March 2006
ArchPundit
This One Must Have Been a Hoot
Roskam is an incredibly effective guy at appearing moderate, but at the same time he’s unapologetically a movement conservative. I’d probably compare him closest to Todd Akin in Congress now in being a guy who votes exactly the way he says he will–very conservative.
The contrasts between Duckworth and Roskam could not be clearer and it will be fascinating to see hos this plays out.
Who Keeps a List of Those Who Have Insulted Him?
GOPUSA ILLINOIS
Ryan McLaughlin joins Jason Gerwig, Matt Leffingwell, and Jake Parillo and others who have insulted your GOPUSA Illinois Editor – Dave Diersen
www.gopillinois.com
If you want to insult your GOPUSA Illinois Editor, just treat him as though he is not a member of the news media. Generally, conservatives, that is, people who support the Illinois Republican Part platform, encourage me to continue serving as your GOPUSA Illinois Editor and anti-conservatives discourage me. Sadly, Peter Roskam’s Campaign Manager Ryan McLaughlin stopped your GOPUSA Illinois Editor from attending a joint press conference with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman and Roskam at 4:00 PM on Friday, March 24, at Medinah Banquets in Addison. Sadly, that was just one of many times that McLaughlin and other Roskam staff and volunteers have insulted me. Others who have insulted me numerous times include Jason Gerwig, Matt Leffingwell, and Jake Parrillo. McLaughlin told me that I could not attend the press conference because I was not a member of the news media and that even if I was a member of the news media, I could not attend because the RNC had limited number who could attend. Needless-to-say, anyone who says to me that I am not a member of the news media is insulting me – McLaughlin knows that, all the members of Roskam’s campaign team know that, and Roskam himself knows that. Because McLaughlin works directly for Roskam and he would not do anything without Roskam’s authorization, Roskam constructively insulted me. Why would anyone on the Roskam campaign team continue to insult me? Possible explanations include wanting to earn brownie points with Bob Kjellander, Judy Baar Topinka, Bill Brady, the liberal news media, illegal immigration advocates, abortion advocates, and homosexual advocates or caving into pressure from them to punish me. As everyone knows, I have been a critic of Kjellander, Topinka, Brady, the liberal news media, illegal immigration advocates, abortion advocates, and homosexual advocates. Another possible explanation is that certain people who have tremendous influence over Roskam only tolerate yes-men and yes-women. I am not a yes-man or a yes-woman. Who is encouraging or forcing the Roskam campaign to continue to insult me? What are their motives? Please phone me at 630-653-0462 or email me at diersen@aol.com if you have any comments or suggestions on how I should react to this.A Roskam campaign briefing was held at Medinah Banquets at 3:00 PM and ended just before the press conference began. Mary Jo Arndt served as the master of ceremonies. Speakers included Joe Birkett, Mehlman, Roskam, and Ron Smith. Attendees included Lori Carlson, Franco Coladipiero, Dan Curry, Pat Durante, Bob and Dawn Earl, Fran Eaton, MaryAlice Erickson, Jim FlickingeroPaul Fichtner, Paul Hinz, Gary King, Karl Mauer, Vern McCarthy, Pam Mitroff, Teri O’Brien, Debra Olson, Don Sender, Brien Sheahan, John Tsarpalas, and Rick Venstra. I had planned on attending the Will County Lincoln Day Dinner at 6:00 PM in Bolingbrook. Mehlman was scheduled to speak and I was going to report on the event. I am sorry that I let McLaughlin’s latest insult bother me so much that I did not attend the event in Bolingbrook — sadly, that is provably what his latest insult was intended to cause me to do.
Jake, at least you have company, and company from all ideological sides of the Party.
And from today, Diersen forgot someone:
(Note: Yesterday, I forgot to include Brad Goodrich in the list of people who have insulted me.)
Hey Jake, did he even call you back?
Pick A Progressive Patriot Fund
Yeah, John Laesch is in the contest at Feingold’s PAC, but David Loebsack, my college advisor is in there. Dave’s raised just under $100,000 and has no primary opponent–long story about how he’s getting on the ballot, but he’s running in Iowa-2 which is currently held by Republican Jim Leach. Leach is a moderate, but also an enabler of the current House Leadership. Dave needs to kick up the fundraising, but Leach raises very little out of District so this won’t be the most expensive race to run either.
