Downstate Congressman blames loss on Quinn, Obama

U.S. Rep. Bill Enyart says he hasn't decided if he will seek public office again after losing his southwest Illinois seat in the November election.

The one-term Democrat was defeated Nov. 4 by Republican state Rep. Mike Bost for the 12th Congressional District seat.

Enyart told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1taXG5g ) he wasn't taking his 11-percentage-point loss personally. He noted he was targeted with a negative campaign that spent about $7.5 million.

Enyart said Republicans didn't run against him, but against President Obama and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.

"I think on a national level the Democrats did not give a reason for people to come vote for them and the Republicans only put forth a vote against the president," he told the newspaper, adding that people "were simply fed up with the political process."

Bost, a former Marine from Murphysboro, won a seat for Republicans that had been in the Democratic Party's hands since World War II. Bost will be representing a 12-county district that stretches from the eastern suburbs of St. Louis down to where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet near the Kentucky and Missouri borders.

Enyart says he will take time off after leaving office in January and may do some writing on national defense.

The former major general in the Illinois National Guard said Democrats need to have a clear-cut strategic vision on defense issue. He says his background can allow him to do that.

Enyart suggested that he be asked in a month on whether he would seek public office again.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com