Republican candidates are getting crazier and crazier.
It’s a pretty heavily Democratic leaning district (Clinton won by 15 points in 2016) so the Republican Party may not be interested in wasting too many resources on this particular race.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
Good one.
Yeah, that’s a safe D seat unless Lipinski does something phenomenally stupid. But it’ll make a fine campaign ad nationwide if needed. And you can force the RNC to denounce him, thereby wasting their time and potentially offending some of the most, um, marginal republican voters.
Yes, but why is he allowed to run as a Republican at all?
Woah. Lipinsky was one of the Dems who voted against the ACA. He is facing a strong primary challenge this spring. Lipinsky is probably out of step with his district, but I suspect a moderate Republican could beat a progressive Democrat.
Oh. Right. There are no moderate Republicans anymore.
Lipinsky primary: Unions divided in Lipinski/Newman Illinois Democratic House primary - Chicago Sun-Times
Presumably he had to turn in a petition with some number of Republican signatures, but signatures are easy to get if you have the time/money to collect them. People either sign a petition or don’t, they don’t do research on the person.
Illinois has its problems, but at least guys like that lose elections here. Sucks that he’s even made it to the ballot, but there are parts of this country where that dude would be the front runner.
The reach goal for Democrats is getting Trump to campaign for him.
Yeah, I’m unaware of any mechanism - at least in the D party - for preventing someone from filing to run on a party ticket. The days of party leaders choosing candidates is over. The proper response is for the R party to find a better candidate and defeat this guy in the primary. It appears they’ve been unable to do that.
I don’t know what the filing requirements are for congressional races in Illinois, but for my county-level race it required 50 signatures from registered voters. Often people active in the local party will sign first. It took me all of 20 minutes to qualify.
The Straight Dope is Chicago based, right? Surely we could field our own Republican candidate to run against him in the primary.
I know GOP spending is going to be tight in what’s shaping up to be a very rough midterm, but you’d think they would have at least been willing to knock this dude out of the primary. I can’t imagine it would take much, and they’re certainly going to lose way more via negative national coverage than they stand to gain by ignoring the race.
I doubt that anyone is going to waste resources building a nationwide campaign based on one unknown nutball running for congress.
That depends on when he filed, though. He might have strolled into the election office with his petition 15 minutes before the filing deadline. Dan Lipinski was unopposed in the general election in 2016, so maybe they were expecting that to happen again.
Edit: Okay, so this guy was also the only Republican candidate in 2016, but the party got him taken off the ballot for having invalid signatures. So this wouldn’t have caught them unaware.
Yeah, Lipinski’s a corrupt legacy seatholder (his dad held the district about 10 years prior to his election) who’s been criticized from the left for his right-side-of-moderate views, but at least he’s not a Nazi.
Lipinski was my representative for a term or two, before redistricting put me into Luis Gutierrez’s district, and I can’t say he struck me as very much of anything, other than inheriting his father’s congressional seat. But, yeah, at least he’s not a Nazi.
Anybody can run for any seat calling themselves any party they want.
This is a Chicago district, and there is no Republican Party in Chicago. The two Daleys, and the Democrat machine, crushed all opposition decades ago. It’s a one-political-party town. And it’s broke. Cook county, which encompasses most of Chicago, is also broke. As is the state of Chicago (aka State of Illinois).
The GOP isn’t going to spend any time, or money, for district seats Chicago. There isn’t much of a reason to even hold a Republican primary for the Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District. Or the Illinois 4th Congressional District. etc… Democrats own the city.
Loopy brothel inmate/political candidate Arthur Jones has run before, and he’ll run again. Pay the fees, gather the signatures, run for office, and maybe someone will pay attention to him? Jones could have skipped the primary, but there’s a better chance of being noticed if you run in both the primary and the general. This time around, it appears that he’s hit the media jackpot.
It’s no crazier than when two supporters of Lyndon LaRouche got on the Illinois Democratic primary ballot and ended up winning the nomination for Lt. Gov. and Sec. of State - and they were running against party slated candidates.
Our political process is founded on the principle that any clown can run for office. It’s up to voters to reject them.
That was an intelligent, perceptive and clear post. You’ve made my day.