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(IL-14 candidate John Laesch joins us today in the comments, he'll be running on February 5 in a special primary election to replace Dennis Hastert -- jh)
Blue America candidate John Laesch is running for Dennis Hastert's seat. Howie Klein gives us the rundown:
The on again, off again resignation of ex-House Speaker Denny Hastert is... on again. As of 10:59 pm he'll be ex-Congressman Hastert.
Hastert said he did so on the advice of attorneys with the aim that a special primary election to replace him could be held on Feb. 5 -- the same day as the state's regular primary election, which will decide nominees for Hastert's long-term replacement as well.
That will be useful for Democrats who expect a large and enthusiastic turnout, not just for home state hero, Senator Barack Obama, for an overall Democratic presidential field that most rank and file Democrats are extremely high on. There are 4 Republicans-- Chris Lauzen, Jim Oberweis, Kevin Burns and Michael Dilger -- and 4 Democrats -- John Laesch, Jotham Stein, Blue Dog Bill Foster, and Joe Serra-- are vying to take his place.
John Laesch is the progressive, grassroots candidate in this race and he is poised to turn another red district bright blue. Rahm Emanuel and the forces of reaction within the Democratic Insider Establishment are pushing for NAFTA-supporter xenophobe Blue Dog Bill Foster, who promises to embody everything that has been wrong with the Democratically controlled Congress this year. John, on the other hand, is a candidate who will effectively revamp the progressive movement in Congress.
Please welcome John in the comments.
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2
Welcome John!!
Jane!
And welcome, John!
I’m eager for John to tell us about why his race goes beyond the boundaries of IL-14.
Welcome, John! And thank you Howie for setting this up.
Welcome, John Laesch! How goes the campaign against Rahm’s Blue Dog? I appreciate your email campaign updates, and it’s great of you to drop by today.
Great to be hear. I hope to discuss some of the dynamics of the race and have an open discussion on trade, poverty and immigration.
John
Hi, John. Welcome to the Lake.
If there’s a special primary on 2/5, when would the general election be for this seat? And it would also mean another race and election for november as well?
Hi John!
Welcome, John — great to have you back here at FDL. Thanks so much to Howie for getting you here on short notice.
The special election is set for February. Sure hope all your volunteers from the last election cycle are geared up and ready to go!
John, we met at YKos in Vegas. I donated some money to your campaign and was so pleased to get a personal thank you note from you. I lived then in Monrovia, CA and you talked a little about your Monrovia.
Hope you do this to your constituents, too. It wins friends and influences people. I’ll be sending a few more $$ your way.
Hastert should have been gone long ago. Best of luck to you.
Hey John! Happy to support you in ‘06 and again for your victory in ‘08!
Jane Hamsher @ 6
Well, Jane, you probably have gotten the feeling from me that I feel races like this and Donna’s and Mark Pera’s are the ones that define the struggle between progressives and reactionaries. There’s no race more important to me than the one in IL-14. And I can’t imagine a better candidate than John.
Welcome from a BlueState where you would win in a blink of an eye if it were your state.
Can you tell us the major points on which your differ from the Official RE candidate?
I also want to remind everyone that because there’s a special election and a general election and primaries, the amount that can be contributed is much more than is normally allowed. I think most of John’s opponents– in both parties– are multimillionaires. He can use the help.
Small typo: Laesch… (If you can fix in lines 1 and 3 in post)
I want to understand how your special election procedure is going to work.
Do all 4 Dems go on the ballot along with all the GOP contenders? There is no primary?
Otherwise how do you determine a winner? It’s unlikely with so many candidates that you would have any one person with a clear majority, is it just whoever gets the highest # of votes?
Is there a petition minimum to get on the ballot? Or can just anybody run? If there is a petition minimum, what is the petition period and do the petition carriers have to be 1) from the district, 2) from the state?
Can you use notaries to collect petition signatures, and if so, does a person have to be resident of the state to qualify as a notary there?
Cause if you can use out of staters…..we might be able to find you some little bits of help
Also, what are you doing (if anything) about plans for election monitoring?
