Tribune Wimps Out and Gives Seals the Endorsement... Or Does It?

Well, turns out TA's optimism that the Tribune would have some guts and take a chance endorsing Footlik was a bit misguided. Newspapers don't generally like to endorse candidates they see as having little chance to win, and maybe the Seals polling numbers made them a bit reluctant to throw in with Footlik. The Trib went with Seals, but there's not much in the endorsement Seals can really use, aside from simply saying "I'm endorsed." See the article here. The part on Seals/Footlik reads:


10th District: Business executive Dan Seals of Wilmette put a real scare into Republican Rep. Mark Kirk in 2006, winning 47 percent of the vote. Seals is back, but he faces a Democratic primary challenge from Jay Footlik, who worked in the Clinton administration on domestic and foreign policy issues and has a deep knowledge of Mideast affairs. There isn't a great deal of difference between Seals and Footlik on policy. They're both smart, well-prepared candidates. Voters, though, might have reason to question either candidate's long-term commitment to them. Seals still lives a couple of blocks outside the district -- he says he can't afford to move into the 10th. Footlik just recently returned to the area, renting a home in Buffalo Grove. Seals gets the edge, based on a better grasp of local issues and concerns. He is endorsed.


A couple interesting issues: while the Trib calls both "smart" and "well-prepared", since that goes for both, it really doesn't help voters make a choice (and more or less takes the compliment away from Seals in terms of something he can use in his literature... so what if you're smart and well-prepared if the other guy is too?). There's not a great deal of difference on foreign policy, either, so no help there for voters. And the kicker is that the Tribune found the residency issue important enough to bring up again, and while they didn't mention Seals' idiotic "millionaire" quote, they paraphrased Seals as stating he can't afford to move into the district.

Oooff.

It still flabbergasts me that Seals never took care of this issue long ago and simply removed it as an issue from the campaign. Not only has it eviscerated his ability to use the residency issue on the attack against Footlik, it still continues to dog him. No matter how many times he says it shouldn't be an issue, it's obviously not going away, and the Tribune certainly thought it was important enough to specifically mention in the brief space allotted to discuss the race. So, not only did it cause Seals to make a stupid comment to try to justify his lack of commitment to the District, it's now managed to ruin what could have been a nice news bite from the Trib to use in Seals' campaign literature.

Voters will question exactly what it means that Seals "can't afford" to move into the District. Does that imply Seals thinks he will never be able to afford to move into it (you would think a successful business executive would be taking a pay cut to work in Congress, not going there for the paycheck)? Who would vote for someone that had no intention of living in the district where his constituents lived?

And voters will rightly question why they should vote for someone who apparently isn't successful enough as a "business executive" to be able to move into the District, especially as Jay Footlik pointed out in his snarky real estate mailing of 'affordable' housing to Dan Seals (see the discussion under the updates here), that one need not be a "millionaire" to live in the District.

Of course, the Trib did say Seals had a better grasp of local issues (considering he's being compared to a guy that hasn't actually ever lived here, was raised in Skokie, and just recently moved in to a rental house, that's not much of a compliment). And, Seals was "endorsed," not "weakly endorsed" or "reluctantly endorsed," so I guess Seals has that going for him.

All in all, I hope the Daily Herald shows a little more gumption in its expected upcoming endorsements. And, if somehow Footlik manages to eek out a win against Seals in the primary, if I were him, I'd be house-shopping the day after the primary to buy an in-District house so as to take this away as an issue in the general election against Mark Kirk. Maybe after this latest housing debacle, Seals will finally find some money somewhere and move across town into the District so as to finally eliminate this as an issue, but he hasn't been that smart so far.