The beef against Mike Quigley, the reform candidate/progressive with the highest name recognition (and currently leading in the polls) in the 5th Congressional District in Illinois is that he's simply too valuable in his current job as Cook County Commissioner.
Progressives in Chicago respect Quigley's opposition to the Democratic machine, especially with regard to his fierce stands against corruption, nepotism and the wasteful spending related to both. In setting up the camera to do a scheduled interview, I asked Quigley his response to this criticism.
"Yeah, let's start with that question," Quigley responded. "I want to answer that."
So I asked him about this criticism, on the record, before I got into the standard questions that I've asked to record all the candidates in this race. That video will be posted later.
Quigley's response is to the point. In our system of government, candidates for office are self-selected. It's not the easy to move up the political ranks, and open seats in Congressional seats are fairly rare -- especially in Illinois. If that is one's ambition, then one must take advantage of the openings when they become available.
But the election of Barack Obama offers an even more enticing opportunity for legislative workhorses like Mike Quigley (and John Fritchey, for that matter). The attraction of going to Washington, DC with President Obama is great, especially if you have an idea of what you'd like to do once you get there.