Colleen Callahan Springfield open house
Wednesday evening I went to a packed open house for the new Springfield headquarters of Colleen Callahan, the Democrat running for Congress in the 18th District. I'm not very good at guessing crowd size but I'd say around 200 people came.
The crowd included the Springfield Democratic leaders usually seen at events for candidates with a good shot at winning. State Comptroller Dan Hynes spoke to introduce Callahan. Also there was her uncle, Gene Callahan, who's well known and popular among Springfield Democrats. That connection to Springfield will be important for a district spread out as far as the 18th.
Because only a portion of Sangamon county is included in this Peoria-based district, people often underestimate how many voters are in the Southern part of the 18th. Sangamon county had the third largest vote totals in the district in 2004 (45,823), behind Tazwell and Peoria counties. No candidate can ignore Springfield and expect to win.
I was getting concerned that I hadn't seen much activity from Callahan in the Springfield area but last night's open house was encouraging. It's also nice to see that she's running a modern campaign by having a campaign blog. Aaron Schock has a real race on his hands.