26 Candidates Running For Rahm Emanuel's Old IL-05 Congressional Seat

Filing for the Chicago congressional seat for Illinois' 5th CD, abandoned by Rahm Emanuel, ended yesterday. The election will be held on April 7th and there are 15 Democrats, 6 Republicans and 5 Greens who have tossed their hats into the ring-- 26 candidates. The reality of the race, however, revolves around the March 3 Democratic primary. Both Obama and Emanuel won almost 75% of the vote in the district in November and the district has a PVI of D+18.

Conventional wisdom favors progressives Tom Geoghegan, Sara Feigenholtz, Mike Quigley and John Frichey with Chicago Alderman Patrick O'Connor also expected to take a serious shot at it. Other Democrats expected to get votes from people beyond their immediate families include Justin Oberman, Pete Dagher and Frank Annunzio.

DWT has endorsed Tom Geoghegan, a labor attorney, community activist and brilliant author. Sunday, February 1 the DePaul Democrats, the IVI-IPO, and Northside DFA will host a candidates forum at DePaul University Student Center, Lincoln Park Campus from 1-3 pm.

Last week Tom Geoghegan showed what kind of a congressman he is likely to be when he responded to Bush's request for the release of the second half of the $700 billion TARP funds. He's calling to three conditions to be met before the funds are released:

• Give priority-- directly if possible-- to help people keep their homes.
• Get public interest representatives or directors on bank boards in all of the banks receiving money.
• Penalize any bank that has been hoarding money from the first bailout.

I hope everyone who wants strong proponents of America's working families will contribute to Tom's campaign. You can do it through ActBlue here. As an incentive for some I spoke with an old friend, Scott McLean, who has made a very generous offer to Geoghegan donors. Scott buys large collections of records and CDs. He's especially interested in rock, soul, vintage country, personality and original shows. He pays high prices and has been in business for 30 years. He's agreed to donate between 10 and 20% (20% for collections he pays over $1,000 for) to Tom's campaign. In other words, sell him your record collection and wind up with, say $2,000-- and he will donate another $400 to Tom's campaign. Contact Scott at jaideeone@yahoo.com and tell him DownWithTyranny sent you. If you don't have a record collection to sell, please consider even a $5 or $10 contribution to Tom's campaign.

Daley Machine Hasn't Come Up With An Emanuel Placeholder... Yet

I've been talking with most of the Democrats running for Chicago's 5th district congressional seat, which has been vacated by Rahm Emanuel. The seat, a classic "rotten borough," has been a real home of corruption and its representatives just got worse and worse over the years, from Dan Rostenkowski to Rod Blagojevich to Rahm Emanuel. Since there is literally no Democrat in American politics as bad as Emanuel, the district is definately about to turn around. The Daley Machine, though, still wants a shot at installing a hack of their own. And this week one of the candidates informed me there would be a meeting, a slate-making session-- of leaders of the "regulars" (as opposed to reformers) to pick a candidate for the March 3rd primary.

It took place at 10:30 this morning at Zam Zam Banquet Hall on N. Oak Park Ave. and was chaired by state Senator James DeLeo, the district's representative on the party's state central committee. My source explained that it was expected that they would try anointing either state Rep. John Fritchey or, worse yet, Alderman Patrick O'Connor. Fritchey came closest by none of the 5 candidates who applied for the endorsement got the 50% + one vote need, guaranteeing an open primary.

There are three progressives in the race, anti-machine County Commissioner Mike Quigley, state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz and DWT-endorsed Tom Geoghegan. None of the progressives went to the slate-making session.

When Emanuel was first elected in 2002, patronage armies loyal to Mayor Richard Daley campaigned for Emanuel to replace Rod Blagojevich, the 5th District congressman who became governor. Those campaign armies dissolved after a federal investigation into City Hall hiring fraud led to the corruption conviction of Daley's longtime patronage chief Robert Sorich in 2006.

Daley said this week he had not endorsed any candidate and was unlikely to pick a favorite ahead of the primary vote.

Geoghegan would actually be as stellar a representative as his predecessors were abysmal. He's not just a decent enough progressive who will vote well, he's a thoughtful and innovative leader who could help, along with like-minded grassroots Reps like Donna Edwards, Linda Sanchez and Alan Grayson, spark a much-needed renaissance for progressive ideas in Congress. Please consider even a small donation to his campaign through our ActBlue page.

