The cows make another appearance in campaign

The cows have been raised from the dead a week before the special election.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a campaign mailer this week featuring photographs of dairy cows and GOP 14th Congressional District candidate Jim Oberweis.

"Oberweis says he wants to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants, but illegal immigrants were working at his own dairy stores," the ad states. "Perhaps they thought the cows would keep the secret."

The DCCC also robo-called voters Thursday with that message.

In a story that broke in 2005, two illegal immigrants hired by a janitorial service to clean Oberweis Dairy stores filed a complaint against the dairy and the Illinois Department of Labor, saying they were paid less than the minimum wage. Oberweis, who called it a "smear job" at the time, reiterated this week that the pair "never worked for Oberweis Dairy. We hired a contractor … (that) had two illegals working for them without the knowledge of the owner."

The last time cows came up was during the primary campaign, when Oberweis' GOP foe, state Sen. Chris Lauzen, used cartoonish drawings of dead cows to illustrate Oberweis' failed campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile, a recent mailer from the Oberweis campaign depicts a photo of a baby to illustrate how even infants will have to pay higher taxes under Foster because he supports maintaining the estate tax that Oberweis, who refers to as the death tax, wants to repeal.

Poll no surprise: Foster's campaign released another poll this week -- this time claiming Foster holds a slim lead over Oberweis. Forty-five percent of respondents in a telephone poll supported Foster, compared to just 41 percent for Oberweis, according to a memo released by Foster's campaign. Global Strategy Group called 402 randomly selected likely voters in next week's special election. The calls were made over a four-day period starting Feb. 21. The margin of error is 4.9 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

Forty-seven percent of voters identifying themselves as independents favored Foster, while 25 percent favored Oberweis. Foster also held a stronger appeal among Democrats than Oberweis held among Republican.

Foster's last poll, released right after the primary, showed the pair in a statistical tie.

Oberweis fans: Oberweis trotted out endorsements from former Gov. Jim Edgar and former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald this week. What's particularly notable about that is Fitzgerald supported Lauzen in the primary. In a news release from the Oberweis campaign, Fitzgerald calls Oberweis a "a lifelong and well-known common sense conservative." That's similar to a statement he made on Lauzen's behalf last month. Years ago Fitzgerald and Lauzen were two among the so-called "Fab Five" young conservative state senators.

Goodbye: Kane County politics has kept me busy the last few years, and this is my last column. Thanks for reading.