Reply #18: I was talking with Shimkus' Democratic opponent, Danny Stover, last week.

[Willinois]

He's a community college professor and Centralia City Councilman. If anyone has seen "The Big One" by Michael Moore, Centralia is the town Moore visits where the candy bar factory shut down. A mining disaster there was also the subject of a Woody Guthrie song called, The Dying Miner.

He hasn't gotten much support from the party because this district was drawn to be strongly Republican, but I'm sure that will change now. Shimkus earlier announced that he is breaking his term limit pledge. Shimkus is an ultra-conservative rubber stamp for Bush. Danny has a lot of interesting, intelligent things to say and will make a great Congressman. Replacing Shimkus with Stover would be a blessing for the entire nation. There were also rumors that Shimkus was going to run against Dick Durbin for US Senate in two years, but I'm guessing that won't happen now.