The Women Strategy for Blagojevich

ArchPundit July 18, 2005 3 Comments

Carol Marin sums up the Governor’s time in office pretty well and then points to where he has found his core supporters, women.

Blago’s poll numbers, especially Downstate, have gone south. So with all of that, why would anyone suggest that Blagojevich is well positioned to retake the governor’s office in 2006?

Women.

Unabashedly pro-choice, Blagojevich has taken on pharmacists who refuse to dispense emergency birth control. Without even asking the Legislature, he has just earmarked money for stem cell research. And he’s provided insurance to 330,000 uninsured families.

“As a woman in this state,” says state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), “what he has done for women and health care is taken the ball and run with it.” Feigenholtz argues that “too much testosterone” has clouded the political discussion about Blagojevich and his battles with the mostly male Legislature.

And let’s not forget, Patti has begun an initiative on contraception contraceptives.illinois.gov

From the Kaiser Network release:

Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich on Wednesday launched a Web site — contraceptives.illinois.gov — aimed at helping women in the state attain insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives or gain access to lower-cost contraceptives, the AP/Belleville News Democrat reports (AP/Belleville News Democrat, 7/13). At a news conference launching the site, Blagojevich said, “Birth control in Illinois is supposed to be covered by insurance, but right now it’s far too complicated for women to know which insurers cover birth control and what they cover.” She added that women of reproductive age pay about 68% more than men in health care costs, mainly because of contraceptives. The Web site provides a list of the contraceptives covered by the five largest insurance companies in the U.S.: Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare. The Web site also includes a link to a form allowing women to report insurance companies that do not comply with a 2004 state law requiring insurance providers that provide prescription drug coverage to cover FDA-approved contraceptives or with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s (D) executive order requiring pharmacies in the state to fill all prescriptions — including those for contraceptives — “without delay.” For women without health insurance, the site provides a link to I-SaveRx, the state discount medication program, which imports drugs from Canada and Europe and sells them to state residents at discounts of up to 88%. The I-SaveRx program currently offers eight types of birth control pills, according to the Tribune.

If you assume you are going to face a social conservative, this strategy is a very good one. It takes stem cell research and contraception which are generally popular in opinion polls and allows him to side with public opinion as a strong advocate for women’s health care–an issue especially popular with suburban women.

Blagojevich has other problems that may make this irrelevant, but the strategy itself is quite smart. As soon as Kaiser sent out the release, Illinois Federation for Right to Life sent it out. He wants right wing groups to attack him over these issues so he can control the issues to be about social issues and not fiscal management, state operations or contracts. He gets to a substantive discussion that swings in his favor over talking about mismanagement and corruption.

In addition to changing the subject, it invites attacks by loons like the Pharmacists for Life or others who make over the top attacks at him and who he can then make the enemy.

The biggest danger he faces is Judy Baar Topinka who neutralizes the issues of abortion, gay and lesbian rights, contraception and I believe is pro-embryonic stem cell research and thus makes the advantage with women lower. The flip side with Judy is she has been around in state government so has ties to George Ryan and others, but it’s hard to see that without a significant scandal breaking how that swings Blagojevich’s way–especially with the number of scandals he’s racking up.

Funny

ArchPundit July 18, 2005 No Comments

Everyone’s complaining about the Governor and stem cells so it seems that all those stories about power washing aren’t front and center.

The point? If anyone is curious as to why the Governor all of a sudden cared about embryonic stem cell research after letting Hynes and Cross hang out to dry for the session, it was a pretty effective means of changing the story to one where partisans complain about process and the average voter hears that stem cell research has been approved. Opponents sputter about the way it was done while he gets a campaign commercial. “When the politicians refused to fund life saving treatments, Rod Blagojevich changed the way business is done in Illinois and found the funds…”

I have concerns about the way he did this, but if you look at the political considerations, it’s damn obvious why he did it and it was a slick move. The Governor’s obvious problem is that he’s a little too slick and that can eventually catch up to you.

While I still think he’s in trouble, he’s a remarkably cagey politician. If his numbers stay low for too long, that becomes a problem because people’s perception is hardened around his problems, but a move like this is smart politics, if bad process.

