53 Comments - Aaron - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:29 pm: Right on the nose with Bean’s campaign. You never take anything for granted. Field staff is important - it allows voters a connection to the campaign and the candidate, at least an extension of it. - anon - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:45 pm: Utterly disappointing. She should be ashamed. - wordslinger - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:47 pm: Hard to believe a Democrat could take anything for granted in that district in any year, much less this one. - Feech - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:49 pm: Where was AR Consulting this time to make sure Scheurer didn’t make it to the ballot like in 2006? http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/38043/ - shore - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:49 pm: She was obama’s national campaign chairwoman. HAH! Also I’d love to hear from cindi canary and the rest of the “good government” people that always complain about money in politics and how it buys campaigns and elections about how if that’s so, bean lost. You have to wonder what these defeats will do for democrats on redistricting at the congressional level. I would think the goal would be to add some of the city to beans district and kirk’s old district to soften them up, but this is going to make it hard for them. - Liandro - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:55 pm: The redistricting question is something I have been wondering too, shore. Since Dems run everything at the state level, which freshman do the heavily target? Which way are population centers moving? Oh, for balanced government. Neither party should so completely manipulate the map like this. Admittedly its worse knowing it’s the other guys drawing it up. =P - Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:55 pm: Even more telling is that Mussman won and the NE Burbs stayed Dem in the house. Roskam killed, Milner won, Walsh won. I give credit for people there being smart enough to make their own decisions, but hate them for electing a Madigan rubber stamp (my opinion). She is the only one who lost. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 12:57 pm: I think the ‘Clueless’ award goes to voters in the 8th, who now have the ‘honor’ of being represented by Joe Walsh. Make ‘em proud Joe. LOL. - Ghost - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:04 pm: I have always been underwhelemd by Bean, so this does not surprise me. I seem to recall there being several dont take anything for granted advisorys floating around for a while, but apparently where Bean was concerned they did just that, even while Madigan was making sure to shore up his own district. - QuincyNews - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:05 pm: We Ask America also on the nose with Schilling getting 52 percent. - 60010 - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:08 pm: As an 8th Dist. resident, I recall hearing a lot more from her in 2004, 2006 and 2008 than I ever did this year. It is a center-right district and that is terrain that is doubly hard for a Dem to defend in a year like this. She’s always seemed a bit “meh” to appeal strongly to progressives, and I think she got outworked and lost too many moderates. - QuincyNews - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:10 pm: Sorry. I was wrong. WAA shorted Schilling by a point. He ended up topping 53. - Whatever - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:13 pm: Bean deserves to lose. She has been arrogant, smug, and aloof. She ignored her constituents by avoiding public forums and refusing to move into the District. Even the media thought she and her office were routinely defensive and unresponsive. - Logical Thinker - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:18 pm: I think the Bean loss (if not for Quinn’s victory), would have been the story of the election. This is an absolute stunner. Here’s the issue with redistricting that I’m not sure the Dems in Springfield will have an answer to: the collar counties all went to Brady over Quinn. If Illinois has 17 Congressional seats, you can only divide Chicago up into so many parts. Furthermore, it remains to be seen if the results in the counties away from Chicago (Sangamon, Madison, Rock) are outliers on this election or indicative of a bigger trend. - hisgirlfriday - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:25 pm: Bean screwed up this time but if I was Joe Walsh I wouldnt get too comfy. 2012 when Obama is on the ballot and turnout is up I think a tea partier like him gets bounced. of course a lot can change in two yrs as this election showed… sigh - Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:31 pm: Has the Senate already set its clock back one hour in order to take advantage of the upcoming scheduled time change? Perhaps an extra hour of sleep by the House of Lords would inhibit them from doing any more damage to the citizens than they might otherwise be inclined to do. - Amalia - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:43 pm: not familiar enough with the District and the numbers from previous campaigns, but one thing that may have worked against her was the highly personal nature of the campaign on the part of Walsh. one thing that I like about the Tea Party folks is that they try to really connect with the voters, though I loathe how they do it. Walsh seemed to do that. Melissa did not. the question of the cult of personality and appearance in politics is a thorny one. Obama benefitted from those aspects in his primary and general run. he did not use those to his