Rightofillinois Politics

Aaron Schock is a force to be reckoned with in the Eighteenth February 14, 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008

All three GOP candidates for Ray LaHood’s 18th congressional seat ran pretty good campaigns. But numbers don’t lie. State Rep. Aaron Schock didn’t just win, he stomped his opponents with 54,645 votes, nearly three quarters of all the votes cast. Votes for his opponents John Morris (8,999) and Jim McConoughey (13,110) combined couldn’t come close to beating Schock.

Schock beat his opponents in each of the district’s 20 counties.

Even he was a bit taken aback by the results; he was only hoping to get more than 50 percent of the vote in the three-way race.

Mission accomplished. And it was done without the much- coveted endorsements from LaHood, other key local Republican party big wigs who helped his opponents’ campaigns and even this newspaper.

Looking back, his opponents are wondering what else they could have done. They couldn’t beat Schock’s proven electability.

They both admit they battled the name recognition the 26-year-old enjoys because of his years in the public spotlight. Plus, Schock’s established ties with the Republican party were hard to cut.

Though Morris’ fundraising was nothing to sneeze at, it still was half of Schock’s, who raised more than $850,000. Morris at least had a television presence in the week leading up to the primary but never could differentiate himself enough from the presumptive nominee.

McConoughey racked up more than $300,000 in campaign debt and, in the end, just ran out of steam.

Campaign finance can be a vicious circle. It’s difficult to raise money without much name recognition and hard to establish name recognition and get the message out without money. (K.M.)