McSweeney intent on beating Bean in '06 (We must take back the IL-08)

Investment banker-turned-GOP congressional hopeful David McSweeney said yesterday that he is willing to “put at least seven figures” of his own money into beating Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) next year.

Last week, McSweeney said, he filed papers with the Federal Election Commission stating his intention to run in Illinois’s 8th District. But he added that he would not formally announce the campaign until early June. File photo Rep. Melissa Bean could face banker David McSweeney in 2006.

Saying he has “a net worth in the millions,” McSweeney, 39, said he is nonetheless looking for outside help for now. In April, he hired fundraiser Laura Anderson and political consultant Jim Thacker; Thacker formerly worked for Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.). Also in April, Sweeney said, he quit his job at Banc of America Securities.

McSweeney portrayed himself in an interview yesterday as a “mainstream conservative … in the Reagan mode” who would represent the suburban Chicago district better than Bean does.

The first-term Democrat knocked off longtime Republican Rep. Phil Crane in one of the only upsets of 2004. She is widely regarded as one of the Republicans’ top targets.

Complicating matters for McSweeney is the fact that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is said to be trying to clear the primary field for businesswoman Teresa Bartels, an Illinois Republican source said. Also, there is some doubt about McSweeney’s abilities on the stump. “He might be able to win the primary, but if David McSweeney wins the primary it all but assures that Bean is reelected,” said the Illinois Republican, who is not affiliated with any congressional candidates. In 1998, McSweeney unsuccessfully challenged Crane in the GOP primary.

Bean spent the first quarter of the year aggressively raising money. Reeling in more than $450,000, the congresswoman had $359,000 on hand as of March 31.

Still, Democrats in Washington assume she will face a tough reelection, given that the district leans Republican and that many Republicans considered Crane a particularly weak incumbent.

Bean is one of a handful of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Frontline candidates. These candidates get extra support from the committee for their reelection campaigns.

RINO Mark Kirk is an idiot. I'm sure Kirk would love to have a mini-me in Congress but Crane's district is NOT like Kirk's "progressive" district. The 8th District has voted solid conservative on both the state and federal level conservative regular for the last 40+ years. The ONLY reason Bean got in is because she CLAIMED to be a "fiscal conservative" and got a whole bunch of Kirk-like RINOs to parrot her talking points that Crane was ineffective and old.

If we run a social liberal and/or pro-abort candidate, it will neutralize the ability of us to show how Ms. Bean is NOT "moderate" because she votes so far to the left and supports the "right" of 12 year old girls to get free abortions with their parents knowledge, government-funded needles for drug addicts, gun bans, affirmative action, placing the U.S. under control of the UN Criminal Court, etc., etc. The "moderate" Melissa Bean (who was endorsed by ultra liberal groups over another liberal Dem in the PRIMARY) avoided this stuff like the plaque during the general election because it would how out of touch SHE was with the district. Crane waited til the last minute to bring it up and never debated Bean one-on-one enough to blast the facts before the voters.

We must pull the rug out from Bean by neutralizing HER issue from 2004 and nominating someone who is 180 degrees away from Crane's personality and age. I would like to see a flashy, higher-visible, youthful, female, CONSERVATIVE candidate go head to head with Melissa Bean the abortion queen. That will force Bean to run on HER own record -- which is a pathetic joke.

We OUGHT to be working at recruiting Kathy Salvi into this race. One thing is for sure, to take out Bean, we will have to unite behind WHOEVER wins the primary. The fact that Kirk is already proclaiming anyone to the right of Al Gore is "unelectable" shows how damaging the Kirk-clones have been in causing Bean to win in the first place.

The ONLY reason Bean got in is because she CLAIMED to be a "fiscal conservative

BB, I respect your research a lot. But you fail to realize that most voters are not ideological. The ideological issues had less than a 1% impact on the Crane-Bean outcome. Crane beat Crane. He had been a drag on the ticket for over 10 years, not because of ideology, but because he was invisible in the district and provided lousy constituent service. Need I give the anecdotes?

I expect McSweeney to have the enthusiastic support of RALC-Republican Assembly of Lake County, and of Committeemen Skoien, Froehlich and McGuire.

Mark Kirk is wrong on most issues... but not stupid. He is probably angling for bargaining power for the Bassi-Beaubien type candidates for lesser office.
Let's make a deal, we'll agree to support you for congress if you get Skoien and RALC to support the Beaubien-Bassi types for Springfield.