advantage in the White House…..teleprompters are offputting. but Walsh excites people and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just bad that he’s a bad person policy wise. also too bad that the Dem party is down two women leaders. We need more visible women besides Lisa and Jan. time to cultivate new leaders who connect with voters. Susana Mendoza is running for City Clerk, she’s a spunky one to watch. - Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:43 pm: LOL, All that took was a little wake up call from QTS, and the Senate is all of a sudden ready to get down to business. Appropriately, they are opening with a prayer. Hopefully they are praying for us, rather than themselves. - Gary Klass - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 1:56 pm: When your’e dealing with very small percentages, the margin of error is much smaller. So it probably is not true that: “last survey…..showed the Green Party candidate getting over 5 percent. He ended up with 3, but that’s well within the margin of error.” A poll with a 5% error (N=400) has about a 3.3% error for a percentages as low as 5 percent Minor parties almost do better in the polls than in the elections… - Gary Klass - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:03 pm: *almost __always__ - Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:09 pm: If I were Bean, I’d start fundraising and walking yesterday for a 2012 run. - State Sen. Clay Davis - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:09 pm: Bean and Seals both should have won easily, even with the down economy, Republican motivation and older electorate this time around. Both had 95%+ name recognition and plenty of money to do whatever they wanted. 60010 nailed it right on the head. OUTWORKED. The candidates and the DCCC blew it. - todd - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:16 pm: wumpus you assume the disctrict wil remain intact. If we loose 1 seat it will be tough to cut a new map. Even loosing 2 seats, with them trying to protect Costello, what do they do next, wipe out the 10th and cut it up? you can only make the downstate districts so big and keep them dem. What merge the 17th and 18th to try and run Schock out? merge 13 & 6 while giving some more to the 11th? with loosing 4 seats, and not gaining the 10th dist, there is only so much they can do, unless they think they are going to draw city districts out to dupage and cut it up. that may create mor outrage then they would want - Just Observing - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:25 pm: Probably part of the problem for Bean — which isn’t her fault — is that with so many other incumbents considered more vulneralbe they weren’t putting the resources into th 8th like they have done years past. Not just the DCCC, but the Chamber of Commerce, Emily’s List, etc. - Amalia - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:27 pm: oh, look, Rahm is on the Oprah United plane to California! as if it wasn’t weird enough in Illinois politics already……. - Vibes - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 2:45 pm: The Bean loss is one of the more obvious (and sad) consequences of the early passing of Botterman. He would never have let it happen. - Rahm's Parking Meter - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:06 pm: I would not be surprised if they give all of McHenry and GOP parts of Lake to Manzullo and merge 10 and 8’s Lake portion into a More Democratic friendly distict (partially merge it with 9) and give more of the City to Quigley. Therefore, it forces Manzullo and Walsh into a primary against each other and Schakowsky could go after Dold. Thoughts? - Amalia - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:10 pm: Rahm’s Parking Meter: i think you are on the right track. - Louis Howe - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:26 pm: Downstate dems now have only one Congressman. Here’s a scenario for the downstate Congressional Dems to gain back the 17th District Seat…Split Peoria County along the Kohler Senate District lines and merge into the 17th Congressional District. Then dump Quincy and Adams County south into Shimkus’s 19th. Schock has to choose which GOP Congressman he wants to take out and the 17th becomes more democratic than today. Former 18th District Congressman, Ray LaHood didn’t want to split Peoria County because he wanted to keep Evans out of his media market and deny local dems the Evans campaign expertise. Without a downstate democratic congressman, local and county democratic organizations will become even more impendent than they are today. - Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:35 pm: Bean was a reliable vote for the financial sector. She was consistent. She voted for making it harder to declare bankruptcy b/c the financial sector wanted it. She voted for the health care bill–which forces Americans to buy low quality health insurance–because the financial sector wanted it. The media may portray the health care bill as “liberal”. However, most liberals see the health care bill as serving the interests of insurance companies (the power of gov’t is used to pressure people to buy their product) and the interests of gov’t (less of people using Medicaid and other gov’t programs for catastrophic expenses). If there was a public option in the health care bill then you can say the liberals owned the bill. But without a public option, it’s not the liberal’s health care bill. - Bluejay - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:37 pm: Joe Walsh … life’s been good to him so far - Carl Nyberg - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:40 pm: Are Illinois voters “furious” at Congressional Democrats? What are they furious about? Are they “furious” the economy sucks and the government isn’t doing enough about it? Or are they furious about some policy the Congressional Dems implemented? Which policy? The health care bill? What percentage of Americans want the health care bill repealed when they understand it? How seriously should elected officials take the whims of citizens who don’t understand policy? Should politicians pander to people who are ignorant? Do you want to live in a society where partisan media outlets seek to make their audiences ignorant so voters will pander to the ignorance? - streeterville - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:47 pm: sounds like the internal polling for the last few weeks scared the crap out of bean’s people, but they really didn’t find this out until late summer when it was too late to build a massive GOTV effort. you have to remember, bean never was a grassroots member of congress. she didn’t have an existing infrastructure from cycle-to-cycle. instead, the business community has been her biggest backers since 2006. anyway, it seems to me they thought they could blow walsh out through the air by going negative on tv. bean’s been a great congresswoman, but they totally underestimated how many democratic voters would stay home and how many moderates didn’t care about bean’s personal work for them in congress. people vote angry. - EazyTurner - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:55 pm: AP just declared Quinn the winner. Even more pressure on Brady to concede now. - McHenry Mike - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 3:59 pm: I worked on Bean’s 2006 campaign where she pulled off a squeaker. She should have known that the next mid term, 2010, would be similar at best. She started 2006 as one of the top five target races nationally. Due to the Dem surge that year she dropped out of the top 20 by election day but still only one by one percentage point. Obviously, 2006 was a much more favorable Dem climate than 2010. The DCCC just looked at her 2008 poll numbers and didn’t realize that she had gotten an Obama Favorite Son bounce, like all of the other Dem candidates in Illinois that year. Obama won counties in 2008 that hadn’t gone Democratic on a county wide basis since 1854. DCCC should have focused on races like this, where they could have made a difference, instead of trying to shore up first term Blue Dogs in 65% Rep districts across the country. They also lost the 17th, which had been Democratic with Lane Evans for many years. If yard signs were any sign, Bean signs were few and far between in Lake and McHenry counties whereas Walsh signs were everywhere. - MrJM - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:06 pm: Apparently everyone has forgotten that the DCCC under Rahm was transformed into a brilliant and effective campaigning machine capable of no errors or mistakes! You all need to take a step back, re-read Naftali Bendavid’s hagiography, “The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution” and contemplate the obvious error of your ways. – MrJM - QuincyNews - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:14 pm: Louis…look at the map. Downstate doesn’t deserve more than one Democratic Congressman right now. Unless, of course, you want to figure out a way to have a Republican Congressman representing the South Side. - streeterville - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:14 pm: MrJM - Rahm hasn’t been there for awhile now. Not sure how he’s responsible for 2010. Mike - Totally agree with you. I’ll never understand the confidence exuded for the last 8 months re: the 8th District. Almost every factor was working against Bean here and 2008’s numbers were completely worthless. If you were an R in Il-8, you had nothing to vote for in 2008. President, Senate, and Congress had been settled for months by E-Day. Conversely, if you were an R, you had EVERYTHING to vote for in 2010, putting aside the national trends. Throw in the Democratic enthusiasm gap and the Green candidate, and the red lights should have glowing since Feb. Two other things: 1. I think Walsh came off so terrible in March and April that he almost lulled the D’s to sleep By the time everyone started paying attention, his personal problems were old news. which leads me too… 2. The early primary really hurt the D’s from top to bottom. And this is an example because a terrible joke of a candidate like Walsh was able to steal the primary and then have plenty of time to adjust to his personal transgressions. - Angry Chicagoan - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:17 pm: @logical thinker, I think we already know the trend Downstate, which is part of a broader national trend in which urban centers are becoming more Democratic and rural areas including small to medium cities more Republican. I don’t expect to see that change unless the Democrats become much more serious about economic issues. The Establishment of both parties is more or less OK about economic trends that are hollowing out small town America. Ironically enough, the closest economic ally this slice of the country has is probably the Fed, whose quantitative easing encourages foreign exchange trading that has the practical effect of raising the value of foreign currency while lowering that of the dollar and maintaining low interest rates — about as good a scenario for US manufacturers as you can imagine. And not surprisingly, US manufacturing has been on a strong upward trend since the bailouts began. These small towns are going to start to see some benefit from this. Who they’ll give credit