Congressman Lane Evans retiring

www.belleville.com ^ | 03-28-2006 | DENNIS CONRAD

[bilhosty]

Rep. Lane Evans, an Illinois Democrat known for fighting for veterans' rights and benefits, announced Tuesday he would not seek re-election, having now missed more than a month of House votes due to a battle with Parkinson's disease.

"When I announced in 1998 that I had Parkinson's disease, my doctor said that this condition would not interfere with my work and that I would be able to perform at a high level for a number of years," he said in a statement released by his office.

"That window of opportunity is now closing," the 54-year-old added, acknowledging that the time needed to address his health makes it difficult to campaign and carry on as a representative.

[bilhosty]

Apparently this is a swing district that leans a little to the Dem's. Does anyone know anything about the challenger and our chances here?

[nd76]

Au revoir, commie.

Evans is a member of the "Progressive Caucus" and is to the left of Bernie Sanders.

While I hope he successfully battles Parkinson's (which you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy), the taxpayers of this country will benefit from his being out of the House.

[AntiGuv]

This is about a 54-55% Dem lean district, so it's tough to say whether it might turn competitive without knowing who'll be appointed to replace Evans on the ballot. Odds are this isn't a year it might likely flip.

The GOP nominee is Andrea Zinga who was some kind of TV personality, iirc, and got 39% of the vote against Evans in 2004. It should be rather easy for her to pick up another 6% or so in the open-seat contest. It's that last 5% that's a problem..

She also has very little money left after the primary (she'd raised the least of the 3 GOP contenders) and this will definitely need lots of cash if there's gonna be a chance to pick up the seat.

[AntiGuv]

PS. Bush got nearly 48% in IL-17 in 2004, a considerable improvement over the 43% in 2000, so maybe. I'd guess this starts off as Likely D for now, with decent odds of going up to Lean soon.

[Torie]

Likely Dem, unless the candidate mix gives the GOP a big boost. Outside of metro Chicago, Bush in Illinois got about the max GOP vote in a federal race (which just goes to show demographically unimportant downstate Illinois is, relatively speaking). Evans was a chronically under-performing candidate. There was a reason for that I suspect in part, which we need not get into here.

[AntiGuv]

I think I'll start it off at #8 for now, on first impulse:

Toss Up

1 (IL-08) Bean
2 (GA-08) Marshall

Lean Democratic

3 (TX-17) Edwards
4 (VT-AL) Sanders (I)*
5 (IA-03) Boswell
6 (OH-06) Strickland*

Likely Democratic

7 (LA-03) Melancon
8 (IL-17) Evans*
9 (UT-02) Matheson
10 (KS-03) Moore
11 (GA-12) Barrow
12 (CO-03) Salazar
13 (SC-05) Spratt
14 (WA-02) Larsen
15 (ND-AL) Pomeroy
16 (WV-01) Mollohan

Watch List

17 (OH-13) Brown*
18 (NY-27) Higgins
19 (OR-05) Hooley

[LdSentinal]

The best bet for Zinga is for IL-17 voters to show heavy loathing of Blago being from Chicago (Upstate) and forget that Topinka is from Upstate as well.

[bilhosty]

One lesson for us in this seat is. The previous incumbent was Tom Railsback who was a moderate Republican. Many thought he was not conservative enough. So they knocked him off with a guy named McMillan in the primary. Mcmillan lost to the previously thought to be sacrifical Lamb Evans. Evans turned out to be a 12 term socialist stalwart. This gives food for thought for those who want to purge some of our more moderate Republicans.

[TheRealDBear]

Unfortunately IL-17 is a heavily gerrymandered Dummycrat district. Evans had some close calls before in the 90s, but the district has been made more Democratic. Zinga has name recognition from being the challenger in 2004, I hope that's enough.

[Torie]

The district is more Dem than the Railsbach district was. It is an erose gerrymander, taking in blue collar Dems all across downstate Illinois.

[bilhosty]

Very interesting list. I wonder though, if Melancon should not be moved up. I suspect a lot of the dem's in his district were washed away.

[Torie]

The New Orleans paper suggests the washed away are back in considerable numbers, in NO. But in this district, St. Bernard is still washed away, and it was GOP, and the departees moved outside the district, over to rather congenial St. Tammany parish. I don't see any GOP advantage here due to changing demographics, or voter profile, myself.

[AntiGuv]

I wonder though, if Melancon should not be moved up. I suspect a lot of the dem's in his district were washed away.

That is a somewhat controversial topic. LOL I'm waiting for the 1st quarter fundraising reports to come out later in April before I decide whether to move the Melancon seat up.

[AntiGuv]

And I probably need to shuffle around the seats in the Likely D category. Especially Matheson (UT-02) and Moore (KS-03). I'm starting to suspect I have those ranked too high. A systematic review is imminent, whenever the next set of cash numbers are out.