On the national level, the wonks watching this race are not giving Footlik much of a shot, as polls in October showed Seals winning big.
“He is personable, articulate, smart. He is the kind of guy, who when you sit in a room with him, you go, ‘Wow. He is thoughtful,’” Stu Rothenberg, who publishes the national newsletter The Rothenberg Report, told JTA. “He is Barak Obama without the Kenya connection.”
And in a sit down with JTA on Wednesday at his campaign headquarters in a strip mall in Deerfield, Seals lived up to that reputation.
Seals, whose father played pro-football for the Chicago Bears, spoke warmly about his childhood experience as a non-Jew attending a JCC camp. “Until then, I thought a dreidel was just a top,” he said.
Seals deftly threw out Jewish political keywords such as “tikun Olam.” And he said that Jews tend to get “short shrift” because they are so often viewed as a one-issue demographic, that issue being Israel.
Sounding like Obama, he said that he would not engage in any bashing of Footlik, though he was dismissive of his rival’s chances.
One resident of the district told JTA before the debate at Stevenson that he heard that Seals has refused to spend any money so far in his race against Footlik because he does not view him as a challenger.
Some Democrats are angry at Footlik for challenging Seals, according to a local party activist who wished to remain anonymous. The fear, according to the activist, is that in comparison to Footlik, Seals will look weak on Israel –- a potential problem down the road against Kirk, in a district where Jews could end up accounting for an estimated 30 percent of the votes cast.
Read the whole thing, but I don’t want to copy too much.
My read is that Jay is a great guy and a good candidate, but given Seals is well liked by Democrats in the District and most understand you need to run twice to win, most of the reasons for supporting Jay aren’t catching with people. Jay’s campaign would argue he’s stronger in a general, but I’m not sure that the greater burden of building up name recognition wouldn’t make it just as difficult. Last time, it was a seven point difference with virtually no national help for Dan.
I like Jay and would like to see him run for something another time, but I don’t see a compelling case as to why Seals shouldn’t get a second shot given how well he did without national support last time.
And if the national pundits could stop comparing Seals and Obama it would be nice. I think they can both stand on their own two feet, but the kind of articulate black man thing is getting a bit old and while I think Seals is a great candidate, he’s not Barack Obama.
Archy writes, “My read is that Jay is a great guy and a good candidate”
Ah the bliss of being in St. Louis at the opposite corner of the Prairie State…
Footlik may be a decent candidate, dunno about “good”. His commercials and mailers were lackluster IMO. And, one mailer we got was hard to open and unfolded 1000 times before you could even get to anything to read.
And you could easily find several dozen people who’d strongly disagree with calling him a “great guy.” There’s a fine line between ambition and being rude and obnoxious.
Sorry, that should read “find several dozen involved people” … as in Dem volunteers, etc.