Sun-Times: Jim Oberweis finally wins an election

[VIDEO] In this state there were three elections that didn't provide a good result. It's unfortunate but has been known to happen when an undeserving pol retains or wins an office in a situation where they shouldn't. It happened with Rod Blagojevich in 2006 and he quickly found himself out of office in 2009.

Another election that hasn't been noticed was the election of Jim Oberweis to the Illinois State Senate. Oberweis who is associated with the dairy industry - an eponymous company sells ice cream and milk - has had several aborted attempts for elected office over the years. He ran for the US Senate one year, then Governor of Illinois, and then another attempt for the US Congress and lost all of those elections.

This was going to be the year and it seemed that he set his eyes down from the much higher profile offices he had sought in the past to a seat in the state Senate. Somehow Rich Miller didn't write about this election, but the Sun-Times didn't miss it:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again . . . and again and again and again and again and again.

Republican Jim Oberweis, who after running for elected office five previous times, won a seat in the Illinois Senate in Tuesday’s election.

Oberweis, 66, chairman of Oberweis Dairy and founder of Oberweis Asset Management, took about 58 percent of Tuesday’s vote, and defeated Democratic challenger Corinne Pierog of St. Charles in the race.

Despite finally getting a win — after running unsuccessfully in previous races for governor and the U.S. House and Senate — Oberweis said the victory was bittersweet.

“It was a very disappointing evening, actually,” Oberweis said on Wednesday from his North Aurora office. “After last night’s results, I’m afraid it will be very difficult to accomplish anything in Springfield.”

 In there is a statement about Illinois politics. While nationally the Republicans retained their US House majority and lost ground in the Senate and lost a sure election to the White House, in Illinois Republicans still have difficulty gaining ground against Democrats. In fact a few Republican congressmen lost their seats Tuesday night. And in the state legislature Democrats have essentially won "veto-proof" majorities.

That means Democrats have a lot more power in Springfield. What that also means is that even though the Governor of this state is also Democratic, it seems that the top Democrats of this state still seem unable to get along very well. In spite of this Republicans were as unable to capitalize on this infighting as they were on the ethical lapses and even the stain of Rod Blagojevich.

The video above was an Oberweis as from one of his losing campaigns. He jumped on the issue of illegal immigration and quickly made him a controversial figure. Though I do wonder if it's a good thing that at this current moment that he really doen't have a lot of influence in the Illinois state Senate.

So far it seems like he wants to be more bipartisan and that's a good thing!