$10 Million in Funds for Stem Cell Research

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 6 Comments

The Blagojevich administration has designated $10 million in research funds for stem cell research including cord, adult, and embryonic stem cell research.

And the scientific ignorance begins:

The money will be given in grants to medical research facilities for research on adult, cord blood and embryonic stem cells and is not to be used for reproductive cloning.

Not to be deterred by that, opponents say

Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, R-Elgin, said the governor’s order “opens the door to human cloning in the state of Illinois, and that’s wrong.”

Why does it do that? Because it’s the only way to get the approval numbers for embryonic stem cell research below ~60%. Research dollars is a winning issue and while those opposing this kind of research may be well meaning in their objections, throwing garbage like this around and hoping it sticks isn’t going to work.

Where the attempt at confusion comes in is in what one calls human cloning. Opponents of stem cell research have attempted to define the cloning of a human cell as ‘human cloning’ while most people think of human cloning as the creation of a new human. SCNT is a form of cloning, but cloning is between an unfertilized egg and another cell to stem cells–not a fully developed human being.

And remember, support StemPac over at the right.

One of the More Telling Quotes

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 1 Comment

I’m a huge supporter of embryonic stem cell research, but the Governor’s quote is one of the most telling of his administration and how he views being a public official

“Anytime you do what is morally right … however you get there is immaterial,” he said.

Democracy is an end and a means and how you get there is pretty much everything in the long run.

(And I have no problem with the move–it’s just the quote stuck out like a giant sore thumb begging for a hammer).

On the Bright Side, He’s not Losing Ground

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 No Comments

SurveyUSA has The Blagorgeous in at 38% approval.

For the Blagojevich critics (this author included), don’t get too cocky. For a comparison using slightly different questions, look at Jennifer Granholm’s numbers in Michigan versus Rich DeVos (R-wingnut Amway)—she is rated in the Survey USA poll at 37% approval, but holds an 18 point lead. I believe DeVos is Michigan for Uberweis.

The Buck Stops Somewhere

ArchPundit June 30, 2005 No Comments

Sigh, Rich got there first, but this was a beautiful bit on The Blagorgeous response to questions about the PWS contract

Gov. Rod Blagojevich refused to answer questions Wednesday about half a million dollars in state contracts that went to a firm with family connections to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Meeting with reporters at a bill-signing in Chicago, Blagojevich would not discuss the deal that gives $522,000 to PWS Environmental Inc. The company’s president, William Mologousis, is the brother-in-law of IDOT’s director of finance and administration, Robert Millette.

“I’m going to … leave those questions to the people who are responsible for them,” Blagojevich said, ignoring follow-up questions about whether he is responsible for the department.

Hey look over there…..

The Comeback

ArchPundit June 27, 2005 3 Comments

While many see the imminent demise of Blagojevich as done, he’s got some powerful cards still to play. The reason Topinka is such a strong challenger is that she is the only Republican he can’t paint into a corner on issues such as abortion rights and other social issues. LaHood falls into a second category of someone who is hard to hit, but only because he comes off as folksy.

The rest of the Republican field has attached itself ot a social conservatism that doesn’t play well with swing voters. With Democrats having about a 10% or more advantage in ID in Illinois, those swing voters are already skewed towards Democratic positions.

That’s why the order to dispense birth control at pharmacies that carry such pharmaceuticals. His position has 80% support nationwide, yet in a primary social conservatives are going to have a hard time not siding with those opposed to the rule because of the influence of pro-life groups in the primary. Obviously Judy is exempt given she is pro-choice, but she already lost that vote and is counting on the others to split social conservatives in a divided primary.

With loons comparing him to Slobodan Milosevich, he gets three or four days of attacking his opponent for not denouncing such language when the group backs the inevitable opponent’s positive press from Pharmacists for Life. Oh, and his opponents will be practicing politics as usual, you know, the politics he came to change.

