In this suburban Chicago-land traditionally Republican District that gave George Bush 55% support in 2004, Democrat Bill Foster was elected! The earth shattering news is not that a Democrat won this district, though there are many who would accurately point out that this is a pretty significant event! But we need to recognize that there are several even deeper red districts than IL 14 that have Democrats representing them in congress.  

The real exciting news for the progressive movement is that unlike most red leaning districts represented by Democrats, the winner of IL 14 ran as a progressive. No Republican Lite here, no new DINO in the making, no additions to the ranks of the Blue Dog Democrats, a victory by a mainstream Democrat running on progressive issues in a Republican District against a Bush lapdog wannabee and WINNING!

How did this happen and how does it all connect to my fellow NY Progressive, State Senator Eric Schneiderman?  A recent article appearing in Katrina vanden Heuvel's publication, The Nation, featured Senator Schneiderman's article on Transactional/Transformational Politics.  The article received wide coverage on the progressive blogs and I will not use much time here to review it in detail.  

The applicable part that applies to IL 14 is Schneiderman's Transformational Politics.  Basically the need to refocus our progressive candidates and progressive message from one that proves their credentials with a laundry list of check-marks on a wide array of issues important to progressive organizations and interests to one that transforms the communications of those issues into a language that creates a more universal understanding and appeal thus transforming the local electorate to supporting a more  progressive agenda.  It is more important, Schneiderman notes, to ask potential candidates how they can communicate the progressive message transformationally rather than checkoff a long laundry list of progressive issues they support purportedly to prove their progressive bonafides!

Now lets look at what Bill Foster did to get these results:

Bill Foster (D): 52,010 votes (53 percent)
Jim Oberweis (R): 46,988 (47 percent)
568 of 568 precincts (100 percent) reporting at 10:11 PM Eastern

In a district that has a Cook PVI of R+5 with voter registration figures like these!:

Overall     Republican   Democratic      Other  
436186        94327        42415       299444

A month back, Bill Foster won the Democratic special primary election against fellow progressive and 2006 Democratic nominee John Laesch by a margin of only about 398 votes out of 76,000 ballots cast. Laesch challenged Denny Hastart is 2006 and gave a good accounting losing 59% - 40%.  There was a sense that Laesch deserved the second bite at the apple after running a courageous challenge against the sitting House Speaker. Both candidates advocated similar views on most every issue including ending the Iraq War and FISA protections.

Lets look at how each candidate worded their positions on the Iraq War:

Laesch:

Our current policy in Iraq is doing nothing to defeat terrorism or bring peace to the region. Iraq is in greater turmoil than ever and attacks on US servicemen and women are increasing everyday that Congress and the President stall. Our troops did their job and their continued presence serves to inflame sectarian violence and further tear the country apart. The best possible outcome can be achieved by withdrawing our soldiers, giving strong diplomatic and financial support to the Iraqi Government and doing everything possible to work with other countries in the Middle East to achieve a political solution.

The Bush administration has shown no competence in resolving the tragic situation in Iraq, and now insists on escalating the rhetoric regarding Iran. Bush's "doctrine" of pre-emption is a dangerous and radical deviation from United States foreign policy.

For fifty years during the Cold War we had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us, and we were able to prevent nuclear war; not through pre-emption, but with clear communication channels to the Soviet Union, diplomacy, and détente. The Cuban missile crisis was resolved through the same level-headed, back-channel communications.

The failure of George Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war, combined with agenda-driven intelligence, is tragically evident today. The deaths of thousands of our servicemen and women and untold Iraqi civilian lives cannot be ignored. Pre-emption has already proven to be a failure as a United States doctrine, and as a Representative, I will strongly oppose it.

Likewise, I reject the fear mongering and saber rattling of the present administration with respect to Iran. There are greater threats than Iran, but quite frankly, one of the greatest threats, (as one of our Presidents stated) comes from fear itself.

I assure you that as a member of Congress should a request for funds for military missions come before me, I will use my background in military intelligence in examining all evidence. I will have a very high threshold before allowing our servicemen and women to be put into harm's way

Foster:

We need to end our involvement in the war in Iraq, and begin bringing home our men and women in uniform. They have done all that has been asked of them, and our soldiers are not the answer to a religious and sectarian civil war. We now need a political solution, not a military one.

Last year, I worked on the campaign of Army Captain Patrick Murphy - the only Iraq War Veteran elected to Congress. He was on the ground in Baghdad and saw up close how the Administration's policies weren't working. Congressman Murphy has been clear: any solution to Iraq's problems must start with the Iraqis. I've listened to, and worked side by side with Congressman Murphy, and I trust his judgment on Iraq far more than the Administration that got us into this mess.

The Bush Administration's mistaken instigation and incompetent execution of the war in Iraq will go down as one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in history. The damage that has been done to the reputation and strength of the United States by the conduct of this war will take decades to repair -- longer even than the time that will be needed to pay down the Bush Administration's contribution to our national debt.

I give my full support to the efforts of bipartisan groups in Congress that are attempting to use all the powers allowed by our Constitution to shake some sense into the Bush administration on Iraq. The first step must be to abandon the Bush Administration's stubborn insistence on an American solution to an Iraqi problem. Whether the troops come home by applying pressure to Bush administration, by the installation of a president with new ideas, or by the election of veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress -- the troops will come home.

The deep religious conflicts in Iraq have led many to believe that the most promising strategy for the Iraqis is to partition their country into separate religious and tribal enclaves. Should the Iraqis embrace this strategy of separating the religious groups, the U.S. could play a supportive role - much as the American lead NATO effort did successfully in Bosnia, or the "no-fly zone" that protected the Kurds for the decade between Gulf Wars . Under all circumstances, American ground forces must begin the process of coming home as soon as possible.

We must also learn from our mistakes, and never again start an unprovoked war of choice without the full debate and formal declaration of war that was intended by our Constitution.

Iraq War was a huge center stage issue in this race but while both candidates clearly held near identical views notice the transformational language Foster put to his framing of the issue!

So before any Blue-dog tells you that they have to morph into this:

in order to win their red districts just remind them to look at IL 14 where our winning candidate left election day door-hangers like this: