Joe Walsh, First Tea Party Candidate To Win Election, Starts Attracting Attention

Four Illinoisans took the stage at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tennessee last Friday. A crowd of around 200 awaited their words.

Three of the four men were party activists and bloggers. The fourth was Joe Walsh, a man who holds the title of first Tea Party candidate to win an election in Illinois.

Before the Feb. 2 primary in Illinois, the most attention Walsh had gotten was when the other Joe Walsh (guitarist for the Eagles, Barnstorm, etc.) sued him for gross copyright infringement for using his songs in campaign advertising and events.

But with a decisive win in a crowded field in the Republican primary for Illinois's 8th District congressman, Walsh the candidate has started to turn heads. He campaigned as a "tea party conservative first and a Republican second," according to conservative blog The Illinois Review. And with Illinois's primary the first in the nation this year, that makes Walsh the first Tea Party candidate in the nation in the 'W' column.

A number of other Tea Party-affiliated candidates suffered rebukes at the polls in Illinois, including those running for Governor and U.S. Senator.

But Walsh's win was noted by the Wall Street Journal, and conservative pundit Bill Kristol told Fox News Walsh would pose a strong challenge to the incumbent congressman, Democrat Melissa Bean, in November.

Of his address to the convention, Walsh told the Daily Herald, "I had a fairly receptive crowd. They were incredibly curious to hear from me, how it felt to run and the things we did to win."

"They wanted a candidate's perspective," he said.

Comments

[jimme]

12:55 PM on 02/11/2010

How come I always think of carpetbaggers when I read about these teabaggers ?
Same difference I guess.

[Bude]

11:07 AM on 02/11/2010

I voted for him cause he was great in The James Gang!

[ChiTownMike]

10:02 AM on 02/11/2010

Ms. Bean has not done herself, her constituency or the rest of the people of the US much good by her "friendly" attitudes to the financial services sector. She has given Mr. Walsh a toe-hold that he might not otherwise have had given her recent voting record plays right into the rhetoric coming from the Tea Party.

She would be wise to take heed.

[joeperc]

11:24 PM on 02/10/2010

Hopefully 8th district voters will realize what an extremist he is, Bean will win in a landslide and then she'll start voting like a Democrat!

[tofubo]

04:18 PM on 02/11/2010

good laugh, thanks i needed that

[poaster]

10:32 PM on 02/10/2010

To get that much attention in Tea Bag party he must have shaved his ba!!s.

[OneConservative]

07:54 PM on 02/10/2010

Bean brain needs to go. Throw them all out.

[LMPE]

05:24 PM on 02/10/2010

I think that this bozo will only be remembered for illegally using the song.

[applebutter]

05:21 PM on 02/10/2010

He's old and white and "100% pro-life WITHOUT exceptions".

No surprise in McHenry County. (Not Chicago, but a totally different world.)

[Yikes11]

04:59 PM on 02/10/2010

et tous Illinois, et tous? The southern strategy is working. Even you midwesterners are drinking the kool-aid, to the tune of a Tea BAgger, Come On.

[StansDad]

04:25 PM on 02/10/2010

Tea bagger wins election! Still, no one cares much

[Trance2010]

04:20 PM on 02/10/2010

Is he going to teabag Bean?