I should be sleeping, but sometimes you are just restless, you know?  So tonight llbear e-mailed me with an idea for the Gilda Reed campaign in LA-01 that set off an e-mail exchange culminating in a "reply all" answer from Gilda herself to the effect that she needs every warm body she can get her hands on.

More juicy details below the fold.

As many of you may know, John Laesch held a press conference this morning to discuss the unresolved election in IL-14.  At this point Laesch still trails his primary opponent by 355 votes in the general primary, although all the absentee ballots are not counted (in fact, County Clerks must wait until February 19th for their return) and there is still an outstanding question as to whether all the provisional ballots have been counted in all nine counties.

John Laesch has conceded the special primary to his opponent, who will run against Republican nominee Jim Oberweis on March 8 to decide who will fill the remaining ten months of Hastert’s term, but he has not conceded the general primary.  This morning Laesch held a press conference to answer the many questions I understand the campaign has been bombarded with regarding his intentions.  I attended it.  And since the campaign has made it clear they will make no further statements, I will share my observations and the text of his remarks below.

100% of the precincts in IL-14 are counted and John Laesch is trailing Bill Foster by 365 votes.

However, absentee ballots, including those of our troops - like John's brother I presume - serving away from home have not been counted.  Canvass is not complete or official.  Should be completed by tomorrow.  Campaign has attorneys to guide it through this process.

This has been such a strange and amazing night.

In his remarks to the crowd John said, progressives have, one way or another, "moved the ball forward" an incredible distance in IL-14, when we have run a race this close against a Blue Dog who spent $2million to his $120,000 or so.  And we have.  Sorry this is so short, but this has been a long, long day, and will post new diary tomorrow.

What happens in Podunk shouldn’t stay there.  Or at least if it does, the Democratic Party Establishment, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs among us, will have won one more unrecorded battle against those of us who want real change.

What’s happening most immediately in the IL-14 corner of Podunk (a term I use here to describe anything not directly inside the DC Beltway) is a primary and a special primary on Tuesday, between the DC insider "pick" for our district, an attorney who is a relative newcomer to both politics and our area, and John Laesch, the nominee against Denny Hastert last time out, and the only progressive in the race.

At this point, I’d call it a significant bellwether for the upcoming Congressional elections that virtually no one outside of IL-14 is paying much attention to in the glare of the presidential race, as well as a bellwether event in the battle for control of the party.  So while I don’t expect this diary to get much attention, I want to leave a record of what has happened in this primary.  Bellwethers, however unobserved at the time, sometimes have a way of becoming useful history for those who follow.  

Just found this late-breaking set of endorsements on the Laesch for Congress website.  I say late-breaking, not just because of the time of day, but because we are a mere four days out from the both the primary and the special primary to replace the retired (i.e. completely gone and no longer my congresscritter - Yay!) Hastert.

I just learned today that the primaries in Illinois this year are special for this reason: unlike other super Tuesday states, Illinois is also conducting our Congressional primaries on this date, making them not just the earliest in the nation, but the earliest Congressional primaries in national history, per Congressional Quarterly.

I bring this up because events are happening at a wicked pace here: on March 8, this district will send a new Congressperson to the House, and we need to make sure it is the only real Progressive in this race.

Ok, so, I just got off the phone with Jim Green, campaign manager for Jotham Stein..  And, no, for those of you wondering, I am not switching loyalties, I am still a Laesch supporter.  But I heard the most incredible rumor, and decided I had to follow up on it.

The rumor, in a nutshell, was this: I heard that someone in the Foster campaign had taken recently to drawing faces and scrawling messages on Stein’s first mailer, which depicts Stein arms raised, crying out for change, and faxing them over to the Stein campaign.

I figured maybe some quite young Foster volunteer had amused himself by drawing one or two such caricatures and faxing them over.  I know, as does anyone who has worked on a campaign, that you can’t control every single last thing your volunteers do.  So I called Green to follow up, but the facts of the case, as he related them, really surprised me.

