One to watch

This should be an interesting race, and Duckworth will no doubt get enormous, including national, press attention.

And no matter what the outcome, there's a silver lining to it all.

Philanderer and amiable dunce Henry ("The flag is falling!) Hyde will no longer be in office.

With a campaign totally packaged by some of the nation's leading Democratic strategists in Washington and Illinois, wounded Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth will announce a Democratic congressional primary bid Sunday.
Duckworth was released from active Army duty Wednesday, a necessary step for her being eligible to file nominating petitions with the state by the Monday deadline for the seat being vacated by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.).

Active military personnel cannot run for office.

The Duckworth campaign is entirely orchestrated by a team of political professionals with ties to Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the chief of the Democrats' House political organization.

Duckworth will talk about her run for the first time today, in a series of interviews timed to coincide with her campaign rollout.

Duckworth, making her first political bid, was recruited to run by Emanuel and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who met her while visiting wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Duckworth, an Army major, lost her legs and badly hurt an arm after the Blackhawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a missile in November 2004.

Emanuel started looking for a candidate because he was convinced that Cegelis could not beat the likely GOP nominee, state Sen. Pete Roskam (R-Wheaton).

Nationally, Emanuel has been trying to recruit candidates with military and national security backgrounds in order to dramatically demonstrate that the Democratic Party is not anti-military.

Of course, Rich Miller was all over this back in November.

Here's a pretty graphic account of the ordeal Duckworth went through when the helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket.

I've asked this before, (I think it got a whopping one comment), but is recruiting Iraq/Afghanistan vets to be Dem candidates a very practical and shrewd goal, or do you disagree?

While the strategy seems sound and hard to argue with, there is still an aspect to it that's awfully calculating and cynical.

Not to take a thing away from Ms. Duckworth, but an African Asian-American candidate has a certain symbolism and political value, and an African Asian-American female, even more. But now they've found an African Asian-American female who also happens to be a severely wounded Iraq vet.

No word yet if she's lesbian and her husband comes from a large latino family.

NOTE: I made a horrible blunder in thinking Duckworth was African-American. As pointed out by a commenter, she is indeed of Asian descent and grew up in Hawaii. I'm still searching in vain for the site where I'd gotten the idea that she was African-American. The Dope regrets the error and any confusion it may have caused.