Call It A Comeback
Most political wounds are self-inflicted and this one is a doozy. Webster disclosed and for whatever it is worth, he did the right thing. Pitt didn’t and that is unacceptable. While there is no evidence that Webster was involved in hanky-panky, disclosing a fact related to his past performance in corporate oversight is unacceptable.
Don Wycliff takes on the amen chorus of dot connectors and points out the shoddiness of one particular twit.
He never seems to capture the larger issues in Illinois. Ryan has run the worst campaign this cycle with the exception of Bill Simon. Now J-Ry isn’t a Bill Simon, but his campaign has been horrid and he doesn’t have a message. I don’ think he could overcome the cards dealt him this year, but he hasn’t even given a credible effot.
The Back Room is predicting that a Dem sweep in Illinois will bring back straight-ticket voting. Good call.
Illinois Issues does a story on the impact of a Democratic Sweep of Illinois Government. Connecting the dots, Duchossis has started spreading money to Emil Jones so the claim
Elimination of subsidies to Repub-lican horseracing magnate Richard Duchossois and a variety of GOP-crafted tax breaks granted corporations over the years to fill likely budget holes;
isn’t likely to come to pass.
The Redeye has debuted, but has virtually no on-line prescence. If you are hoping to attract younger folks with higher incomes, an on-line presence and attraction would seem to be a necessary feature. But they do have Steve Rosenbloom three times a week…\
And apparently, Steve Rhodes agrees with me.
Rich Miller at the Capitol Fax sums up the campaign:
STATEWIDE GOOFS Did you see that Jim Ryan believes the AFL-CIO intended to put George Ryan’s photo on a mailer instead of his in order to continue tying him in voters’ minds with the governor? The state fed says the mailer was done by the national operation and somebody just made a mistake. But JRyan insists there was a vast conspiracy. Maybe now we can see how he could have prosecuted Rolando Cruz twice without any physical evidence
The Illinois Leader criticizes Topinka for being accepting of gays and lesbians. Or are they just playing to the crowd like Jeb?
Okay, being joyous is fine, booing people who knew the man personally is not. Trent Lott may be a doofus, but he was paying respects to a man who he worked with and booing him is inappropriate. They may have been political opponents, but one clear thing about Wellstone was his ability to disagree without being disagreeable. We should honor that legacy as well as his progressive nature.
On a slightly different note, Robin Carnahan’s “Don’t Let the Fire Go Out” was a much more effective way to spur people to action while keeping an event respectful.
Given my father has asked that there be no funeral and only a rip roaring party in his home town, the rest seems generally appropriate to me.
The Capitol Fax reported yesterday (already off site) that J-Ry won’t be doing the traditional fly around with the Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team slate. Apparently, he is afraid being seen with Birkettt will raise questions about the Cruz case.
I’m not kidding. The way to avoid that is to answer the questions.
For those out of Illinois, the fly around has a long tradition that I can remember from as far back as ’76. Of course, in ’76 I was being paraded around on the shoulders of Big Jim so my memory of the time is a bit hazy.
The larger problem is the fly-around is a good buzz producing event and tradition. Not doing it will further suppress Republican turnout.
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