Brad Schneider and Nancy Rotering (IL-10)When tepid New Dem Brad Schneider lost his House seat in 2014, it became the bluest district anywhere in the country with a Republican representative. The PVI is a daunting D+8. Obama beat McCain there 63-36% and beat Romney 58-41%. But with a Republican-lite voting record that discouraged Democratic base voters (in a midterm), Schneider was beaten by Republican Robert Dold 93,984 to 88,010, 51.6-48.4%. When Dold first won in 2012, 130,941 voters had pulled the lever for him. Almost 43,000 of his original voters just stayed home, many because they knew they were getting an unsatisfactory choice between a Republican and a Republican-lite DINO. There are millions of voters all over the country no longer playing the Beltway Democratic Establishment game of forcing them to pick between the lesser of two evils. Brad Schneider was, at best, the lesser of two evils. Now he's looking for another rematch against Dold. But... there is a better Democrat he first has to get through in the primary, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering. In March Rotering told me:
You can't change the gridlock in DC by electing the same people over andover again... The rate of poverty in the suburbs has been growing rapidly-- in this district and across the country-- and that's something that has to be addressed seriously on a national level... To expand the middle class we need to provide constant, sufficient education across the entire district. Fair wages are critical. 81% of SNAP recipients have at least one full time employee in the family. What does that say about wages?
It doesn't matter what Schneider says about this or any other issue-- those are just words crafted to win an election. He has a record for his one miserable term in Congress, a record during which he sided with Big Business and Wall Street against his own constituents... which is why he lost in such a deep blue district just north of Chicago (from Glencoe, Northbrook and Buffalo Grove up through Deerfield, Niles, Highland Park and Lake Forest to Fox Lake, Waukegan and the Wisconsin border). Yesterday Kimberly Railey, writing for National Journal, contrasted Rotering and Schneider based on one issue: the Iran deal. Both candidates-- and many of their constituents-- are Jewish. Schneider, predictably, is with the Republicans on this. Rotering is sticking with keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran through the deal. AIPAC is already on the warpath to make sure Schneider wins the March primary.
“The people in the district are as split as people are in the nation,” Rotering said in an interview. “People are interested in the contrast between the two of us because they themselves probably have different positions on the topic.” In Rotering and Schneider’s district, voters are closely watching the issue. “It’s something the people in the district are keenly aware of,” Schneider told National Journal. “They study it, they follow it. We have family that lives in Israel, we have neighbors. Our kids spend summers in Israel.” ...She has company among Chicago Jewish Democrats backing the Iran deal, too. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has endorsed it, while Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is the only Jewish member of Illinois congressional delegation, is also backing the agreement. Some Democrats suggested that Rotering’s endorsement of the deal could endear her to more progressive Democrats in the district. The candidate who ran closest to Schneider in his 2012 Democratic primary was progressive activist Ilya Sheyman, now the executive director of the liberal group MoveOn, which backs the Iran deal. “[Rotering] is clearly going to alienate some people with this position,” said one Chicago-area Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation. “But she has the possibility to attract a lot more.” Others said that in a race where both candidates are perceived as pro-Israel, the Iran deal won’t be a decisive factor among Democratic voters. “I think there’s some necessity for obviously a new face and challenger to try to take some risk on some positioning,” said Thomas Bowen, a Democratic strategist in Chicago. “But foreign affairs isn’t usually an issue that changes Democratic primary outcomes.” It is, however, the sharpest dividing line between Schneider and Rotering. And their district, which pays attention to issues affecting Israel like few others, has become a miniature version of the national fight over the Iran deal.