The 14th district of Illinois recently held a special election to fill former Congressman Dennis Hastert’s seat in the House of Representatives and the result has sent the Republican Party reeling. The reason for their panic?  On Saturday, March 8, Democratic candidate Bill Foster soundly defeated his Republican rival, Jim Oberweis, in a district seemingly impossible for him to win.  The 14th district was home to one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress for nearly 20 years; the National Republican Congressional Committee spent one-fifth of its available cash to retain the seat and the residents voted for President Bush in 2000 and 2004 by sizable margins.  In this election, however, 53 percent of the voters selected Foster to be their representative, compared to just 47 percent for Oberweis.

What is most surprising, however, is not that Foster won, but that he won by representing (to borrow deceased Congressman Paul Wellstone’s famous phrase) “the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.” Foster has spoken out against granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies that illegally spied on Americans; his immigration-reform package includes a path to citizenship; he has called for the expansion of health care, and he is openly critical of the war in Iraq.  During the campaign, Foster was not running away from the Democratic Party platform; despite being from a deeply red district in Illinois, he ran towards it.  No wonder the Republican Party is nervous. The Democrats, on the other hand, are thrilled. 

Over the course of the campaign, Oberweis’s team released numerous televised ads accusing Foster of harboring plans to raise taxes, up to 8,000 dollars per family, and labeling his plans “extreme.” While it seems that few things are easier or more effective than fear mongering, these tactics were met with little interest from the voters.  Instead, a different kind of televised ad captured the attention of the district, and that was of Illinois Senator Barack Obama endorsing Foster for Congress. Obama’s support was of critical importance to the Foster campaign, and his subsequent win indicates that Obama’s coattails will be hugely beneficial to Democrats in the fall. One Illinois Republican official stated, “There’s just going to be a tidal wave if Barack is on the ballot. There are going to be people coming out of the woodwork and they’re going to vote Democratic.” 

Foster’s victory suggests that voters will not be easily bullied into electing Republicans based on fears of tax hikes, and it also gives us an indication of just how powerful a magnet Barack Obama can be for the party if he is the Democratic nominee for president.  Finally, Foster’s win signifies that it might finally be acceptable not just to be a Democrat in competitive districts, but to openly run as one as well. Candidates from across the country closely followed this race, and they will hopefully draw similar conclusions from the results.

Like Obama, Foster ran on a platform of change.  Unlike Obama, Foster is a rather uninspiring speaker.  It is their message that is the same: “Change is on the way.” Foster, a physicist from Fox Valley, IL, was certainly not a Washington insider, having dedicated much of his career to researching, among other things, the application of permanent magnets.  His lack of political experience was not held against him; Foster’s call for change was met with enthusiasm as well as with votes. 

Foster’s victory speech was in keeping with his science background. Facing a room full of cheering supporters, he declared, “Back in the lab, we’d say that this was a pretty successful experiment!”  It was an experiment with practical implications for Democrats and Republicans alike. And Foster concluded the evening with the line that Democrats are eagerly anticipating using on November 5, 2008: “Yes, we did!”