Least Surprising Story of the Day
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Roland tells Durbin he won’t resign after Durbin asks him to.
Even better, Roland isn’t sure if he’s running for reelection. The gift that keeps on giving.
2009
On KDHX’s Collateral Damage Tonight Talking about Roland and Rod
For those in the Saint Louis Metro region it’s 88.1 FM. For others listen in at kdhx.org
Apparently I Wasn’t Getting My G-Mail
Entirely due to user error so while I’m slow at getting back to people, it’s even more true than normal if you used my gmail account. I am now getting that e-mail again.
IL-5 Fundraising
Progress Illinois is tracking the amounts here
The biggest surprise is O’Connor who is raising next to nothing. Apparently hoping Daley or Rahm would win the race for him isn’t working out too well.
As I told you before the reports were released, Fritchey has done extremely well since January 5th and now has almost $100,000 more since the first reporting period for him. He’s behind Feigenholtz by $200,000 total, but $100,000 without loans. Quigley has reported about $350,000 and Geoghagen and Wheelan are coming in at $250,000.
The question is how much money will determine the outcome here. Over the air television is largely expensive and hard to effectively utilize given the expected small turnout and low attention being paid to the race. Cable buys can help and can target the dollars to the District only in most cases. However, the number of voters and who is likely to show up means it’s still hit or miss. Trying to drag people out ot the polls is more important than getting vague name recognition.
Making it more complicated is the labor split with SEIU going with Feigenholtz, while most of the other unions have gone with Fritchey. The issue is that SEIU tends to provide the best support on the ground compared to other unions so that is almost a wash in some sense if not a slight advantage to Feigenholtz.
New Quigley Ad
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYDJ_z7TKk8[/youtube]
You can tell everyone is going for name recognition in this one–Quigley is like every 5th word or so.
From the e-mail with the ad touting it:
The fact is our ground game has given us the momentum going into the final week. We have contacted 70,378 voters — well on our way to our 80,000 voter goal.
Those are very good numbers for a race like this. What’s hard to do is figure out how effective each campaign is. Knowing the campaigns for Fritchey, Quigley, and Geoghagen I’m pretty sure their field operations are strong relative to typical Chicago campaigns. I don’t know enough about Feigenholtz’s to say anything about it, but field is essential in a case like this because it is so low of a turnout race.
Line of the Day
Roland Burris is on TV givinga speech defending himself against allegations he lied about his role in being solicited and then trying to help raise money for Rod Blagojevich to help get the senate seat. And it’s basically identical to a series of speeches Blago himself gave when he was swirling around the bowl: How dare you give me any crap for lying about that fundraising stuff when, my god, I just helped pass the Stimulus Bill, SCHIP and the Lily Ledbetter bill.
It’s almost like a homage to Blago. All he needs is a good Tennyson quote.
No Per Diem
Really? No per diem is what Roland is concerned about?
Hare Calls for Burris to Resign
I’m troubled by [Burris’ evolving explanations] because he either has a tremendous lack of memory or he wasn’t being forthright with the committee,” Hare said, referring to the state House Impeachment Committee. “This was pay-to-play with the former governor … I’m done with this whole Blagojevich thing.”
Burris “has been a good public servant for the state for 30 years, but you’ve got to answer questions when you’re under oath,” Hare continued. “What Illinois deserves is a senator they can trust to do the right things, that if they’re asked a question, they answer honestly.”
“We’ve just been through a lot out here, and I thought we’d put this behind us. Anybody that this governor appointed would obviously have problems and would be under suspicion, and here we go again,” Hare added.
He Won’t Step Down
We are not hearing that I should resign. Quite to the contrary, we keep hearing from people all over this nation, all over this state that say, “Roland, you cannot step down You are the best thing to happen to Illinois and the US Senate ever.” We are committed to doing Illinois’ work in the US Senate and all of this silly stuff about Rod Blagojevich isn’t about Roland Burris.
Without prompting, we keep hearing from people all over this great nation that the naysayers in the press are not what the people really think and we trust those voices more than the newspapers trying to sell newspapers. /Burris
While he should step down, he’s potentially the only other person in the universe close to Rod Blagojevich in the self-centered category. And while he’s not as corrupt as Rod Blagojevich, he’s incredibly embedded in the pay to play culture and he believes he can explain his way out of anything. On top of it, he apparently has quite the circle of sycophants who will just tell him all the other stuff is just carping. Maybe a united front from Harry Reid and the US Senate leadership including stripping him of committee assignments might make him realize how pointless sticking around is, but even that might fail.
