2004

Hull On Earth

ArchPundit March 4, 2004 1 Comment

Poor guy, the name is just too much fun to play with. Anyway, going back to the Capitol Fax, Hull is reported to be dropping an $8 million media buy. That is $8,000,000.

HULL STUFF Blair Hull’s campaign is likely going up this weekend with a huge barrage of TV ads, according to insiders. Hull has reportedly committed to spending as much as $8 million between now and the end of the campaign, several inside sources said.

So far, Hull has been unable to convince his ex-wife to appear in a TV ad to defend him against allegations she, herself, made against him about domestic abuse. Hull and his aides have tried repeatedly to make the case, but the deal has not yet been sealed. Hull’s children appear in a new newspaper ad, however.

She’d have to get on TV soon because if she does it later, it’ll just drag it out. Over the weekend would probably minimize the overall damage and let him get back on message. Most of this will blow over by the end of the weekend, but it is taking valuable time and momentum from him now.

But don’t underestimate what $8 million can do to a campaign.

Hynes Internals

ArchPundit March 4, 2004 3 Comments

Rich Miller reports that the Hynes Campaign has internals showing a three way dead heat. Take it for what you will–internals are always suspect, but it is believable given the movement of the last few days.

More importantly, is Hynes is showing good judgment again in state finances.

From Miller’s synopsis of the situation

THE NEW WAY The Sun-Times broke an excellent story yesterday about how the governor is about to award a multi-million dollar contract to Accenture, which is headquartered in Bermuda. During his budget address, Blagojevich attacked companies that avoided taxes by incorporating offshore.

Comptroller Dan Hynes has been pushing a bill to stop the state from awarding contracts to offshore-based corporations, but the governor’s CMS director, who once worked for Accenture, tried to alter the bill to give the governor discretion in awarding contracts, according to the Sun-Times. One of the governor’s top campaign aides from 2002 also lobbies for the firm.

Hynes has been an excellent fiscal watch dog with both George Ryan and now Blagojevich. It is a low key, good government issue, but it is important. The problem is you can’t really attack the sitting Democratic Governor for fiscal irresponsibility when you are running for the Democratic Senate Nomination.

Sun Times Story

Tin Ear

ArchPundit March 2, 2004 1 Comment

Despite hopes by Hull’s Campaign that the controversy would die, Illinois NOW is demanding Hull stake out a strong position against Domestic Violence.

“We still haven’t gotten the kind of emphatic rejection of domestic violence . . . that we’ve been looking for from him,” Chicago NOW President Jennifer Koehler said. “We waited three days and still don’t have answers, so we decided to step it up a little bit.”

In response, Hull has said he has already made his position clear,

Speaking to reporters in Springfield, Hull said he does take domestic violence seriously and thought he had answered all of NOW’s concerns several months ago as part of a questionnaire the group gave all candidates.

What Hull is missing is that the response they want is for him to highlight any stands he has in relation to Domestic Violence. Regardless of whether he has answered questions previously, the expectation is that he essentially takes a day and addresses how he would support victims and punish perps.

The problem is that this is going to take him off message longer than just doing it. Campaigns hate these problems because they want to stay on issue, but what they miss is that if they don’t address them immediately, they’ll be off message anyway. Evidence? Look at the article and the only real mention of of drug prices is in the first paragraph that is essentially saying he can’t talk about his message because of the domestic violence issue:

U.S. Democratic Senate candidate Blair Hull on Monday traveled the state promoting his fourth trip to Canada to buy low-cost prescription drugs for seniors, but he found himself once again on the defensive, battling questions surrounding his 1998 divorce in which his ex-wife accused him of violent behavior.

Right now, the Hull Campaign is a case study in how not to deal with problems that creep up in the campaign. They shouldn’t be defensive, they should take the offense, highlight his positions on domestic violence for a day, write a letter expressing his support for NOW’s domestic violence initiatives and move on to the issues they want to highlight for the for primary.

Why Would Someone Criticize the DLC and then Link to PPI

ArchPundit March 1, 2004 3 Comments

Over at Polis, I’m out of the loop on the controversy, but apparently another weblogger criticized Obama for being listed as an up and comer by the Democratic Leadership Conference. Strangely, the other blogger (Howtown on the Make) links to the Progressive Policy Institute which is the think tank arm of the DLC. There appears to be some inconsistency there to say the least.

The critical thing to understand about the DLC’s identification of Obama is that it means the DLC saw a lot in Obama, not the other way around. I favor several issues that the DLC does such as free trade and an interventionist foreign policy–though I differ on Iraq in many ways so I’m not sure why it has become some scandal that they think Obama is bright and has a future. I’ll say more about the Trib endorsement later, but they pointed out that Obama does think revenues and expenditures should match up–a radical suggestion in Shrub’s Washington right now–and this sort of fiscal responsibility is quite in line with the DLC.

Oberweis Over the Top

ArchPundit March 1, 2004 No Comments

I haven’t been treated to any of the Oberweis commercials in St. Louis and I’m disappointed after seeing This Big (on the right side of the page).

Polis has the definitive take on it:

Those Oberweis copter commercials may be the funniest thing on tv these days (save Arrested Development). Forget the fact that his numbers are said to be way off, just having him spout off that anti-immigrant rhetoric over the noise of copter blades is high comedy. The only thing that would improve on this would be if he was flying over the Mexican border with a rifle picking off crossing illegals. “Even if I stay up here and shoot all day, I can’t make a dent out of the thousands who are stealing YOUR jobs!”

I am really mad that someone else won the Ice Cream for Life though.

Assignment Desk: An enterprising reporter should double check whether Oberweis has hired any illegals in the past.