Call It A Comeback
The Illinois Democratic Network will be having a meet-up and rally on Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair. I’ll be there. Hopefully that’s not a disincentive. They are advertising on the right and I highly recommend checking out their site–an excellent resource for Democratic grass roots events.
I’ll also be there on the 18th for Republican Day.
Don’t forget the other advertisers either–the more you visit the sites, the easier it is for me to post.
Most Significant Local Story: Daley Patronage Chief Indicted
Winner: Peter Roskam
Losers: Illinois Farmers
Most Under Reported Story: The continuing mismanagement and scandals under the Blagojevich Administration.
Most Over Reported Story: Cook County GOP’s bounty on the Mayor.
Story to Watch in August: The coming Democratic Primary for Governor
Most Amazing Sports Accomplishment Despite Whining About it by a Chicago Tribune Metro Columnist: Lance Armstrong retires after winning his 7th straight Tour de France.
Lance Armstrong retires after winning his 7th straight Tour de France.
The coming Democratic Primary for Governor.
I don’t know who it will be, but someone is going to challenge Governor Blagojevich in the primary. Rumors abound about Lou Lang who appears to be making the rounds asking for advice as to whether to run or not. Lang has certainly spent an amount on polling that would suggest statewide ambitions in his most recent campaign finance report. Other rumors include Jeff Berkowitz’s mention in last month’s review of Cook County States Attorney Dick Devine as a possible candidate.
Dissatisfaction amongst party regulars and activists is high with the Governor and someone will likely jump in to challenge him. Blagojevich himself is trying to shore up his base by increasing ties with the African-American community including Jesse Jackson Jr. and reaching out to women voters with initiatives such as the contraceptive rule for pharmacies, increasing general access to contraception, promoting stem cell research, and banning the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. Some see all of these initiatives as a feint to the left, but it’s mostly a highly targeted effort on issues that have widespread popular support, but especialy hit home for many women. It’s a far more centrist strategy than most realize in terms of a general election and is far craftier than many critics realize. It’s not enough to avoid a primary challenge and can be neutralized in a primary race. It does, however, provide a strong obstacle for Republicans running against him.
Runner Up 1: Strong challenger(s) emerging to Dan Lipinski in IL-03 in the primary. Lipinski was handed his seat by his father and won largely because the Machine made sure no one could effectively challenge him. In a full scale primary, the weaknesses of the Machine will be exposed and anger over nepotism will come to a boil. Lipinski doesn’t see it coming making it all the more fun to watch. Lipinski has anemic fundraising to date and doesn’t appear to have mounted a serious campaign operation other than the remnants left by his father.
Runner Up 2: The race for County Board President is getting crowded with reformers. Stroger may yet be reelected with too much of the vote split between reformers.
Runner Up 3: Dan Rutherford will announce for some statewide office. The reaction from Republicans will be fascinating.
Cook County GOP’s bounty on the Mayor.
They don’t even have the money in the bank according to their last report to the State Board of Elections. There are a lot of serious issues they could be highlighting relating to John Stroger and his patronage and instead they are pulling a stupid political stunt. Combine this with the move to remove Republican names from supporting a resolution for the Gay Games and you have a County Party proving why it’s becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Runner Up: Something about Aruba–I keep turning the channel whenever the word is mentioned.
The continuing mismanagement and scandals under the Blagojevich Administration.
While I’m sure Blagojevich partisans see there being too much coverage, State Auditor General Bill Holland identified a large number of issues relating to federal grant dollars being misused by the State of Illinois and Aaron Chambers is one of the few to pick up on the audit. Every newspaper is reporting on management issues and investigations within the administration, but no one is doing a very comprehensive job detailing the depth of the problems.
While some problems are arguable such as the welfare distributions, others such as the lack of oversight for $104 million in workforce development grants demonstrate a profound disregard for best practices in government. For a guy who ran on pledge to change the way Springfield works, he is comprehensively changing state operations for the worse. In addition to the mismanagement, few print sources (the Capitol Fax being the notable exception) between scandals involving the City of Chicago, Cook County Board President John Stroger and the Blagojevich administration.
Runner Up: The endorsement of Jim Oberweis by Jack Roeser, Renew Illinois and the Family Taxpayer Network. Bernard Schoenburg covers it today and lays out in a very fair way the right wing document Oberweis signed on to to receive support of the Roeser and Renew Illinois. Not only is this important in relation to Oberweis, but it tells us two things about the Republican primary. First, Roeser backed out of supporting Steve Rauschenberger evidently because he was too liberal and Oberweis would drink all of the kool-aid. Second, even if Jim Edgar does get into the race, one has to assume he’ll face a primary with Oberweis given Roeser himself challenged Edgar in 1994 and the platform of Renew Illinois is virtually the opposite of Edgar’s views.
