy works and the mortgage industry works . . . is pretty limited," Oberweis said.
Foster, 52, a Democrat and former Fermilab physicist from Geneva, countered by saying Oberweis is a man who plays on people's fears. He pointed to a notorious commercial in which Oberweis, 61, flew over Soldier Field in a helicopter while saying enough illegal aliens enter the country every week to fill the stadium.
"I think [Oberweis] is rather famous for flying around in helicopters and inciting people's passion and irritation," Foster said.
Foster is a successful businessman and scientist. Oberweis is a dairy tycoon who demagogues immigrants.
We'll see on Saturday. This one's a GOTV operation election since it's not a normal election day, and those special elections tend to benefit the incumbent party unless there's some unique circumstance. We'll see if the new internet-infused GOTV operation courtesy of Obama is such a spark.
UPDATE: This is crazy. The hardcore right-wing Sam Zell-owned Chicago Tribune has endorsed Bill Foster
This page is closer to Oberweis than Foster on several economic and foreign policy issues. But we watched Oberweis in his races for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and for governor in 2006. We've watched this race for Congress. His campaign style has consistently been nasty, smug, condescending ... and dishonest.
In 2004, he ran an ad in which he hovered over Soldier Field in a helicopter and said 10,000 illegal aliens come to the U.S. each day, "enough to fill Soldier Field every single week." The number was grossly inflated and the ad smacked of fear-mongering.
In 2006, he ran TV ads that used headlines from the Tribune and other newspapers to attack an opponent. But the headlines were fake. They hadn't appeared in the newspapers.
This year, Oberweis' campaign is based on the notion that his opponent is a big-spending liberal. Oberweis' TV and radio ads quote Foster saying, "There's nothing in life that you can't improve by pouring money at it. ..."
Foster did say that, at a League of Women Voters debate. But the transcript makes it clear he was talking about the federal government's "poor efforts" to improve air-traffic-control safety. His conclusion: "This is one example of a place I would look to save taxpayer dollars."
And Oberweis' immediate response at the debate? He said: "I find myself in the almost embarrassing position of tending to agree with Bill on some of his comments there."
The sum impression of Oberweis from four campaigns: He sees public office as an opportunity to pick a fight.
Bill Foster tells us that he will be a Blue Dog Democrat -- that is, part of the moderate caucus in the House that puts a high priority on controlling federal spending and returning to a balanced budget. He would almost certainly have to take a moderate Democratic line to hold this seat from a district that gave President Bush 55 percent of the vote in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000, and elected Hastert to 11 terms in the House.
He surely will be more willing than Oberweis is to listen to people with whom he disagrees. So we'll trust Foster when he says he would emphasize transparency, responsibility and bipartisanship in government. He is endorsed.
I've blogged before about Foster's Blue Dog statements, but I also think it's significant that he's running on FISA, Iraq, and suggesting that he disagrees with Blue Dogs on the foreclosure crisis. This is no Brad Ellsworth, he's more of a Patrick Murphy type. Goldenstar notes that Blue Majority candidate Dan Seals is asking volunteers to help out Foster, as is Jan Schakowsky and Obama.
In less than a week, there's a special election to fill a Congressional seat in Illinois's 14th district. This one was the seat held by Dennis Hastert, former Republican Speaker of the House during the most destructive political period we may see in our lifetimes. Because of that legacy of failure, and because of the special dynamics of 2008, we might be able to turn this red district blue in a foreshadowing of the election in November. The Democrat, Bill Foster, and the Republican, Jim Oberweis, are pretty much tied in the polling. This is a race with potentially far reaching impacts, and it's one where some support from our communities can be helpful. Here's legal legend Larry Lessig, one of the coiners of the term 'net neutrality' who decided earlier this year not to run for Congress.
So just off the phone with Bill Foster, a physicist from Illinois, Democrat, running in a special election to fill Dennis Hastert's seat. When I started to think about this run, Foster was a model. A former researcher at Fermilab, and entrepreneur, he is precisely the sort a changed Congress would need.
"Seven hours a day" on the phone raising money. And with a Special Election just 10 days away, they're pushing to raise a final $200,000 to run an endorsement ad from Barack Obama.
Seven hours a day. Wow.
Foster is running for Dennis Hastert's old seat, a 55% Bush 2004 voting district. Despite the redness of the district, he is running clearly on the issue of Iraq with several ads calling for the end of the war (here's ad one and ad two on Iraq), and he has on his web site 'Businessman, Scientist, Democrat'. He is against retroactive immunity for telecoms, and his opponent is for letting lawbreakers off the hook. This is no shrinking violet running a vague anti-DC message, this guy is a Democrat running as a Democrat on the Iraq war and FISA in a red district.
And now Foster needs $200k to run an endorsement ad by Barack Obama in Illinois. This is a test run of the 2008 elections, and we'll know soon if Obama has the coattails to drive increased Democratic majorities in Congress. I don't agree with Foster on everything, and I don't expect any of us to be perfectly satisfied with any member of Congress. But taking Dennis Hastert's old seat with a proud scientist and Democrat running against the war and strongly for civil liberties under the ticket of the probable Democratic nominee in 2008?
That's a great Blue Majority candidate. Give a few bucks, it's a good chance to have
a meaningful impact. Since I can't volunteer for Foster in Illinois, I threw in $25.
This is a useful investment in changing the country and changing the party. If he wins, or even comes close, it'll be one more sign the House does not have to cave on FISA, and one more sign that the Obama wave will be able to build a more progressive America. If he doesn't, we'll learn and be able to shift messaging, like we did with Busby's special election victory in CA-50. Either way, it makes sense to be involved.
