-By Warner Todd Huston
The Hill is reporting that the upcoming 14th District GOP primary is shaping up as a grudge match between two Republicans that aren’t even in the race. According the The Hill this is a grudge match between State Senator Chris Lauzen and wannabe anything Jim Oberweis, both candidates that vied for that seat in the 2008 special election that sent Democrat Bill Foster to Washington.
The 14th District Congressional seat was the one that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held until he resigned in 2008. Hastert’s son Ethan Hastert is now running for the GOP nomination for his father’s old seat.
This “grudge match” meme pushed by The Hill is a result of the formal entry into the primary race of State Senator Randy Hultgren who threw his hat in the ring earlier in the week. Hultgren was elected to the State Senate in 2006 and served in the Illinois House for eight years previous to that. (1999-2007).
As the Hill notes, Hultgren found immediate praise from State Senator Chris Lauzen who ran to obtain the GOP nomination for the 14th’s seat during the 2008 special election. The Hill reports that Lauzen has been “actively recruiting other candidates in a continuing grudge over the special election.”
For his part, Jim Oberweis is supporting Speaker Hastert’s son, Ethan, for the seat. The Hastert family supported Oberweis’ effort to gain the GOP nomination to face Foster in 2008. Oberweis won the nomination but lost the election to Democrat Foster.
Now the late special election primary was a messy affair, it is true. Senator Lauzen and the always unelected and unelectable Oberweis were like cats and dogs in the hunt for the nomination. Now with Lauzen’s praise of Hultgren and Oberweis’ support of Hastert, we see another example of the loggerheads these two are always at.
Let me say one thing about this Hill report. It presents Lauzen as the outsider and Oberweis as the steady, party man that is shaking his head at that mean ol’ Lauzen.
But I feel compelled to point out one, tiny little factoid. Jim Oberweis has NEVER been elected to ANYTHING. He is not the stolid, long-time party man. Oberweis, himself ran as an outsider time and again. Time and again he’s lost his shirt at the polls. On the other hand, Lauzen has won office and has represented the people of Illinois as a conservative Republican for well over a decade.
There is also another thing that must be pointed out. Speaker Hastert has no party legacy in his District. Even The Hill points out that the Hastert name is not much of a draw for the son. Speaker Hastert did not groom a successor nor did he build a strong party machine to push his favored candidate should he have had one. He did his job as Speaker in Washington and paid no mind to building any sort of political machine back home in his District.
The truth is the support of Oberweis for Hastert the younger is a practical nullity for Hastert’s race for the nomination to face Foster. Oberweis has nothing behind him but his personal fortune. And that has always been the case. The man is simply empty of heft.
In the end, I’d much rather take the counsel of Senator Chris Lauzen on who is a good candidate for office than listen to Jim Oberweis act the part of the wounded party-man. And while we are talking about advice, I have some for young Mr. Hastert: don’t expect any material help from Jim Oberweis. He is incapable of offering any as far as the voters are concerned. His campaign record proves it.
The other announced candidates for the 14th District are:
- Former Aurora councilman and businessman Bill Cross — not yet announced
- Jeff Danklefsen
- Ethan Hastert, son of former Speaker Dennis Hastert (FaceBook page)
- Iraq Reconstruction Worker Mark Vargas of Elgin (FaceBook page)
(Cross posted at RedCounty.com)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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