Back
This blog was first launched over six months ago and my initial ambitions notwithstanding I very quickly took an indefinite leave of absence. And, this would likely not have ended if not for events of the past week. I got to meet Dan Seals personally and then in my conversations with people about other issues, I kept hearing about a great candidate named Dan Seals. After looking some more in to Dan's candidacy, I realized this really is a person I can get excited about. So here I am, back to blogging and following events in my home district.
Dan Seals made waves with his tremendous fundraising success in the last quarter. He raised $374,159 and ended with $244,297 in cash on hand. To provide some perspective, as far as I can tell in the 2004 race Democrat Lee Goodman raised only $95,992 for the election. Seals is doing significantly better and claims to have raised in the "same ballpark" for this quarter which ends June 30th. In response to Seals' fundraising prowess and Bush's tumbling popularity, the Cook Political Report added IL-10 to its list of competitive races this cycle. Meanwhile Mark Kirk still has a huge cash on hand advantage with $1,367,397 as of the latest report, but he's got to be feeling the pressure of having a real race on his hands.
All that being said, I finally got to meet Dan last week at a house party in Lincolnshire. He had the crowd of Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans nodding along and hanging on his every word. Dan has a clear command of the issues and ability to break them down to their most basic essence. Particularly on economics he took big picture ideas and explained them in a way that made sense on a bread and butter level. He was also clear that American troops must be redeployed from Iraq despite knowing that some in attendance disagreed.
While all this policy stuff is important for a Congressman, there were two things that particularly impressed me.
1) Dan connects with people on a human to human level.
2) Dan isn't running against "Mark Kirk" the individual. He's running against Mark Kirk the Assistant Majority Whip in the House who has been integral in pushing the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Republican agenda for the country.
It looks like this race is going to be fun.
Dan Seals made waves with his tremendous fundraising success in the last quarter. He raised $374,159 and ended with $244,297 in cash on hand. To provide some perspective, as far as I can tell in the 2004 race Democrat Lee Goodman raised only $95,992 for the election. Seals is doing significantly better and claims to have raised in the "same ballpark" for this quarter which ends June 30th. In response to Seals' fundraising prowess and Bush's tumbling popularity, the Cook Political Report added IL-10 to its list of competitive races this cycle. Meanwhile Mark Kirk still has a huge cash on hand advantage with $1,367,397 as of the latest report, but he's got to be feeling the pressure of having a real race on his hands.
All that being said, I finally got to meet Dan last week at a house party in Lincolnshire. He had the crowd of Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans nodding along and hanging on his every word. Dan has a clear command of the issues and ability to break them down to their most basic essence. Particularly on economics he took big picture ideas and explained them in a way that made sense on a bread and butter level. He was also clear that American troops must be redeployed from Iraq despite knowing that some in attendance disagreed.
While all this policy stuff is important for a Congressman, there were two things that particularly impressed me.
1) Dan connects with people on a human to human level.
2) Dan isn't running against "Mark Kirk" the individual. He's running against Mark Kirk the Assistant Majority Whip in the House who has been integral in pushing the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Republican agenda for the country.
It looks like this race is going to be fun.
posted by iS at 12:07 PM
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