HASTERT RESIGNING EARLY-- TIME TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE FOR JOHN LAESCH

Niki Tsongas' victory in the low turn-out special election in Massachusetts yesterday elicited a lot of squawking from Democrats today and a lot of crowing, much of it verging on delusional if not psychotic, from Republicans.

After a lackluster campaign, devoid of any positive energy, Tsongas won with 51% of the vote in an overwhelmingly Democratic district. The Republican, Jim Ogonowski, whose main claim to fame was the his brother was flying one of the hijacked 9/11 planes, drew 45%, a full 4% more than Bush did against Kerry in the district. The RNCC takes this as proof that the way to win-- or at least lose with a small margin-- is to attack Washington. For most Americans "Washington" is Bush and Cheney and Republican obstructionists in Congress. Chris Bowers had a much better explanation for why the race was so tight.

Throughout the country, most of the Democratic Party is run by ossifying, New Deal era local machines of this sort. It is reflected in Washington, D.C., where the party is actually run somewhat like a local machine (seniority, dues, loyalty, insularity, etc). The struggles that Tsongas is facing in what should be a very, very easy election is just one example of the ineffectiveness of these machines as electoral vehicles. Republicans are collapsing nationwide, and it would appear that only the ineffectiveness of the Democrats can save them right now.

Right on the heels of that, we have a leak tonight saying that tomorrow Planet Denny Hastert will announce that he is retiring early from Congress, precipitating a (very expensive) special election, the costs of which won't come out of his overblown pension.

No one will know for sure what would have happened if Ogonowski had had to face, not the middle of the road, face of yesteryear hack the Democrats fielded but the energetic progressive who lost the primary, Jamie Eldridge. My guess is that Eldridge would have won by double digits and that Democrats in Congress would have had an idea guy, a committed progressive and a fighter, instead of an unexciting, uninspiring conservative Democrat committed to the ossifying machine Bowers mentioned above.

The action moves immediately to Illinois' sprawling 14th CD, west of Chicago. Unlike MA-05, IL-14 is a Republican-leaning district. If Democrats are to have a chance to take it from Republicans-- and they do-- they have to offer an alternative to Republicans, not someone who is sort-of-like-a-Republican-but-just-not-as-bad. There is one clear progressive candidate who also happens to have the best name recognition-- of any candidate in either party-- districtwide: John Laesch, the Blue America-endorsed challenger who made great stride in 2006 and is ready to go to Washington in 2008.

I've gotten to know John over the past couple years and I can't imagine a better representative for IL-14 and for progressive values. He's the ultimate grassroots candidate, a carpenter who believes in organizing from the bottom up. He's facing a conservative multimillionaire who is so clueless that he's been bragging about being a Blue Dog. Exactly what Congress doesn't need more of! I reached John by phone after I heard about Hastert's announcement. He was driving home from a book signing hosted by the DeKalb County Peace & Justice Coalition. He's already been endorsed by most of the elected Democratic precinct committee people in the district but he's up against someone with one qualification: all the money to buy whatever and whomever can be bought.

John's excited about the prospect of a special election. He says it will make IL-14 "the ground zero battle between a progressive grassroots Democrat and a wealthy self-declared Blue Dog. If progressives want to win on the floor of the House of Representatives then they need to start winning in the 14th CD."

John is the kind of guy who will go to Congress and immediately start invigorating the moribund Progressive Coalition. My guess is that it would take him a matter of weeks to turn it into a real force for ideas and energy. If that's what you would like to see-- instead of another useless cog in Rahm Emanuel's wheel-- now's the time to show a little people power at John's Blue America site.