John,
Welcome from a candidate (MI-09) who feels your pain so to speak. I came within a few points (47%-51%) last year and the DCCC still backed a candidate whose campaign slogan is “the right kind of change”. Go get -em John!
Nancy
John Laesch @ 8
So can you tell us why you think Hastert is resigining? Sounds credible that he wants to cash in because the law is changing, but he is after all a Republican, and therefore scandal prone.
Jane-Briefly OT
You might be interested in my report from NYC WGA rally at the end of the last thread.
eCAHNomics @ 22
Thanks, I will take a look and we can discuss it back there so we can leave this thread for John.
Hastert needs to be investigated for taking bribes.
John, best of luck to you. What are you chances at this date?
Nancy Skinner @ 20
Glad to see you here, Nancy. I hope we’ll be calling you Congresswoman Skinner soon. I think you and John would be a great part of the team to make the Progressive Caucus more relevant and more able to stand up to the Insiders like Emanuel.
Trade:
I had a meeting with a relatively powerful union leader yesterday and he became instantly interested in our race when I told him that Rahm was supporting the Blue Dog.
I took the time to point out to him how much his union had donated to Democratic leaders and how they had all voted to pass the Peru Free Trade agreement.
We moved to the “bigger picture” discussion of “house cleaning” and I felt that I had built a life-ling alliance.
Another Marine veteran., union guy working to keep our country strong and our political leaders honest.
John
You know, last winter, we did a special election for NYS state senate for Craig Johnson, and I have to tell you, the ability to bring in folks from all over the state made such a difference.
In Craig’s Case he was both the parties choice and the grassroots choice, so it was easy.
John, if you are running against what John Kass calls the “combine” you are not gonna see the party machinary giving you lots of boots on the ground.
I’d like to focus a tiny bit on how the netroots can counter that.
How we can mobilize for you
Welcome John. I’m off to throw a little cash in the till and will return. We really need to get a more progressive Congress before it’s too late for the U.S. of A.
Welcome John (and Nancy!). So nice to have you here.
howieklein @ 25
It would be great if you could do one of these with Nancy in the near future, too, Howie.
Can someone explain the mechanics of the February Fifth special election? Will the winner among all eight candidates serve until January 2009? Or will there be a runoff between the Democrat and the GOP winners?
Thanks. Seems like these rules are different everywhere (especially if you are Haley Barbour!)
Christy Hardin Smith @ 12
‘
As a campaign volunteer, all of us are in overdrive-everybody is thrilled at the prospect of John going to Congress in spring to finish what Denny couldn’t.
The buzz in the office last night is still ringing in my ears!
I don’t think this is a scandal. I think he has wanted to retire for a long time. He is in poor health (local GOP sources) and he wants out. My guess is that he wants to get out at the most opportune time for the Republican Party and give Oberweis the advantage of incumbancy.
The Democratic tidal wave is coming in Nov. 2008 and they know it.
John
Jane Hamsher @ 21
Howie
What are the donation limits on the Special Election?
Greetings John and Thanks for visiting!
Some basic questions:
1) Do you support Kuchinich’s bill to impeach Cheney? Why or why not?
2) Do you support Telecom immunity? Why or why not?
3) Do you believe that warrentless evesdropping is necessary for national security? Why or why not?
4) What committees/sub-committees would you prefer to serve on? Excluding Ways & Means. :-)
looseheadprop @ 27
Call the office 630.801.8900 to get involved. We need folks from Chicago out here for the Feb. 5th election and March madness special election.
We will most likely be gathering signatures this coming Saturday and Sunday.
NBC’s First Read is reporting a new Strategic Vision (R) Iowa survey showing: Republicans: Romney 26% Huckabee 24% Giuliani 14% Thompson 10% McCain 7% Democrats: Clinton 29% Obama 29% Edwards 23% We will post the full results later this evening”
Pollster.com
TeddySanFran @ 31
There are Repub and Dem primaries in Feb for the special and November, and the respective winners will face off in March to fill Denny’s term, and November for his seat outright.
Republicans always complicate things…
Ozzie @ 38
Thanks! Wow, that is complicated.
John
Can we nail you down on a few issues?
1) ending the war- how? When?
2) Impeachment- on the table or off?
