POLITICS
What's the Matter with Dan Seals?
By Stump Connolly
If you were looking for a good way to change the balance in Congress this year, you might pick a district represented by a Republican poster boy for George Bush’s war in Iraq, a district that voted 53-47 for Kerry over Bush in 2004, and run against him a young, attractive, Barack Obama-like candidate who, by the way, is the son of a former Chicago Bear.
Dan Seals, 34, is the Democratic candidate in Illinois’s 10th Congressional district running against three-term incumbent Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL). The district runs up the north shore suburbs of Chicago starting in heavily Republican Wilmette, Winnetka and Lake Forest but soon giving way to blue collar Democratic bastions in Lake County like North Chicago and Waukegan.
Kirk, 47, the assistant Republican whip in the House, first won his seat in 2000 in a narrow 51-49 victory over Lauren Beth Gash. In his last campaign, Kirk was lightly-opposed by a Democrat who raised and spent less than $95,000. As a result, Kirk won re-election with 64% of the vote (even as Kerry was beating his Republican standard bearer in the district.)
In all his past campaigns, Kirk has hugged George Bush’s coattails like a dog hugs a tree. In his 2002 campaign, no one wanted to go after weapons of mass destruction in Iraq more than Kirk. In 2004, no one believed more in “mission accomplished” than he did. Do you want to keep Terri Schiavo on life-support, keep Tom DeLay in the House, or keep watching drug company ads on TV? Mark Kirk is your man.
I remember a fund-raiser for Bush in Chicago in September 2003, when Kirk commandeered the press corps to report that, on his latest fact-finding mission to Iraq, he personally oversaw the distribution of 500,000 knapsacks to Iraqi children who were now free to get an education – if they could get to school wearing their knapsacks without getting kidnapped.
Kirk observed this feat of American military efficiency
because, in his other job, he also serves as a Navy reserve spokesman in the
press office of Donald Rumsfeld’s defense department. I remember the
occasion because I thought at the time I’d never seen a local politician
so confidently portray himself as George Bush’s key advisor. When I
asked my colleagues after it was over, what motivates this guy, Scott Fornek,
the Sun-Times political reporter said, “He likes the camera.”
Now that the current campaign is coming down to its last 20 days, Kirk isn’t
talking much about Iraq, or President Bush, or his role in the House Republican
leadership. (His campaign website and literature rarely mention that he is
a Republican.) He has ducked six opportunities to debate his opponent, including
offers of joint appearances on WTTW-TV and WBEZ public radio, leaving only
one scheduled debate October 26 at a high school in Lincolnshire.
Kirk has more than a little reason to be concerned because the north shore Democrats this time have found the real deal in newcomer Seals. The son of Chicago Bears linebacker George Seals, he has an advanced degree in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University, a Presidential Fellowship under Bill Clinton, two years teaching experience in Japan and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago that led to his current position as Director of Marketing for GE Commercial Finance.
He is also, according to one veteran Democratic strategist, “the best first time candidate I’ve ever worked with.” With the help of a re-invigorated 10th District Democratic Committee, Seals has brought some 800 volunteers into his campaign over the summer and, even more impressive, raised just over $1.2 million for his campaign, only 8% coming from national political action committees.
Seals is running on four classic Democratic themes: a “transition” out of the war in Iraq, getting the deficit under control, expanding access to health care and building energy independence. None are particularly alarming --even to the conservatives in his district -- but on the “macro scale” of national politics, they all amount to the same thing: Kirk is in Bush's hip pocket and Seals is not.
Seals’ biggest problem, like all newcomers,
is letting voters know he exists. His name recognition in the district as
late as last week was below 40%, an obstacle that can be easily overcome by
buying television time in the Chicago market. To that end, he and Kirk both
began airing TV commercials on Monday. But in the current clutter, there is
some question whether anything new will cut through in the voter minds.
What baffles me about the 10th district race is that, until the Foley scandal
broke two weeks ago, Seals was running with no national party assistance,
particularly from Rahm Emanuel, the congressman from the neighboring 5th district
in Illinois who also chairs the House Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC).
