By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Illinois Democrat Dan Seals was his party’s 2006 nominee against Republican Rep. Mark Steven Kirk in the state’s 10th District, a partisan battleground located in mainly affluent suburbs north of Chicago. The marketing executive and business consultant was a first-time candidate for political office, yet Seals raised almost $2 million and took 47 percent of the vote — even though Kirk is a generally popular centrist who had breezed to victory in his two previous re-election bids.

To Seals and his supporters, his performance in 2006 was not only a strong debut, but also a springboard to a possible victory in the rematch bid that he is pursuing for 2008. They note that he is much better-known than when he started out last time, and that the upcoming Illinois 10 race is drawing early attention from the national Democratic Party, which provided only late and very limited assistance to Seals in his first try.

“I think the reason why people are supporting me is because I’ve already demonstrated that I’m not just right on the issues, but I’m able to draw the support of Democrats, independents and Republicans alike,” Seals told CQ Politics. He added, “It was our campaign that put Kirk on the vulnerable list. It was our campaign that scored higher than any other campaign since Kirk was elected.”

But Seals’ claim to the 2008 Democratic nomination is far from uncontested. Jay Footlik, who has a deep background in Middle East politics, is challenging Seals in the Feb. 5 Democratic primary election.

Footlik is a former aide to President Bill Clinton, for whom he served as liaison to the nation’s Jewish constituency, and says he is more experienced and more electable than Seals. “We hear most often that people are taken with my background and my experience, and I’m gratified that they find that useful and worthwhile,” Footlik told CQ Politics.

He also notes that Seals had the good fortune to run in 2006 — an election year that was characterized by near-ideal political conditions for the Democratic Party (which scored a net gain of 30 House seats that fall to win its House majority) — and in a district that even in 2004 had favored Democrat John Kerry with 52 percent of the vote over President Bush.

“And the second issue is they want to win,” Footlik continued, “They usually have very nice things to say about my primary opponent, as do I. ... This is all about winning, and they’re concerned that if he couldn’t get closer than 7 points [53.4 percent to 46.6 percent] in the best year for Democrats in four decades ... then how is he going to, second time out, have an opportunity to do something different?”

CQ Politics presently rates the Illinois 10 race as “Leans Republican,” which gives Kirk the early advantage but forecasts a highly competitive race.

Whether to back Seals or Footlik as Kirk’s challenger is a question that will soon take on increased urgency for the district’s Democratic electorate, which will vote just 11 weeks hence in the earliest congressional primary in history.

Seals may have the early edge because he has much higher name ID than Footlik — at least according to polling conducted by Seals’ campaign. An “own” poll in early November showed Seals ahead of Footlik by 58 percent to 6 percent, with 36 percent undecided. Seals was known by 69 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, according to the poll, compared with 24 percent who could identify Footlik, who was just beginning his television advertising campaign when Seals’ poll was in the field.

Both candidates seem to agree on the major issues, though they haven’t held any formal debates yet to draw out any major differences. On two of the hottest issues currently debated in Congress, both say they support responsible timetables to redeploy troops from Iraq and an expansion of children’s health insurance programs.

Seals and Footlik both expressed support for a bill, passed by the House on Wednesday with the support of nearly every Democrat, that would spend $50 billion on the Iraq War through February but would require withdrawal of most U.S. troops to begin within 30 days of the bill’s enactment, with a completion goal of Dec. 15, 2008.

“I don’t see any reason why we can’t start the process of bringing our troops home now,” Seals said. “You want to do it honorably, you want to do it safely, but we need to bring them home.” Footlik, after the House voted, issued a statement that criticized Kirk’s “no” vote against the measure.

Seals speaks frequently about promoting accountability in government, which he said “plays into a lot of issues” — including how the government is handling the ongoing war in Iraq, the management of its finances and how it delivers health care services to individuals. Seals supports simplifying the federal tax code to include three brackets: 15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent. He’d like the Democratic-controlled Congress to make greater headway in overhauling the process of “earmarking” federal spending for specific local projects across the country.

