14th District voters have seen this race before - and recently

SPRINGFIELD - The campaign ads and mailers across the 14th Congressional District have a familiar ring to them this fall.

It is, after all, the second time this year that Democrat Bill Foster and Republican Jim Oberweis have squared off for the right to represent this swath of the suburbs and northern Illinois in Congress.

In March, Foster, a former Fermilab scientist from Geneva, won a special election over Oberweis, a Sugar Grove businessman best known for his family's namesake dairy.

Now, just eight months later, voters essentially get to reconsider that race.

Foster, barely an incumbent, again squares off with Oberweis, who's previously run unsuccessfully for governor, for U.S. Senate, for a full, two-year term in the U.S. House.

Foster's currently serving out the waning days of the term that had been Denny Hastert's. But the Plano Republican, once the longest serving Republican speaker of the House, called it quits last year triggering the special election in March.

Foster's resulting win stunned many and Democrats believe it set the tone for what's to come in numerous races on Tuesday.

Oberweis has tried a different approach this year, toning down his advertising, meaning no more helicopter trips over Soldier Field warning of illegal immigrants stealing jobs and instead relying on a family message to try to make the district's voters comfortable with his candidacy while touting his business success as key for shaping the country's economic policy.

His campaign is counting on the region's traditionally Republican voters coming back to the party and reversing what happened in March.

"Washington is broken. The passage of the Wall Street bailout is a product of everything that is wrong with Washington - the special interest lobbyists, the campaign contributions to favored members of key committees and the rush to action with too little consideration," said Oberweis spokesman David From. "We need someone who will fight for taxpayers and not be influenced by the special interests. Jim Oberweis' 30 years in the financial industry give him much-needed insight into how to fix our weak economy."

Foster, meanwhile, had never run for elected office and after winning the race this spring has tried to play the part of the new guy in Washington who deserves to go back.

"In just eight months, Rep. Foster has already proven that he has the ability to get things done for the people he represents," said communications director Shannon O'Brien. "Hours after he was sworn in, he cast the deciding vote to pass real ethics reform. He's worked in a bipartisan way to restore science funding, saving jobs at Fermilab and Argonne, and he's given our men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a future worth fighting for by supporting a GI Bill for the 21st century."