We’re just one week out from the special primary on February 5 to replace Dennis Hastert in IL-14, early voting is underway, and events are accelerating at a wicked pace.  I walked two precincts hanging door-hangers myself yesterday for the Laesch campaign, and know that is just a miniscule part of the effort on the ground here.

Still, I admit I was a little worried when I returned from an extended trip recently to discover among my two weeks of collected mail no less than four mailers from Bill Foster.  One of them particularly caught my eye, since it features a full-page photo of Paul Simon, and describes Foster (who has declared he will join the Blue Dogs) as a "Progressive."  Seems Bill’s handlers are catching on to the fact that the voters of this district prefer their conservatives with an "R" after their name, and identifying him as a Blue Dog here is not going over well with the liberals in Podunk.

It’s crunch time here, and John Laesch needs your help.  We are two weeks, 14 days, out from the Illinois Primary, and Super Tuesday, yes.  

But, because of Hastert’s resignation, we are also a mere 14 days out from the Special Primary and about six weeks from sending a new Representative to Congress from IL-14.

I just recently returned from an extensive two week road-trip that encompassed four states and another country, so thought I’d been busy, but have just realized the Laesch campaign could probably re-define busy, considering what they’ve been doing while I’ve been gone.

You know, it’s very kind of bored now to keep us all in the loop by providing Roundup diaries.  Of particular interest to me is the race in IL-14, so of course when I came back for a pit stop between trips today and saw that he had posted an IL-14 Roundup #3 diary, I took the time to scan it.

Hmmm.  There seems to be very little going on in the Laesch campaign, to hear bored tell it.  Could have sworn I heard about more endorsements recently than those bored now mentions in his coverage of the Laesch campaign, which amounts to this:

john laesch woke up to good news this morning: state senator mike noland has endorsed him.

and this:

booman tribune has an old interview of john laesch that now comes up on google search. his campaign continues its periodic campaign updates here and here. laesch's former blogger also talks about Podunk,IL vs. the New Chicago Machine, the laesch youtube page covers his simmons appearance (broken into multiple videos and quentin young's endorsement.

and...

no, I guess that’s about it - all the news bored could find the space or time to bring us about Laesch...

I have to admit, I'm a little wary of belonging, which is probably why "I belong to no organized political party, I'm a Democrat."  Hey, I even look on organizations like the Girl Scouts with a certain measure of suspicion, and view invitations from actual friends that say "Join us for..." askance.

But maybe precisely because I'm a confirmed belonging-skeptic, I've looked upon belongers for most of my life with a certain horrified fascination, sort of in the way rubberneckers look at accidents.

One of the belonger-groups I've watched with horrified fascination over the years has been the real-world Michael P Keaton squad.  Guys who came of age as Reagan came to power, who seemed wholly conservative as a rejection of their preceding generation's liberal bent, and who became avid Republican adherents.  What the ones I know personally are thinking and doing right now is kind of shocking and a bit of an eye opener.  I'm not sure what I think of it, so would welcome any meandering comments about what you think of it.

I know the eyes of the world are on Iowa today, but here in Illinois, we were just treated to this bombshell from a local paper:

Election officials in at least seven Illinois counties plan to ask a federal court to intervene because they believe the dates set by Gov. Rod Blagojevich for a special primary and special general election will not give them time to meet federal and state statutes that govern elections.

The election is to replace Hastert, who has retired.  The special primary is set for February 5 and the special general March 8.  From the story it appears that the objection from the counties comes not to the primary date but to the March 8 special general date.

