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Below is a comment in the string following Chris Cillizza’s article after the Democrats won Dennis Hastert’s Illinois congressional seat. Cillizza did a fairly complex analysis, with help from the folks at Cook Political Report, attempting to predict which seats will change hands in November – and the chances of a Democratic House come January.

A good friend in D.C. put forth a similar argument earlier this week. This race was lost because of the candidate, not because of the party. Cillizza doesn’t miss much, but he missed this – and reader “Phoenix2000x” straightened things out.

Let's really put this race in context.

Any Republican besides Jim Oberweis would have held this seat without a great deal of difficulty.

Oberweis first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002, comparing pro-life voters to the Taliban. He was reincarnated as a right winger in his 2004 race for the Senate, which he also lost.

Then came his race for governor in 2006. Oberweis spent millions of his own money attacking the presumptive nominee, softening her up for defeat by a governor under four criminal investigations. He also took his sweet time in endorsing her after his inevitable defeat.

Throughout his career as a losing candidate, Oberweis has never failed to criticize the Illinois GOP as corrupt, or the process as unfair.

His numerous vanity campaigns have been solely about gaining power for himself. As alluded to earlier, he's a nasty guy with sharp elbows who makes enemies for no good reason. He was also caught on television making a cruel mockery of his opponent before a debate, something which got tons of press the week before the race.

As a Republican activist with strong ties to Illinois 14, a former employee of Speaker Hastert, and someone who has a friend on the campaign, a part of me was absolutely thrilled the old crank was beaten.

If Oberweis cared about anyone but himself, which he does not, he would step aside as the nominee and let someone replace him. I can name a dozen off hand who would win without difficulty. This is NOT part of a trend, and this election can only be viewed as a rejection of Jim Oberweis.

Posted by: phoenix2000x | March 10, 2008 01:27 PM

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