Illinois Farmers
Getting killed by a drought that even if it breaks this summer, the rain will be too late.
Runner Up 1: Officer who swore and pulled a gun on Senator Meeks.
Doesn’t matter whether people got out of the car or not, but it’s a CLM–career limiting move–to hassle a State Lege Member. As Yellow Dog Democrat commented on Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax Blog
I thought the whole purpose of legislative and low-digit plates was to make racial profiling idiot-proof?
While Meeks wasn’t in his own car, it doesn’t matter who was right because in the end, The Senator is. For the rest of us, keep your hands at 10 and 2.
Runner Up 2: Chicago Hockey Fans. The good news, The Blackhawks will play this season. The bad news, Bill Wirtz still owns them.
Peter Roskam
Roskam raised nearly $400,000 for his Congressional Campaign in Illinois’ 6th District, but that’s not directly why he is the winner. Roskam is proud and loud social conservative who faced two more moderate opponents in the Republican primary. While he was likely to win with strong establishment support, the danger to him was that in a bruising primary he would be painted as a far right extremist by his opponents. Whomever the Democratic candidate ended up being, the words of Roskam’s primary opponents could be used against him to paint him as extreme. With Pankau and Carney bowing out of the race, Roskam avoids that bloodbath and gets to set the agenda for the general election on his own while the Democratic Primary continues.
Runner Up 1: Melissa Bean. Huge fundraising quarter with $460,000 raised and $735,000 Cash on hand putting her third amongst House Freshman and first for Democratic Freshman. Even better, while the field was cleared in IL-06, IL-08 has a three way primary on the Republican side that is likely to be ugly and result in hurt feelings between the moderate and conservative wings of the party.
Runner Up 2: John Pavich. Who? The guy who raised $100,000 in his first quarter as a candidate in IL-11. He’ll be running against Jerry Weller and has already raised 1/3 of the amount Weller’s last opponent, Tari Renner, raised. It’ll be a tough race, but he’s established himself as a legitimate contender in Democratic donor circles.
Daley Patronage Chief Indicted
While it’s one of the most reported stories, it’s one of the most important. Even if the legal case doesn’t reach the Mayor, the political fallout already has.
Most importantly, it opens up serious enforcement of the Shakman decree. Michael Shakman’s call for the Mayor to be held in contempt isn’t as outlandish as many people think. Connecting the Mayor to specific decisions concerning patronage hiring is a lot harder than demonstrating the City has largely bypassed the decree and not enforced rigorously the conditions leaves Daley and the City Government open to sanctions.
Even if Daley and his staff attempt to only put a show on in terms of reforming hiring and promotions, greater scrutiny from the Federal Court is almost assured. That will force changes further reducing the power that comes along with patronage.
Prompted by a criminal probe of City Hall hiring, the man who for years has fought to free city jobs from politics asked Tuesday that Mayor Richard Daley’s administration be held in contempt of federal court orders against patronage.
Attorney Michael Shakman asked a federal court in Chicago to impose “substantial” civil fines on Daley and other city officials for what he described as “systemic, widespread violations” of court orders that Shakman won decades ago.
Shakman also asked the court in a document filed Tuesday to put at the top of the list for new openings “hundreds and perhaps thousands” of qualified job-seekers who were passed over for city jobs or promotions in favor of politically connected candidates.
He also requested an independent expert to investigate alleged abuses and recommend how to clean up hiring.
The Daley administration’s top lawyer, Mara Georges, said that the city would challenge any attempt to find it in contempt. She denied widespread problems with hiring and repeated the mayor’s assertion that he had no knowledge of wrongdoing.
………
Although Shakman did not allege that the mayor had been aware of specific abuses, he blamed Daley for a “culture of disregard for the law and disrespect for court orders” that fostered the hiring violations. As a “hands-on administrator,” Daley should have known of the problems, according to Shakman’s court filing.“The mayor is the chief executive officer of the city of Chicago and as such he obviously has responsibility for what his subordinates did,” Shakman said at a news conference at his office.
Shakman may not get exactly what he wants, but he will bring greater scrutiny on city hiring which will be a tremendous change in how politics operates in the City of Chicago.
ArchPundit