With any luck Tuesday will mark the beginning of the end of the careers of two of Illinois’ longest serving Congressmen, Henry Hyde and Phil Crane. Henry has been my representative for many years and before that I was represented by Crane, who replaced Don Rumsfeld in 1969, so you can see why I wince when I think about how much voice I have in Congress. Actually, Henry has mellowed some the past eight or ten years, but it’s time for him to take his Jabba the Hutt impression to a permanent home in a coffee shop in Woodale. Hyde has become a national figure from his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committe, especially when he presided over the Clinton impeachment, but in recent years just hasn’t been doing what a Congressman with rank and seniority is supposed to do: bring home the pork.
I take special, personal, pleasure in the though that Crane may actually lose in his heaviliy Republican district. Though my years as a TeenAged Republican corresponded with his first couple terms, I never worked on any of his campaigns. However, I recall how wet the Republican wimmins I knew got when they thought of how handsome he was and it nauseated me then and now. Now, though, the thought that anybody would be hot for him is preposterous because he apparently got hoodwinked when he tried to get the same deal as Dorian Gray because every debauchery of the past thirty five years, and there have been many, shows on his face while a portrait of him made in 1970 stays smiling, tan and handsome.
In his defense, though, Crane seems to have become a Libertarian because he does remarkably little considering his seniority. House leader Dennis Hastert, who should be looking out for Illinois’ interests by top-loading committees with locals, passed over Crane in 2001 when he named a new chairman of the Ways and Means committee. Instead, Crane has developed a reputation for having never seen a free trip he wouldn’t take.
Both men are opposed by bright, energetic women and it will be a pleasant irony to see women defeat those men, considering the womanizing reputations both have built up. I make no predictions that either Christine Cegelis or Melissa Bean will win but making those old goats sweat out an election for once has to be worth something.
Oh, god, those “Melissa Bean doesn’t care” commercials annoy me so much that I’d be voting for Melissa Bean if I were in her district. I swear, they run one in almost every commercial break.
I was 11 years old in Wilmette, IL in 1978. I was hanging out in a head shop on Lake Ave just where the Eden’s Expressway was…
A woman came in asking the manager if we was interested in volunteering to work to defeat Crane. He said no and I said maybe and that she should call my mom. She called that night and mom said ‘yes’. I spent a big chunk of the fall handing out literature for Gil Bogen at grocery stores and such with the team.
Jon, I didn’t know you were a local boy! Anyway, things might turn out differently this time. Bean got 43% two years ago and the district has grown more Democrat. And the ads to which Kat refers are pathetic! Nothing more than an unflattering photo of Bean and the standard “tax and spend liberal!” claims that could be, and are, used by Republicans to tar all Democrats. Truly uninspired. It’s like Newt Gingrich’s parrot wrote the ads.
Hyde isn’t hardly trying this year; his signs are outnumbered by those for a guy running for coroner! They are almost outnumbered by the signs for a guy running unopposed for judge!
I was especially amused when the RNC commercial claimed that Melissa Bean was out of touch with the people in her district. Phil Crane of course, lives in Virginia and only returns home when he is running for re-election. I swear that the Repugs take whatever their own greatest weakness is and try to label the Democrat with it.