Melissa Bean Draws A Democratic Primary Challenger... Sort Of

That's Jonathan Farnick on the right

Melissa Bean never joined the Blue Dog caucus; she's too smart for painting that kind of a target on his back. But her record in Congress has been just as bad-- and in some cases worse-- than most Blue Dogs. The Democratic darling of the Chamber of Commerce, Bean is a quintessential corporate Dem, representing IL-08, suburbs northwest of Chicago, including Schaumburg, a city of corporate headquarters. Gore and Kerry both lost badly to Bush there but Obama defeated McCain 56-43%. This year Bean's ProgressivePunch score on crucial, substantive votes, 49.02, is tied with conservatives Jerry Costello and Dan Lipinski, as second most wretched, beaten only by Bill Foster (35.29), among Illinois Democrats. Last week the Daily Herald took an early look at her race for re-election, pointing out the danger from disaffected Democrats. There are already 8 challengers for her seat, 6 of whom are Republicans (who will face off in a primary February 2).

Progressive, anti-war candidate Bill Scheurer is running as the Green Party nominee and Jonathan Farnick is opposing Bean in the Democratic primary. Yesterday Farnick sent DWT a copy of a rather strange letter, politically speaking, he sent to Bean:

Dear Representative Bean,
 
I am writing to you as I have no other recourse at this time. I am a constituent in your district and have tried to get on the primary ballot to be the lone challenger for a race in the upcoming Democratic election.
 
On November 9th, 2009, a local Democratic committeeman from Zion, Gregory Ferritto, challenged my petitions. Should he prevail, there will be no challenger in the Democratic primary.
 
I have a 100% assurance that I will not be able to overturn the challenge to my petitions: I needed eight hundred ninety and collected eight hundred ninety. The only way the voters will have a choice in the primary is that Mr. Ferritto withdraws his challenge.
 
To be clear, Mr. Ferritto has every right to challenge, that's not being debated, it's just that, here in Illinois, election law allows for one person to be the deciding vote in a choice that the district’s residents should have.
 
As the Florida Supreme Court has previously said regarding votes in elections: "We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration…The laws are intended to facilitate and safeguard the right of each voter to express his or her will in the context of our representative democracy. Technical statutory requirements must not be exalted over the substance of this right."
 
I'm asking for your help to try to persuade him into dropping his objection, as I said, I have no other option, other than to withdraw my petitions, and the result is Democratic voters of having no choice in the primary.
 
There is a hearing about the matter tentatively set for Tuesday, November 17, 2009, so seeing to this quickly would be appreciated. I only received the notice on Friday the 13th, sorry for the short notice.
 
Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.

Good luck with that. Jonathan, whose publishes the blog TOFUBO says he doesn't consider himself the best possible person for the congressional seat. "I’m not 20 years old with 20 years of experience. I’ve never held elective office. I’m not part of the local democratic machine... I have no name recognition and no money. I just know that there are a number of people in this district not happy with Rep. Bean and do want to see her replaced, but not by a Republican.