I commented this in an IL-14 thread yesterday, but people seemed unaware of the facts. Yes, John Laesch, the unsuccessful 2006 Democratic nominee for IL-14, lost the Feb.5 primaries for the special election and the general election. Yes, he lost the latter primary by only 400 votes. No, he's not packing it in and letting now-Congressman Bill Foster carry the Democratic banner. From the Courier News:
Citing "different" issues across 56 precincts in the 14th Congressional District, John Laesch is asking for recounts in his close Democratic primary election loss to Bill Foster.
Laesch and attorney Richard Means declined to talk specifics about the discovery recount petitions filed Friday, deferring until after today's special election between Foster and Republican Jim Oberweis. Speaking generally, Laesch described the problems as "something different everywhere."
The formal recount request coincided with the State Board of Elections certifying the results Friday that show Foster with a 398-vote win in the primary election, to determine who will have the spot on the Democratic ballot in the November election.
"It is the first opportunity to file these petitions," Laesch said. "I think anybody in my position would do the same thing."
Laesch has refused to concede the primary, seeding doubt about Foster's legitimacy. But on Feb. 5, remember, he lost both the special and general election primaries - the special election primary he lost by 3769 votes, in part because one of the fringe candidates skipped that primary and didn't leech more votes from Foster. The clear intent of Democratic voters was to reject their 2006 candidate in favor of someone else. Think about it: If a revote was held, would voters pick the man who just shocked the GOP and stole Denny Hastert's seat, or this bitter ex-candidate?
I throw it to the masses: What do you think?