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In the Illinois 19th, which takes in a bright red swath of Illinois from Springfield southward, Rep. John Shimkus, 48, was cruising toward a sixth term until his name popped up in the investigation of the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. As head of the House Page Board, Mr. Shimkus confronted Mr. Foley in the fall of 2005 over one relatively innocuous e-mail to a former page. Mr. Shimkus says he had no inkling that Mr. Foley's problems went deeper. "There's a lot of guilt," he said, adding "I'm pretty clueless on people's private lives."
We take him at his word. His consistent support for the White House's economic policies and incursions against civil liberties is harder to accept. Since 2004, when he broke his pledge not to seek more than four terms in Congress, Mr. Shimkus seems to have settled in as a member of the "go along to get along" crowd.
His Democratic challenger is Dan Stover, 55, the retired chairman of the political science department at Kaskaskia College in Centralia. He says Mr. Shimkus' "shallow and incompetent" investigation of the Foley affair brought a newfound attention to his race, but acknowledges he faces a "dollars and lines" problem. Mr. Shimkus has 10 times more dollars to spend on his campaign than Mr. Stover, and the 19th district's boundary lines heavily favor Republicans.
Still, Mr. Stover is a credible alternative for voters looking for an independent, progressive voice in Congress. He asks voters if they've "had enough" of Republican control, of a misguided war, of threats to abortion rights, of unfair trade policies, of big pay raises for Congress and tax cuts for the wealthy and no increase in the minimum wage. Regardless of what Mr. Shimkus told Mr. Foley, Dan Stover is the better choice.
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