IL-13

Steve Israel and the DCCC freaked out when they realized that a progressive grassroots candidate, George Gollin, was serious about running against freshman GOP corporate shill Rodney Davis. With Dick Durbin at their side, they did everything they could to undermine Gollin and, in the end, Israel's mystery meat candidate, Ann Callis, won the primary, with 54.65%, having significantly outspent Gollin. From the moment she won the primary, the Democrats could have written off the swing district.

Tuesday is primary day in Illinois and the contest we're concentrating on is the swing district stretching from Champaign to the St. Louis suburbs, IL-13, currently held by weak Republican backbencher Rodney Davis. The Dick Durbin Machine and hapless DCCC chairman Steve Israel picked some mystery meat "moderate," Ann Callis, who refuses to tell anyone where she stands on any issues if, indeed, she stands anywhere on any issues.

Tuesday is primary day in Illinois and progressive George Gollin's insurgent campaign in IL-13 won two big endorsements yesterday. Early in the morning the biggest local paper, the Champaign News-Gazette came in for him, following the lead of the other two most read newspapers in the district, the Chicago Tribune and Springfield's State Journal-Register.

This afternoon, New Mexico Democrat Leslie Endean-Singh ended her race to be the Democratic nominee against right-wing extremist Stevan Pearce. She graciously left the field to DCCC recruit Rocky Lara, another one of Steve Israel's "mystery meat" candidates who stands for nothing much and will inspire as many voters as Alex Sink did last night. Endean-Singh, running a totally positive campaign, never adequately made the case about why the centrist Lara isn't a winning choice for New Mexico Democrats.

Earlier this month we introduced our newest House candidate, Illinois particle physicist George Gollin. Above is the TV ad he's trying to get up on stations across the sprawling district that goes from Bloomington and Champaign, straight through the Illinois farm belt to the northern suburbs of St. Louis.

I don't expect lazy Beltway reporters to dig this deep, but the real story of yesterday's DCCC Red-to-Blue announcement was less about a bunch of lame recruits like Blue Dog Gwen Graham (FL) and "mystery meat" no issues candidates like Domenic Recchia (NY) and Ann Callis (IL), than it was about which candidates and which districts got left out again.

Sunday, as part of an introduction to Blue America's latest endorsed candidate, George Gollin in central Illinois, we mentioned in passing that the mediocre Republican incumbent, careerist Rodney Davis, has a primary to worry about next month.

Last year Republican career hack Rodney Davis edged Democrat Dave Gill 137,034 (47%) to 136,032 (36%) in one of the country's penultimate swing districts, IL-13 which stretches from Bloomington and Champaign in central Illinois to Decatur and Litchfield and down to the northern suburbs of St Louis. The PVI is exactly even and President Obama won the district in 2008 55-44% and was edged by a few hundred votes (49-49%) by Romney in 2012.