March 2005

Weigand Running Oberweis’ Campaign

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 5 Comments

The interesting bit here is that Family Taxpayer Network founder and money guy Jack Roeser seemed to be leaning towards Rauschenberger early on–which was news at the time since Roeser was a supporter of Patrick O’Malley in 2002. In an article he referred to the smart money being on Rauschenberger I believe.

While Weigand joining up with Oberweis doesn’t necessarily mean Roeser is going with him, it’s an interesting tea leave to read. The Leader tracks down other personnel moves in the GOP Governor’s race.

The move by Oberweis to separate himself from Rauschenberger would be to run hard on vouchers, which Rauschenberger has strongly opposed in the past, but Roeser is a strong supporter.

Much of Rauschenberger’s role in attracting Alan Keyes to Illinois appears to have been done in consultation with Roeser, in an apparent bid to secure support for a run for Governor.

And Dan Curry has made appearances in comments on behalf of Joe Birkett.

Hynes’ Future

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 0 Comment

Rich Miller covered Dan Hynes’ future a couple weeks ago in a good column.

While it might not seem like it to some of his campaign workers from the Senate primary, I really like Dan Hynes. He’s smart, honest by all accounts, and has been a strong steward of the state finances through two guys who always were looking for the easy way out.

What was baffling about about the Senate Primary campaign was why he ran without a reason. I’m sure he had strong reasons to run, but he certainly didn’t communicate them very well. His commercials with his wife were awful. Both are telegenic, but they had no chemistry together and I didn’t even realize it was his wife on first viewing even though I had seen pictures of her before. Most strange about this is that they are very close and apparently adore each other, but somehow in the handling, it all got lost.

With the primary loss the biggest problem is now where to go. There simply aren’t open slots. The Senate seats are filled for years. The Governor’s race in 2010 is going to feature Lisa Madigan at least and while they’d be evenly matched, who wants to take a chance on that sort of bruising race. Congress would be somewhat of a step down for him from being a statewide office holder. He could move up to Secretary of State when Jesse retires or AG, but that is an awful long wait for a guy who was nicknamed Governor in waiting.

The Problem of Amtrak

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 0 Comment

Steve Chapman makes a pretty reasonable case as to why Amtrak should be defunded, but the reality of single member districts with Amtrak stations is that isn’t going to happen. The larger problems with Amtrak primarily have to do with the long range routes that are enjoyable from what I hear, but economically disastrous to the agency. Shorter runs such as the Chicago-St. Louis run aren’t profitable, but the subsidy is of the type that the states and federal government aren’t put too far out to continue the service. Where the economic problem comes in is on long run routes such as routes that cross the country.

Amtrak isn’t going away because Members of Congress have lots of constituents who like it, so instead of getting rid of its funding, forcing the agency to restructure into shorter routes and perhaps providing infrastructure money to make it faster and more attractive is far more likely to produce an agency that isn’t going to be self-sufficient, but will provide regional transportation.

First Rule When You Find Yourself in a Hole

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 0 Comment

Stop Digging.

Ponder this: Next year, the Bush administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which gets more than 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a business owner purchasing a Hummer, which gets 10 to 12 m.p.g. That’s truly crazy, and that’s truly what the whole Cheney energy policy is.

We don’t even have a fight over how to best conserve energy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we have a fight over how much to continue subsidizing wasteful energy practices and maintaining our dependence on foreign oil.

Via Eric.

G-Rod and the Foundation Formula

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 0 Comment

The Governor wants to increase the amount going into the foundation formula through gambling expansion (of course, it’s really not an expansion in his world, but whatever)–the real problem isn’t putting more money into the foundation, but reformulating it to better provide minimum levels of support for poorer inner ring suburbs and rural areas. Increasing the Foundation by $300 million doesn’t solve the root problem and while nice, it’s akin to rearranging the deck chairs.

Increasing funding isn’t the most important part of the Illinois problem, but redistributing the formula in a way to help the Districts with the most needs (while forcing reforms like consolidation) is the key. The state needs to keep pace with inflation for funding overall, but the bigger problem is the disparity between wealthy and poor districts.

