2006

Survey USA Guv Numbers

ArchPundit May 22, 2006 1 Comment

Rich says the commercials didn’t work because Rod’s numbers went down on approval and up on disapproval slightly. I’m not so sure.

Rod isn’t trying to improve his image with the commercials. I’m betting the campaign doesn’t expect the approval numbers to move much in the next few months if at all. So if you are an incumbent with a load of cash, what do you do? Make sure your opponents numbers look worse than yours.

Negative campaigning always hits the person going negative slightly, but it usually hits the target the hardest. From the Meeks numbers and the Topinka and G-Rod numbers rumored out there, the commercials are doing exactly what they are supposed to do–drive down Topinka’s numbers.

Blagojevich’s numbers are bad. The question is can he make Topinka’s numbers bad enough to win. Given the GOP problems this year and given the Blue tilt of the state, all other things equal I’d put my money on the Governor. That said, the developing investigations could quickly flip that if indictments start being issued. After laying down for George Ryan in 1998, the press isn’t about to let another candidate get away with saying there is nothing there.

The Republican response is lacking. I’m getting press releases that are the usual (meaning they could be from either party) about how it’s election year politicking.

Yeah, it is. So? And what is the Republican response?

It’s fine to attack the Governor. I’m happy to quite often, but it’s a little hard to get too worked up about him when there don’t appear to be any serious policy proposals coming forward on the other side.

What is Judy’s education plan? How does she plan to solve the long term structural problems? While a recent bill was passed to allow easier consoliditation no one is seriously talking about forcing consolidation.

How about providing a blue print to make the state less dependent on property taxes for educational funding? If a tax swap isn’t it, what is?

How about a serious response to All Kids? Senate Republicans pushed for managed care to save money for years. So Blagojevich instituted it and then used the projected savings (close to what Republicans claimed would occur) to provide co-pay insurance for all children in Illinois. It’s hard to take serious the complaints without alternative ideas.

What about pensions? I’m not a fan of spending the proceeds of the bond sales in one lump as we did. What are the other solutions? Hitting the targets? We are doing that. We should do better, but how else do Republicans want to make the long term financial viability of the state stable? Raise taxes?

Cut services? Which ones in detail and remember G-Rod for all of his faults, already did a number on state jobs.

Want to be upset about the state of our state parks? Go for it–I find it appallling that one of the premeir archeological sites in the country is being overridden by crappy development in the Metro East. How do you want to fix it? Judy has been good on this issue so the criticism is more general. Where is the money coming from? Or is it as Blagojevich charges, only about Republicans in parks jobs?

It’s fair to say this administration is mortgaging the future by spending money from assets and using the money on continuing expenditures. However, there has to be a serious counter proposal how to change that and that involves restructuing the state tax system and probably raising them. If not, show me a proposal.

This Governor is irresponsible, but to prove you can govern, you have to do more than say, we aren’t him. His programs are popular, but probably unsustainable. How do you sustain them?

Ethics? What is the Republican ethics proposal? Why weren’t Republicans pushing for the Fritchey-Hynes bill?

I understand that Democrats are in control in Springfield and the mess they make is their mess to fix, but if you want to take the reigns, you have to demonstrate you aren’t going to do the same thing and right now, there isn’t a lot of evidence that it wouldn’t be much of the same. As someone who could easily throw the Governor under a bus, I’m not seeing many reasons to do so that actually produce a better outcome.

Quick Update: And for bonus points–what about mercury emissions? These are as much if not more of a danger to our park system than underfunding it. Where’s Judy’s plan for that?

Ummm…what happened to political operatives having memories

ArchPundit May 22, 2006 No Comments

Apparently Scott Fawell wasn’t the only one to put the clout list to electronic format.

Rich has the basics on the whole story, but the big issue is that someone was flouting civil service rules for some of the jobs and that is where it becomes a big issue. Not surprisingly, Kelly and Rezko show up in the stories.

Worst of all is the use of counsel to follow the investigations. It smells. Bad. It doesn’t mean automatically that this is George Ryan II, but it certainly does a great job of suggesting to the press that it is, in fact, GR II. Even if true, it isn’t GRII, it’s more like Ernie Fletcher and we see how that ended.

If the Administration let Gianulis and on down run away with the hiring bus, then throw them under it. That’s the good result of all of this.

The Not So Meek Inherit a lot

ArchPundit May 22, 2006 No Comments

Meeks isn’t running as everyone knows and now we await for tomorrow to hear about how the Governor plans to increase school funding.

Pearson et al. discuss a possible sale of the lottery or other state assets. The concern to me is whether it is a short term revenue source that is created or if it is an ongoing revenue source to draw upon. All too often this administration has tried to keep taxes low by selling off assetts or other short terms solution without fixing the long term revenue problem.

That said, Meeks not running is most helpful in giving the Governor another plank to run upon. It boxes Judy in by essentially forcing her to promise not to raise sales or income taxex yet come up with a way to pay for what the Governor is proposing that regardless of the details, sounds good to many voters.