to is another question. Certainly not the Rock Island County Board or the associated local Democratic old guard, that’s for sure. - Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:31 pm: Before the Ds get too comfortable with their plans for dispatching Mr. Walsh, consider that the metldown of Illinois may come before the next election, thus poisoning the attitudes of the everyday voter toward Democratic leaders everywhere in this state. - Responsa - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 4:38 pm: As others here have mentioned, Bean started out well and warmly with her district. Then she got sloppy or lazy or changed (depending on who you ask). According to a number of people who notice these things she slowly and gradually seemed to get seduced by the Washington milieu and by the attention and fawning of the Dem House leadership. She spent less and less time with her constituents who reasonably expect services and some interactive two-way communication. Still, nearly everyone I’ve talked to in the 8th thinks Bean would have been re-elected if she had just shown some of her previously vaunted independence, listened to and heeded her district’s impassioned pleas, told Mrs.Pelosi to go pound sand on this one— and voted against Obamacare. She can blame her staff, her pollsters the DCCC, or whomever else she wants, but it was Melissa Bean, herself, who in March decided to cast that vote in congress which many believe sealed her electoral fate on Nov.2 because it infuriated and dissed so much of her district. In the Walsh-Bean race there are some really important lessons for future incumbents. - hisgirlfriday - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 5:17 pm: Costello won by 40,000 votes. His district should be left alone. But I think there’s things the Dems could do downstate to strengthen their positions if this is not gonna be a bipartisan map. Like fix the mess of the 17th so that Rock Island’s district gets parts of urban Peoria, now that the mapmakers aren’t going to be worrying about protecting or keeping happy Ray LaHood any more. - hisgirlfriday - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 5:32 pm: Angry Chicagoan, The Fed’s shenanigans also have the consequence of increasing the price of crops as investors buy more commodities rather than treasuries which is good for agribusiness as well (albeit not necessarily the individual farmer who has to pay more for fuel, fertilizer, etc…) but I am not sure exactly how what is good for manufacturers and big ag is automatically good for individual workers. It seems to me in this economy the default CEO position right now is pocket the profits rather than invest more going forward in workers and cut cut cut every way you can using the crisis as an excuse to shake down your workers even more. In case you can’t tell… I would hardly call the Fed a friend to small town America or anyone but banksters. Also, destroying the dollar makes gas prices go up so that folks in small town America, who have already seen their small towns lose all their hometown stores to big boxes in the “big” town 20-40 miles away and schools consolidated have to spend more of their income at the pump. Thanks Fed! - Wumpus - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 6:15 pm: eliminate a city district. Make th edistricts look like they are not gerrymandered. Nice squares or rectangles please. - State Sen. Clay Davis - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 6:42 pm: McHenry Mike, the DCCC doesn’t believe in yard signs. Or polling place visibility. Or having the candidate do anything but fundraise money to fund TV ads. Or treating people like human beings. - MikeMacD - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 8:29 pm: I just checked. It seems that Mr. Walsh’s lead is down to 365 with Cook Co. processing some absentee votes. Lake and McHenry are being reported as not processing the rest of their absentees until Nov. 16th. - anon - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 9:04 pm: Are there any left in cook? Methinks Lake and McHenry won’t be nearly as generous…. - McHenry Mike - Thursday, Nov 4, 10 @ 9:42 pm: Thank you State Sen. Davis. I worked very hard on the ground game for Bean in 2006 and by election day we had the most effective operation I had ever seen in our county. I actually almost got arrested on election day while the Reps were invisible. Somehow the Bean campaign let all that slip by the wayside this year. The RNC did nothing for Walsh either. - Movin' Money - Friday, Nov 5, 10 @ 9:06 am: Bean performed exactly as Crane before her - ignored her constituents. After hiding in the weeds for 2 terms, she finally had to vote her real self. She got what she deserved. Joe will serve well and is a far better human than a lying piece of debris such as Melissa Bean. Seals is just a bad candidate. I can’t believe this loser was chosen by the Dems again. Finally, to you upset Dems and angry Chicagoan’s, wait until the massive Quinn/Madigan income tax bill comes due for the continued payoff of union bosses, friends, and patronage (the usual). The herds are already forming before the stampede of money leaves Illinois. Then you’ll be forced to either work or starve! I wish you good luck; you’ll need it! - MikeMacD - Friday, Nov 5, 10 @ 11:20 am: By my count the difference is now down to 177. It will be interesting to see how this ends. - anon - Friday, Nov 5, 10 @ 12:06 pm: 365 according to DH today at 10 am - MikeMacD - Friday, Nov 5, 10 @ 3:01 pm: anon, New results came out after the DH article. - anon - Friday, Nov 5, 10 @ 4:39 pm: link? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.