June 2004

Administrative

Welcome to new advertisers–

1) Old advertiser–Grassroots ad for Obama–go donate–every dollar frees up DSCC dollars for several states including Missouri, Florida, Colorado, South Carolina, South Dakota, Ohio and on and on (not a definitive list

2) Melissa Bean has a new premium spot up in the left hand corner–go donate, for more on this race later, I’ll be detailing how this is a competive race (and my schilling started before the ads). She’s running a hell of a race against Phil Crane–also known as cranky old guy who puts the wackiness in conservatism.

3) Join Cross-an innovative site by House Minority Leader Cross’ team with interesting and fun stuff. Go take a look at the site.

4) Jim Moran for Congress in association with Howard Dean—go help them out! More details later.

5) Tari Renner–also running in a tough race with a chance to upset Jerry Weller in the Illinois 11th. Donate time or money–Tari has a record of beating conservative blowhards. To win his seat on the McLean County Board he beat former Illinois Christian Coalition Exec Director Lee Newcome. He’s running a smart tough and lean operation.

Finally, as always, information is always accepted at archpundit@yahoo.com

Can Dems Win a Congressional Seat In Illinois?

Dan Johnson-Weinberger challenges the notion that any of the current Republican Seats can be picked up by Dems this cycle.

But first Dan, the first rule of speeding on 55 is get behind the Lege plates and draft them–they’ll think you are together and not even think about pulling you over.

But back to the point–four of the Districts are competitive in general for Dems and three in particular this cycle with decent challengers. My rankings of the likelihood of those upsets are
1) Bean
2) Renner
3) Cegelis

I’ll cover the details in the next couple days, but all three have a reasonable shot and Bean has the extra factor of being especially well suited to the district. When you look at the Gore-Bush numbers in 2000 (adjusted for new districts) all three are possible pickups.

In terms of asking DeLay–rumors are Mr. DeLay will be having his attorney doing most of the speaking for a while….