Churchill IL-8
ArchPundit
Raised $34762.01
Spent:37047.39
Loan: 98000.00
COH: 95714.62
He’s playing a different game of trying to keep his name recognition out there for supporters and squeak through in a divided primary.
January 2006
Lipinski IL-03
Raised $82800.00 Total $184600.00
Spent $28345.07 Total $103459.56
On Hand $177811.57
I’m sure there’s some to dig out of it, but notable on the list was a small in-kind of labor from Speaker Madigan, Labor and Chicago Business PACs, and one donation from a notorious polluter, a Holcim manager.
Dan Seals IL-10
Raised: $59763.48
Spent: $5805.06
COH: $53958.42
Decent for a late start up. Not enough to get him much national attention, but enough to build upon.
It’s that time again–Campaign Finance–Cegelis First
Let’s do the 6th first
Raised $68160.92 Raised Total: $228246.04
Spent $77769.65 Total $199761.82
COH At beginning of period $48972.59
COH: $39363.86
I’ve gone over my concerns with this kind of report, but my biggest concern is how do you afford the mail you need at the end of a campaign?
Cegelis Interview
It is coming–I forgot to mention–a bit of a cold and a small car accident last week took up a bit too much time, but I’ll have it up in the next couple days.
Also, Lindy Scott has agreed to do an interview so I’ll have all three candidates which makes me very happy.
Finally, John Sullivan running in the 3rd has also agreed, and I’ll try and schedule that very soon.
The Bistro is having a Bush Event?
Those from Bloomington-Normal understand how funny this is.
Pete from Drug War Rant posted it on Kos that there was going to be a Jesse Jackson Pinata at Pro-Bush event at the Bistro.
I suppose it could be considered Pro-Bush, but in a very different way than the GOP would like. My guess is someone was being funny and moderately achieved their goal if you know what the Bistro is.
Nice bar, by the way. One of the few good places in B-N for dance music.
UPDATE: In case it isn’t clear above–it is a hoax–The Bistro is about the last place in B-N to have a GOP event.
Informed Voters are Important
Hmmm..those would be awfully small elections.
“If voting is so important, you need to make that extra effort to do it,” said Luechtefeld, who voted last year against the early-voting measure. “It isn’t just the idea of getting more people out to the polls – it’s getting informed people out to the polls.”
What is weird about opposition to early voting is that it would cut down on fraud–if there is one serious problem with the system as it stands now, it is that the polling place judges are seldom capable of identifying qualified versus unqualified voters. They are simply the bodies the election authorities can come up with–when you vote at a central location, the competence and qualifications are higher and should provide better security.
Good Party
More Press Releases like this please
Now, it just needs to be up here and e-mailed to a broader audience (you can even black out Steve Brown’s phone as I did for that broader audience) (oh, and allow people to do copy and paste with text)
In more fun news…
While a slight embarrasment to the administration, it appears the estimates on the number of kids who will be covered is less than originally estimated, meaning the cost will even be lower. So, Republican candidates—if it doesn’t burst the budget, what’s your position?
And while I’m giving the Party some credit—they are updating the event portion of the web site which is a start at least.
Who Knew the Lipinski’s were so Environmentally Friendly
They sure do like planting things…
Trib on probably new plant in the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Primary (as a bonus, the Trib ran the wrong photograph, again.
The bullshit line from Kelly is that Sullivan is too liberal for that District. It’s a 59% Democratic District in the Kerry-Bush numbers–that’s as Democratic as any Republican District in the entire state is Republican. It’s one message from the Lipinski organization trying to paint themselves as the real alternative.
The problem? Someone needs to ask Dan who he voted for in the 2000 election. By accounts as I understand them he was a Buchanan guy. Dandy, and now he’s running as a Democrat.
Sullivan, who announced last summer, doesn’t like the way Dan Lipinski was anointed by his dad. And doesn’t agree with most of his positions on issues. Sullivan is pro-choice. Lipinski is pro-life. Sullivan opposes the Patriot Act that Lipinski voted to extend. Sullivan wants the United States to get out of Iraq now while Lipinski, though unhappy with the war, believes we can’t do that.
Fine.
The two men offer voters a clear-cut choice.
But a late entry into the race raised Sullivan’s suspicions.
In December, just before the filing deadline, a new candidate emerged. John T. Kelly is his name.
Hmmm, let’s see:
Another candidate named John who has a middle initial “T” that rhymes with Sullivan’s middle initial “P.”
And whaddya know? An Irish last name.
Is John T. Kelly a “ringer”?
Absolutely not, Kelly told me Thursday. What about the charge that some Lipinski loyalists were circulating his petitions? “First of all,” said Kelly, that charge “kind of irritates me.”
Well, then, what about this: Two years ago, weren’t you running in the Republican primary but bailed out, leaving the “ringer” Chlada there to guarantee Dan Lipinski’s victory?
Kelly said he quit the race in 2004 because of family reasons. “I had to drop out,” he told me. “What pissed me off, had I stayed, I would have blown Ryan Chlada away.”
But he didn’t stay. And now that he’s back, Kelly, a 35-year-old financial planner, is running as a Democrat, which he says he really is. He only ran as a Republican in 2004, he contends, because he thought it would give him a clearer shot.
Well, then, you have to wonder why he wouldn’t enlist the same strategy this time around. His Republican opposition now would be two goofy perennial losers, Ray “Spanky the Clown” Wardingley and Art “The Neo-Nazi” Jones.
Good move, Mr. Kelly.
But let’s take this back to Dan Lipinski. He’s really the issue.
Until his dad crowned him a congressman, he spent 15 years out of town working at universities in North Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee. Somehow, while being a resident of other states, he managed to vote here, not by absentee ballot but in person. Election judges in his father’s 23rd Ward marked him present in every Chicago election since at least 1990, according to official records.
Oddly, Lipinski, can’t recall casting those votes. “I’m trying to think back to that time,” he told me. “I honestly cannot remember.”
Such are the mysteries of the 3rd Congressional District.
I can’t explain Dan Lipinski’s voting record any better than he can. And I don’t know if John T. Kelly is a ringer to neutralize John P. Sullivan.
What I do know is that there’s always a game in the land of Lipinski, always a dirty trick or two, even when victory is assured without them.
It’s sad. And it’s stupid. And it plays voters for suckers.
I don’t play the real Democrat card very often because I tend to think the Party is big enough for differences on most issues. However, in this case, Lipinski isn’t a real Democrat, he’s a machine hack who has no business in Congress.
Next effort—find out when Lipinski was teaching on election day–out of state. If so, that’s vote fraud. Many times over.