Call It A Comeback
Dan Hynes — Dano. As in "Book ’em Dano" for successfully staving off the Supremes.
From Marie at Disarranging Mine
Via Marie as well is a story on the Illinois State Fair which opens Friday. G-Rod is looking for a signature event such as Jim Thompson going down the slide and Edgar riding a horse.
Given he is a Chicago boy getting pummelled for living in Chicago perhaps Bull Milking would be a good signature event. Your ideas?
I swear I didn’t plant the quote in the title. Not to turn this into a sports blog, but I’m going to open this one up to the audience–so everyone who has a problem with Jerry Reinsdorf—vent away in comments. Try to not make it personal to other commenters.
A sharp reader points to what is essentially a puff piece by Steve Neal on former Blagojevich aide Doug Scofield. Puff piece isn’t pejorative to Scofield, but to the columns in which Neal writes uncritically of people he likes. While I don’t have the intense hatred of Neal that many do, this is essentially a lazy column. He is best when he is analyzing and not doing profiles.
The reader adds,
Scofield left as deputy governor largely because of the disorganization in Blago’s office. The failure to organize, hire adequate staff, and run a smooth operation meant that Scofield (one of the brightest of the bright) was left to work long hours and carry many burdens. This was not why he and his wife left DC (where he served Gutierrez immensley well). According to Scofield, not much has changed since he left.
As the Clinton Parallels continue, it appears that Team Blagojevich runs by the seat of its pants. This shouldn’t be shocking, but it certainly is similar to Clinton’s first couple years in office where the White House was chaotic and angered allies on a daily basis. All of the political stuff matters, but what new and especially younger executive officers tend to miss is that not only is the Governor a political operator, he is a manager of a huge bureaucracy. Without effective strategies to manage information and people things will quickly spin out of control.
Catholic Citizens condemn Durbin and Hartkin’s "anti-Catholic bigotry"
That’d be Harkin to those trying to refer to Iowa’s Senator. Or Hartke if referring to the recently passed away Senator from Indiana.
On the substance–LOL–arguing that criticizing one’s judicial philosophy is Anti-Catholic is a bit problematic if Catholics, or any faith, want to claim they’re political positions can be separated from the church they follow.
I tend to use nicknames that I think capture certain pols…
G-Rod–shamelessly stolen from the Capitol Fax, captures the Hot Rod nature of the Governor
G-Ry George Ryan
J-Ry Jim Ryan
Why? During the campaign last year, Jim Ryan kept trying to get newspapers to differentiate between the two of them so he wouldn’t be tarred with George’s scandals. Ultimately, it was an excuse for what was one of the worst run campaigns in Illinois history–I would argue worse than Dawn Clark Netsch’s given that Jim Ryan actually was in the race at soem time. Probably not worse than Chris Lauzen’s Comptroller race, but Lauzen started out with less to work with–namely Chris Lauzen. Anyway, Jim Ryan was trying to get referred to as JRyan–I thought this was awfully diva like and thought something like J-Lo was more appropriate.
Da Speaker–big heavyweight Speaker of the Illinois House from the south side–very thin in reality and if not much of a kidder or talker–adds to the ironic nature of the nickname.
Four Tops–Traditional name of the four legislative leaders of the Illinois Lege–have an incredible amount of control over campaign cash minus some minor reforms in the Republican Caucuses this last time.
Well, not quite that bad–G-Ry had several more problems than the current Governor, but this Governor has effectively figured out how to use pork to reward political allies. Today, Rich Miller of the Capitol Fax released a list of pork projects that the Governor has quietly approved.
I believe most, if not all, of the projects are under the Member Initiative program where the Legislative Leaders (AKA The Four Tops) dole out favors to Lege Members from a fund. These funds were stopped initially by Blagojevich in a public gesture to show he was stopping pork, and The Way Business Is Done In Springfield (TM). He has quietly released nearly $200 million (keep that figure in mind for the next story).
But most importantly to understanding what is going on is that Blagojevich is rewarding those who helped him and punishing those who fought him. From Rich Miller’s story,
The list of projects is dominated by House Republicans, a legislative caucus that worked closely with the Democratic governor all year. The House GOPs scored about 200 releases, worth tens of millions of dollars. The Senate Dems were a fairly close second on the totem pole, followed by the House Democrats.
Who did the worst then? The Senate Republicans with even new Four Top member Frank Watson not getting money for a hospital in his district according to Miller. Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) does real well though and he has been peeled off of party line votes by the Governor for a couple votes including the pension bond plan.
My speculation is that the House Dems are the so tightly run by Speaker Madigan that less pork is needed to grease the wheels in House Democratic Caucus and hence Blagojevich did not bother to release as many projects for them. Senate Democrats are not as tightly controlled by Senate President Emil Jones so they needed a little more grease.
