Call It A Comeback
The Wall Street Journal is a new advertiser offering up a cheap monthly rate for just political commentary. Not a bad deal, and I’m thinking about it—-even though I’m not a fan of the Journal’s opinion pages there is plenty of right wing material to have fun with 😉
Jack Ryan is acting an awful like a candidate.
Let’s run it down:
1) Sun-Times interview
I don’t feel I’m through with politics
2) 20/20
In a bizarre bit he said: . “I was told by almost everyone I spoke to this is a two-day story, this is not a crusher for a campaign,” he said. “The biggest reaction I got was, ‘Is that all there is?’ ”
Ummm…well, that was only your end of the files, not your ex-wife’s story in the files. Remember that little bit you left out with Governor Edgar?
Ten-second sound bites and six-word headlines do not reflect the love and commitment Jack has shown to our family and especially his son. Jack’s commitment to being a great parent is beyond reproach. Anyone who casts doubts on his devotion to his son is simply out of touch.
The thing is, if this is true and he really thought the file should be sealed on legal grounds, why didn’t he:
a) appeal (politically disastrous)
b) not figure this out in March when the accusations were released by McCulloch and figure out that there was a file out there
But the interesting section is this:
Senator Fitzgerald demonstrated integrity and respect for Jack, our democracy and the political process during this difficult period. He and individuals like him represent what is good and hopeful in our democracy.
Almost like a clarion call to defy the press and the party leaders.
4) Good Morning America appearance
5) Scarborough Country were he insists the ruling was out of the ordinary and unprecedented–it wasn’t.
RYAN: Well, I think it?s worthwhile looking into someone if they?ve broken a serious promise to their spouse or to someone they owe a duty to. That I think is a character issue for running for the U.S. Senate or for the presidency but the things that they?re alleging about me don?t rise to that level. So, I think it?s fair to go to those issues if they are a serious break of a promise but otherwise no.
What about to a Party Leader or a former Governor or the public or the…..
6) Hannity radio and Hannity and the useful idiot tv
7) It’s all being breathlessly reported by the Illinois Leader which has a publisher who happens to still be on the Jack! payroll.
After all of this there is no doubt this guy is going to run for something, but is he crazy enough to continue this run? One has to wonder if he isn’t trying a Perot like draft movement.
IS HE FRIGGEN NUTS? If he really thinks he can run and even do well after the fiasco he has created he is crazy. He’ll have to stay out of sight of the media more than Peter did in 1998 and Barack is no Carol Moseley Braun. The media will be ruthless or, if he is lucky, simply ignore him. He’ll have to self-fund, freeing up Barack to raise more from individuals and if he goes high enough, receive party money–though he won’t really need it.
The press will be merciless and if he thinks it was bad before, wait until he had a full frontal assault from the GOP and I don’t just mean Kjellander and Topinka. I mean the Dillards, the Syversons, the Cross’, the Watson’s who are all in danger of losing Lege seats. It’ll be a Congressional disaster that probably brings down Crane and Weller and may even make others vulnerable with low turnout.
He won’t be running against Barack Obama, he’ll be running against the Illinois GOP, and they’ll win.
And to add in a bit of bizarreness, there is still, in all likelihood, an unredacted file out there with at least 6 paragraphs that will be nasty. No Democrat will ever touch it–it will be a murder suicide by the GOP.
Now, that is a good line. Catchy and it’ll stick when the guy says things like this:
Crane dismisses the criticism, saying he’s been back in the district 24 of the 26 weekends this year. “I don’t understand it. They’re not in my district. Our offices are available constantly.”
The passive voice in discussing constituent service is one of the true danger signs of an incumbent–actually, now that I think about it, that might be an interesting thing to test using some of the new content analysis software.
Skoien piled on:
“First of all, I think Phil will be fine,” said Skoien, who unsuccessfully challenged Crane in 1992 and 1994. “But having said that, he does need to spend a little more time in the district. He does need to get back with some voters. He’s been doing his job in Washington and he needs to pay a little attention.”
What job is that in Washington? Talking about the Old Goldwater days? Railing against whole language instruction making claims that are 30 years out of date? Or remembing Petey Fitzgerald when he was 8 and Crane was starting in Congress?
Bean has raised around $500,000. Crane has only $500,000 on hand–a small sum for an incumbent. It’s really bizarre to only have slightly more on hand….
So let’s thin the herd in this one and go donate at the upper left to Melissa Bean!
Feel free to let me know. This is just stupid. The guy isn’t going to take enough votes in Illinois–and even if he were, fight his ideas because frankly the only one he has going right now is that that he is being persecuted. Take that away and he is a whiny petulant child. Let him rant.
And for those that have time, feel free to help Jeff out on this one–he’s asking for help.
The Republicans may have a bigger problem than they think, Steve Rauschenberger, in my estimation the strongest guy to save the downballot races, isn’t stupid and he wants a firm money committment before agreeing to be the nominee (not that it was offered yet).
We’ve been through this dance before when one of many reasons Jim Edgar passed on the race last summer was supposedly a lack of party funds being committed to the race as a guarantee.
Mary Schmich is doing an indepth series of columns on Cabrini Green. Not the giant failure of public housing, but the neighborhood and what it was and is. The first three installments of the current series is amazing.
I spend a fair amount of time analyzing issues of poverty in my professional life and that takes me into neighborhoods as a visitor that most white people simply don’t go. I often forget as I drive somewhere and my passengers start gripping the car door and locking their doors attempting to be innocuous. And certainly there is reason to be cautious in a neighborhood you don’t know, but the overwhelming experience I have in those troubled neighborhoods is one of hope and a sense of amazement at what residents accomplish. That isn’t to take away from the very real challenges that exist, but Schmich’s first three columns really speak to that feeling in a way that is hard to explain.
Maybe if they chose Jerry 1 we could get a really high sloping gallery to the General Assembly chambers.
OneMan continues great coverage of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board scandal, so go see him on the subject, but what the hell is the Governor doing insisting on the power to replace the members when he appointed them all? And exactly how is the second round supposed to be better than the first round?
The Rock n Roll McDonalds is closing and all I’m asking is for the love of God to make sure the replacement’s bathroom doesn’t resemble and overturned outhouse.
ArchPundit