Even Better
ArchPundit
Constantine worked for State Representative Robert A Molara who has a District Office at…
6245 South Archer Avenue. Busy place.
Illinois Congressional Races
A Coinquidink
Political Consulting for Lipinski staff is pretty common. You might remember Anthony R. Constantine on Lipinski’s staff promising to do some work for Bill Scheuer in gathering signatures last cycle. The same Anthony R. Constantine works for Lipinski’s office having earned about $40,000 last year.
Constantine ran for Library Trustee in Oak Lawn as well-where Hurckes is a Trustee
And Leonard DeClue who challenged the Keyes residency was appointed to the Oak Lawn Fair Housing Commission upon which Hurckes also sits.
How To Win Friends and Influence People
From 1994:
Special Report. A precinct captain of the 23rd ward named Jerry Hirkess lives in Oaklawn but is registered to vote at the 23rd ward in Chicago. Also three people are registered at the bar but do not live there. (C) BOHICA bar. (SB) Jerry Hurckes. (V) Jerome Hurckes. (SB) Jerry Hurckes, Precinct Captain. (C) BOHICA BAR. (V) Albert Cacciottolo, Kathleen McGuigian, Richard Kus are registered at the BOHICA BAR. (C) At the BOHICA BAR. (SB) Unidentified Mailman. (SB) Jerry Hurckes. (SB) Congressman William Lipinski, 3rd Cong. Dist. (SB) Chris Robling, COMMISSION OF BOARD OF ELECTIONS.
Meet Jerry Hurckes
Trustee to the Village of Oak Lawn
Dan Lipinski’s Chief of Staff Over $100,000 in 2006 on the federal payroll
Political Consultant to Bill Lipinski’s All American Eagles $3500 in 2006 alone
Trustee Jerry Hurckes touched off the controversy when he requested that the inspector visit a home on the 9300 block of Melvina Avenue based on a complaint that it was vacant and deteriorating.
It turned out to be a bogus tip. The house is inhabited but in good shape.
The inspector, however, noticed a Dumpster sitting in the yard of a house a few doors down.
Hurckes’ political rival Kurt Madey — who tried to unseat him earlier this spring — owns the home and was in the middle of an unpermitted construction project.
Now, the inspector who confronted Madey on the illegal project is caught in the middle of the dispute and is facing allegations that he strong-armed the village board hopeful.
“This was by sheer coincidence?” said Mayor Dave Heilmann who backed Madey in his bid for office. “I don’t think so.”
“If you battle the king, you better kill him, or he’s going to come back and haunt you,” Hurckes said on Election Day as he ribbed the rival Unity Party and alluded to a challenge for the mayoral seat in 2009.
The statement was enlightening regarding the latest dust up, Heilmann said.
Hurckes denies that politics had anything to do with his call to the public works department.
“I’m the innocent guy here,” he said contending that he merely was responding to a constituent’s complaint.
“I followed through on things … it’s part of my job,” he added.
From September 1, 2004 in the Daily Herald:
NEW YORK – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes will try to withstand another legal objection to his candidacy in a State Board of Elections hearing that could take place as early as Friday.
Leonard A. De Clue, a 54-year-old Oak Lawn Democrat, filed the objection Monday, citing a problem with the paperwork the Illinois Republican Party filed to put Maryland’s Keyes on the Nov. 2 ballot in place of the departed primary winner Jack Ryan.
The state GOP did not know where Keyes would be living when it offered him the Senate position, so it left that line blank on a required election form, then went back to fill in the address days later when it learned Keyes had chosen an apartment in Calumet City as his residence. That’s the basis for the objection.
De Clue could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night. But he has ties to Jerry Hurckes, who is retiring Chicago Democratic Congressman William Lipinski’s chief of staff. Hurckes and De Clue have served on Oak Lawn’s fair housing panel.
Keyes’ campaign, which fought off another ballot challenge last Friday, was bemused by the latest challenge.
“What are they scared of?” said Bill Pascoe, Keyes’ campaign manager. “What does this say about the Democratic Party?”
Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama, said he didn’t know about the challenge.
