So, former speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat, in one of the redder districts in the country, with his hand-picked succesor as the candidate, is now in the hands of a Democrat - who received a last minute endorsement and commercial from Barack Obama.
In a stunning upset Saturday that could be a sign of trouble for Republicans this fall, a little-known Democratic physicist won the special election for a far west suburban congressional seat long held by former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Rookie candidate Bill Foster scored a comfortable victory over Republican dairyman Jim Oberweis, who lost his fourth high-profile contest in six years, after an expensive and highly negative contest.
Foster had 53 percent to Oberweis’ 47 percent with all of the unofficial vote counted.
Yes, we can.
Spreading a meme ripped off from Phil in Matt Y’s comments (and tweaked a bit):
“Apparently sick of convincing superdelegates, Obama has hit upon the innovative strategy of creating new superdelegates.”
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/a_pickup.php
Way to go Foster, Obama, and Dems.
This is fucking awesome. A good win in a red district and it forced the GOP to spend money they cant afford. They recently released a list of 24 seats they want to challenge for, but I say, with what money? They can’t afford to defend their open seats, there’s no way they will be able to mount an effective offense.
In fairness to the GOP, the Republican who got his butt beat in a safe home game (look at the map and see how many hundreds of miles into cow and soybean country this district runs west from Chicago) was an idiotic jerk. Team Obama probably did the GOP a favor by killing him; improves their overall gene pool.
I think it helps that this winning Democrat, Bill Foster, is a research scientist rather than an attorney. I am an attorney and proud of my profession but we do have more than enough of us in public life.
At this point, it will be impossible for Clinton to take the lead in pledged delegatres no matter what happens with Michgan and Florida. No matter how you slice it, Obama will have the most pledged delegates at the convention, and the Super Delegates aren’t about to overturn the pledged delegate results. The Super Delegates are also smart enough to understand that Obama has long coattails, and Clinton doesn’t. At this point it’s all about the “down the ballot” races. Having Obama at the top of the ticket would increase the Democratic majorities in the house and senate. Looking at it from a practical perspective, 43% of all voters in the United States have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton. There’s no way that Hillary Clinton, starting with such high negatives, would help Democratic candidates. With her incredibly high negatives, Hillary is destined to lose the National race. She knows that. That’s why she is desparately pleading for Democrats to send Obama to the back of the bus (even though he’ll have the most pledged delegates) as Vice-President–that’s the only way she could win. But there’s no logical reason to do that. Many “Recovering Republicans” like me, and independents, intend to vote for Obama in the General Election, but would NOT vote for a CLINTON/OBAMA ticket. The best hope that the Democratic Party has to win the Presidency in 2008 AND INCREASE THEIR WINS IN CONGRESSIOANL RACES is NOT to send Obama to the back of the bus; it’s to throw Clinton under the bus!
At this point it seems like Clinton is going to fall under the bus herself.
2 out of 16 is not much momentum, if you ask me.