3) free trade- you already covered
4)investigation and prosecution (if appropriate) of corruption in office past the date of the inauguration of the new president–for it, or do you think that it will be disruptive to the new administration?
5) a woman’s right to choose?
6) gun control–what controls, on who, on what kinds of guns?
I’ll think of more
looseheadprop @ 34
I think the total now is $4,600.
As I understand it — best described by the Belleville News-Democrat — there will be special primary election, followed shortly thereafter by a special general election.
What complicates this is that the first of these will coincide with the regular primary election, to see who will be on the ballot in November for the regular Congressional election.
In theory, one candidate could win the special primary but lose the regular primary. If they won in the special general election to fill out Hastert’s term, they’d also be an immediate lame duck since they won’t be on the ballot in November.
Not likely, but possible.
It’s going to be a whole ‘nuther kind of March Madness, all right.
John Laesch @ 26
John,
I attended the NYC WGA rally today. There’s a small, but rising, awareness (”First Strike of the 21st Century) that unions are an essential force in reversing the rush of money to the top. Now, the industrial unions in your state have very little economic power left. But there’s a growing union movement in services. Hope you intend to plumb this movement for supporters.
BTW, John Edwards was there. He knows where it’s at.
John, it’s great to see you continue to build bridges with labor. I believe labor and progressives can take back the Democratic party from the corporatists — and elect candidates like you, Donna Edwards, Mark Pera and Darcy Burner.
Your last email sounded like you were having luck nailing down endorsements from local Democratic committeemembers, as well. How is that going in the district?
Ozzie @ 38
So Feb is a primary for two different races? So the loser in March gets a do-over next November? Nobody else gets in the Nov. race?
That’s a novel system.
$$ to John.
Boxturtle @ 35
First, let me invite you to preview at least one Democratic debate by going to our YouTube account - http://www.youtube.com/user/FriendsofJohnLaesch
I don’t think that the DeKalb Debate where I answered the impeachment question is available.
1) Yes. I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States when I signed up for military service and I uphold the Constitution when I get to Washington. I also admire Kucinich for his courage and I worked for him in 2004.
2) Telcoms - I spoke out against immunity.
3) I support the legal process that requires a warrent.
4)Veterans Affairs Cmte. and Intelligence Select Cmte.
Hope this helps.
John
Peterr @ 42
WTF? That’s the craziest thing. It’s also just begging for election fraud. Voters will be confused enough,
looseheadprop @ 48
Yep. All the more reason for John to have some extra funds to be able to spread the right word to the right folks.
Have a good chat, everyone. Gotta run to a meeting. I’ll come back this evening and read what John had to say.
Good luck, John! We need good, progressive candidates who have the courage to stand up to party leadership when necessary.
Re: Hastert & scandal. The reports that have come out from Sibel Edmonds suggest that Hastert’s up to his neck in scandal.
John, you came by here last November — after the election — to share some of your “lessons learned.” As you’ve had more time to chew on that race last year, what has helped you most in getting ready for this one?
Peterr @ 42
I forget where it was but seem to recall there being a fairly recent case where Person A wond one primary and Person B won the second. Wish I could recall the exact situation and state.
Folks, let’s be polite to our guest and keep the OT stuff on the prior thread.
looseheadprop @ 40
My answers to most questions are above. I am pro-choice and I think that gun control to curb gang violence should be left to local municipalities. I support Clinton’s waiting period and I would have to see what laws come up.
Iraq: I support defunding the war effort. Here is a newspaper clip from the Daily Herald.
John, are you concerned that we’ve lost some of our rights granted in the constitution? What should be done about that?
Fundage deposited. Wish it could be more, with these tremendous election shenanigans and hurdles in front of you! Best wishes to you, John.
eCAHNomics @ 51
I am shocked!
Shocked I tell you!
Say it ain’t so, Coach.
It’s great to hear about you challenging your Democratic competitors to take a stand! That’s what Democrats want from our candidates: tell us exactly what you’d do. Keep pushing them.
Your candidacy stands as an example to many progressives, John.
