Clash of opposites in marquee Illinois race

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

ADDISON, Ill. - You could hardly design a more intriguing contrast: man versus woman; a veteran legislator versus a political neophyte; anti-abortion candidate versus abortion rights proponent.

If you live in Chicago’s western suburbs in the Sixth Congressional District you’ll get a chance to choose the winner of this face off. Your choice could decide whether Democrats gain control of the House.

This is a district where President Bush won 53 percent of the vote in 2004.

Now it’s up to veteran state legislator Peter Roskam to keep it a Republican seat in House.

Since 1974, Republican Henry Hyde, best known for his anti-abortion advocacy and his role as Judiciary Committee chairman in impeaching President Clinton in 1998, has represented this district. He’s stepping down at the end of this term.

Hyde has won with average vote of 62 percent in the last four elections.

If Republicans such as Roskam don’t fare well on Nov. 7, it’s curtains for the GOP House majority. (Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to gain the majority.)

Roskam’s karma is to face the Democratic Party’s premier celebrity House candidate, Major Tammy Duckworth of the Illinois National Guard.

'She’s a war hero for Pete’s sakes'
The subject of positive stories in venues from National Public Radio to Glamour magazine, Duckworth lost both her legs after an rocket-propelled grenade hit her Blackhawk helicopter in the air over Iraq in 2004.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois asked Duckworth to run for Hyde’s open seat, but two other Democrats weren’t willing to step aside, so Duckworth had a competitive primary.

CNBC VIDEO A marquee race in Illinois May 17: Republican Peter Roskam and Democrat Tammy Duckworth battle it out in Illinois in one of the most closely watched House race in the country. John Harwood of CNBC and the Wall Street Journal reports. CNBC

About 32,000 voters took part in the Democratic primary while more than 50,000 voters turned out to cast ballots for Roskam, who ran unopposed in the March 21 GOP primary.

Such data –- and this district’s 30-year affinity for the conservative Hyde -- make this seem a fairly reliable thing for Republicans.

Roskam’s GOP colleague, Carole Pankau, who represents an Illinois state Senate district which is a part of the Sixth Congressional District, characterized the Sixth as “very conservative, fiscally conservative, becoming a little more socially moderate than Henry’s positions have been.”

“Of course!” Pankau said, when asked if Roskam had a tough assignment in battling Duckworth. “She’s a war hero for Pete’s sakes, and she’s female. It has a whole different dynamic to it.”

But she said, “Peter needs to concentrate on the issues and the issues are what is going to win him the race.”

Identifying with Congress
Is the public’s distaste with Congress -- which has been run by the GOP since 1995 -- and its lack of control over federal spending making this a bad time to be running as a Republican?

“I’m glad I’m not an incumbent member of Congress right now,” said Roskam. He said he’d stand by his record in the state legislature “but I’m not going to be accountable for what the Republican Congress has done.”

He declined to identify specific programs he’d try to cut if he got to Congress, but said the voters are demanding spending restraint and said he’ll keep voting ‘no’ on excessive spending bills until the leadership gets the message.

While Duckworth criticizes congressional earmarks –- spending items targeted to benefit one congressional district -– Roskam says sometimes earmarks are necessary to pay for local projects: “I’m unwilling to put aside any legal tool to advocate for this district.”

Roskam argued that the suburb-city tension will work to his benefit “because we have Democrats completely dominating the (Illinois) House, the Senate, the governor’s mansion, and the Supreme Court and all statewide constitutional offices except one, and all the leadership lives within seven or eight miles of one another in the city of Chicago. So suddenly you have folks that say this has really become dominated by one city and one party.”

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