Help Replace Rahm Emanuel With Tom Geoghegan... For A Better America

Yesterday Chicago attorney, activist and author Tom Geoghegan (pronounced gay-gun) announced his intention to run for Congress from IL-05, his home district, a seat being vacated by Rahm Emanuel. When I spoke with him last week he told me he intended to make his announcement online and that he did, at Daily Kos. Tom's the first grassroots/netroots candidate of 2009 and it's more than a little ironic that this iconic leader of Chicago progressives is running for a seat that is opening up because the most Establishment and corporate-oriented of Democrats is moving on. I recommend reading the whole Kos diary at the link above, but he starts with a clear explanation of who he is and why he's running:

As a Chicago lawyer for thirty years, I have fought for working people in the Fifth District and throughout the city. I have represented unions as well as people with no unions to protect them. In plant closings I have helped them recover health and pension benefits. I obtained health care for the uninsured. I've been pressing the State of Illinois to crack down on payday lenders.

In my life as a lawyer I have lived out a commitment to one cause above all-- to bring economic security to working Americans, in our District, in our country. That’s the same commitment I will bring to Congress.

There may well be other decent candidates for Emanuel's old seat, even "progressives," but Tom is the choice of so many Chicago activists because he isn't just a dependable liberal vote. He's a man with ideas and he's a proven leader. He's not the kind of person who's going off to Washington to become another Inside-the-Beltway asshole who looses touch with America and starts speaking a new language only Inside-the-Beltway assholes speak. I've always said, Democratic and Republican Insiders have more in common with each other than they do with real Americans regardless of political persuasion. Tom Geoghegan isn't some starry-eyed hick whose going to be swept off his feet by the trappings of congressional power. He's already accomplished more in his life than most committee chairmen ever will.

On April 7th there'll be a general election to pick the next congressman from IL-05. But in a district where the PVI is D+18 and where even a nominal Democrat like Rahm Emanuel was re-elected with 74%, the real election is on March 3, the date of the Democratic primary. In a district that has had one disastrous representative after another-- Rostenkowski, Blagojevich, Emanuel, each either in jail or destined to wind up in one-- it would be refreshing to wind up at the very top of the food chain for a change.

There's palpable excitement about Tom's announcement, not just in Chicago, but across the nation. Joe Trippi:

Today, Tom Geoghegan announced he will run for Congress in the Fifth District of Illinois. Tom is a real hero to the progressive community and this special election is a great opportunity to bring progressive change to Washington. I’m very excited that Tom has decided to run, please take a moment and visit his website to learn more.

David Dayen:

This is a serious leader, committed to improving the lives of working people through policy. It's the epitome of what you would want in a public servant. Plus, he'd drive conservatives crazy.

Digby:

If you want to know what a real progressive candidate looks like, this is the guy.

Kathy G from The G Spot:

I can't tell you how utterly thrilled and delighted I am by this development. Because there is nobody-- nobody-- whom I'd rather see holding elected office in America than Tom Geoghegan. For some years now, I've had the pleasure and the privilege of being Tom's friend. He's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and also one of the kindest. A passionate progressive from the top of his bald spot down to the tips of his toenails, Tom has spent a lifetime tirelessly fighting on behalf of underdogs and the dispossessed-- steelworkers being cheated out of their pensions, say; or stressed out single mothers being harassed by predatory lenders; or union reformers trying to run a clean election in their corrupt local.

Rick Hertzberg, whose story in the New Yorker is entitled Chicago's Chance To Redeem Itself Has Arrived:

The political news from the Windy City has not been especially uplifting of late, but here’s a bulletin that promises change you can believe in: as of today, Tom Geoghegan is running for Congress!

If you're a fan of someone who has already proven himself a tough and unrelenting fighter for progressive ideals, from single payer health care to the unfettered rights of workers to unionize to livable pensions for retired workers comparable to the rest of the industrialized world's, please join me in donating to Tom's campaign. In fact, I have a little proposition for you.

Many people are preparing to celebrate the end of the hideous and destructive Bush Regime and the reactionary stranglehold on political power in our country. (If you're a progressive you might be almost as happy seeing Rahm Emanuel leaving Congress.) An outfit in L.A. has created a party box to help with the celebrations, the Georgie Is Outta Here Party In A Box. This video explains what's in the box:

So you get 10 paper plates, 10 paper cups, 8 party hats, 16 napkins, 10 latex balloons, 1 table cloth, 1 Pin the Tail on the Ass’s Ass decorative poster, 1 Georgie’s Desk with To Do Lists decorative poster, and 1 product one sheet all packaged in a branded “Georgie Is Outta Here!” box. DownWithTyranny has 10 of 'em and we want to give them away-- NOW! Everyone who donates to Tom's campaign today (here) is entered in a drawing and 10 people get the Party Box mailed to them. (Minimum donation is $25 and the maximum is $2,300.)