It was a Mistake, but I’m Pretty Sure an Honest One
Michael in Chicago isn’t very happy with me I’m sure, but let me say some of the flack he’s taking is a bit much. It was dumb to not disclose being paid by a campaign even if it was for other work, but I’ll take a guess and say that he thought his statement was clear in saying he’s not being paid to blog—the way I read it is that he was being paid, just not to blog.
He should have been more clear, but I doubt he was trying to deceive anyone. I haven’t seen the context, but he had to know it would be in the FEC reports. I saw him in there and didn’t think twice about it.
If Any News Organization Ever Wants to Hire Me as Blogger
It’s pretty easy to demonstrate I don’t plagiarize.
No one else writes as many complicated, clause-ridden sentences in the passive voice as I do.
Leave O’Reilly Alone … He’s Just Crazy
Sylvester Brown of the Post-Dispatch enters the blogosphere and is pretty funny to boot.
Orchard Preservation Downstate
Besides the misspelling in the title, the owner of the property will be auctioning off the property soon and has asked that no more work be done. Sad news, but I wanted to pass along the news.
Justice for Clyde Kennard
This got delayed in my inbox from the primary (still digging out)–Barry Bradford is at it again with students working to bring attention to injustice:
Clyde Kennard was an African American man who attempted to quietly
integrate the University of Southern Mississippi in the late 1950s. After
being denied three times, he was framed for a crime he did not commit and
was sentenced to prison.
Isn’t that the exact reverse of the American dream? Sent to prison
because he wanted to go to college.
Working with the Prof. Steven Drizin at The Center On Wrongful Convictions
at the law school at Northwestern University, we have absolute and
irrefutable evidence that Clyde Kennard was innocent. Only one man ever
testified against him. Under oath, in front of a judge, that same man has
admitted he lied.
“Kennard did not ask me to steal, Kennard did not ask me to break-in to
the Co-op, Kennard did not ask me to do anything illegal”.
The entire document is available on line at our website.
The document has been sent to Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi. The
Governor has the legal power to posthumously pardon Clyde Kennard and
clear his name. That is all his family wants. No money. No
vengeance. Just clearing the name of a good man. Simple justice.
YOU CAN HELP. Go to our website: http://www.clydekennard.org
Your readers in Illinois can ask Gov. Blagojevich to get involved.
(Kennard was from Chicago) They just have to cut and paste a letter. It
takes less than two minutes to do the right thing. Readers in Illinois and
everywhere can use a similar method to send an e-mail to Gov. Barvour of
Mississippi.
Cluster&%$
Let me make clear what I think happened in the 6th if the below post on the reduction in Democratic voters doesn’t make it clear.
Three candidates–all people I think are nice people ran in three different ways. One spent $700,000. One tried to bring in new Democrats. One essentially organized for 3 years.
The grand total of that effort? 4,000 fewer votes in the primary than 2 years ago. Not only did they not make the pie larger, the divided it up between themselves and subtracted 4,000 people.
That takes some talent on all their parts.
Everyone complaining about the other camps needs to drop it now and figure out how they screwed up themselves and there are plenty of things to point towards that were problematic. I can start going through them one after another for days on end, and trust me, no campaign would be happy by the time I’m done.
With SEIU and other unions backing her, Tammy couldn’t get out any more voters than in the past even with all the resources she could need. If you can’t use the money to get people to the polls, there isn’t going to be much of a contest in November.
Christine lost votes in the primary over last time–if the great selling point is the grass roots support she had, it would appear the grass roots is shrinking.
Lindy, well, being third I won’t be too hard here, but Lindy wanted to bring in many, many more new voters. That didn’t happen either. ”
This was a horribly low turnout election in a District that is becoming competitive for Democrats and yet no one in the Democratic Party from the organization to the grass roots appears to know where the hell the Democratic voters are in Illinois 6.
UPDATE: What is noticeable is if you take the DuPage results for CD 6, the total number of Democratic ballots taken in 2002 and 2006 are pretty close–with 2006 actually having 135 fewer Democratic ballots taken. Meaning the increase in DuPage between 2002 and 2006 in number of votes in the Congressional Election was due to fewer people skipping the race. We don’t have the final Cook numbers, but it looks very likely that a similar situation took place.
Sooooo…despite all of this effort, fewer Democrats in the 6th District portion of DuPage actually showed up to vote this time.