...let's elect more scientists to office. A good place to start would be physicist and congressional candidate Bill Foster, one of the developers of the Irving-Michigan-Brookhaven proton decay detector. Darksyde has a good description of Foster's research. Go here to find out more about Foster.
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And in a Republican stronghold no less:
Twenty minutes after unofficially becoming the Fox Valley's newest congressman-elect, Democrat Bill Foster surprised the raucous crowd at Long Island Sound Banquets in Aurora when he entered from a rear door. Seconds later, chants of "Foster, Foster" clearly…
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A bit of pro-Foster commentary from somebody who lives in his state (but not his particular district):
Foster's opponent is the genuinely creepy Jim Oberweis, who - although he owns a dairy that produces damn good milk and ice cream - has done everything in his power to get elected to anything in this state from the federal Senate to the Governorship, usually running as a screaming ultraconservative nutjob (not really his intention, mind you, but that's how he comes off) in order to pander to that particular section of GOP opinion.
Unsurprisingly, he usually loses in the Republican primary, but not this time.
Seeing as a vote for Foster would be a vote against Flopping Jim, you've got one more reason to vote for Foster.
I completely agree. More scientists should be running for office, and they should be winning, especially over career politicians. Then again, if all the scientists went into politics, then there would be a big void in the labs. All the politicians would have to go back to school and get degrees in science. Somebody suggest that as an alternative to Hillary in a few months. I bet she could run a mean protein gel.
A bit of an update:
The usually Republican-leaning Chicago Tribune endorsed Foster over Oberweis. The link:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0304edit2mar0…
My apologies if the wraparound screws up the URL; with that in mind, here's a choice bit from the editorial:
In 2004, he (Oberweis) ran an ad in which he hovered over Soldier Field in a helicopter and said 10,000 illegal aliens come to the U.S. each day, "enough to fill Soldier Field every single week." The number was grossly inflated and the ad smacked of fear-mongering.
In 2006, he ran TV ads that used headlines from the Tribune and other newspapers to attack an opponent. But the headlines were fake. They hadn't appeared in the newspapers.
This year, Oberweis' campaign is based on the notion that his opponent is a big-spending liberal. Oberweis' TV and radio ads quote Foster saying, "There's nothing in life that you can't improve by pouring money at it. ..."
Foster did say that, at a League of Women Voters debate. But the transcript makes it clear he was talking about the federal government's "poor efforts" to improve air-traffic-control safety. His conclusion: "This is one example of a place I would look to save taxpayer dollars."
And Oberweis' immediate response at the debate? He said: "I find myself in the almost embarrassing position of tending to agree with Bill on some of his comments there."
I'm not particularly surprised that Flopping Jim didn't get the Trib's endorsement - it may have a strongly GOP-leaning editorial board, but they've endorsed Democrats over far-right cranks before (such as Park Ridge-based Phyllis Schlafly protege Penny Pullen). That's probably the overriding reason why they endorsed Foster now.
Chris,
Thanks for the update.
I'm not particularly surprised that Flopping Jim didn't get the Trib's endorsement - it may have a strongly GOP-leaning editorial board, but they've endorsed Democrats over far-right cranks before (such as Park Ridge-based Phyllis Schlafly protege Penny Pullen). That's probably the overriding reason why they endorsed Foster now
very thanks for article