On cultural issues other than abortion he has taken positions that many swing voters are concerned about including violence and sex in video games. While on the internet it gets howls of protest, it’s a smart move politically. Whether it does any good or not, he gets to get up and tell moms that he tried to shield their children from gratuitous sex and violence and give a lecture about responsibility. Sure, the press rolls their eyes, but so what? They’ve been rolling their at him for 2 years (and so have I). He’s against gay marriage, but signed landmark legislation to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination–a position that has 60%+ support in the general public.

So he has taken strong positions on choice–positions that are supported more than just by the core pro-choice audience and he has taken strong positions on violence and sex in the culture that suburban women consistently point to as one of the things that they feel most worried about with their children so a crusading social conservative doesn’t get any traction.

But, but…what about the budget? Yeah, what about it? He hasn’t raised general taxes. He has raised specific taxes that most people don’t feel directly. He has gimmicked the budget, but who actually follows budget negotiations? People who read blogs, that’s who and there just aren’t that many out there.

He has also held his hand out to African-Americans and Latinos after a shaky start and seems to have the Jackson’s backing and in his recent letter Guitierrez signs on as well as Rush.

If the election is one of social issues, Rod Blagojevich is a two term Governor and while gritting their teeth, the press writes stories about him being the Comeback Kid and who knows what else is possible.

The wild cards out there are three. One, how much scandal is out there. Because there are so many scandals in Illinois, who to blame might end up at his feet or it might end up diffuse and thrown on the system as a whole. George Ryan’s trial is likely to be going on during next election and while many social conservatives view Ryan as a RINO, he’s a Republican to the average voter and under those circumstances, it’ll be hard to tar Blagojevich. If, however, the press keeps finding scandals like the cleaning contract, the Governor is in trouble, but if it stops now, the blunders fall from the public mind while others replace him and in that case, his break from Mell may even help him.

The second wildcard is his mouth. How do we know this? Testicularvirility.com was taken up within 48 hours of him saying it and done through a hidden registration process so no one knows who did it, but it might be the same folks who registered Blagorgeous.com. Just guessing because the other likely candidate would probable tell us if he did.

Third, does the act just wear thin. The problem with this is the US Senate is full of people who are thought to be shameless media whores. Hell, the Dems nominated a guy for President with the nickname LiveShot in Boston because he’ll show up anywhere for a Liveshot on the nightly news.

The Republican primary is set up to be a fight over who can be the most holy. Topinka goes left and hopes for the party not to coalesce around a single social conservative. If she wins, Blagojevich runs against the old ways attempting to be an outsider and I figure it’s 50-50 who wins.

If LaHood takes it, 60-40 odds (not percentages) for Blagojevich as he backs LaHood into uncomfortable positions and exploits conservative distrust over LaHood attacking Fitzgerald. Rauschenberger is a wild card because he has to raise cash, but also is tied to Keyes. G-Rod takes the rest of the field.

Right now the Republican primary is the best thing Rod Blagojevich has going for him. And the frightening thing is that he and his political people know it and have set themselves up to win that fight.

Apparently Declaring It’s Okay Makes it So

ArchPundit June 27, 2005 2 Comments

In a bizarre article about the media buys for the State Lottery:

Blagojevich’s audit of his agency covered a period from Sept. 1, 2003 to Nov. 30, 2004, and also found that R.J. Dale failed to provide audited financial statements, canceled checks and bank data.

Clifton Gunderson reported, “Due to the insufficient reliable documentation and reconciliations of R.J. Dale’s records, we have not been able to complete the objectives of this engagement.”

Nevertheless, the auditors concluded that based on the limited documents, they “did not find evidence of misuse or waste of the Department of Revenue funds regarding the media purchasing.”

R.J. Dale officials could not be reached for comment, but Robert J. Dale has said his firm has done nothing wrong, and there were no discrepancies in the work it did for the state.

I imagine the IRS reads the paper and will be paying a visit very soon to R.J. Dale.

How Friggen Nutty is the Pharmacists for Life International?

ArchPundit June 8, 2005 2 Comments

They are the ones attacking Governor Rod Blagojevich for instituting the emergency order requiring pharmacies that stock contraceptives to dispense them upon receipt of a valid prescription (the order includes the ability to make professional decisions regarding the pharmaceutical).

