The Kane County Chronicle is reporting that Ethan Hastert has officially declared he will run for the IL-14 congressional seat formerly held by daddy Denny.
Meh – no surer way of ensuring Foster hangs on to the seat, imho.
Anyone who was paying any attention at all knows that Foster outpolled Obama in Kane County (which contains about 50% of all voters in IL-14) in ’08 – and anyone who is local knows damned well why that happened: Lauzen supporters voting for Foster as a means of getting even with the powers-that-be who got behind Oberweis and managed to leverage the nomination for him.
Which makes 2010 a repeat-in-the-making, because Lauzen will be Lauzen, will be Lauzen, ad nauseum: he’s so scary that moderates will vote for Foster (or whatever alternative is on the ballot) if Lauzen does get the nom, and his supporters are so violently pro-Chris, they will likewise vote for whatever alternative there may be to the Repub who beat Chris out for the nomination – exactly as they did in ’08.
Only way out of the spoiler-Lauzen scenario for local Repubs is if they can get Lauzen to throw his support behind someone like Ethan Hastert. And anyone who has followed Lauzen’s career knows there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
So the Dem on the ballot in IL-14 in 2010 is elected by default: barring Lauzen getting struck by lightning or a random meteorite, it’s already done.
Tags: Bill Foster, Chris Lauzen, Dennis Hastert, Ethan Hastert, IL-14, Illinois
Looks like Congressman Bill Foster should have no problem in 2010 then :-)