Not long ago, I ran across this comment from a dedicated Foster volunteer and supporter:  

This will be unpopular... (0.00 / 0)
...but you know I'm going to say it anyway!
I am much more interested in what goes on in Northern IL than I am in what happens downstate. With work, I get more than my fill of politics in Springfield and the rest of the cornfields in IL.
I just really don't care what is happening in politics in Podunk, IL unless it's really sexy and scandalous. Otherwise, I am bored.  (emphasis added)

by: bridgetdooley @ Thu Dec 06, 2007 at 22:18:39 PM CST

As anyone who lives in Illinois knows, anything not in the City or collar counties is routinely considered "downstate" (aka "Podunk" to Ms. Dooley) even if it's north of Chicago.  The distinction here, if you are local, is that Kane and (parts of) Kendall, being collar counties, are typically considered part of the greater Chicagoland region, while everything west of the urbanized strip on the far east of IL-14 really qualifies as "downstate."  

The other day I saw this diary by nyceve.  I rec’d it and read some comments, started to leave one, then thought I’d check something first.

Today, I did.

I asked my son if he’d give one of his kidneys for lifetime Medicare.  

I wanted to ask him for a particular reason: unlike his sisters he has a perfectly spotless personal medical record and is in stellar health.  He ought to be: two of his three jobs are in training/coaching, he’s a very health-conscious non-smoking vegetarian, who can tell you on any given day what his body mass index is, etc, etc, etc.  But he has health insurance issues: he has none, and getting it is prohibitively expensive because of his family history.

His answer:

So, a couple of weeks ago, I was in a public place, right here in St. Charles, Illinois, when I overheard a conversation that alarmed, but failed to surprise, me.  The person doing most of the talking was talking complaining bitterly about her new job in an area public elementary school.  Not a St. Charles school and not an educator.  She’s a peripheral professional who has frequent contact with children however, and that’s bad enough.

Her major complaint?  "All these Hispanic children."

According to her, not only are "all these Hispanic children" unable to communicate, they are "aggressive and obnoxiously rude – especially the girls."  I was supposed to be paying attention to what the person in front of me was saying and lost some of the conversation I was overhearing, but suspect her companion must have voiced some objections, because she started trying to explain herself dig herself in deeper.

So I could say this:  

Planned Parenthood betrayed me and all the women of IL-14 yesterday.

Some of you may remember this memorable DKos diaryby Planned Parenthood back in September, when their new clinic in Aurora was under attack.  Some of you may even remember that there was one Kossack/candidate here who stepped up.  

In case anyone is unaware, I want to state for the record that I worked for the Laesch for Congress campaign in ’06, I work for it now, I will work for it in future.  But this diary is a personal story, not vetted by the campaign, although also an explanation of why, in fact, I started working for the election of John Laesch as my congressperson in the first place, why I’m probably going to drop in an ActBlue link in the end anyway, as well as why I am, oh, pissed off at the world today.  Again.

Today Kate’s life is in danger.  Again.

Kate is my late-twenty-something youngest daughter.  She is herself the mother of two, my only grandchildren.  Kate is smart, witty, charming, creative, funny, willful, stubborn, disorganized, proud, courageous, kind, and a free-spirit if ever there was one.  I mention these things because, like most people with a chronic illness, she hates being defined by it so I don’t want it to be the only thing I say about her here, but Kate has Type I Diabetes.

Illinois' 14th District Central Committeewoman, Beth Penesis and Central Committeeman, Mark Guethle recently hosted the 1st Annual IL-14 Dem Fundraiser in DeKalb, Illinois.  Among other things, the event offered a chance for local activists to become acquainted with the currently declared candidates for IL-14 Congressional seat.  I’m sorry I missed it, but I have the video!

I must admit, as the Laesch Campaign blogger, I was tempted to post only his video.  Then I watched them all and I’d encourage everyone interested in this race to do the same.  I don’t think it’s just my wishful thinking that makes John Laesch the stand out at this event.  Links below...

I once had to answer this question in the midst of a very frustrating work day, while in the most exasperated of moods.  I was busy and snapped out a smart-assed answer, but truly, the answer gets to the bottom of the reason why I think we often act as individuals in many small ways to protect the Earth, and as citizens to advocate for better state and national policies, but neglect to act on some really big results we can achieve locally.  So I think I’d like to repeat it on this Earth Day.