More in a bit
Most Hysterical Political Donation for this Reporting Period
Michael P. Flanagan. The Other Accidental Congressman to
Dan Lipinski. $250 from the former Congressman of the 5th District. It’s largely a lobbyist and PAC centered filing with $76,000 raised and $320,000 raised.
Mark Pera IL-3
|
||
|
Bill Foster IL-14
Since we began our campaign, you have been fantastic. You’ve knocked on hundreds of doors to gather petition signatures, contributed to the campaign, sent us some great ideas and suggestions and provided all of us with the moral support that makes these long days all worthwhile.
Now, we need you to push us over the top.
The 3rd Quarter is ending and the campaign will be judged on how successful we have been at building a movement. We firmly believe that a grassroots campaign with a significant number of regular people donating will send the loudest message to the powers that be in Washington.
Here is our goal: 14 dollars each from 140 new donors. Forward this email to your friends and ask them to join our campaign for change.
We know that sending just another politician to Washington won’t help. We know that we need a fresh start so that we can change course in Iraq and here at home. We need to send a proven problem solver like Bill Foster who has the background and experience to bring about real change.
But, we can’t do it without you. Send a message that you want change. Make a 14 dollar contribution now and ask your friends to do the same by September 30th.
At the end of our 14 from 140 Campaign, Bill will join you on a special conference call to thank you and everyone you recruited personally.
Thank you for your support and for all that you do,
Bill Foster for Congress Team
P.S. You can contribute via Act Blue here.
Dan Seals
We have very big races in Illinois this cycle so I’ll be doing this a lot. I’ve linked to my Illinois 2008 page for those interested in contributing. There are several good candidates on the page, I’m highlighting those with primaries for now, but there are also State Senators Dan Kotowski and Mike Frerichs.
From Matt Stoller’s Post
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/UEfGmOWqHqA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The next addition to the Blue Majority page is Dan Seals, who is running in Illinois’s 10th district against Republican Mark Kirk. The district is one of the bluest in the country held by a Republican, going for Kerry over Bush in 2004 by 53-47. Seals ran a hard race in 2006, and had a heart-breaking and narrow loss. Running for office is incredibly difficult; you must work 14 hour days for months, with almost no income, no sleep, limited family time, and no exercise.
You have to beg for money from anyone you’ve ever met, and you get yelled at by activists on both sides. Meanwhile, voters are looking to be persuaded that they can trust you, and while your arguments make sense to you and your staff, you can never tell if voters believe you. It is incredibly difficult, and almost everyone loses their first time out. A successful political movement helps not just those who win, but those who take risks and lose, because without risk-taking, change cannot happen. And that’s why we’re in this. Seals gave up his career, his family life, and his privacy in 2006, and we’re going to make sure that he, like Eric Massa, Darcy Burner, and Charlie Brown, gets to finish the job.
As for Kirk, it’s pretty simple why this guy has to go. He’s considered a ‘moderate’ Republican by many anonymous strategists in insider publications, because apparently in DC, up is down. Sometimes he breaks with his party when we don’t need his vote, but the reality is closer to the video above, where Kirk ran away from an Iraq veteran so he wouldn’t have to answer questions about his stance on the war. The camera man is an AAEI organizer named Josh Lansdale, who also happens to be an Iraq vet. I wrote this episode up in July.
Kirk likes to portray himself as a moderate Republican, and he even went to the White House earlier this year to talk about Iraq with George Bush. In fact, The Hill reported that Karl Rove came down on Kirk hard for leaking this ‘confrontation’ to the press, and Kirk has quieted down.
Josh is an organizer for AAEI, and his goal is to stop the war by getting members of Congress to come out on Iraq. In this case, he went to the event trying to get Kirk to go on the record with what he said in the White House and what his current position is on Iraq. Does he support a withdrawal? Does he support timelines? Where is he on the surge? People who attended the event said that Kirk was wishy washy, but Josh couldn’t get a direct report. This episode took place at an event where Kirk keynoted eight local Chambers of Commerce coming together. Josh had bought a ticket online, but was not allowed to attend, with organizers claiming the event had been sold out as they were selling tickets nearby. So Josh eventually had to find Kirk out back, with this video camera.
The district, blue and getting bluer, is going to eat Kirk alive on Iraq, and he’s pushing extremely hard to be perceived of as moderate. He’s even going so far as to propose ