AS BAD AS MELISSA BEAN IS, IT COULD BE WORSE-- MEET STEVE GREENBERG

Yesterday we covered a couple of races in northern Illinois including the 8th CD where reactionary, pro-corporate Democrat Melissa Bean holds sway, albeit tenuously. She came up again this morning in our look at the escapades of the right wing Blue Dogs, almost all of whom, like her, voted to give Bush a blank check to continue the catastrophic occupation of Iraq. The excitement about a primary challenge and a third party challenge to get rid of Bean was welcome. But an exceptionally lame Republican has his eyes on that seat as well. Steve Greenberg has a reputation: poor little rich boy. He's a college dropout who wants to prove anybody, no matter how stupid, can buy a House seat if he's rich enough. (If he's so dumb, how did he earn all that money? He didn't. It's all about DADDY!-- just like Paris Hilton.)

Steve Greenberg's glory days were as a hockey player for a minor league affiliate of the Washington Capitols. He's like to return to DC as a senator or a congressman. He was rumored to be the Republican sacrificial lamb next year on the alter of Dick Durbin but someone pointed out what one of them there senate races cost and he scaled back to challenging conservative Democrat Melissa Bean.

I'm not making this up. He said "I very much want to be part of their locker room," referring to House Republicans he's met including freshman Congressman Peter Roskam (whose voting record is the most reactionary of any member from the state of Illinois). Presumably Greenberg hasn't met and doesn't want to share a locker room with Patrick McHenry (R-NC), David Dreier (R-CA), and Jim McCrery (R-LA).

Greenberg's platform can best be summed up with two words: "rubber stamp." Yesterday he told the Daily Herald that he opposes gun control, woman's right to choice, gay marriage (which he feels calls for a constitutional amendment) and that he wants to make the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans permanent. As far as Iraq... he wants to wait and see. Worse than Bean? Hard to imagine but no question about it. One has to wonder about how hard up the party of Everett Dirksen has become that they are actually encouraging a pip-squeak like Greenberg to run for anything! I guess they're just happy it won't cost them anything. And , Lord knows, after Alan Keys, what's a little more egg on the face?