May 2005

The Next Spitzer?

ArchPundit May 9, 2005 1 Comment

Rich Miller’s weekly column has some fascinating info.

I had low expectations for Lisa Madigan going in, and she has surpassed every expectation I would have had if I had high expectations when she was elected.

It appears that she’s on the radar of the US Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove because they fear her as the next Eliot Spitzer.

The U.S. Chamber and other national business groups have a different take, however. They see Lisa Madigan as the next Eliot Spitzer, New York’s fiery and highly successful attorney general who is the odds-on favorite to become that state’s next governor. The business types don’t want Attorney General Madigan stepping into Spitzer’s national leadership role, so they’ve committed to spend millions to defeat her.

Bigtime money attracts bigtime attention. Cue Karl Rove.

Word from on high is that Rove is working on a strategy for the Illinois attorney general’s race that would theoretically benefit all the state’s Republican candidates. Some gubernatorial candidates have been asked to go on the attack against Madigan, but there haven’t been any eager takers to date.

From the newest Quinnipiac Poll

Spitzer has a 57 – 17 percent approval rating.

Even better

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the likely Democratic candidate for Governor next year, leads Pataki 53 – 32 percent, compared to 54 – 30 percent February 10.

Spitzer buries possible Republican candidate William Weld 60 – 16 percent.

And Rove is thinking of bringing Cheney in to campaign against her?

Please, please do. Cheney’s numbers hover around 40% approval nationwide and that tanks further in a blue state such as Illinois. While Rove has had remarkable success in Republican leaning states, he hasn’t had anything like that success in blue states and in fact, his pet project of a major reallignment in terms of a large Republican majority hasn’t come true and doesn’t appear to be changing–largely because the underlying demographics aren’t nearly as favorable as they were in Texas.

The stupidity of the entire idea is that the US Chamber can bury a candidate with a strong reputation–the reality is that when they attacked Spitzer, his stature grew. Lisa should send them some flowers.

Besides not having a candidate, the Republicans are trying to run the wrong campaign in the wrong state.

I Get Letters

ArchPundit May 9, 2005 1 Comment

Charles Taylor writes in:

I couldn’t help reading your story about the bailiff who was confused with the Dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor. My interest in your story was two fold. First, the hell that he went through to prove he wasn’t the Dictator and second, the hell he is still going through to make people believe him.
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TransUnion is the company that placed the warning and all the information making the connection. In a very brief conversation with Charles Taylor the Bailiff…… TransUnion claims they are required by the Treasury Department to use special software on all Credit Applications. This software was created ( at great expense to the taxpayers ) to catch all suspected terrorists and former Dictators. TransUnion feels they have no liability to the victims if the Treasury Department tells them to do it.
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About this point THE TELEPHONE conversation comes to the end. At this point they start to forget everything they already told you ( didn’t hear this from me..understand ) and then they hang up. As of todays date there has been no resolution to this problem and I guess the $2,000,000 reward is still good.
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I know this because I’m The Charles Taylor, Bailiff for the 3rd Judicial Circuit, Edwardsville, Illinois.
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Charles Taylor
Bailiff and Great American

Kafkaesque at best. It doesn’t make much sense to have a list which no one believes is making us most secure and hassles everyday Americans.

After 10 Years, A House Historian

ArchPundit May 9, 2005 2 Comments

Looks like Denny did something right. From the National Coalition for History

On 28 April 2005, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) filled the decade vacant post of “Historian of the House of Representatives” and announced the appointment of University of Illinois at Chicago historian Robert V.
Remini to serve in that position. In making the announcement, Hastert stated that Professor Remini’s “commitment to documenting the American experience will serve our great institution and the American people well.”

Remini holds positions as Professor of History Emeritus and a Professor of Research Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and serves as University Historian. He is also the Distinguished Visiting Scholar in American History at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, where, since 1999, he has been working on his Congressionally ordered (P.L.
106-99) tome — a history of the House of Representatives. Remini is currently revising and polishing his 600-page draft that is expected to be published in the spring of 2006.

