A Special Election for Congress in Illinois’ 14th district – the seat formerly held by Dennis Hastert – is of special interest to New Jerseyans because the campaigns of the two major party candidates are being run by operatives who once worked in this state. The campaign of Republican Jim Oberweis is being run by Bill Pascoe, who has run campaigns for Bret Schundler, Douglas Forrester, Nicholas Asselta and others. And Tom Bowen, who ran the Assembly campaigns of Paul Moriarty and David Mayer in 2003, is managing Democrat Bill Foster’s race. According to Chris Cillizza’s analysis in The Washington Post, this is a close race in a reliably Republican district.
