Projecting Dem landslide on thin evidence

They had a special election in a single suburban Chicago congressional district last Saturday to pick a successor to former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who resigned in mid-term.

It was a battle of dueling millionaires, running expensive, largely self-funded campaigns. The Democrats settled on a candidate early, one with roots and standing in the district. The GOP had a nasty primary, in which Hastert backed his chief of staff, who lost the primary. The winner, perennnial GOP loser Jim Oberweis, was largely on his own with Hastert sitting on his hands. Oberweis has lost numerous campaigns for Governor and U.S. Senator in Illinois, but keeps pouring his millions into campaigns anyway.

Hastert is the real villain here. His pallid leadership in the House had no small part in the GOP losing control in the 2006 midterm elections. He should have taken it like a man and served out the full term his district re-elected him to. Quitting in midterm was unnecessary and left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. He compounded this by trying to impose his successor on the GOP in the district, playing "my way or the highway." This left the GOP going into a low turnout special election with one hand tied behind it's back.

It was nearly a foredrawn conclusion that the Democrat would win. He was well-known and liked in the district and had a united party behind him. He had millions of his own to match the GOP millionaire's spending dollar-for-dollar. Hastert was a grandfatherly, well-liked high school wrestling coach who had held the marginal GOP seat for many years, masking the fact that it was a swing district, at best. Only his active campaigning could have saved the seat for the GOP.

None of these facts swayed the national media, however. Today they are broadcasting to the world that this is the harbinger of massive GOP congressional losses in 2008, and that the party is about to go the way of the Whigs. All this drawn from a single Saturday election, the only one being held anywhere in the U.S., with a wounded, weak GOP candidate fighting not only the Democrat but also part of his own party.

This election was not a harbinger of anything. It was an isolated, low turnout fluke from which its impossible to project much of anything. No Republican should get their dauber down, but just follow the lesson of how not to conduct an election, and see the necessity to show loyalty, respect and honor to the voters who elected you.