Al Salvi's political rehabilitation is not necessarily contingent on an image eradication. Rather, a low turnout could propel him to Washington.

Salvi, a Mundelein attorney specializing in personal injury, is articulate, personable, knowledgeable, conservative, well known and sufficiently affluent to partially self-fund his campaign, and he is poised to run as a Republican for U.S. representative from the Lake-McHenry County 8th U.S. House District in 2006. The incumbent is Democrat Melissa Bean, who in 2004 upset Phil Crane, the inattentive, complacent 35-year Republican congressman.

But Salvi carries the baggage from two failed statewide campaigns, both of which seriously damaged his image and damaged his credibility and electability. In the 1996 U.S. Senate race, he was relentlessly blasted as an "extremist" by Democrat Dick Durbin, and he lost by 655,204 votes, getting only 40.7 percent of the vote. Salvi spent $1.5 million of his own money in that bid. In an ill-advised 1998 comeback bid for Illinois secretary of state, Salvi was unable to overcome the perception that he didn't really want the job and that he was running only to keep his political career alive, and he lost to Democrat Jesse White by 437,206 votes, getting only 42.5 percent of the vote.

Given his outspoken positions on a wide range of social and fiscal issues (pro-gun rights, anti-abortion, pro-tax cut, anti-spending hikes), Salvi, age 45, is a polarizing figure. Voters either love him or hate him.

"Bring him on," exclaimed one area Democrat. "He'll lose worse than Crane." That typifies the Democratic consensus that Salvi is the perfect opponent for first-termer Bean.

Historically, a congressional race is a referendum on the incumbent. Crane lost the 2004 referendum by a healthy 9,043 votes, and the energetic Bean just happened to be the ballot alternative. Republicans, in both Washington and the 8th District, are in a quandary. A 2006 referendum on Bean will be tough to win, even though President George Bush got 56 percent of the vote in the district in 2000 and 55 percent in 2004. But Salvi gives the Republicans a second option. Instead of 2006 being a referendum, it could be a choice between two known politicians.

Bean has been a visible presence in the district, returning every weekend to discharge official duties and to campaign. The most recent federal campaign disclosure filing, for the period covering Jan. 1 to March 31, showed that Bean had raised $455,000. She expects to raise $2 million through the end of 2006, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, headed by Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, will pony up whatever more she needs.

In addition, Bean has been careful to vote like a moderate. She joined the Republican majority in voting to give federal courts jurisdiction on the question of removing life support from Terri Schiavo, to repeal the federal inheritance tax in 2011, and, on the immigration reform bill, to allow the construction of new border fencing and to ban the use of driver's licenses for federal purposes in those states where illegal aliens can obtain them.

Bean voted with the Democrats in opposition to the $2.6 trillion 2006 budget -- not an unpopular vote. So where is the opening for attack?

Is it difficult to unseat a well known, well funded congressional incumbent, but exceptions do exist.

One is the "Fluke Theory." Sometimes the incumbent is scandal-scarred, as was Dan Rostenkowski in 1994, rendering him unelectable. Republican Mike Flanagan won in the heavily Democratic 5th U.S. House District, but he was unseated in 1996 by Rod Blagojevich. It also occurred in the Rockford-area 16th U.S. House District in 1990, when incumbent Lynn Martin retired to run for U.S. senator. The Republican congressional candidate was touched by scandal, and Democrat John Cox won. In 1992 that heavily Republican district ousted Cox for Don Manzullo. Incumbency is can be worth little when the district's innate party balance favors the challenger, but where the party balance is relatively even, as it was in the eastern Illinois 19th U.S. House District in 1984, then a "fluke" can keep the seat. Incumbent Republican Dan Crane was accused of having sex with a female congressional page, and he lost to Democrat Terry Bruce, who kept the seat until 1992.

Another is the "Wave Theory." If the incumbent's party controls the White House and is monumentally unpopular, a "wave" can sweep them out. It happened in 1974's Watergate election, the last huge "wave" year, when first-term Republican incumbents Sam Young and Bob Hanrahan lost.

Another is the "Single-Issue Theory." Back in 1982, Durbin attacked Downstate incumbent Paul Findley for supporting the Palestinian position on key issues, raised a ton of money from Jewish sources, and beat Findley by 1,410 votes. Durbin kept the seat until 1996.

