Associated Press
Posted Thursday, November 2, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The 10th Congressional District race in Chicago's northwest suburbs has all the makings of a real contest. Yet neither party was paying much attention to the seat, until now.
Democratic challenger Dan Seals -- a 35-year-old family man with an impressive academic record and business background in a district trending his party's way -- received his first financial boost this week from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official fundraising arm of the House Democrats.
Meanwhile, third-term GOP Rep. Mark Kirk is on House Speaker Dennis
Hastert's leadership team that has been under a microscope in recent weeks, and he has backed the increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Iraq.
"He's the assistant whip in a do-nothing Congress that is voting 90 percent party line all of the time," Seals said of his opponent in a recent interview.
But Kirk -- a former longtime aide to retired Rep. John Porter and the hand-picked successor of the ultra-popular congressman -- has looked solid, having no serious opposition since his initial narrow victory in 2000 over a state lawmaker.
A member of the House Appropriations Committee and a Naval reserves intelligence officer who served in the Pentagon's war room during the Iraq war, he also had received some $3 million in campaign donations this cycle.
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