On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

Ex House Speaker Denny Hastert’s decision to retire means a battle (primary and possibly otherwise) for his seat, which extends from the western Chicago suburbs to the edge of the Illinois Quad-City region.

It’s a seat the Republicans should be able to hold given it’s leanings. Still, an open seat is always a battle.

If that turns out to be the case, that could be good news for Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill.

Hare won the 17th District seat last year, and handily. Nonetheless, Republicans have made noises about making a push to challenge him.

With Hastert’s seat to defend they may have less ability to do so.

That’s probably the least of their concerns. First they have to come up with a candidate. Andrea Zinga doesn’t appear to have been raising any money, and given her loss to Hare last year and two years earlier to Lane Evans it’s unlikely she would attract a lot of GOP support for another bid.

That said, who’s to take her place? So far, I’ve heard nothing.

Yes, we’re only eight months into the year, but any challenger who wants to be considered credible should be cranking up the fundraising gears by now — or have a stash of money of their own.

As for Hastert’s seat, a campaign to fill it ought to send Republicans and Democrats alike scurrying to spend more time in places like Geneseo. It’s true, most of the votes are in the Chicago area but this part of the district ought to get some action, too.

If nothing else, it’s another race to feed the Q-C television market with commercials.

A final thought about Hastert. Quad-Citians who want a new I-74 bridge ought to give a tip of the hat to the former Speaker.

It was about five years ago that then-Rep. Jim Nussle brought Hastert to the base of the bridge, where he pledged his support.

The two delivered a couple years ago with the transportation bill, when there was a $50 million earmark in there for the bridge.

Paul Rumler of Moline just announced he’s taking another run at Illinois Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline.

Rumler, a Democrat who works for the Illinois Quad-City Chamber of Commerce, looked like he might pull an upset last year when he ran a shoestring campaign against Jacobs, who had more money and that locally famous last name.

Jacobs ended up winning and since then has been nothing if not high-profile, including on ongoing feud with the governor.

Rumler’s holding a news conference tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the Teamsters Hall, Local 371, in Rock Island to kick off the campaign. The primary will be Feb. 5.

Jerry Lack, the longtime aide to former congressman Lane Evans just announced he’s running for the 71st District House seat. That’s Mike Boland’s seat.

Boland has been a target for years, some times as much by parts of the Rock Island County Democratic Party (led by the Jacobs family) as by Republicans. Still, he’s always come out on top.

I just talked to Lack, who’s now executive director of the Illowa Construction and Labor Council. He says he hopes to have the Jacobs’ endorsement, but he’s going to run his own positive campaign, on ideas.

Lack says not enough gets done in Springfield, namely the budget stalemate and the failure to pass a capital spending bill.

I’ll have a response from Boland later.

I’m a few days late with this, but the L.A. Times had a story last week about the importance of certain activists in the presidential caucuses. They focused on the Democrats and, in particular, Clinton County’s own Jean Pardee.

Jean is the county Dem chair and a representative on the state central committee. And, as much as anybody, she’s very much in touch with what Democrats in the area are thinking.

Here’s the story.

Scott County Democratic Chair Sue Frembgen also is a part of the piece.

Interesting passage about the courting she got from Howard Dean and John Kerry back in ‘04. And, according to the article, how Kerry’s visit to the Rock Island Arsenal helped to win her backing.

Frembgen is an Arsenal worker and a union official.

In fact, Kerry, Dean and Dick Gephardt were all playing up to the Arsenal last cycle. Dean promised to bring jobs back to the island, while Gephardt wrote a letter objecting to putting some Arsenal jobs in competition with private industry.

Those with longer memories will recall back before the 2000 caucuses, Al Gore, while courting local support, announced that the Arsenal’s factory had been taken off a list of agencies required to compete with private industry in what is called an A-76 competition.

Interestingly enough, the 2008 cycle hasn’t seen that kind of attention paid to the Arsenal. Not yet, anyway.