Who’s On First….
ArchPundit
The Capitol Fax has a hysterical bit on the budget fiasco and the coalitions between the four Lege factions.
July 2004
Keeping Your Friends Close
The Obama camp is also raising money for the Democratic Party of Illinois, but they do not trust Madigan to run a coordinated campaign that will be tailored to help Obama rather than the state House members Madigan needs to keep his majority. That’s why Obama’s camp is preparing a backup plan for field and get-out-the-vote work normally the task of a coordinated campaign with a different funding stream.
Zorn Bets on Rauschenberger
For all of the right reasons, but one to add is that Rauschenberger will work hard with Lege members in tough races and make sure the downballot races do okay in what could still be a disaster of a year for the Republicans for Lege races.
E-Mail Updates?
I’ve had a suggestion to do an e-mail update for interested folks. Is there interest out there? This is probably more for less than daily readers, but let me know if you would like that feature and how often you would like to get it–I’m tenatively thinking about a daily deal that highlights the posts.
Election Forecasting is Fun, but….
The models are predicting a rather substantial Bush win. While accurate in many past elections, they blew the 2000 election–why? My argument is that all elections before 2000 were fundamentally different focussing on the economic cleavages and not the dominant cleavage we see now–social issues.
More to the point, the models are essentially fun toys for most political scientists. Many of the better known also do the same thing with the baseball rankings every year. One particular political scientist was not spoken to for several months after he used most of the department’s computer time (back in the mainframe day) to calculate his predictions.
Hospital Scandal
Is covered over at OneMan–check it out, good coverage of the story and the various political aspects.
Why Drudge is Useful
He has a great link to an archeological site that has been protected by the owner for years.
There aren’t many private land owners protective enough of such treasurers to do the following:
Although the University of Utah hired a seasonal caretaker and students from three Utah schools are working the sites this summer, Wilcox worries about possible looting, especially at odd times of the year when nobody may be watching the ranch. He said he gave it up on a promise of protection from the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, which transferred the ranch to public ownership.
The promise barely assured Wilcox, but he knew one thing: “I’m getting old and couldn’t take care of it.” He said he asked $4 million for the ranch, but settled for $2.5 million, moved to Green River, Utah, and retired.
Over the years, Wilcox occasionally welcomed archaeologists to inspect part of the canyon, “but we’d watch ’em.” When one Kent State researcher used a pick ax to take a pigment sample from a pictograph, Wilcox “took the pick from him and took him out of the gate.”