UPDATE: That's a big slug of donations! $2000 from 27 of you in a few hours. Progressive Democratic leader Jan Schakowsky is really excited about this one and will be door-knocking on election day. Also, Patrick Murphy's people are on the ground to help, so you're in good company.
"The President and his allies in Congress are playing politics with national security, and that's wrong. Nobody is above the law and telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be held accountable, not given retroactive immunity. I flatly oppose giving these companies an out for cooperating with Alberto Gonzalez on short-circuiting the FISA courts and the rule of law."
Bill Foster, Democratic Candidate in IL-14 March 8th Special Election
I criticized Foster on his attraction to the Blue Dogs as fiscally responsible (and this statement on the beauty of bipartisanship), but I was quite open-minded about his candidacy. He's running on Iraq, as a Democrat, Scientist, and Businessman, and he's against immunity for telecom companies. I hope he doesn't become a Blue Dog, but overall I'm pretty happy that he's got a shot and if you're in the area you should volunteer and help out his campaign. At the very least he'll be another good vote on FISA, and he might be pretty progressive in Congress. I mean he's a scientist.
After beating 2006 Hastert opponent John Laesch in the primary, Democrat Bill Foster is running in a special election in Illinois's 14th against Republican Jim Oberweis, who is so unpopular that he lost to Alan Keyes in a primary (update: well sort of, there's more detail in this comment). This is Dennis Hastert's old district, a 55% Bush voting area in 2004.
Paying down this debt must be the first order of business. I intend to work with the Blue Dog Democrats in congress -- a group dedicated to curing this by making the hard decisions necessary -- as well as any other groups that make deficit reduction their top priority. I'm sure that I'll be at odds with the Blue Dogs on more than a few issues - for example mortgage industry reform - but when it comes to deficit reduction, we all agree that we have to get our house in order.
I don't like that he's going to become a Blue Dog, but I do like that he's willing to break with them. Still, because of the Blue Dog association I won't put any of my energy into the race, though I might change my mind depending on what I hear from him on the FISA legislation. It's not reasonable to hold Foster responsible for the Blue Dog caucus, since he probably doesn't understand just how corrupt they are and actually believes that they want to deal with the budget instead of raise military spending and cut everything else. And I do like his slogan, 'Businessman, Scientist, Democrat'. But it's too bad he has associated himself tightly with that group; with some exceptions, they are bad people and he shouldn't go near them with a ten foot poll.
What makes the race interesting is that Foster is polling pretty well, down 45-43 with 12% undecided. Considering the margin of error, it's tied. I posted a polling memo below, and it shows that Foster takes a lead when both candidates bios are read. Since the memo doesn't actually say what those bios are, I don't trust them.
The other point of interest is that Foster's ads focus on Iraq and ending combat operations versus his opponent's position of keeping troops there for ten years. It's kind of weaselly language, frankly, since ending combat operations can mean pretty much anything. I can see our troops engaging in a 'training operation' or operating in an 'advisory capacity', which is why the language is so transparently noncommittal, though it does actually paint some sort of contrast with his Republican opponent, who wants our troops there for at least ten more years. With the partition idea out there, it's a reasonable assumption that Foster thinks that keeping troops in Iraq makes sense.
Foster's first ad points out that the Iraq war is diverting resources from health care and other economic problems.
And this one contains a promise to an end combat operations.
Patrick Murphy is a strong supporter of Foster, and he is pushing aggressively to get him in office. This is a good test of a generic Iraq change message in a fairly red though not overwhelmingly red district. Right now, no one's convinced me this is a particularly important race for anything but tactical reasons, since it's entirely unclear to me that Foster is a progressive and I have asked Foster's staff for a statement on FISA.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I was in a public place, right here in St. Charles, Illinois, when I overheard a conversation that alarmed, but failed to surprise, me. The person doing most of the talking was -talking- complaining bitterly about her new job in an area public elementary school. Not a St. Charles school and not an educator. She's a peripheral professional who has frequent contact with children however, and that's bad enough.
Her major complaint? "All these Hispanic children."
According to her, not only are "all these Hispanic children" unable to communicate, they are "aggressive and obnoxiously rude - especially the girls." I was supposed to be paying attention to what the person in front of me was saying and lost some of the conversation I was overhearing, but suspect her companion must have voiced some objections, because she started trying to -explain herself- dig herself in deeper.
More than two weeks ago, on August 26 the Chicago Suburban Daily Herald reported this about Jim Oberweis, Hastert's rumored hand-picked successor, in the IL-14 Republican primary:
With the Iraq war a dominant issue in next year's election, Oberweis takes the view that the U.S. will start bringing troops home within six months because that's what military leaders will recommend. At least some troops will need to remain for 10 years or more as Iraqis start taking over responsibility for their country, said Oberweis, arguing "that's the right approach."
Ring a bell? Sound like anything you might have heard tonight?
As the Laesch for Congress campaign readies for our visit to YearlyKos, we are keeping an eye on media reports about Hastert's plans to make an announcement in August, and the not-quite-announcements of several Republican candidates that are hanging in the balance. Most recently we have heard from CQ Quarterly
that there is a
widespread belief that Hastert is much more likely to retire than to seek an 12th House term in 2008
On the other hand, local press quotes Hastert at a mid-July event:
"As far as I'm concerned right now, I'm running," Hastert said at the more than 500-person event at the Sandwich Fairgrounds. He said he plans to make a formal announcement next month on whether he will enter the 2008 race.
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