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Ex-speaker Denny Hastert's seat in a reliably Republican district has just gone to a Dem. And not just any Dem: a physicist -- no, really -- with zero political experience, and on whose defeat the Republican national committee spent over a million dollars in vain. If this isn't a fluke, it's really bad news for the GOP.
Hey, Denny: thanks for retiring rather than serving out your term in the minority, ya sore loser!
House Dems Score Special Election Upset
Physicist Bill Foster (D) defeated dairy magnate Jim Oberweis (R) in the Illinois special election to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R), a win that reinforces the perils facing House Republicans at the ballot box this fall.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Foster had 52.5 percent of the vote to Oberweis's 47.5 percent. That result was amazing given the 14th District's clear Republican lean. President Bush won the district, which spans into the far western suburbs of Chicago, with 55 percent in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000. Hastert won reelection easily for more than two decades.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was quick to cast the race as a national barometer. Foster's victory is "a stunning rejection of the Bush administration, its Republican allies, and presidential nominee John McCain," he said.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) called the race "the shot of change heard around the world."
Republican strategists downplayed the importance of the race, insisting that Oberweis's past runs for office had badly damaged him in the eyes of voters. Oberweis, who owns a chain of dairies throughout the state, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2002 and 2004, and governor in 2006. His previous primary campaigns were knock down, drag out affairs as was his primary win over state Sen. Chris Lauzen (R) earlier this year -- races that left his image among voters seriously tarnished.
"The one thing 2008 has shown is that one election in one state does not prove a trend," said newly installed National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Karen Hanretty. "In fact, there has been no national trend this entire election season....The one message coming out of 2008 so far is that what happens today is not a bellwether of what happens this fall."
The defeat -- whether or not there are national implications -- is a major setback for the NRCC and House Republicans. The NRCC spent nearly $1.3 million defending the seat, a significant percentage of the $6.4 million the committee showed on hand at the end of January. That is a major investment of limited resources -- only to come up empty.
House Republicans, already dispirited by the loss of their majority in the 2006 election and more than two dozen retirements within their ranks since then, will likely take this defeat hard. Watch to see whether a rash of retirements breaks out over the coming weeks as vulnerable members take the Illinois special election as a sign of things to come in the fall.
Physicist Bill Foster (D) defeated dairy magnate Jim Oberweis (R) in the Illinois special election to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R), a win that reinforces the perils facing House Republicans at the ballot box this fall.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Foster had 52.5 percent of the vote to Oberweis's 47.5 percent. That result was amazing given the 14th District's clear Republican lean. President Bush won the district, which spans into the far western suburbs of Chicago, with 55 percent in 2004 and 54 percent in 2000. Hastert won reelection easily for more than two decades.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was quick to cast the race as a national barometer. Foster's victory is "a stunning rejection of the Bush administration, its Republican allies, and presidential nominee John McCain," he said.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) called the race "the shot of change heard around the world."
Republican strategists downplayed the importance of the race, insisting that Oberweis's past runs for office had badly damaged him in the eyes of voters. Oberweis, who owns a chain of dairies throughout the state, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2002 and 2004, and governor in 2006. His previous primary campaigns were knock down, drag out affairs as was his primary win over state Sen. Chris Lauzen (R) earlier this year -- races that left his image among voters seriously tarnished.
"The one thing 2008 has shown is that one election in one state does not prove a trend," said newly installed National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Karen Hanretty. "In fact, there has been no national trend this entire election season....The one message coming out of 2008 so far is that what happens today is not a bellwether of what happens this fall."
The defeat -- whether or not there are national implications -- is a major setback for the NRCC and House Republicans. The NRCC spent nearly $1.3 million defending the seat, a significant percentage of the $6.4 million the committee showed on hand at the end of January. That is a major investment of limited resources -- only to come up empty.
House Republicans, already dispirited by the loss of their majority in the 2006 election and more than two dozen retirements within their ranks since then, will likely take this defeat hard. Watch to see whether a rash of retirements breaks out over the coming weeks as vulnerable members take the Illinois special election as a sign of things to come in the fall.
Hey, Denny: thanks for retiring rather than serving out your term in the minority, ya sore loser!
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