If you are going to contribute to a House candidate this cycle, from any district other than your own, please consider donating to Dan Seals in the Illinois 10th Congressional District. Yesterday on the front page here, Steve Singiser aptly observed that this race will be:
one of the few Democratic pickup opportunities this cycle.
That makes this race a much more important than average contest for our side.
In the interests of transparancy, I'll disclose that I reside in IL-10 and voted for Dan in the primary yesterday. But there nevertheless are many good reasons to support Dan in this race and I discuss some of them below the fold. If I pursuade you to give, or if you need no persuasion, please contribute to Dan at Blue Majority.
When you go to Blue Majority to make your generous contribution to Dan Seals, you'll note that the copy there describes IL-10 as a "very blue district". Don't let 'em kid you. IL-10 is a very purple district. Sure we have working class neighborhoods and industrial areas on the far North Shore, but we also have a hell of a lot of homes reached only by private drives or through gates. We also have a large military presence around the Navy's training center at Great Lakes where I happen to have trained during Viet Nam.
The numbers in yesterday's primary also point to purple, not blue, in the IL-10. The combined Republican vote for their nominee for the seat of Republican incumbent Mark Kirk, now nominated to run for Senate, was 51,254. Meanwhile, Dan Seals and his opponents on our side of the aisle received 52,378 votes. That 1124 vote Democratic advantage is a razor thin 1%.
To put those numbers in context look at the R and D Senate primaries. Kirk now leaves purple IL-10 to try his luck where the Republican candidates for the Senate nomination garnered 737,244 votes, but Democratic nominee Alex Gianoulias and his opponants amassed almost 150,000 more votes at 885,687, in much bluer statewide Illinois. Good luck, with that Mark. Goodbye and good riddence, too, you spineless, hypocritical, slimey, lying, mendatious paradigm for the worst kind of political hack. Sorry. Couldn't help that.
The point is, IL-10 isn't likely to become that much easier for Dan Seals to carry in November, just because the incumbent, Kirk, is out of the picture.
Here's another thing. During the last two cycles, especially 2008, Republican Astrotufers like Dick Armey's front groups and their fellow travelors were all over IL-10. If you don't think they won't do the same for Robert Dold, Seal's Republican opponent, you are dreaming.
Dold has the same, boyish good looks as Kirk, but I have to wonder if something more sinister is at work here. You see, I used to live in Texas when Tom Delay, a former pest control exterminator, became known as the Hammer while leading House Republicans. Well, Dold is a lobbyist against any costly or onerous regulation of the very dangerous pest control indusry in Illinois and the industry, in turn, is a generous supporterof Mr. Dold. I'm just saying.
Anyway, Dold's own campaign siteshows that he doesn't just look like a cookie cutter version of Kirk, but he would be politically indistinguishable, that is to say, useless when not dangerous, as Kirk himself, and you know how I feel about Kirk (see above).
So please pitch in. I just made my first contribution to the general election campaign and know that I must and will do so again. If any of you, anywhere, can spare a little of your campaign contribution budget outside your own district, please send some love to Dan Seals. He is going to need all the help he can get in the still very purple IL-10. Thanks for helping.