Posted on 12/01/2015 10:25:31 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee
I emailed my resume to Liz Pahlke, and I asked if I can work for her campaign. She said that I have a lot of political experience, but she only wants to hire employees who have no experience.
I work for Andrew Straw, a conservative candidate in the 8th District. His site (www.strawforcongress.com) states that he’s pro-tax cuts, pro-spending cuts, pro-life, pro-gun rights, and anti-illegal alien. One of his primary opponents, Pete DiCianni has a website, but it doesn’t tell any of his views. I emailed him and asked him a few questions. Two weeks later, he didn’t respond, so I called the number on his site. A recording said, “That number is not accepting calls at this time.”
My thoughts on our pathetic congressional districts & “representation” in government:
District 1: I actually thought about filing myself (PhilCollins suggested the idea as well) after the disaster last election with RAT Tillman as the “Republican” nominee. I was going to file for Congress and as a delegate for Scott Walker in IL-1. Walker literally dropped out a day after I got the paperwork to run as delegate. Guess it’s karma’s way of telling me don’t run. The non-Tillman candidate has a website that tells us virtually nothing about him, but if he’s even remotely decent, I hope every Republican supports him in the primary over Tillman.
District 2: Whoever John Morrow is, he’ll be the GOP nominee.
District 3: Puke. I’d vote for Lipinski over Jones. I imagine anyone else who actually follows the candidates would do so as well.
District 4: Gutierrez used to get regularly challenged by Mexican-American candidates in the primary for ethnic reasons (district is heavily Mexican ancestry but Gutierrez is Puerto Rican). Its really impossible to challenge Gutierrez from the left in a RAT primary, though I’m sure this wacko will try.
District 5: Ironically, this was the “lone Chicago majority district” to elect a Republican Congressman in recent memory, when Michael Patrick Flanngan won in a fluke back in ‘94. Have no idea what % of the district is GOP now.
District 6: Safe Republican (so much for the RATs gloating back in 2006 that they would have Roskam’s seat within a decade due to demographic changes). Ha.
District 7: I see former Republican Fred Collins is running as a RAT now. Sigh.
District 8: I know Rich Evans, I guess Phil Collins is supporting Andrew Straw. Wish we could take back this seat. At least Suckworth won’t be representing it anymore.
District 9: Sounds like Joan Lasonde is the only decent Republican of the bunch.
District 10: Oh goody, another “debate” between Dold and Schneider where they agree with each other on every issue and argue over who’s more liberal! “I love Planned Parenthood more!” “No way, I do!” An IL-10 tradition going back until at least 2000.
District 11: White vs. Foster sounds like an interesting matchup. Another where I’d love if we could remove that scumbag Foster. I can’t understand how he won so easily in the past.
District 12: Not a fan of Bost, but I’d take him over the RAT.
District 13: Another weird district... didn’t Erika Harold (who SHOULD have been appointed in the first place) challenge Rodney Davis in the primary last name but get nowhere? Strange that the district’s GOP voters would rubber stamp Davis so easily. We could definitely improve over him.
District 14: Hultgren could stay home in bed until election day and win without breaking a sweat. I think the RATs redistrictly IL-14 to squeeze all the nearby Republicans in there.
District 15: Shimkus had one of the better records of the IL GOP delegation, as I recall. Still, its long past due for him to retire. If McCarter can make the case he’s clearly more conservative, he’d get my vote. I’d only support Shimkus if his primary opponent was another “Dr. Milton Wolf” type who invents his “fearless conservative warrior” image out of thin air.
District 16: Boy oh boy...do “Tea Party” activists hate Kinzinger. To hear them talk, you’d think the guy is to the left of Judy Baar Topinka and Mark Kirk (and they swear he is, though I don’t recall Adam matching in gay pride parades, worshipping Planned Parenthood, championing cap-n-trade, or gloating about being rated to the left of Obama by the Sierra Club). I remember Adam Kinzinger’s last “true conservative” Tea Party activist opponent was talking up Rauner during the GOP primary, and balked when I pointed it out on facebook. Anyway, Kinzinger has been meh in Congress and I’d support a decent primary challenger, but I haven’t seen any and there are much worse RINOs to fry in this state.
District 17: Bleh. I hate how all the CDs in Illinois have been rigged. Would love to get rid of Bustos, I will back whichever of the second-tier Republican opponents sounds stronger.
District 18: Of course no one in central Illinois will challenge LaPuke in the primary, and if they did, the IL GOP establishment down there would see to it that they are promptly kicked off the ballot. LaPuke has already gone off the reservation on one major issue (the Ex-Im Bank). I expect to turn full fledged traitor after 4 election cycles or so, and he’ll be unopposed each time. He’s laying low for now.