The appointment did not come as a surprise to many Hill insiders. As reported in the NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE some months back (see “After Nearly a Decade, House to Fill Historian Position” in NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE, Vol 10, #6; 13 February 2004), for years the Clerk of the House, Jeff Trandahl, has been building a professionally staffed History and Preservation Office to meet the needs of House members. He wanted to fill the vacant position through a nationwide search.

Likewise, historians had been quietly working to see that the position was modeled after the Senate Historian Richard Baker’s in terms of duties, responsibilities, and term of office (Baker, as a career historian has been in his position since 1975 and has served twelve different Majority Leaders). However, it did not turn out that way — Remini’s position is a “term” appointment, made by the Speaker, and therefore, in theory, is a partisan appointment. Unlike Baker, Remini, for example, could be replaced should the Republicans lose control of the House. At that time, a new Majority Leader could either re-appoint the current historian or select another individual. Remini, however, is devoted to keeping the position strictly non-partisan; he plans a courtesy visit to Democratic leaders in the near future. He told the NCH, “As long as I am historian, it will be non-partisan, just like Richard Baker’s Senate office.”

Inside sources report that Speaker Hastert originally wanted the historian position to be merely “honorific” — modeled roughly after the Library of Congress Poet Laureate position. Hastert also apparently was not impressed with the candidates advanced by the Clerk’s office. He wanted the first House historian in over a decade to be a person of stature within the historical community and Remini clearly filled the bill. According to Remini, “I was never a candidate…all of a sudden, out of the blue they asked me to do it.”

Exactly what the relationship will be between the House Clerk’s Office of History and Preservation and Remini’s has yet to be entirely ironed out.
After his appointment was announced, Remini immediately laid out an ambitious agenda for his new office that complements (not duplicates) the services that the Clerk’s Office of History and Preservation provides. His office will gather oral histories from current and former members, start a lecture series for freshman members, and, somewhat like the Clerk’s operation, provide reference services for members. With upcoming opening of the Capitol Visitor Center, his office will play an important role in developing exhibits and telling the story of the capitol to the visiting public. The new House historian’s goal is to see that history is not only recorded “but that it serves as a tool for the lower chamber.” Remini already has one assistant in place and expects to hire additional staff in the future.

Remini received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1951 and taught at a variety of distinguished schools. His extensive experiences include Columbia University, Fordham University, the University of Notre Dame, and Jilin University of Technology in the People’s Republic of China. Remini published over twenty books that include topics such as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams. He recently won the Freedom Award from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

Even at It’s Best–It’s a Conflict

ArchPundit May 9, 2005 0 Comment

Take Bobby Rush’s entanglement of campaign finances, family employment and social service and religious organizations, and Bobby Rush is essentially taking money into his campaign fund and paying it out to organizations that provide significant benefits to members of his family and supporters.

In Rush’s defense, the organizations do good work, but why do the organizations he chooses to support out of his campaign funds have to be organizations in which he or an immediate family member is a Board Member or employee?

The issue isn’t all that different than a couple of the problems that DeLay is facing in regards to DeLay’s charity–other than Rush’s appear to be doing more than holding high powered fundraisers. But it’s still a serious conflict and a simple way to avoid it would be to say campaign funds can’t be distributed to organization in which one or an immediate family member is employed or sits on the Board of Directors.

Why Wasn’t This Done Sooner

ArchPundit May 6, 2005 0 Comment

Blagojevich gets credit for ending the IPAMs contract and starting to take this seriously, but the entire idea of fighting Holland was stupid.

Rich Miller said this:

Whoever came up with the “let’s fight Holland” strategy ought to be fired for rank incompetence.

And we know who authorized looking into the Auditor’s operations because he said he did it:

Ed Wynn.

But it’s worse than incompetence, it was complete disdain for governmental process.