What the hell happened to Illinois Republicans?
If it isn’t entirely clear by now, if I lived in Illinois I wouldn’t vote for Rod Blagojevich or Rich Whitney. And I wouldn’t be entirely happy about my vote for Governor. That said, sweet Jesus this is one of the worst campaign cycles I’ve ever observed. The incumbent doesn’t have just one investigation such as Operation Safe Roads circling around him, but many. One was originally run by Lisa Madigan which she handed over to the feds.
It’s a sign of very bad things to come for the idiot, and yes that’s the term even though I find her personally humorous, since she can’t even make hay out of it.
JBT is one of the last Republicans I can imagine supporting. After her I expect a series of right wing loons running because they are offended by THE GAY!, just as her primary primary opponent attempted and then when that wasn’t enough, discovered THE BROWN GUY.
That said, no one should vote for her. They shouldn’t vote for her opponents either. Whitney should be an attractive opponent on the left that allows one to hold to their principles while sending the mainstream candidate down to defeat. Instead, he decided John Kass and the spotted owl were more important.
Rod, well, shit. He’s lying his fucking ass off. It’s really an admirable attempt. He lies better than most. Clinton lied better, but about smaller things. Okay, that’s assuming a lot about both of their personal business that I don’t care to think about.
The sad public reality is that Rod’s scandal, as of now, isn’t much worse than the Edgar MSI scandal. Seriously, look it up. The average Joe Public is probably responding to a deep seated cynicysm that says most Illinois pols have friends they can’t trust. It’s not a bad interpretation since it’s generally true. The problem is that the scandal isn’t in isolation.
With at lesat several other investigations ongoing, the relative problem for Rod is far greater, but voters have other things to which to pay attention and Rod is probably going to be reelected even though Whitney will probably have one of the best showings for an independent candidate.
October 25th, 2006 at
As an Illinois Republican I guess the shortest answer is that the entrenched Republican leadership serves its interests at the expense of the underling voters. JBT was the “next-in-line” so the leadership pushed her. The entrenched Republicans get a few bones thrown their way by the Dems (see the cross-party people involved with the TRS scandal, kick-back schemes and the cross-party nominations and business deals Rod has made) so they run “Democrat-lite” candidates. When the voters as a whole have the choice of Dem v. Dem-lite why not go whole hog and vote Dem?
JBT just may lose this race by 4 points, which is close enough that I will have to vote for her, in the hopes of a miracle (I’ll be wearing a gas-mask as I do). Remarkable considering the circumstances.
October 25th, 2006 at
I Blame Blago
It’s not too early for precriminations and I am ready to blame Blago for a bad (for Democrats) outcome in the 6th.
I’m afraid that many Dems who aren’t thrilled with Tammy will look at the sorry candidates in the Gov and Treas races and decide not to bother with the effort of going to the polls just to cast votes for the lesser of two evils.
I just hope that, even if they aren’t happy with the way that Tammy got the nod, they realize that she is the much much MUCH lesser of two evils.
And I certainly will blame Blago for the damage he is doing to the Democratic State House candidates in DuPage Co.
Dammit, I’m really starting to hate that guy.
October 25th, 2006 at
Go back to the Ryan election. No, not George, Jim. A split that has never been made up formed between the cheery, pro-business, but we can all work together folk like Edgar (and Topinka for that matter) wing and the anti-abortion, anti-illegal (though how anyone knows which is which by looking) immigrant, anti-gay rights wing of the GOP.
This is a party that cannot annunciate a common dream because, due to the fervent views of the right wing folk, there can be no compromise that can connect the two wings with a torso of some sort.
Additionally, the right-wing has a demographic problem in IL. The Alan Keyes campaign (which provided some grim degree of amusement if nothing else), showed where the support for the most extreme right-wingedness is in IL. It’s in the south tip of IL. That’s a region that’s losing people, even as the rest of the state gains people or at least doesn’t lose people as quickly.
November 4th, 2006 at
Actually cermak_rd, if you go to http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/IL/S/01/map.html , you can see that most of Keyes’ support came from eastern Illinois counties, and not southern Illinois. The very few counties that went for Keyes include towns such as Effingham, Wateska, and Mount Carmel(which of course, lol, doesn’t say much, if the biggest town is likely Effingham). Notably, its mainly counties and towns surrounded within I-70(south of there), the IL/IN state line, north of I-64, and east of I-57!
In southern Illinois, Keyes only carried ONE county at all(Massac, where Metropolis is, just northwest of Paducah, KY). I know you probably won’t read this, but I just thought I’d point that out, since after I saw this in early 2005 after Obama’s Senatorial election, I now think eastern Illinois has to be more conservative than southern Illinois is.