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.