There is a sizable Jewish population within Illinois’ 10th, and Footlik and his supporters brandish his Middle East experience. This includes service in Clinton’s Office of Public Liaison: In that capacity, Footlik was tasked with rallying support for Clinton’s domestic and foreign policy initiatives among the American Jewish constituency. Footlik lived in Israel for several years, working as a consultant, and advised 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry ’s campaign on Middle East and Jewish affairs.

Footlik said he is concerned about an “increasingly dangerous situation” in Lebanon: The parliament is scheduled to soon select a new president, at a time when the Islamist group Hezbollah is seeking to erode the influence of the nation’s pro-Western government. Footlik also speaks out about Syria, which he contends has been “so destructive and so harmful” to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq and has “gotten a free pass” from the Bush administration.

“There are lots of serious issues here that need to be addressed, and I believe this administration is neglecting them,” Footlik said. “It tells me that it’s ever more important now, given the challenges we face and the security interests that we have in that part of the world, to send more experienced people of Congress to help on those kinds of issues.”

On domestic policy, Footlik says that the top issue he hears about on the campaign trail is “health care, health care, health care.” While Footlik supports the idea of universal health care coverage as a “noble goal,” he recalled the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful 1993 effort to overhaul the health care system.

“Rather than take a comprehensive approach, which may be doomed from the start, I would try and look at classes of people that you want to increase insurance for,” Footlik said, identifying children, senior citizens and military veterans as just three examples.

Both Seals and Footlik have well-funded campaigns. Seals reported raising $567,000 through September, which ranked him 10th overall among challengers to incumbents, and had $499,000 in cash on hand. At a similar point in the 2005-06 election year, Seals had not yet even begun raising money for his 2006 campaign.

“We got a late start last time — it was an 11-month campaign,” Seals said. “And the national party, while encouraging, was not exactly supportive because ... I think they didn’t believe I had a chance.”

“Obviously,” Seals added, “I’ve proven them wrong.”

One of Seals’ supporters is state Sen. Terry Link, who represents part of Lake County — a portion of which is in the 10th Congressional District — and also heads the Democratic organization in that county. Link said that Seals ran a “tremendous campaign” in 2006 and praised the “organizational and fundraising ability that he showed in that campaign.”

“I feel that his electability is there,” Link said of Seals, adding that Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean , who represents the adjacent 8th District, was elected to Congress in 2004 in her second attempt as the challenging candidate against veteran Republican Rep. Philip M. Crane.

Seals also is backed by Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky , who represents the adjacent 9th District, and a number of local officials who say that Seals enjoys strong support in the district.

But Footlik, who noted that most rematch campaigns falter, wasn’t far behind Seals in fundraising, with receipts of $480,000 and cash on hand of $414,000 as October began. Befitting someone with Footlik’s background, Dennis Ross — a veteran diplomat who is a potential Secretary of State in a future Democratic presidential administration — appeared at an event Nov. 11 in suburban Winnetka to promote Footlik’s candidacy and help him raise money.

“I think we’re surprising people that we’re essentially going toe to toe with our primary opponent, who amassed a lot of money last time,” Footlik said. “We’re a first-time campaign and a first-time candidate, and that part is going well.”

Footlik says that he has benefited from some “high-level defections” from Seals’ 2006 campaign, including Marcus Wedner and Anne Wedner, who backed Seals’ 2006 campaign but are supporting Footlik in this campaign and hosted Ross’ recent appearance. Anne Wedner served on Seals’ finance team in the 2006 election.

“It’s a function, really, of electability,” Marcus Wedner told CQ Politics, when asked why he was supporting Footlik over Seals.

“Dan’s a good guy, but with Jay you’ve got actual White House experience, you’ve got actual Middle East experience and other foreign policy experience,” Wedner added.

Carol Spielman, a member of the Lake County Board, said that Footlik’s White House experience is a “really big plus” in the 10th District.

Kirk, meanwhile, does not face opposition in the Republican primary. A member of the influential Appropriations Committee, he reported raising $1.8 million in the first nine months of this year, more than any other House Republican. He had $1.5 million left to spend as October began.

First posted Nov. 20, 2007 6:55 a.m.

Correction
Corrects that Anne Wedner was a member of Seals' finance committee in the 2006 election, but not the director.