Friday, December 02, 2005

A View From the 6th District

After weeks and months of debate over the 6th District Democratic primary, Lynn Sweet took a look from a different perspective Friday. In her column in your Chicago Sun-Times, Sweet spoke to Democrats from the 6th District.

Democratic congressional candidate Christine Cegelis said Thursday she did not understand why Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) recruited a rival to run against her who did not live in the district.

Democratic Party of DuPage County Chairman Gayl Ferraro said the residency of Army Maj. Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth "is going to be an issue with a lot of our voters, from what I've been hearing." ***

Duckworth met with Ferraro on Wednesday afternoon at DuPage County party headquarters in Lombard. Ferraro said Duckworth told her she "has permission to start circulating petitions" even while on active duty.

On Monday, Duckworth phoned Cegelis to discuss the race. The conversation was brief, Cegelis said. "She just wanted to introduce herself to me, that's all," Cegelis said in a conference call with reporters.

"We didn't talk for very long. We talked a bit about the fact that she does not live in the district and that she does not intend to move to the district." ***

Ferraro -- who as party chairwoman said she will be neutral in the primary -- said Emanuel's undermining Cegelis has made some DuPage Democrats "very angry about the whole situation. They are looking at it as the DCCC coming in and telling them what to do.

"But I don't necessarily view it that way. It is anyone's right to run for the office," Ferraro said.

It sounds like Gayl Ferraro has been talking to some of the same people I have. But this impassioned response by the DuPage Democrats to the DCCC machinations could only come as a surprise to those who are unfamiliar with the district.

First, DuPage Democrats are not born followers. Being a Democrat in DuPage County is just not a passive activity. Every DuPage County voter who pulls a Democratic primary ballot is a voter who has the guts to buck long odds to have their voice heard. Voting Democratic in the 6th District, "Henry Hyde's District", is always -- ALWAYS -- an act of defiance.

Anyone who has ever worked for a Democratic candidate in the district has had to repeatedly contend with people telling them that they should give it up, that they should surrender to the inevitable, that theirs is a lost cause. But they weren't looking for anyone else's approval, so the naysayers just drove them to work harder. They are people who have done hard, crappy, thankless work with little help from the state party and none from the national party. DuPage Democrats have never let DuPage Republicans tell them how they should exercise their franchise and they are unlikely to let any "kingmakers" from Chicago do so now.

Remember Iowa 2004?

Second, Christine Cegelis has been campaigning in the district for the last two years. In that time she has met a whole lot of Democrats. And they agreed that our nation is heading in the wrong direction. They recognized her commitment to preserve the promise of America by honoring the dreams and hard work of Americans. They understood that her proposals to promote investment in the technologies and education that will move our country into the future will also benefit the workers of this district.

And any DuPage Democrat who has done any political work in the district has had an opportunity to rub shoulders with "the woman who took on Henry Hyde." They saw that, for the first time in recent memory, they didn't have to skip the congressional race or vote for a phantom Democratic candidate who they had never heard of before entering the voting booth. Instead, there was a real flesh and blood candidate, supported only by grassroots volunteers, with the political guts to go up against Hyde. I don't think that is easily forgotten. Outside the district, this race may be all about big-money funding and big-name P.R., but don't be mislead into discounting the face-to-face retail campaigning Christine Cegelis and her team have been doing for a couple of dozen months.

In addition, nearly every Democratic primary voter in DuPage County has already voted for Christine Cegelis. In 2004, Ms. Cegelis earned 44 percent of the vote in the district. While not everyone who voted for her was a Democrat, I'll bet damn few Democrats voted against Christine. And I'll bet no Democratic primary voters -- none, ZERO -- voted for Henry Hyde.

Let's face it, if DuPage Democrats were looking for someone "in charge" to tell them how to vote, it they were willing to blindly cast their ballots for the establishment candidate, they would be voting Republican.

P.S. One would hope that this would go without saying, but this posting is intended as a critique of the 6th District race and not as an "attack" on any candidate. It seems reasonable that we should be able to civilly question the wisdom of the DCCC's decision without being accused of attacking a disabled veteran.

Cross posted at the So-Called "Austin Mayor" blog.
See ya in the comments.

8 comments:

Anonymous,  9:18 AM  

Democrats always think we're heading in the wrong direction....so what else is new? Give us something concrete, that we don't know please.

Yellow Dog Democrat 11:55 AM  

Mr. Mayor -

If your posting is intended as an honest critique of the 6th CD race, then let's be frank.

Christine Cegelis has not raised the cash necessary to run a competitive race.

Quoting Eric Adelstein, Cegelis's spokesperson, from Lynn Sweet's August 11th column:

'Adelstein noted that Bean did not start major fund-raising until August 2003, but acknowledges that Cegelis, in order to be competitive, has "got to ramp up her fund-raising. I think people will be looking at her Sept 30 report." Adelstein said the campaign just hired a full-time fund-raiser.'

Cegelis' Sept. 30 showed she had raised roughly $150K for the year and had less than $50K cash on hand -- most of which came from a personal loan. That is simply not good enough.

And while Cegelis loves to attack Emanuel and the DCCC, let's also not forget that the list of those supporting Duckworth apparently includes Barack Obama, Dick Durbin and Pat Quinn.

