From In These Times
By David Sirota

In the March 3 special primary election for the 5th congressional district seat in Illinois, formerly held by White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, many progressives voted their hopes, supporting Tom Geoghegan, a Chicago labor lawyer and author.

Geoghegan’s candidacy had been endorsed by The Nation columnist Katha Pollitt, Salon’s Joe Conason and OpenLeft.com, among others. (Disclosure: I wrote a fundraising letter for the campaign.) Yet in the end, reform-minded Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley won the Democratic primary with 22 percent of the 55,000 Democratic votes cast. Geoghegan placed seventh out of a field of 12, with 6 percent of the vote.

Geoghegan was a movement progressive who faced a steep uphill climb in his first race for Congress. Tom would have been a great representative, who would have helped our movement in Congress as he does in his writings and his practice of labor law. But his loss doesn’t make our contributions to his campaign a waste.

Sometimes we support candidates we may not like, but just because they’re in an important contested race for a Republican seat, we’re willing to give our labor or dollars to push them over the goal line. Other times, we give out of movement solidarity to people we fully admire, knowing that they probably will lose.

We need to recognize both contributions are worthwhile. In the first example, they can help win an important seat. In the latter, they help develop solidarity and build a network for future campaigns.

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