Politics: What? Isn’t the 18th District important to the national Dems?
The Chicago Tribune blog Clout Street says the national Democratic Party are targeting three Congressional districts now held by the GOP. The 18th District is not one of those listed.
That’s surprising. The district seems ripe for turnover. The incumbent is retiring, and the presumptive nominee (pending approval by the county chairs) would seem to be a strong candidate because of her name recognition, proven communication skills, ties to the Democratic Party AND the GOP, as well as the ability to speak knowledgeably about agriculture in a mostly rural district.
If the national Democrats are going to take a pass and not throw some resources into this district, it wouldn’t be the first time. Lack of national support probably doomed G. Douglas Stephens’ attempt to unseat Rep. Bob Michel back in the early 1980s. I can understand the party not wanting to target the minority leader, but Aaron Schock? The guy who got national publicity for wanting to sell nukes to Taiwan?
Hat tip: Rich Miller.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Billy, Why would the National GOP direct resources to a Democrat Candidate? Now that would be a story.
Here is how it was explained to me. There is no one jumping on this because the would be candidates want to know who is at the top of the ticket. This district is strongly Republican, tho showing some drift toward democrats. If Hillary is at the ticket, the rational is that she will unify Republicans and bring them out to the polls, dooming any Democrat running for the 18th seat. If it is Obama at the top, the logic goes that whoever runs for the 18th will benefit from Obama’s coattails as he moves toward the White House.
*If Hillary is at the top of the ticket,
While Callahan is strong relative to candidates like Waterworth, Harant or no candidate at all (which is the Dem record of the past 8 years in this district), that doesn’t make Callahan a strong candidate by the standards of candidates across the nation.
Just because the Dems finally offer somebody (in a belated entry at that) doesn’t make Callahan a top tier candidate. She’s a fourth or fith tier candidate. The truth is national Dems (Durbin, Obama, Rahm Emanuel and Pelosi) begged State Senator John Sullivan, State’s Attorny Kevin Lyons, Rep. Mautino, Springfield Mayor Davlin, and other officials and they all said no to a congressional run. Then they settled on Versace. Then he dropped out, then Sullivan, Lyons and others were lobbied again and again they said no.
Callahan is most certainly a step up from Waterworth but that doesn’t change the fact that she wasn’t even on the list of their top ten hopes. She simply was ahead of Edley, Grawey or Waterworth again. If their polls showed she had a remote chance, she would be on their list. They want a bigger majority. But she is not on their list. That’s an action, not words-by the Dems themselves.
Sentinel comments are essentially correct about the Democratic politico selection process, however, their track record hasn’t been the best in Illinois. Consider Emanuel’s muscling out of Christine Cegelis who ran a competitive, underfunded race against Henry Hyde in 2004. Emanuel thought local democrats needed a stronger candidate and backed Tammy Duckworth. Even with all the establishment backing, Duckworth barely beat Cegelis in the 2006 Democratic primary—then she loses in the general election. Emanuel has been a shameless self promoter ever since he worked for Paul Simon 25 years ago. He is over rated and the kiss of death in this rural downstate district.
Callahan is as good as any candidate the democrats could have selected. She is very much respected in the agricultural community and obviously has excellent communication skills. Unlike Duckworth, Callahan has deep roots throughout her congressional district established during a 30 year career in radio and TV reporting. If she develops a good campaign message and spends time raising money this will be a competitive race in the fall.
The Democrats have never seem particularly interested in this district. The late Rick Baker once wrote a column about all the lightweights the Dems picked to run against Bob Michel, including a state senator whose main claim to fame was throwing hot soup on people he disagreed with. As Baker put it, they nominated everybody but the big stuffed bear at Jumer’s. Methinks Versace fits into that tradition.
Versace turned out to be a stuffed bear. On paper, a popular former BU coach with a stack of cash and fascinating family narrative like Versace’s would seem to be a formidle candidate. But the man ran an poor campaign, and he quickly lost interest.
Can someone tell me the proportion of voters in the 18th district that are farmers or have their livelihood tied to farming? Outside of that cohort Collahan has virtually no name recognition.
I suspect that it is less than 10%.
By definition the Democrats can’t make too many seats a priority. Oberweis isn’t a great candidate in Hastert’s district, the 11th is all but lost for Republicans, and Roskam is a first-term Congressman who’s likely to be in for a while if he wins this election. Emmanuel isn’t going to tell donors to forgo giving money in one of those races because they’ve recruited a retired ag announcer from AM radio to run against someone who is a whiz at raising money in a Republican district who just throttled his opponents in the primary.
I think it will be interesting to see what happens if Schock announces on April 1 that he’s got $500,000 in the bank and the Democrats still haven’t formally selected callahan. She will be entirely on her own at that point without any ability to solicit any promises of support from local, state, or national party officials, and she runs a race with $30,000.
And remember that Schock beat an incumbent Democrat in a majority Democratic district in 2004, when state Democratic turnout was high to support Obama’s Senate race. How much longer do you suppose Obama’s coattails would be in a presidential race?
In no way did I imply either Colleen Callahan or Darin LaHood was a “joke†and I resent you characterizing my postings as having said that. To reiterate, I said the following about Ms. Callahan:
1. It’s not a tremendously rural district and she has relatively little name recognition;
2. Schock will likely raise 5 to 10 times more money than she will;
3. It’s a relatively Republican district, and;
4. The plethora of other competitive Illinois House races means she’ll get little state or national party support.
Tell me which one you dispute or is disrespectful of Colleen Callahan.
Regarding Darin LaHood, I said the following:
1. I do not believe the anti-Lyons sentiment is as strong as you believe;
2. He raised most of his money from people who have been strong supporters of his father, and this money would not have come to him had he not been his son (especially given that he last lived here in the 1980s);
3. It is much more difficult to defeat an incumbent in a down-ticket race, and;
4. Given the even split in the county and the possibility of Obama leading the Democratic ticket, Darin LaHood will need something to drive Republican turnout in the county to win.
Again, tell me which one you dispute (besides 1, of course) or can be construed as calling him a “joke.â€
And I have nothing to say on your comment that defenders of Schock are invariably defenders of Kevin Lyons. Perhaps you would like to elaborate on what you meant by that.
I stand by my observation.
The Democrats are smart enough to see the real press bias.
Schock = Easy Cheesy Headlines
The innate bias of all journalists towards a punned up headline will doom any candidate not named Frank Awesome or some such thing.
If that’s the case, I should change my name to Tom Terrific and run for emperor of the world.
S.Sam
You speak with reason and fact. Thank you for your clarity.