{"id":1637,"date":"2008-03-08T22:01:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-09T03:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2008\/03\/08\/another-scientist-in-congress\/"},"modified":"2008-03-08T22:01:14","modified_gmt":"2008-03-09T03:01:14","slug":"another-scientist-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/08\/another-scientist-in-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Scientist in Congress!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class='alignleft' src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/billfoster_20080123_14_25_32_61-156-110.jpg' alt='billfoster_20080123_14_25_32_61-156-110.jpg' \/>Physicist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foster08.com\/\">Bill Foster<\/a> has been running against dairy magnate and perpetual candidate Jim Oberweis in a special election in Illinois to replace retiring Republican representative Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House.  The election was today, and with 96% of precincts reporting, it&#8217;s been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.suburbanchicagonews.com\/beaconnews\/index.html\">called for Foster<\/a>, 52% to 48%.  This is great news for scientists and for Democrats, and awesome news for those of us who are both.  Oberweis&#8217;s signature issue is anti-immigrant xenophobia, and a Democratic victory in this reliably Republican district bodes very well for the national picture this fall.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foster08.com\/2007\/12\/bills_science_c.html\"><img width='200' class='alignright' src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/fermilab-recycler-ring.PNG' alt='fermilab-recycler-ring.PNG' \/><\/a> We&#8217;ve mentioned Bill&#8217;s campaign <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/08\/06\/yk-report\/\">here before<\/a>, and think he will be a great Representative.  He is not just any old particle physicist, but quite an accomplished one, having been a co-inventor of Fermilab&#8217;s antiproton Recycler Ring.  Once you&#8217;ve mastered antiprotons, the Washington political process should be child&#8217;s play.  Congratulations!<\/p>\n<p>The bad news is:  because this was a special election to replace Hastert, they will have to do the whole thing over again in November.  Here&#8217;s hoping that Foster can repeat his great showing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Physicist Bill Foster has been running against dairy magnate and perpetual candidate Jim Oberweis in a special election in Illinois to replace retiring Republican representative Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House. The election was today, and with 96% of precincts reporting, it&#8217;s been called for Foster, 52% to 48%. This is great news for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}