Facing Facts in the 6th Congressional District

As promised, I have had a little more to say about the revelations from The Hill, courtesy of Capitol Fax, that Christine Cegelis is searching for excuses not to fully endorse Tammy Duckworth. My apologies if I repeat myself a little bit, but as this debate gets to core issues, I think it belongs on page 1, not page 19, and since others have asked me to move it there, here I go.

I'm reminded of that old Nike commercial, where Michael Jordan recounts how many times, with the game on the line, he took the final shot, missed, and his team lost. But champions learn from their mistakes, try harder, and move on.

They do not blame everybody else for their loss, and as Rich Miller put it so eloquently "take the ball and go home."

Here are some facts the Cegelis camp needs to own up to:

-- Team Cegelis put together a great field operation, but they were still soundly beaten, despite having a two-year head start. The main reason they lost is that Christine Cegelis could not make a compelling case that she was the better candidate to face Roskam, either to core Democratic groups, prospective donors or a plurality of voters. And, as I've pointed out many times, you won't even find the names of any other Cegelis family members or many of her most ardent bloggers on Cegelis's campaign finance reports.

-- Cegelis's 44% showing against Henry Hyde was no predictor of her performance in 2006. Peter Roskam would have slashed and burned her for her extremely liberal views, including but not limited to: banning not just assault weapons but all handguns, decriminalizing possession of narcotics, increasing welfare spending, raising taxes, and "developing a universal single health care system for this country similar to our Canadian neighbors." Even though I personally agree with many of her views, no one in their right political mind can possibly believe she was electable in DuPage County with those extreme views on record.

-- Whatever you think of Rahm Emanuel, Tammy Duckworth ran an honorable and positive campaign, never criticizing Cegelis or Scott, but instead focusing all of her criticisms on the Bush administration and Roskam.

-- The "old line democrats" aren't casting Christine and her supporters as "disloyal Democrats," as bored now claims. Team Cegelis did that yourselves, by constantly attacking the Democratic Party and it’s leaders over the last six months and laying out your "us versus them" attacks. In fact, by Christine Cegelis’s own admission, it took an invasion of another country under false pretenses to get her activated in the Illinois Democratic Party. She was what — 50? I’ve been walking precincts since I was 12, and have paid my dues doing grassroots campaign work for candidates in all but a handful of Illinois counties across three decades. Many of the people I know supporting Duckworth have given up that and much more, so forgive my umbrage when Cegelis appoints herself the arbiter of Democratic ideals and whether or not Duckworth is living up to them.

-- Besides that fact, the contention that Duckworth has somehow abandoned core principles on health care is nonsense, as Arch Pundit points out, and Duckworth's own words just a week ago reinforce:

“I’m running because I think Congress should put our interests – not the special interests – first. That begins, first and foremost, with the issue that has been the centerpiece of my campaign: bringing affordable, accessible healthcare to all Americans who need it.”

And while this may fall short of Cegelis's promise to vote for Single Payer or support a repeal of CAFTA, what person in their right mind believes Cegelis's rhetoric? The push for Single Payer in the U.S. (which I spent two years campaigning for) began before World War II, and CAFTA is now the law of the land. Would anyone in their right mind believe a freshman lawmaker from a Republican-leaning district who implies she is going to lead the way in revolutionizing health care or turning American trade policy 180 degrees? Take a lesson in hubris from Barack Obama--and Tammy Duckworth.

-- Cegelis's "Good luck" is not an endorsement. It is a polite way of saying "go screw yourself, you're on your own," while bored now is much less polite when he says "Sounds to me like y’all are trying to set up blaming christine for duckworth’s inevitable loss against roskam." If that's your idea of being a team player, you must play alot of Solitaire.

-- Speaking of bored now, who complains of "old line democrats" and the learning curve he and other core Cegelis team members are going through; we haven't forgotten he's a longtime Illinoisian and has lectured us time after time after time after time after time after time about how much he knows about politics, and how experienced he is. The Dumb Act about how to give an endorsement from a guy who claims to have predicted John Kerry's loss is, well, dumb.

-- By contrast -- and contrary to William Maggos's claims -- Tammy Duckworth has been extremely gracious in victory, complimenting both Cegelis and her supporters. Despite my well-deserved cynicism about Cegelis's ability to be part of the Democratic team (as in "There is no 'I' in team"), even I've recognized that Cegelis has many strengths, and I even pledged my support is she decides to run for the Statehouse as part of that Democratic Team.

Cegelis's camp is right about one thing: The Democratic Party of Illinois does need new blood. But Team Cegelis seems to think we need to spill all of the old blood out on the pavement first. Her supporters downplay the differences between Democrats and Republicans, even though in just the last three years, Illinois Democrats gave 450,000 minimum wage workers a raise, and the earned income tax credit was expanded and made permanent. 90,000 kids and 300,000 working parents got health care. Roughly 10,000 kids gained access to pre-school. Illinois became the seventh state to require homocide interrogations to be videotaped, we cracked down on racial profiling, and we put the brakes on a death penalty system that is deeply flawed. We banned discrimination against gays and lesbians, and we told insurance companies they couldn’t exclude birth control from their coverage. These are no small accomplishments, unthinkable when Republicans were in charge. Definitely something to build on, not tear down.

I've no doubt that, if they want to, Cegelis and her band of loyalists can scuttle Duckworth's efforts. As I keep saying, it only takes one arsonist with a match to destroy, but it takes real power to build. If Cegelis supporters really want to demonstrate that they are a force to be reckoned with, they should take responsibility for a few townships and deliver the votes on Election Day. Talk is cheap, but numbers don’t lie, and if you can actually back up all of that talk, you won’t have to kick the door down to the Democratic Party. They’ll come find you. If you don't believe me, ask Barack Obama, Jan Schakowsky and Pat Quinn -- they were all anti-establishment candidates once too.

I know that So-Called Austin Mayor, William Maggos, and bored now don't speak for everybody who supported Cegelis in the primary, and I’d just like to take a moment to say thank you to all of the Cegelis supporters who have pledged their support for Tammy Duckworth. Tammy’s remarks about your idealism and hard work are right on the mark, and the Democratic Party is lucky to have you in its ranks.

The Democratic Party is not a stone monolith, but a forged coalition. As Baird Staughan says, like the head of an axe, in every coalition there are groups that form the blade: small bands of radicals, uncompromising, rich in energy, and often on the fringe of public attention. And there are groups that give that blade its heft: large institutions, incrementalists, rich in resources, and they are always in the public spotlight.

You should be proud to be on the cutting edge, but not vainglorious; you can’t chop wood without them just as they can’t chop wood without you, and if you stay at it long enough, some day some snot-nosed Meathead will be calling you Archie Bunker. Like it or not, we are part of the same family, we live under the same roof, and we do need each other.

UPDATE: Since I won't be around to fullfill my duties as hall monitor, comments are now closed.