Although not a clear indication of maximum GOP performance, here is the Presidential breakdown for 2012 in each district:
District 1: Bobby Rush (D) - 79% D/21% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1932)
District 2: Robin Kelly (D) - 81% D/19% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1956)
District 3: Dan Lipinski (D) - 56% D/43% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1904*-ancestral 4th)
District 4: Luis Gutierrez (D) - 81% D/17% R (created in 1992 by conglomeration of Chicago districts)
District 5: Mike Quigley (D) - 66% D/32% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1994)
District 6: Peter Roskam (R) - 53% R/45% D
District 7: Danny K. Davis (D) - 87% D/12% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1924)
District 8: Tammy Duckworth (D) - 57% D/41% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 2010)
District 9: Jan Schakowsky (D) - 65% D/33% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 1946)
District 10: Bob Dold (RINO) - 58% D/41% R
District 11: Bill Foster (D) - 58% D/41% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 2010)
District 12: Mike Bost (R) - 49.7% D/48.2% R
District 13: Rodney Davis (R) - 48.6% D/48.95% R
District 14: Randy Hultgren (R) - 44% D/54% R
District 15: John Shimkus (R) - 34% D/64% R
District 16: Adam Kinzinger (R) - 45% D/53% R
District 17: Cheri Bustos (D) - 58% D/41% R (last voted GOP for Congress in 2010)
District 18: Darin LaHood (R) - 37% D/61% R
District lines change every ten years. I notice that the 3rd and 4th have elected Republicans more recently than 1904, though I don’t know what the borders of the district were at the time.
I took into account said district line changes. What was the 3rd and 4th in 2015 were not in decades past. The 3rd district heritage I followed back from the present:
3rd (1993-present)
5th (1949-1993)
4th (1903-1949)
It was in 1904 when the last Republican was elected from the historical incarnation of the present 3rd (although you can have overlapping portions that may have done so more recently).
The Republicans you cited that were elected to the 3rd and 4th (as then-numbered) were in 1972 (Robert Hanrahan) and 1986 (Jack Davis). The Hanrahan 3rd district was merged with the 5th in 1992 (Dem Marty Russo, who beat Hanrahan in 1974 held the district until 1992 when he lost the primary to ex-5th district member Bill Lipinski). So you can say part of the current 3rd did elect a Republican as recently as 1972. However, Hanrahan’s former home is entirely now within the present 2nd (as is Russo’s).
With respect to Republican Jack Davis in the old 4th, he was defeated by Dem George Sangmeister in 1988 and that became the 11th in 1992. Sangmeister was defeated by Republican Jerry Weller. That’s currently the 16th district held by Adam Kinzinger. However, Davis’s home in New Lenox is presently in Democrat Bill Foster’s 11th district and the late Sangmeister’s home in Mokena is entirely within Bobby Rush’s 1st district.
It’s not an exact science following the lines and their histories, especially given that all IL districts have been considerably augmented over the years. It once had 26 Congressional districts and 2 additional At-Large seats and has since lost 10 districts. You’d have to do research down to the individual precincts to ascertain when districts voted for one party or another.
As an aside, long ago when Chicago didn’t exist (still Fort Dearborn), that entire area was a part of way-south Edwards County at the time my GGG-grandfather’s father-in-law was its premier political figure in the 1810s.
1) You should have run! Just think, me (4th), you (1st), Hockeyfan (3rd) and Phil (9th), elected to Congress when “climate change” comes to hell and the Sun sets in the east.
3) Not putting up ANY real candidate there is unacceptable. It’s notable that Romney did better there than in the 8th, 10th or 17th. The GOP ceiling for that seat is probably lower though, cause of the Chicago portion of the district. As DJ pointed out the seat is the most ancestrally rat in the state, we’ve held every other district at one point since we’ve last held it.
I would leave the office blank if lived there since it’s safe dem anyway, dems are bad as Nazis at this point, anyone who calls Pelosi’s name for Speaker is voting for the enabling act. I’d only vote for a dem for Congress if it was Dem V. Dem like can happen now in California.
4)Guit won 60% in the 1992 primary and 64% in 1994, both against Alderman Juan Soliz. It hasn’t been that close for him since. It’s surreal what his challenger is saying.
5)Before Flanagan the last GOPer to hold the seat (though it was a much smaller seat at that time) was elected in 1930 (he GAINED the seat, no other Republican picked up a House seat that year) thanks to the support of the mafia stuffing the ballot boxes because the rat incumbent had turned on them or something, the rat House eventually seated the defeated dem.
6)They might have taken the seat, if they hadn’t stuffed more Republicans into the district to shore up the 8th.
7)Filthy traitor
10)I remember John Gizzi of “Human Events” (now Newsmax.com) thought Kirk would be an improvement over John Porter.
12)What’s wrong with Bost?
13)Davis beat Harold 55-41 with the rest going to a third place loser who shouldn’t have run.
All the GOP seats are totally safe other than Dold, Bost, and Davis. And the later 2 oughta win easily.
No excuse not to have solid conservatives from all our seats other than the 10th, which could do better itself, but won’t.
Phil: “I emailed my resume to Liz Pahlke, and I asked if I can work for her campaign. She said that I have a lot of political experience, but she only wants to hire employees who have no experience.”
Wow, lame. Why the hell is she bothering? I hope she gets tossed off the ballot.
Impy, I hope you’ll run for Congress, in the 4th District, as a primary write-in candidate. If you run and enough people (about 200) write your name and vote for you, you’ll win the nomination.
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