Green candidate says he wasn't 8th District spoiler

With his third-place finish the only sure thing about the outcome of the 8th Congressional District race, Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer rejected suggestions he played spoiler to the re-election plans of Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean.

Though only 350 votes separated Bean from Republican challenger Joe Walsh at the end of the day Friday, Scheurer says it would be wrong to presume that most of his 6,400 voters would have backed Bean, giving her a comfortable win on Election Day.

“You'd have to ask each and every one of my voters who they would have voted for,” the Lindenhurst resident said.

Earlier this week, DePaul University political science professor Michael Mezey told the Daily Herald that most of Scheurer's supporters were probably progressive liberals who likely would have voted Democratic had he not been in the race.

Winning only 3.2 percent of the vote, Scheurer feels his goal of providing a viable alternative to a rigid two-party system fell short. He had hoped for at least a 5-percent share of the total.

Among the 11 Green Party candidates for U.S. House seats from Illinois, only Simon Ribeiro in the 9th District received a smaller share of the vote with 2.5 percent. The other nine candidates received between 3.6 percent and 8.3 percent in their respective districts.

His candidacy, however, managed to keep both Walsh or Bean from capturing a majority of the 8th District's votes.

“I hope whoever wins makes note of that,” Scheurer said.

While unhappy about his own performance and the Republican takeover of the U.S. House, Scheurer did view the 2010 election as “a great demonstration of democracy.”

Scheurer sees Republican control of the House as a short-term negative, but believes the way tea party candidates like Walsh shook up the election process provides a long-term positive.

“I think it's a step backward to move two steps forward,” Scheurer said of the Republican-favored outcome. “Nothing good is going to come of the new majority, that much is clear. Their philosophy just doesn't add up. But they have created an object lesson in democracy which everyone can learn from.”