Emanuel controls a war chest of $146 million the DCCC plans to spend in 25 battleground house districts. In August, Emanuel set aside $2.3 million to support Tammy Duckworth in her race for the suburban Chicago seat of retiring Republican Henry Hyde and another $2.3 million to help Melissa Bean (D-IL) defend her first term surprise win in another suburban Republican area formerly represented by ultra-conservative Phil Crane. But Seals received nothing at a time when a normally-flush campaign would be running rosy biographical spots to introduce their candidate to the voters.
One north shore legislator believes it’s an old Chicago story – and complicated, as most Chicago political stories are.
In the national press, Emanuel is the Vince Lombardi of politics touting his theme: “winning is everything.” But Emanuel is also a product of Chicago politics, getting his start in the 1984 campaign of Sen. Paul Simon but winning his spurs as chief fund-raiser in 1989 for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s first election (and later Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.)
Whatever his foreign policy positions, Kirk quickly realized after his first term win that a 2-point plurality was not a lock on re-election. He courted the Daley administration and became, in the House Republican caucus, the leading spokesman for Daley’s ambitious plan to expand O’Hare airport and get earmarked federal funds to help Chicago rebuild a number of CTA platforms. In the last year, Kirk has been observed at least a half a dozen times visiting Daley’s 5th floor office in City Hall for appointments that weren’t on the mayor’s public schedule, the implication being that Kirk is Daley’s Republican in Congress.
Eric Adelstein, Kirk’s media consultant, doesn’t doubt that Daley works with local congressmen from both sides of the aisle, but dismisses the notion Emanuel would give Kirk a pass to help his old boss. “If you think Rahm Emanuel is going to give up control of the House for a couple CTA platforms, you don’t know Rahm,” he says.
When the DCCC set its initial campaign strategy last January, Adelstein notes, Seals was an unknown first-time candidate running against a perceived moderate Republican. “Everyone sort of assumed Kirk was safe,” he said. “But there are always late-breaking races. That’s when you hope the DCCC will come in. At this point, it’s usually a shrinking game board, but this year, with the Republicans imploding, it’s expanding. That’s an opportunity -- and a problem. Where are they going to put their money?”
Indeed, after the Foley scandal broke, the DCCC expanded its list of 25 target district to add 16 “emerging races”, including the Illinois 10th district. Since the last September 30 financial deadline, Seals said Emanuel has contributed from his personal and political action committee accounts, the maximum allowed under federal law. But, as of today, no DCCC money is going into the Seals campaign.
“The biggest problem isn’t money,” Adelstein said. “It’s getting the media to pay attention. The political reporters can only focus on so many races, and right now Tammy Duckworth and Melissa Bean are sucking all the air out of the political atmosphere.”
Polls drive media coverage – and political money. Kirk has one showing his approval rating is 63% and Seals has one (taken the same week) that puts it at 49%. But internal polls released by the campaigns in press releases are notoriously unreliable. (The most recent from majoritywatch.com makes it a 46-44 race in favor of Kirk, with 10% undecided; but it’s a weighted poll that makes several assumptions.) The polling date is so discrepant none can be taken seriously. So, only three weeks away from Election Day, this race rests on a hunch.
My hunch is Seals will do okay – if only because of the way he answered my question about the DCCC’s reluctance to fund his campaign.
Typically upbeat, Seals told me, “I sat down with Rahm early on and talked about the race. You can guess what he said: it’s a winnable district. Show me you can raise money. So that’s what we did.
“But, as I told my team, you can’t run a campaign based on the cavalry coming. I think that’s just poor strategy and poor planning. When it does show up, it could be just be two guys on a donkey. So we’re not running this race based on what Washington is going to do for us," he said.
“We’ve raised a lot of money, by dint of our own efforts. We’re up on the air, so if the national party comes in, great. But if they don’t come in, we’re still going to win because we’ve got enough money to get our message out – and it’s a strong message.”
What’s the matter with Dan Seals? Nothing.