TeddySanFran @ 61
amen
John Laesch @ 47
Okay, somethings wrong. I just asked a politician straight yes/no questions and got straight yes/no answers. Without playing word games. He didn’t care which answer i wanted and he didn’t check a poll. I could grow to like this. :-)
Thanks, Sir. One additional question: do you think Kuckinich is ready to be president? I live in Ohio and it’s very difficult for me to forget his time as Mayor of Cleveland. OTOH, he’s making more sense than all the others at this point.
Boxturtle(I like your committee choices, shows me that you’re more interested in making a difference than personal power)
Besides the obvious $,
How can we help you? Rahm has a lot of resources at his disposal and you are going the need to leverage every bit of support.
This race matters way beyond the bounderies of your district. If the grassroots can defeat the combine candidates, it will sound a huge shudder through Bushdog wing of the Democratic Party.
(the combine is a term used by the Chicago Tribune. It refers to a collective of both Dems and Reps that horse trade seats and favors in Illinois. It doesn’t REALLY matter to them if Rahm’s insider or the GOP insider wins, so long as winner is, in fact, an insider)
Peterr @ 52
I’ve learned to fight back. The Republicans want to continue down the “divide and do nothing,” fear-based political path by focusing on immigration.
We held a press confernece and pushed them to take down their anti-immigrant ad campaign. I’ll let you read about it here:
Or you can watch the press conference at our YouTube page - http://www.youtube.com/user/FriendsofJohnLaesch
When Feinstein and Schumer voted for Mukasey, I hit the ceiling. I’m on dozens of Democratic mailing lists and I sent them all the message that I was done. No more money for any of them. for the most part, everyone just removed me EXCEPT John who took the time to personally write back that he understood my disappointment and that I should look to the need to replace these people with real Democrats. That really, really, really impressed me. I think he’s great!
looseheadprop @ 63
I agree that the stakes are high for the progressive movement and I am ready to win. Give the office a call. You can do remote phone banking and help us ID voters.
Between the phones and doors, our voter identification results are very positive. Lisa has done an excellent job of training new volunteers, organizing phone lists and doing an excellent job of data management. Among Democratic voters, we are easily outpacing our primary opponents.
Definitely Supporting Laesch – 52%
Undecided or want more information – 44%
Supporting another Democrat – 4% (all three combined)
John Laesch @ 64
Our family has learned to do without Oberweiss eggnog at the holidays. No small gesture.
As another gesture some $$ from IL-15 coming your way.
(The lease I can do to compensate for my rep)
Last Nov, you talked about problems at the polls, especially in Kane County. Any reason to believe things will be different this time around?
Looseheadprop asked above at 19, “Also, what are you doing (if anything) about plans for election monitoring?” Given the past election, this strikes me as a very important question.
James White @ 65
James,
Thanks again for your concern regarding the direction of our party.
What might be worse than a capitulating Democrat is a recent interview with probable GOP candiate, Jim Oberweis who was asked, “more or less waterboarding” and he responded, “more.”
John
John -
Energy independence is also a great message not to mention its extreme importance. The Detroit Free Press reports today that the Senate is compromising with the Dingell-backed House bill and will promote 35 mpg standards by 2020 and will keep SUV’s seperate. I’m from Detroit and all but I just think we’re thinking way too small here. Give the industry 1 months work of Iraq funding $20 billion, so they leapfrog much sooner than that. This to me is another huge reason we need progressives in congress. Big bold ideas baby!
My best to you.
Nancy
www.skinnerforcongress.com
mack @ 59
There are plenty of scandals surrounding the former speaker… Turkish bribes, a millionaire-maker highway, Mark Foley cover-up… the list goes on.
I think that the good-ol-boy network goes across the aisle in D.C.
I hope Sibel testifies and breaks the gag order.
John
Nancy Skinner @ 71
First - Nancy, we love ya - love your show!
We have earned lots of free press on renewable energy. I did some math the other day… consider:
Initiating a new energy policy that invests heavily into renewable energy sources would create jobs, curb global warming and reduce the perceived need to maintain a military presence in the Middle East. The current price tag for the Iraq War, $1.5 trillion, could have covered the cost of a $20,000 investment for every American family to buy solar panels, wind generators or better insulate their homes.
egregious @ 14
Thanks to all of your support. It keeps the office open and the campaign moving!
John
Well, since it seems to have gotten quiet around here, let me add my thanks to John, Nancy, Howie and FDL for this thread. Always good for me to have real progressives to look to as examples of what gov’t can and should do for the people.
FunnyDiva
John Laesch @ 72
Hope you’ll come back here from time to time and let us know how your campaign is going.
Thank you all FDL’s-
John, go kick some butt.
Nancy
From your lips to God’s ears. So much R scandal already exposed, but so much else we know about but can’t get thru all the firewalls that Prez Bush et al have erected. I would normally not be a scandal monger, but that is so much part & parcel of how the Rs have ruined this country that it’s really importnt to get it all out.
About energy, I would recommend that you focus on the connection between Iraq & energy & global warming. I’m particularly fond of adding the cost of the war per barrel of oil to the actual cost of oil, and comparing that to what oil cost during the Clinton Admin. If we’d put the $1-$2 trillion cost of the war into alternate energy research, we’d have solved the gobal warming problem by now.
Hello John and thank you for running.
I’m excited about the next few weeks for you and your staff and am happy to support you any way I can.
I’ve seen you in a few debates and noticed how passionately you defend your stand on issues like the defunding of the war and health care (bravo on standing behind HR676 btw)
If there were one person in congress (now or future serving members) that you could pull aside in the Hallowed Halls and make your friend on these issues, who would it be and do you think you can lead them into the light…
Only a Carpenter can fix the seat that Denny broke.
A Scientist will only try and blow it up and a Lawyer will try and sue it.
All the best.
Hi John,
Do the republicans have a registration advantage in the district? If so, how large is it? What about your message appeals the most to republican and independant voters?
Nice!
Welcome to FDL, John. Don’t know much about you yet, but I really like your answers so far. Keep fighting the good fight - we’ve got your back.
As an aside - if threads like this were held after working hours, I’ve a feeling we’d leave the server smoking from overload!
Thank you for being here John. Can you expect support from The Organizing Institute or has Rahm co-opted their leadership? Please say it isn’t so! In any event Chicago has many old & not so old grads from the Alinsky Institute, including this ole brat, who would happily work hard for your election. Count me in for modest donations now through election day.
howieklein @ 5
In closing, I want to thank Howie, Jane, FDL and the Blue America community for all of your support.
In 2006 we started a fight to win this seat. I quickly learned that this fight goes beyond the 14th district and deep into the beltway. I firmly believe that if we want real, substantial change then we are going to have to elect strong leaders. If we want to elect progressives, we are going to have to have a progressive structure to support them - FDL is part of that structure - thanks!
I understand the national implications that this race has regarding the direction of the party. Early in our campaign, I delivered this speech - http://video.google.com/videop.....amp;hl=en. It captures how our race fits into the larger movement, the people-powered movement to take our government back from corporate interests, who currently govern the halls of power.
I started this campaign with an FDL announcement and I will invite an FDL blogger to our swearing in ceremony.
Thanks again for all of your support.
Respectfully,
John Laesch
John, thanks so much for coming.
Thanks for coming by, John, and good luck with your campaign!
Christy has a new thread upstairs!
John best wishes and good luck!
I heard you this morning on Ed Schultz discussing health care. Ed focused on the bi-partisan efforts here in CA. His focus is misguided as the plan ensures a larger share for the insurance industry and lower contributions by employers. Its no help to anyone but the insurance industry. However, there is a GREAT plan SB 840 Keuhl, (pulled to be reintroduced next year) which cuts out the industry and uses the savings of 30% to cover the uninsured. It’s comprehensive, transparent, has oversight, does what is needed to be done.
You may find that this is a plan that could/should be rolled out in your state.
Should you wish to investigate, try www.onecarenow.org and watch the brief video.
Christy Hardin Smith @ 12
I’ll be there on form or another.
It was pleasure and also very gratifying to work for John last cycle. He is the real deal.
Laesch is too immature to be given the gift of the nomination for this seat. His silly behavor in attacking his 2006 primary opponent proved that. An adult should be chosen to run in 2008. The stakes are too high to trust this seat with Laesch.