When the DCCC announced that IL-14 (Randy Hultgren) was on their target list there was a lot of snickering. For Chicagoland, it's a pretty Republican suburban district (primarily McHenry, Kane, Lake, Will and Kendall counties with a bit of DeKalb and a bit of DuPage). The PVI is R+5 and, although Obama edged past McCain in 2008 (50-49%), Romney won in 2012 (54-44%) and Señor Trumpanzee beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%. Hillary was the wrong candidate for much of the district and, in fact, Bernie beat her in the primary with a strong 58%.The GOP incumbent, Hultgren, is a hapless backbencher and knee-jerk religious nut and shill for the GOP leadership. He started his shameful political career working for serial child molester Denny Hastert. First elected to Congress in 2010 against worthless New Dem Bill Foster, his 3 reelection bids have been by huge numbers (59%, 65% and 60%), the DCCC sitting out all 3 races. He beat Foster 51-45% in 2010 despite being massively outspent by the corporate Democrat $3,737,519 to $1,552,578. In 2012, 2014 and 2016 the Democrats who opposed him had no resources. Last year, for example, Jim Walz spent $19,745 to Hultgren's $1,297,836.The DCCC-- and a couple of conservative Democratic congressmemembers from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Blue Dog Cheri Bustos and New Dem Bill Foster-- are recruiting Montgomery mayor Matt Brolley-- another of those repulsive "ex"-Republicans corrupt conservative Democrats are so fond of. Brolley doesn't live in the district and doesn't live in the Democratic Party. He pulled Republican ballots in 2010, 2014 and even last year! Now, of course, Brolley is pretending to be a Democrat with progressive stands. That's not how he smells though. There is also some chatter about another DCCC-favored candidate, Lauren Underwood, who says the DCCC is asking her to run and just moved to the district in order to run for Congress. And progressive Jim Walz is running again as well.The DCCC is especially eager to pass Brolley off as a viable candidate because their worst nightmare-- a pragmatic progressive Democrat, Victor Swanson-- is already running for the seat. For all the bullshit about how the DCCC supports veterans-- Swanson served in the Navy-- the DCCC only supports Republican-lite veterans, not progressive veterans. Swanson has been working as a social studies teacher for 17 years. His wife is also a public school teacher. We spoke with him yesterday and asked him if he's aware of what a difficult task he's taken upon himself. He was very aware of it. "When I began to think about running for Congress," he told us, "I began to have conversations with a variety of people whose lives revolve around the political arena including campaign staffers, congressional staffers, and even Members of Congress. Everyone of them said the same thing, I could not be successful because I had a real job, as a teacher. Those conversations just reinforced my feelings about how broken our Congress is. I decided to forge ahead with this campaign no matter what the naysayers thought. Congress needs to look like America and would greatly benefit from having at least a few members who have worked a real job. I am looking forward to this challenge and I want to help reinvent the political process by bring back real representative government to the People's House."I'm hearing some chatter in the district that there's a strong move to draft John Laesch, the dedicated Berniecrat who was originally responsible for driving Hastert out of office by running against him-- in the face of concerted and vicious DCCC sabotage-- in 2006 and exposing his myriad... vulnerabilities. Stay tuned. This field is starting to get very crowded.
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