UPDATE: EVEN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS SINGING TOM'S PRAISES!

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but today's Wall Street Journal features a guest editorial by brilliant progressive author Thomas Frank praising Tom to the skies. Excerpt:

Now that conservative orthodoxy has collapsed in a heap of complex derivatives, I can't help but think what a refreshing dose of plain-spoken Midwestern reality Mr. Geoghegan could bring to the nation as a whole.

To begin with, Mr. Geoghegan thinks big while Democrats in Washington tend to think small, proposing a stimulus package here and better oversight there. The government's goal, as he explained it to me a few days ago, should not merely be "to pump up demand again." It should be to enact sweeping, structural change, "to get in a position where we're not bleeding jobs out of the country."

For the view that working people have no business with retirement and health care in the lean, mean, inevitable future, Mr. Geoghegan has a certain contempt. He wants to increase Social Security payments to make up for the destruction of private pension plans and expand Medicare with the goal of arriving, eventually, at single-payer health care. The $700 billion bank bailout, he says, proves that such expenses can be borne. What's more, they're necessary.

"Economic security is not only compatible with being competitive globally," he tells me; "it's crucial to it." Until we shift the burden of pensions and health care from companies to government we will continue to endure "debacles like General Motors" and so many others.

Rahm Emanuel Resigns

Tom Geoghegan

I doubt Emanuel made a deal with Obama guaranteeing him a pardon for whatever crimes he commits before he took the chief of staff job. I have a feeling, though, that it was understood. Emanuel resigns from Congress today, and that body will be infinitely better off without him. As I never tire of pointing out, he is the Democratic doppelganger of one of the most reviled creatures in contemporary American politics, corrupt GOP party boss Tom DeLay. Like DeLay, Emanuel has been the bridge between Big Business with its K Street and systemic culture of bribery, and his political party. And like DeLay, Emanuel is a puffed-up little twerp and foul-mouthed bully with a good PR machine behind him and an overarching sense of entitlement.

While it's a joy to see him out of the House, of course, his appointment to Obama's innermost circle is probably the sowing of seeds of destruction for the new administration. And many think that this "out of the House" thing isn't all it's cracked up to be, and that he's angling for a seat-holder who will make it easy for him to reclaim his old seat when Obama is done with him.

Emanuel's embarrassingly close political ally, indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, is now obligated to call a special election within 115 days. But it's really another corrupt Chicago politician who will determine who replaces Emanuel-- the same guy who first guaranteed Emanuel the seat: Mayor Daley. Oddly, the media has been treating this as a normal election and shying away from explaining any of the behind-the-scenes goings-on. There are over a dozen candidates, closer to two dozen, in fact, and it is widely expected that Daley's machine-- in conjunction with Emanuel-- will determine who the "favored" candidate will be.

According to conventional wisdom expressed in yesterday's Hill article linked above, three candidates more progressive than Emanuel have emerged as front runners: state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley and former Transportation Security Administration official Justin Oberman. Other candidates include Alexander Victor Forys, whose main qualification seems to be that he's Polish and would dilute support for old Emanuel foe Nancy Kaszak, who isn't saying whether or not she's jumping into the race (and I asked several times), progressive fave Tom Geoghegan (author of Which Side Are You On?), Professor Charles Wheelan, Reichel Matthew, Joey Vartanian, Israel Vasquez, Cary Capparelli, Debra Mell, Jan Donatelli.

The Chicago political establishment and their pet media puppets from across the ideological spectrum seem to be playing down all the intrigue and trying to make the process very matter of fact.

Not long after Emanuel announced that he was taking the job, there were reports that he would want the seat back after serving in the White House for two years. Emanuel firmly denies that, but it shaped the early field.

Since then, the maneuvering has been notable for the lack of endorsements and shows of force from outside influences. No one has emerged as a labor candidate in one of the most labor-friendly districts in Illinois. Emanuel and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley have not endorsed and observers do not expect them to.

We'll see. (Meanwhile, Geoghegan contributions are being accepted through ActBlue.)