It worked for Bean in 2004, when she successfully tagged Crane as a lazy, ineffectual seat warmer and sent mailings calling him the "junket king," complete with a Burger King-style crown. Bean turned a 57-43 percent loss in 2002 into a 52-48 percent win in 2004. When Crane finally became aware of his predicament in 2004, he unleashed a torrent of ads accusing Bean of being a liberal. That is normally a dirty word in the district, but it was too little, too late.

For 2006 Bean, age 43, whose base is in Barrington, cannot be isolated as a liberal. To be sure, she benefited from more than $900,000 in independent expenditures on her behalf in 2004, with the bulk coming from Planned Parenthood and the Democrats' congressional committee. Making Bean's pro-abortion rights stance an issue in 2006, however, does not look promising.

The 8th District takes in the western, more conservative half of Lake County (Antioch, Fox Lake, Lindenhurst, Round Lake Beach, Mundelein, Wauconda, Grayslake and Lake Zurich) and the eastern half of McHenry County (McHenry, Woodstock, Wonder Lake). It also contains half of Palatine Township in Cook County (Schaumburg, Palatine, Hoffman Estates and Barrington).

Salvi's base is in west Lake County, but he also has support in McHenry County, where his brother Tom ran for a state House seat in 2000, losing by just 1,537 votes. Salvi claimed that he won all 24 townships in the 8th District when he ran in 1996 and 1998. However, Durbin beat Salvi overall in Lake County by 582 votes, and Salvi won McHenry County by 14,411 votes. Next time, against White, Salvi lost Lake County by 5,127 votes and won McHenry County by 12,586 votes.

Another likely candidate is Dave McSweeney, an investment banker from Barrington Hills who lost the 1998 Republican primary to Crane by 34,543-18,221, getting 34.5 percent of the vote. Most of the area's state legislative Republicans are taking a pass, including state Senator Pam Althoff, thought to be the strongest Bean foe. Palatine Township Republican Committeeman Gary Skoien, who is the Cook County Republican chairman, lost to Crane in the 1994 primary, and he is not running in 2006. But Palatine Township delivers nearly 10,000 votes in a primary, and Skoien will decide who gets them; suffice it to say that it won't be Salvi, whom Skoien reportedly views as a loser. Skoien may back Walter E. Smithe III, the heir to the furniture chain, who could self-fund his campaign, or Mundelein businesswoman Teresa Bartels, who would run as a pro-choice moderate.

If Crane's 2004 vote is a guide, then the Republicans have a problem. Bean won Palatine Township with 56 percent of the vote, and she won Lake County by 855 votes. Crane carried McHenry County with just over 51 percent of the vote. The key to the 2006 election will be Cook County. To win, the Republican needs to roughly break even there and in Lake County and to and increase the winning share in McHenry County to 55 percent.

Running a fresh face like McSweeney, Bartels or Smithe has an advantage: They don't years of legislative votes or legions of enemies. But they start out with zero name recognition, and since they would run well behind Bean in the early polls, they would have a difficult time raising money. They would position themselves as generic Republicans, and they would have to run a ferociously negative anti-Bean campaign, enticing pro-Bean Republicans to return to their party. In an age when voters are increasingly independent-minded, the vote-for-me-because-I'm-a-Republican spiel has dwindling appeal.

Running a recycled face like Salvi has an advantage. He hits the ground running, he has the financing in place, he runs close in the polls, and he locks in the hard-core Republican vote (about 45 percent). He'd make Emanuel and the Democrats pour in $2 million to rough him up. And, undeniably, he has stature, gained from years as a local attorney and state representative. But he has that pesky extremist/loser image, and Bean will not be easily discredited.

My early prediction: If the economy worsens and Iraq remains unresolved, 2006 could see a Democratic mini-wave. That would help Bean. But if the Blagojevich Administration continues to become enmeshed in "ethics episodes," then the Republican statewide ticket would run well in the northwest suburbs.

Given the array of candidate choices in the 8th District, party leaders would be wise to opt for the flawed but energetic Salvi. He would whip up the party base, and get them to the polls, basically ignoring the independents and Democrats. That was the Bush strategy in 2004: Turn out the base. Turnout was 269,427 in 2004, and Bean won 139,235-130,192; turnout was a much lower 165,901 in 2002, and Crane won 95,275-70,626.

If Salvi focuses on turning out the Republican base and doesn't stir up the Bean base, that just might be enough to win.