Posted on 03/08/2008 7:56:08 PM PST by The_Republican
A longtime Republican district fell to the Democrats Saturday when a wealthy businessman and scientist snatched former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat in a closely watched special election. Democrat Bill Foster won 52 percent of the vote compared to 48 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis. With 565 of 568 precincts reporting, Foster had 51,140 votes to Oberweis' 46,270.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I believe you read that, but I don’t believe the statement.
it’s possible. He used to be a solid conservative. He even voted against the 1986 amnesty bill. So this is not like he’s a ted kennedy with an (R) next to his name
He ran saying he was in favor of tax increases, what is wrong with these stupid people!?
1) While Goldwater lost big, he did establish a conservative movement within the GOP. There were many bright conservative stars on the horizon, most obviously Ronald Reagan. Today, the mushy “moderates” are ascendant in the GOP and when people talk about the future of the party they speak of guys like Crist.
2) There were lots of conservative Democrats back in 1964. That meant millions of Democrat voters who could be won over to the GOP, plus enough conservative Democrats in Congress to cushion the damage potentially caused by huge Democrat congressional majorities. Not so today.
3) Our national culture is sick today. In 1964, no civilized American would have supported abortion-on-demand, gay “rights” of any kind, open borders, etc. We still had good public schools, a far more conservative culture, and many other signs of national health that we no longer have today.
In 1999 the Senate voted on the Kyoto Treaty and it lost 95-0. How come not a single Democrat voted for it?
So it was inevitable that the district would elect a democrat eventually.
You are right of course. I was talking about presidental though.
Fieldmarshaldj keeps comparing Obie to Romney, and although I know both took heat from flip-flopping from career pro-aborts to 100% pro-life overnite, I didn't see any other simularities. However, Kuksool's post has now cemented that premise for me and I agree with it. You will also note Hastert endorsed both Romney and Obie in the primary.
I think you might have to combine a little bit of Harold Stassen or William Jennings Bryan (constant election losers who became increasingly obsessed with politics and felt that the party "owed them" the nomination for any office available) into Romney's persona to make it fit Oberweis though. After four or five straight loses in a row, I really don't see why the cult of Oberweis kept presenting their guy as the lone savior of Illinois Republicans. You'd think he'd sit out at least ONE election cycle between 2002 and 2008 and let another person take a stab at it, especially when far more qualified people made it clear they were going to seek the job.
The sad thing is, the Oberweis supporters were warned over and over again that nominating him would creating an opening for the Dems and they refused to accept that reality and always belived it was an evil RINO conspircy to bring Oberweis down. Here's a professional political anaylists take on the candidate's strengths that I posted over a month ago, warning of an Oberweis nomination:
14th District (Fox River Valley, Elgin to Aurora, including DuPage Kane, Kendall, DeKalb and Henry counties): Incumbent Republican Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, is retiring after 21 years. Hastert won by 38,596 votes (59.8 percent of the vote) in 2006, down from a 104,028-vote margin (68.6 percent) in 2004. The 2008 Republican frontrunner is Jim Oberweis, who lost statewide Republican primaries in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Oberweis is one swell guy. He is also exactly the kind of Republican who could lose this seat. He is opposed in the primary by 15-year state Senator Chris Lauzen, a conservative who has been critical of Hastert and of Washington Republicans' lavish funding of "pork" projects.... The outlook: Dairy magnate Oberweis will spend $2 million and fixate on issues such as immigration, abortion and gay rights. Lauzen, also a social conservative, will stress fiscal issues. The Democratic field includes businessman Bill Foster, who will self-fund $1 million, attorney Jotham Stein and 2006 loser John Laesch. If Lauzen win the Republican nomination, he [goes] to Washington; if it's Oberweis, a Democrat can pull an upset. For Republicans, Oberweis means "reject."
--www.russstewart.com/11-21-07.htm
Naturally, once I posted that excert, the Oberweis fans dismissed it as a baseless liberal smear against their guy.
Personally I think the worst of it is an election nobody on FR noticed outside of Illinois, Obie's campaign for the GOP nomination for Governor in 2006. The Oberweis wing here constantly demand everyone "get behind" Oberweis as the lone conservative who could "beat Blago" (the other conservative, who would have been a fresh face and a new beginning for Illinois Republicans -- State Senator Bill Brady -- wasn't a zillionaire like Oberweis) Anyone who dared stray from the herd mentality and not support Oberweis was accused of being a closet Topinka supporter and part of an evil conspiracy to split the conservative vote and elect RINOs. As this election has now proven, Bill Brady had no business "stepping aside" for Oberweis, because Bill Brady was the conservative who COULD beat Blago and Oberweis was the conservative who couldn't. Jim Oberweis should have "stepped aside" and endorsed Brady if he really cared about the good of Illinois conservatism.
If Congressman Mark Foley had been "outed" by Hastert when Hastert first learned of it, we'd be down only one Congressman instead of two.
“I would support a conservative party, if I was convinced it was truly conservative.”
Of course. I don’t think that post-GOP conservatives are going to be a particularly trusting lot. Nor should they be. A political party should earn your vote.
“Two types of letters especially bothered me. First, the letters that claimed that I had joined some sort of Republican club and now owed dues, payable immediately. This was a complete fabrication, I had joined nothing and I owed them nothing. Then there were the letters that used “Department of Audit and Control” in bold letters as a return address. These looked like dunning notices from the IRS or some other official government agency.”
Isn’t it interesting how an allegedly conservative political party has such a strong entitlement mentality? The entitlement mentality is particularly apparent when third parties are discussed, usually in the context of how a third party would siphon away or steal votes from the GOP. Since when was anyone’s vote “owned” by the GOP?
The only thing this means is that the people in the District loved Denny’s Pork and voted for him because of his power in the House. Once Denny resigned, there was no reason to put a Republican back in the Congress.
Sadly, the Republican Party is overrun with REMFs.
It's going to take a couple of election cycles to remove the dead limbs.
Good points, though I’ll throw one other thing in there. I don’t think it would’ve mattered whom we nominated for IL Governor in 2006, since any Republican would’ve lost under the circumstances. Numerous troubled or controversial Democrat incumbents or ones with subpar approval ratings were swept to 2nd terms (Blago, Napolitano in AZ, Baldacci in ME, Granholm in MI, Kulongoski in OR, Rendell in PA, Bredesen in TN, Doyle in WI).
I was initially supporting State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger for Governor, but when he bizarrely decided to become the running mate of some rich liberal candidate named Gidwitz, I figured the cycle was going to end up being a sideshow... and it was.
Going back to the Oberweis race, I hope the clarion call goes out that he needs to recuse himself from making anymore runs for office again and immediately needs to drop out for November. This guy is absolutely toxic and a perennial loser.
Baldacci is so far left he could make Hillary look almost conservative. And yet he wins in a state that elects two R senators(RINOs though.)
The House is not an issue even if the Rats gain 30 seats as long as the Senate doesn’t change by more than a couple in favor of the Rats almost everything can be blocked.
“It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
Not true. Not true at all.
It’s always darkest at midnight. But it’s usually *coldest* before the dawn.
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