Last evening on my drive home from work, I received a call from a campaign supporter by the name of Ben. He was calling to tell me that he had received a polling call yesterday.
Ben, who lives in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, did not know who conducted the poll, but he recognized that the polling questions were framed by the Republican Party. Issue questions framed Obama’s agenda in a negative light and focused on tax cuts. It always amazes me that the Republicans have not figured out the fact that their tried and true message of the past, “tax cuts will save America,” is not working.
The interesting part of the poll was the question about Dennis Hastert.
“If the election were held today, would you vote for Dennis Hastert or Bill Foster.”
The next question was similar.
“If the election were held today, would you vote for Ethan Hastert or Bill Foster.”
Speculate away.
Tags: 2010 elections, Bill Foster, Dennis Hastert, Ethan Hastert, IL-14, Illinois, U. S. House
I am convinced that Bill Foster has no intention of completing this term. His fundraisers have been cancelled twice out this way. He made two appearances here since going to Congress – one of which was a disaster of his own making at the Lee County Freedom Ball. The other appearance, when he opened the Dixon office, was a success.
I believe that John Laesch remains the 1st choice as a successor to Foster among the Precinct Chairmen.
Ethan Hastert – whose Big Daddy decided to become a Blago lobbiest following 7 years of guiding this country straight into the economic ditch – has a heap of work to do with the Republicans out here.
At the Tax Day protest party, they welcomed and treated with respect a liberal Democrat as a speaker. No one attacked Obama. Telling that the newspaper reported it that way.
Hastert??? Please make it stop!!!
Oh, don’t worry – Ethan will get nowhere without Big Daddy Denny performing an internal Repub party intervention that may be beyond even him. Here’s a little bit-o-statistical info that nobody seems to be aware of from the 2008 general in Kane County (which holds the majority of the population in IL-14):
Foster: 111,064 votes
Obama: 106,756 votes
Thus in a year when Obama – popular even among Repubs in Kane – we see that the wholly unknown and lackluster Foster is inexplicably even more popular. Than Obama? Give me a break!
Foster owes his congressional seat to two very simple things: Chris Lauzen telling his supporters to vote for the Dem, and John Laesch restraining himself from telling his supporters to vote for the Repub.
So unless Daddy Denny gets Lauzen’s blessing for Ethan (doubtful) Ethan either gets past Lauzen in the primary and gets tromped by Lauzen supporters voting for the Dem on the ballot again (a repeat of ’08 and the only longshot hope Foster has of hanging onto the seat) or Lauzen gets on the ballot. And most likely wins.
It really matters what Lauzen does. Or does not. Because he’s a hell of a spoiler on their side. And we’d need a far more compelling candidate than the tepid and uninspiring Foster tip-toeing his way down a centrist path to beat him if he does get on the ballot, because Repubs still outweigh Dems by far in this district. The insane ones are in Lauzen’s pocket, and the moderate ones will vote for the Repub.
Ethan doesn’t trouble me…what troubles me is the great and looming risk of ending up with that nutbar Lauzen as my congresscritter.
Be assured, be very assured, that Chris Lauzen will never, never, ever endorse, support, bless or otherwise anoint anything Hastert. EVER.
And I’m not so sure that Lauzen would win. He is still pouting about Oberweis. He has a solid, wacko conservative base, but their influence is dwindling. And I think enough people on both sides are getting very tired of his tirades and can look at his long record of accomplishing nothing except pissing everybody off with his temper.
I agree with you in general, but think Lauzen still has control of enough of the wacko base that he can act as a spoiler if he so chooses – and expect he will so choose
[…] a run against U.S. Congressman Bill Foster (IL-14). Apparently somebody has been conducting a telephone poll asking voters if they would vote for Dennis Hastert, and then asking if they would vote for Ethan […]
4/23 Oswego Ledger Sentinel newspaper article by Tony Scott says “Media speculation of Hastert’s running began with a blog posting by John Laesch who said a friend had answered a telephone poll …”