https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-house-majority-by-any-means-necessary-1539989212
Ask Sean Casten about the sharp tone of his congressional campaign, and he responds by going for the jugular. In a bellwether race as Democrats try to take the House, Mr. Casten has been accused by his opponent, six-term GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, of spraying “rhetorical gasoline” and “parroting Donald Trump.” Nonsense, replies the Democratic challenger.
“If you don’t have a thick skin, I’m not sure why you’re in politics,” Mr. Casten says, after we duck into a quiet corner during an office-park meet-and-greet. “What Roskam is offended by is that I’ve had the temerity to speak truth to power. He’s voted 94% of the time with Trump. He has on his website that he is proud to work at Denny Hastert’s desk. I’m opposed to pedophilia. If that bothers him, that’s between him and his God.”
Say what?
To back up a smidge: Mr. Casten is referring to an old press release, from 2011, on Mr. Roskam’s official website. It explained that Dennis Hastert, who served as House speaker from 1999-2007, was passing down a “historic desk” used by Illinois congressmen since the 1940s. Five years after bequeathing the antique, Mr. Hastert admitted he had sexually abused boys as a high-school wrestling coach in the 1960s and ’70s. And this horrifying crime now reflects on Mr. Roskam . . . how, exactly?
Welcome to Illinois’s Sixth Congressional District, where the political debate this year is peppered with casual references to Nazis, morons and, yes, pedophiles. These Chicagoland suburbs, which went for Hillary Clinton by 7 points in 2016, are a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats. The district, shaped like a cocktail shrimp, arcs between O’Hare Airport and the particle accelerator at Fermilab. Half of adult residents went to college, one-fifth have a graduate degree, and the median household earns $99,000.