They are calling the Govenor, Rod “Slobodan” Blagojevich.

Governor “Slobodan” Blagojevich refuses to back down from his unconstitutional rule making dispensing of abortion drugs mandatory for IL pharmacists, even if they invoke the state’s healthcare provider conscience clause. Hiz Honor continues to show a despotic disrespect for the law and freedom of religion and conscience, as did his “namesake” who is up for war crimes following ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Heczegovina. The Guv would love to cleanse IL of any pharmacists who still have a conscience, or so it seems!

Let’s start with what’s wrong here

1) He only requires pharmacies to dispense drugs they already carry
2) He’s a doofus, but he isn’t a genocidal dictator. You lose pretty much all credibility when you compare promulgating an emergency order regarding contraceptives to genocide. No, not pretty much all, all credibility
3) The Health Care Conscious Clause applies to individuals delivering care and even then there is controversy over whether it covers pharmacists. Let’s say it does, the order doesn’t require an individual pharmacist to do anything. It requires a pharmacy that carries a drug to dispense that drug, order it as its written policies require (or not if they don’t carry it), at the patient’s direction to return the script or pass it along to a pharmacy that will.
4) and talk about bashing an ethnicity…

Americans United for Life are suing him over the rule as well.

The guffaw line is

The suit alleges in part that the Governor’s emergency rule violates the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act by telling compelling pharmacy owners who do not want to carry drugs such as the morning-after pill that can cause abortions to act against its ethical and moral beliefs in dispensing such drugs.

What they don’t quite realize is that the text is quite clear

Upon receipt of a valid, lawful prescription for a contraceptive,
a pharmacy must dispense the contraceptive, or a suitable
alternative permitted by the prescriber, to the patient or the
patient?s agent without delay. If the contraceptive, or a suitable
alternative, is not in stock, the pharmacy must obtain the
contraceptive under the pharmacy?s standard procedures for
ordering contraceptive drugs not in stock, including the
procedures of any entity that is affiliated with, owns, or
franchises the pharmacy. However, if the patient prefers, the
prescription must either be transferred to a local pharmacy of
the patient?s choice or returned to the patient, as the patient
directs.

The simple conclusion one should reach is that if your policy is to not stock a drug, you would have a standard procedure of not doing so–and hence could then return the script or pass it on to a pharmacy that does carry it.

What the order does is very simple–if you carry a contraceptive, you have to dispense it upon receipt of a valid prescription and assuming you don’t identify a therapeutic problem for the patient.

There are many, many things for which to criticize Rod Blagojevich, but in this case the Governor has shown good judgment in issuing an order that is narrowly tailored yet guarantess women reasonable access to drugs that a pharmacy already provides.

And it wasn’t just once they call him Slobodan

BTW, when I said Crooks and Liars and Eriposte at The Left Coast missed the point on this issue the other day, that should have read miss an important point—my apologies for the more awkward language.

UPDATE: Oliver Willis reminds me Media Matters did work up on Pharmacists fro Life International

UPDATE 2: Apparently Albertson’s is allowing pharmacists to refer such prescriptions to other pharmacists. Dobson’s Focus on the Family applauds the move:

Citizen Link(Dobson’s Gang): “Pharmacists should not be forced to fill prescriptions or the ‘morning after’ abortion pill,” he said, “if it iolates their conscience.” Albertsons distributed a memo to all its Illinois pharmacists stating it would accommodate their right of conscience by permitting them to refer prescriptions to which they conscientiously object to another Albertsons pharmacist or to a competitor.

More….

Blagojevich imposed an “emergency rule” stating that a pharmacist “must dispense . . . without delay” contraceptives, including so-called emergency contraceptives such as the “morning after” pill, despite the state’s right-of-conscience act.

Steven H. Aden, chief litigation counsel of CLS’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, said the right of conscience is an important component of religious liberty. “Pharmacists should not be forced to fill prescriptions for the ‘morning after’ abortion pill,” he said, “if it violates their conscience.”

Shortly after ADF and CLS filed suit, Albertsons distributed a memo to all its Illinois pharmacists stating it would accommodate their right of conscience by permitting them to refer prescriptions to which they conscientiously object to another Albertsons pharmacist or
to a competitor.