Hastert’s Conundrum

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 0 Comment

It seems the moderates in the House are reasserting themselves just as Tom DeLay is having ethical problems surface on several fronts.

The key to Democrats being an effective opposition party is to take issues that divide Republicans and make sure as many of them as Dems can muster show up on the President’s desk. Stem cell research is one of the better issues to use since it divides Pro-Life constituencies, business interests, and more moderate Republicans. Close votes in the House also mean that Hastert has to give in to moderates from time to time and that’s when Democrats can plop issues up on the Bush’s desk.

Crock of Crap

ArchPundit March 31, 2005 4 Comments

Byrd’s by far less than my favorite Senator. He’s a gasbag and he has a horrible record on the environment and acted as a chief impediment to the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. His record on gay rights is bad to say the least. That he is now a liberal hero cracks me up since it was exactly because he wasn’t liberal that George Mitchell challenged him and beat him.

But let’s be clear, he has a past in the KKK that he has long ago renounced, unlike Strom Thurmond who never renounced his racist positions. Or unlike the current jackass who is the Governor of Mississippi, Robert Byrd isn’t raising funds for segregationist academies. Instead, he got a 100 % rating from the NAACP in 2003-4.

Part of the civil rights story is that we all needed to change and everyone should be given that chance. Overall, Byrd, besides the white n***** episode, has a strong record on civil rights issues and at least understands how wrong he was.

Suggesting that Barack Obama misstepped in this case shows a significant ignorance of the tradition of forgiveness in the black community and how those left of center in the Democratic Party have dealt with racism since the 1960s. The black community has forgiven many segregationists, and much of the reason for this is faith on which the civil rights movement was based. Deep within African-American faith is an understanding of forgiveness and reconciliation–something many white churches could use.

But beyond that the Democratic Party has largely accepted those who changed their views. Fritz Hollings ran as a segregationist in one race and changed. Those who didn’t change their views….left.

When he utters something studid, it’s fine to attack Byrd, but those who think that Barack is hurting himself by helping out Byrd demonstrate how clueless they are about African-American voters. But in many such cases, we already knew that from the Alan Keyes debacle didn’t we?

Remember when Illinois Republicans got a reasonable share of the Republican vote? Edgar had an outreach to the African-American community that did a reasonably good job. Here’s a hint, instead of ranting about 50 years ago, try going into African-American communities and talk about their concerns today.

GOP Cattle Call Open Comments

ArchPundit March 30, 2005 2 Comments

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s late. I was travelling for Easter and everything was FUBAR.

So add your comments below. More posting later.

Reclaim democracy one pint at a time

ArchPundit March 30, 2005 0 Comment

eclaim democracy one pint at a time,
as we speak up, stand up, and lift up our glasses
at our weekly Democratic drinking club.

Drinking Liberally Chicago
Promoting democracy one pint at a time

Each and Every Wednesday Night @ 8:30 pm
The Red Lion, 2446 N. Lincoln
Just around the corner from the Fullerton L Stop
FIRST FLOOR, BACK OF THE BAR

Come join fellow progressives and find out what
Newsweek, Atrios, and 50+ other DL Clubs across the country
Have all been talking about!

All you need to do is show up and drink!

www.drinkingliberally.org

Also…

?Great conversation at the first 2020 Chicago/Reading Liberally book
club,
So good that we went ahead and planned another meeting:

?Sunday, April 10th
4:00pm at the Red Lion
2446 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago
FIRST FLOOR, BACK OF THE BAR

More than enough time to get through our next book.
Which happens to be one of the best political works of the past
year..

The insightful, funny, and very well-written (by a Chicagoan):
What’s the Matter With Kansas? By Thomas Frank (320 pages, big
type, small pages)

So pick up a copy today and join us at the Red Lion April 10th!

?Your RSVP is kindly requested. Reply to: Katheryn Hayes at
co1525@yahoo.com.

?Til then,

?2020 Chicago and Reading Liberally