Walsh Trying to Make Career Last Until November

Is Rep. Joe Walsh(Tea Party-Ill.) backing out of his primary challenge to Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., and coming home to the 8th District?

Roll Call is reporting that Walsh told a potential Republican candidate for his 8th District seat that he’s changed his mind about running against Hultgren, and will defend his current seat.

Walsh met with an aspiring GOP candidate in the 8th district, DuPage County Superintendent of Education Darlene Ruscitti, this afternoon and told her he planned to run there instead, according to a source with knowledge of the encounter.

Walsh’s spokesman, Justin Roth, told Roll Call that he could not confirm the report.

Walsh bailed out of the 8th District after the legislature re-drew it to elect a Democrat. His McHenry home is now in the 14th District, but congressmen aren’t required to live in the districts they represent.

Since the new boundaries were drawn, it’s been assumed that the Democratic primary would determine the next congressman. Today, both Democratic candidates snarled at the new dog in their yard. Raja Krishnamoorthi sent out an e-mail calling Walsh “unelectable”:

“Joe Walsh is clearly unelectable,” said Campaign Spokesman Mike Murray. “His radical Tea Party agenda, combined with his personal problems, have made him unviable even in the Republican-leaning 14th District.”

“With his decision to run for re-election in the 8th District, Walsh is clearly trying to postpone his inevitable electoral defeat from March to November,” continued Murray.     “Walsh hopes that a few extra months will allow voters to forget his cheap antics, bad policies, and his utter failure to provide economic solutions as our representative. Raja is in this race to make sure that will never happen.”

And here’s what Tammy Duckworth had to say in a email blast to her supporters:

Remember when we told you that the thought of running against Tammy had sent Rep. Joe Walsh running to a new district?

Guess who’s back…   

It looks like the residents of the 14th district didn’t want Tea Party hero Joe Walsh representing them. Walsh is shopping around for a district to run in - and Roll Call reports that his latest bad idea is to run against Tammy.

Donate $10 now to show Joe Walsh that we don’t want him here either.

Tammy’s never backed down from a fight in her life and she certainly won’t back down from this one. But now that Joe Walsh is back, she’ll need all the help she can get.

My take: Walsh probably can’t win in either district. But he’ll win the Republican primary in the 8th. That means his political career will last until next November, instead of ending in March. That’s an extra seven-and-a-half months of the media attention Walsh loves. 

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