On the other hand, Senators Watson and Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin) are the key Senate Republicans trying to obstruct nearly everything in the budget. Their strategy is closely allied with the Illinois Center-Right Coalition which has been influenced heavily by Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform group (Note: fellow Illinois Political State Report contributor Jeff Trigg is affiliated with the Center-Right Coalition). The strategy is to not give an inch to Democrats and instead turn the political debate in Illinois to one of strong opposition instead of going along to get along.
And if successful, the Center-Right Coalition will change the shape of Illinois politics. While it is an open question as to whether they will win electorally, such a change would dramatically alter the political landscape from one of bipartisan pork-barrel politics to one of ideological diviseness. Blagojevich’s strategy is to reward those who want to go along, and punish those who won’t and keep the bipartisan coalition together. The problem is that his Permanent Campaign tactics alienate many who he needs most.
What will make this especially interesting is if an insurgent group of House Republicans begin to make trouble for House Minority Leader Tom Cross. Cross is a moderate ally of US House Speaker Denny Hastert, but has been far too conciliatory with Democrats and the Governor in particular for movement conservatives.
Ultimately, in systems with decentralized parties, pork gets things done. One can complain about the degree of pork and in this case it is a problem, but without pork, a political system with separate branches for the executive and legislative functions and especially bicameral legislatures needs pork to create stable coalitions. In that sense it makes sense to rail against pork to score political points during elections and then turn around and play the game. Electoral sense or not, it is awfully hypocritical for a Governor who claims to be changing The Way Business Is Done In Springfield (TM).
UP DATE: Greg Blankenship disagrees with my characterization of the Illinois Center Right Coalition because,
What is interesting is that ArchPundit seems to believe that Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform are somehow behind the Illinois Center Right Coalition — and more incredibly is allied with State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger:
I’ll stick by what I said for two reasons. Rauschenberger is allied with the Illinois Center Right Coalition–though through the vagaries of the sentence I’m not sure Watson is. Rauschenberger was the point man on the just say no to Blagojevich effort. Secondly, I said that ICR was heavily influenced by Norquist. Greg disagrees, but this seems strange since much of the idea is to make Illinois politics combative is identical to what Norquist has been preaching about how Republicans can turn the fight nasty and make gains from such fights instead of operating in bipartisan fashion. To say the ICR isn’t heavily influenced by that strategy is a bit hard to believe. The specifics might be different, but the strategy is very similar.
Marie at Disarranging Mine lists the Meetups for Illinois US Senate Candidates
A bit more about Bruce Rauner to fill in the gaps,
Bruce Rauner is, indeed, little-know in the general population, but he is very, very well know in the civic leadership, among the lakefront and north-shore voters, and carries a very big stick. He is a hugely wealthy venture capitalist, and his firm GTCR Golder Rauner is one of the power-house firms in a city with many power-house vc firms (GTCR just bout the American Stock Exchange). Rauner is fiercely smart (as is his equally respected wife, Diana Medley Rauner), and wouldn’t be snookered by anyone, least of all Daley. Rauner is very philanthropic, a centerist independent (he is close to both Jack Ryan and Andy McKenna), and when or if he wants to run for office, he will have immense advantages: his base will be the downtown business leaders, the lakefront and the north shore. From there he can use his money to build name recognition and a political operation. He also has one more advantage: his late business partner and mentor, Stan Golder, was beloved in the jewish community. Stan and his widow, Joan, treated Rauner almost like one of their children. The Chicago/north shore jewish vote will not forget this.
Obviously, anyone thinking of running for office after Hull is going to figure out the Daley game. And even in that, Hull’s contributions to Daley weren’t all in vain–Hull was able to play off what seemed like early Daley backing and use that to open even more doors. He has just had to change the strategy a bit.
Novak’s column today is a peach
Element 1:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tried but failed to get a House Democrat to accompany him on his mission to Israel. Democrats did not risk the wrath of their party’s leadership.
The only reason no Congressional Democrat would go is because of the Dem Leadership–not that
A) Tom DeLay is a nut job
B) Tom DeLay is trying to throw out conservative Democrats so helping him would be assisted suicide
C) Tom DeLay is particularly a nut job when it comes to Israeli policy
But, no it is because of House Leadership
Element 2:
Apparently, Rumsfeld’s assistant Steven Herbits is gay. Why does this matter? I think we know, but it isn’t mentioned as relevant to anything else in the bit. Nice.
Element 3:
Dick Kempthorne is too liberal for conservatives for Bush to name him EPA Chief. He apparently raised taxes as Governor. Why this is relevant is anyone’s guess, but what the hell.
ArchPundit