We also probably need to consider the man might just be a bit senile at this point. While I’m not thrilled with the idea of giving him a way out on perjury, the guy is in his 70s and clearly isn’t able to handle complex questions.
IL-5 Cattle Call
While everyone seems to have different takes on this race, I have to say that anyone who thinks they are sure where this all stands is overconfident, and don’t even get me started on Nate Silver’s piece–love Nate’s work, but that oversimplifies this race a bit too much.
The biggest problem with a special election is no one knows who turns up and so polling is problematic because determining likely voters is nearly impossible. In addition, the effect of money is very different as well with typical carpet bombing not being nearly as successful.
I’m not endorsing for now and this is purely analytical. I know people on the first five campaigns and have all sorts of conflicts of interest, but they pretty much balance out with Feigenholtz’s campaign being the one I’m least connected to.
So with that, here is my take, feel free to call me stupid in comments:
1) Feigenholtz. Certainly fits the mold of the person who I have the hardest time remembering the spelling for after Blagojevich. I think I have it down now. While we don’t have the next reports yet, she is leading in money and though I mentioned it looks like Fritchey has almost caught up, she has reported over $50,000 in large contributions since Saturday. It’s hard to tell if that is above her previous estimate in her e-mail or if that was included since most of that money was probably pledged. We’ll see. What I don’t have a good sense of with Sara is her field operation. She’s doing well with messaging (Becky Carrol is working for her on communications) and she has good outside support. And SEIU is backing her which is a big endorsement and tends to come with excellent GOTV support. And Jerry Morrison in CapFax comments.
For now, I’d label her a frontrunner, but given the depth of the field, not a prohibitive one by any means.
2) Quigley. You can probably throw him and Fritchey in a toss up. In an election that wasn’t a special, I’d probably put Quigley in first with very good name recognition because of his battles with Stroger and such. He’s got a very strong environmental record and has been strong on GLBT rights calling for gay marriage in 1999. His early funding was not as strong as anyone would like, but he is building a decent field operation. Quigley gets a small boost from the Trib and Sun-Times with their endorsements, but honestly, his TV time attacking wasteful county spending is more important.
3) Fritchey. Again, a toss up with Quigley really and a very real competitor. His fundraising is very strong since he got in the race on January 5th so the next reports will be fascinating. Knowing his campaign manager, he’ll have a strong field operation and he has Mell backing him which is significant. He’s taking some hits on his role during the Burris investigation, but that’s unfair. When he objected to Durkin’s line of questioning was not about his contacts with Blagojevich’s staff, it was odd issues like who Burris talked to in DC that had nothing to do with impeachment. I mentioned this when I covered the testimony as it happened. Probably not politically smart, but procedurally he was dead on. The Tribune editorial board needs to revisit the transcripts. The problem was Durkin not being organized and missing on several points for follow-up. I put him in 3rd because the limited polling info puts him a bit further back.
4) Pat O’Connor. A complete tool, but:
A) is an alderman in the district
B) name is O’Connor
He screwed up this race when he basically said he needed Rahm and the Mayor to back him so he could give up the seat for Rahm if Rahm comes back.
1) You don’t say that
2) Rahm is busy and the Mayor just needs someone there to do what he asks and the three people above will largely do that and potentially be more effective than O’Connor would be.
5) Tom Geoghagen. A liberal stalwart who hired Daniel Biss’ campaign manager (and friend) Julie Sweet. Should have a good field organization and has pretty much universal support in the netroots nationally. He’ll have some money, but his problem is twofold. One, he’s running as an insurgent campaign without the time to organize like a campaign like that really needs. Two, Quigley has lots of credibility with liberals in the District. That said, he’s doing pretty well to be an insurgent and in fifth. Insurgents seldom pull ahead before election day so if he does pull it off, it’ll be a last minute thing.
6) Charles Wheelan. Working hard and getting some attention, though pretty damn conservative. While not likely, he might be able to pull together some conservative Catholics with support for school vouchers. Seems thoughtful, but awfully to the right on economics for a labor friendly district.
The other 8—does it matter? Only in that they might take small pockets of support that in a close race could be the difference.