After two decades of being represented by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, voters in Chicago’s far west suburbs are faced with an open seat. Hastert resigned from office last year  leaving Illinois’ 14th Congressional District without a representative. Now with less than a week before Illinois’ primary, voters are trying to make up their minds about who’s the best candidate to fill the gap.

There’s no denying Dennis Hastert’s popularity in the 14th District. While he saw his share of criticism, Hastert’s Republican base always turned out big-time to support him for re-election. A member of that base is Tom Saliu.

ambi: diner sound

He’s the manager of the Sunfield Restaurant Pancake House in Yorkville, out in Hastert’s back yard. Hanging on the wall next to the cash register are two pictures of Hastert, one an autographed photo, the other a sketch.

SALIU: I wish he ran for president.

Being a Republican, Saliu now has three choices in the primary: State Senator Chris Lauzen, dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, or Evanston resident Michael Dilger. Saliu says he’s still undecided but leaning toward Lauzen mostly because he thinks Oberweis has so much money that he can’t relate to the middle class.

SALIU: Obviously I don’t have money, if I had that money I wouldn’t be working, I guess.

But sitting in a nearby booth reading the Bible while waiting to meet her husband for lunch, Phyllis Mills is even more conflicted. She says she likes Oberweis and usually votes Republican. But this year’s different. This year she wants to support Senator Barack Obama in the primary.

MILLS: I like him. I like his family.

But that would mean she’d have to pull a Democratic ballot and wouldn’t be able to vote for the Republican Oberweis.

MILLS: So you see how mixed up this is? You can’t do both. Yeah, I’m going to have choices to make that are tough. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.

Democrats at the Sunfield Pancake House were few and far between. So I headed to a place I figured they were bound to show up.

BURNS: I want to personally welcome all of you to the Democratic debate for the 14th Congressional District.

That’s CBS 2’s Diann Burns, who moderated the debate in Aurora. Brothers Dan and Jeff Brooks, who seem to be of one mind, didn’t quite have the same perspective on Hastert as the folks at the pancake house.

BROOKS BROTHERS: What did you guys think of Hastert? Umm…uhhh…We try not to be disparaging. Yeah.

Before the debate the brothers said they were thinking of supporting carpenter John Laesch, who took a decent chunk of votes from Hastert when he ran in 2006. After the debate, not much had changed. The two had good things to say about the other candidates:  former Fermilab scientist Bill Foster, attorney Jotham Stein, and Geneva resident Joe Serra. But they were most impressed with Laesch. Still it’s clear which party’s ballot they’ll pull in the primary.

BROOKS BROTHERS: Oberweis would have to come up with some pretty outlandishly amazing progressive ideas here. He’d have to become Ben & Jerry’s.

Now that there isn’t a Congressman in the district, voters will pull two ballots on February 5, one for the November election and one for a special election to fill-in the remainder of Hastert’s term. That election is on March 8.

I’m Tony Arnold, Chicago Public Radio.