Cegelis is not going to win this election. Even if she were to win the primary, her campaign cannot stand on its own two feet, and she certainly won't have any help from the DCCC.

And yes, it's not fair, but as my mom told me when I was five: "Life's not fair. Better get used to it."

Not everything is beyond Cegelis's control, however. Cegelis still has the courageous opportunity to step aside and support Duckworth - and encourage those who have supported her so passionately to do the same. If she cares about Democratic efforts to take back our government, that's what she'll do.

And her campaign team has the opportunity to distinguish themselves from the money-milking syncophants who convinced Blair Hull and Jack Ryan to stay in, when everybody outside the campaign team could see the train wreck coming. It's not easy to tell a candidate something they don't want to hear, but that's what good consultants and real friends do. I hope Cegelis has both.

Yellow Dog Democrat 12:01 PM  

And something else -- 44% of voters didn't vote for Christine Cegelis, they voted against Henry Hyde. In fact, Cegelis did worse that John Kerry, meaning that many Kerry supporters chose not to support Cegelis.

Yet more proof that Cegelis is not a viable candidate.

Anonymous,  12:26 AM  

If Eric Adelstein is with Cegelis she is a sure loser. He has lost every major race he has been on, I am surprised he still has the guts to show his face. He lost Phelan, Giglio, Kazak.

Anonymous,  8:46 AM  

you guys still don't get that a bunch of the base is leaving and will not be with Rahm or any dem in the fall. When 30% of your base takes a walk, youse got problems.

Bill Baar 9:08 AM  

What are Duckworth's positions on issues? Is she in line with the party? You'd think that should count for something.

Anonymous,  9:19 AM  

Emanuel and Cegelis share a donor base, and it has been made clear that no one is to support Cegelis. No elected official is going to cross Rahm's picket line. The only people who are going to support Cegelis are the people in the district, the local DFA groups, and the local Dem organizations. Nearly 1,400 small donors have contributed to her campaign. Hundreds of volunteers have donated thousands of hours. They've talked to their neighbors and knocked on thousands of doors in the district.

But this doesn't matter.

Honest critisms of Duckworth is attacking a 'war hero.' The DCCC will not support Cegelis even if she wins the primary. Her fundraising is poor, but a candidate who hasn't even campaigned in the district, doesn't live in the district, who will hire paid canvassers, will be given everything she needs.

Life isn't fair. But a Democracy is suppose to be.

If we are so ready to allow a candidate like Duckworth to be packaged and sold and annointed in IL-06, why not just buy all the house seats? That's what the Republicans do. Maybe we should follow their example, corruption and all. They win afterall.

Voting is an outdated quaint notion anyway.

Anonymous,  7:56 AM  

this isn't a race between christine cegelis and tammy duckworth. it's a race between cegelis and rahm emanuel. duckworth is just a proxy (in more ways than one). rahm simply can't allow cegelis to win!

personally, i'm waiting to see when duckworth gets released from active duty. i'll bet the pressure will be intense if she's not released before december 19.

and i wonder how much cash on hand duckworth has? has she opened a campaign account? oh, yeah, she's still on active duty! i guess we can't make any rational assessment of this race based on fund-raising, can we? (not that i think ydd offered anything close to a rational assessment -- i would have called it a rather emotional one.)

being a war hero doesn't get anyone elected to congress anymore. especially when the war isn't that popular.

so it would be incredibly stupid for cegelis to consider stepping aside. one expects she is smarter than that! duckworth can't beat roskam; in fact, duckworth's story will be old by the time she gets to november. plus it will be nothing for roskam to pull out the campaign plan for the chambliss-cleland race -- and the 6th is one of the few places such a strategy could work!

democrats who believe that duckworth can beat roskam are the same kind of democrats who believed that kerry could beat bush because *he* was a war hero! roskam will also undoubtedly rely on the same field plan that bush used in ohio -- another area that duckworth is deficient (and unlikely to catch up). but she looks so good on paper! it's almost like the ydd-democrats (let's call them the irrationals) keep doing the same thing over and over -- but expect different results! what's that called?

nominating tammy duckworth only gives peter roskam a clear path to congress.

but duckworth's liabilities are greater than just the wide-eyed idealism of the irrationals! she spends a good part of her day in physical therapy -- just like sen. paula hawkins did in her last campaign. if duckworth had a base of support, she might be able to minimize this negative, but she doesn't. duckworth needs to be out there getting exposure to voters (as opposed to the chicago pols who are pushing her). yes, you can perform official duties while getting physical therapy, but it's a terrible way to campaign. just ask paula hawkins (look her up).

people who think that duckworth offers even a chance against peter roskam just don't understand campaigns -- and probably won't ever learn!

as for duckworth's positions on the issues -- that doesn't matter to emanuel. she's a "fighting dem," a test case for hillary's run in 2008. (and don't you think *that* will set off the gop donor base!) like michael from chicago said: voting is a quaint notion anyway -- certainly not something that rahm will tolerate! votes don't count to chicago pols like rahm -- only subservience.

christine cegelis is an independent democrat, and that really drives the political bosses nuts! when people ask christine "who sent ya?" her only reply will be: the people of the 6th! now *that's* worth fighting for!

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