“We applaud the decision by Albertsons to restore to Mr. Scimio and other Albertsons pharmacists the same rights they had prior to the governor’s action,” Aden said, “and allow them to be true to their beliefs about the sanctity of human life.”

This is just wrong on so many levels. The order never required INDIVIDUAL PHARMACISTS to dispense the drug. It required that a pharmacy that carried a drug dispense the drug upon a valid prescription if they carry that drug. Nothing in the rule forces individuals to dispense drugs. Albertson’s isn’t restoring anything–and it’s complying with the law. Whether an individual pharmacist dispenses is irrelevant to the rule. The rule only requires that a pharmacy dispense what it carries–so the choice by Albertson’s is a choice between employer and employee. In short, Focus on the Family is lying about the rule to try and make an issue out of something that doesn’t exist.

How Much Credit Does the Governor Get for the Session?

ArchPundit June 7, 2005 No Comments

First, let me stipulate that as bad as I think the budget is, no one pays attention to that who isn’t already voting one way or another. Budgets are far too detailed for the average swing voter and just don’t affect their vote much.

The print press has pretty much given the budget as a win to Blagojevich and in the sense that it gets him out of the press and takes the primary attack against him out of play, that’s certainly true. Rich Miller’s column is pretty much the conventional wisdom, and it’s pretty much correct in terms of the budget helping the Governor out in a tough time.

I think that success is fleeting though. Next year, as pointed out in an interview with The Speaker, the budget probably won’t be much different and so going into the election one might be tempted to think Blagojevich has avoided his biggest problem.

But I don’t think he has, I think Rich points it out here:

Just about every reporter I know who is employed by a major media outlet is working on at least one big story about alleged corruption or shady practices within the Blagojevich administration. Not all of these investigations will bear fruit, of course, but we can expect plenty of negative reports in the days and weeks ahead. His “window” could close soon as reporters dig into the shenanigans at the Department of Central Management Services, the state lottery and allegedly hinky hiring practices all over the place.

The thing about the Administration is that by repeating endlessly the mantra that Blagojevich was changing the way the state does business, he’s legitimately set himself up to be held to a higher standard. Now, with the dam broken after the CMS audit and Tony Rezko appearing on every corner, every reporter who had a tip on something shady can go after it because the editors believe there is something worth going after. There’s smoke and so probably there is fire. As those pop up, some may be minor, some may be major, some may be devastating, but such stories never produce good results. One doesn’t go in looking for corruption and come out finding a well run agency. The stories have three possible results with varying degrees in each category:

1) Corruption
2) Incompetence
3) Story is killed

None produce good publicity and every story can start with the hook that while he ran in 2002 promising to change the way business was done in Springfield……

The advantage of keeping your nose clean as a politician is that generally reporters are well fed by campaigns and state government. They can go and get the differing sides to a policy dispute or cover an interesting angle to a press release and when it’s busy they can’t justify spending resources just combing through potential tips that’ll take a lot of time to track down. Under the game when there isn’t a big issue of corruption out there, it means that incumbents do okay and can build up name recognition and get credit for specific bills or programs. However, when a story breaks and it looks like there is blood in the water, everyone wants to break the hot story and to do that they have to start following up on rumblings in Springfield or Chicago and investigate–competition works for the public good.

Making it worse–the timing for the CMS audit and other issues comes as the Lege adjourns and the Springfield press now has a lot of free time on its hands to track down stories. Those efforts are likely to produce a drip, drip, drip effect with new negative stories on a consistent basis.

Add to that a grand jury investigation and a potential challenger in Devine and it gets very hard to get back on message for the administration. What he needs is a strong challenge from the right wing so he can define himself against conservative Republicans. But with a Republican primary most of the fire is going to be within the Republican circular firing squad and that won’t let himself define his positions in relation to them–and worse, a moderate like Topinka could emerge posing a real threat to him in a general election.

So the Governor did avoid a platform for the Republicans to attack him everyday, but he also freed up the press to investigate every orifice that Tony Rezko has.