The question is whether McSweeney could win in November without the support of Beaubien-Bassi but with the support of RALC-Skoien-Froehlich-McGuire. The answer is yes. He can win in November, regardless of anything his enemies do. The only way McSweeney can lose is self-destruct. With advisors like Jim Thacker, Charlie Johnson, Skoien and Froehlich, I don't think he will self-destruct.

>> BB, I respect your research a lot. But you fail to realize that most voters are not ideological. The ideological issues had less than a 1% impact on the Crane-Bean outcome. Crane beat Crane. He had been a drag on the ticket for over 10 years, not because of ideology, but because he was invisible in the district and provided lousy constituent service. Need I give the anecdotes? <<

Totally agreed that Crane was not beat over ideology (as I noted in this thread, most people in CD 8 AGREED with Crane's ideology much more than they did with Bean's, which RINO Mark Kirk refuses to accept due to the "only moderates are electable" agenda he's selling)

That being said, everything mentioned about Crane would easily apply to my congressman, and probably MORE so. When did Bobby Rush "work his district" in the past 10 years? What events has he been present at? What things did he do to "reach out" to the new regions of his district after the remap? Can anyone point to a high profile instance where Rush provided constituent service for his district? Community Events? According to his last newsletter I got, Rush's biggest "community event" he held was an "african-american job fair" in Englewood in 2003. Yeah, that's really working to hard to represent the "whole district"

In short, I guarantee you that unless you were an african-american living in the Englewood-Gresham region of Rush's district, you would not even be aware he is your Congressman. I don't even think Rush is aware he "represents" folks out in Orland and Tinley Park. He does have a suburban office which is probably collecting cobwebs somewhere.

Does that make Rush "vulnerable"? It certain is enough to prompt some angry and highly visible primary and general election challengers (such as this up and coming fellow named Barack Obama trying to dethrone him in 2000), and it's certainly enough to make certain REGIONS of his district motivated to vote against him -- even regions with a large share of Democrat voters -- but it's certainly NOT enough to cause him to lose a general election to an unknown. Why? Because Rush's district is DESIGNED to elect an incumbent liberal Democrat, 70% of the voters are hard core Democrats. The ONLY way a conservative Republican would EVER win that district would be if Rush's primary opponents stabbed in the back and went on TV loudly proclaimed they were endorsing the Republican nominee, then the rank-and-file Democrat prescient captains proclaimed Rush wasn't doing his job so they're staying home, and some highly visible Democrat activists kept waging the primary campaign against Rush during a general election. That would be enough to get a sizable chuck of "regular" Democrat voters to "cross over" to a Republican candidate.

That never happened in Rush's district. It CERTAINLY happened in Crane's. If Crane hasn't "worked his district". one can expect Crane to do poorly in some more liberal-minded suburbs in Lake County and a Democrat to rack up around 40% of the vote district -- as Bean did in 2002. However, for ANY Democrat to carry around 49% of the vote in a rock solid conservative McHenry county is ONLY possible if a number of self described "conservative Republicans" CROSS OVER to vote for the Democrat nominee.

If Bean had run around the district running loudly and vocally on a platform to have taxpayers fund needles for drug addicts (which she supports), and allowing 13 year old girls to get abortions without their parents even knowing (which she also supports), do you think she'd get 49% of the vote our of McHenry county? I doubt it unless McHenry voters sudden take a liking to socialism. I have little doubt there were a number of Republicans in McHenry county who were ALREADY pissed off at Phil Crane and would not have pulled the hole for him in either case -- even opting to stay home, or skip the race altogether. But the only thing that motivated them to personally vote for BEAN instead is she avoided social issues altogether, falsely proclaimed herself a "fiscal conservative" and a bunch of RINOs vouched for her credentials and made OK to vote for her if you're a Republican. Idelogy did not cause them to vote for Bean, it merely gave them an excuse to say "Gee whiz, I don't like Phil but agree with him on the issues...but since Melissa is like a Republican on the issues, I can make an exception and vote Dem this time around!)

Simple as that.

Once Bean can no longer waive the Crane bogeyman around and is exposed for what she REALLY stands for, she will not be palpable to the people of the 8th District. Either a moderate or a conservative Republican candidate can pull this off with the right P.R. team, but since this IS a conservative district, it's up to us to find the strongest conservative we can in the primary.

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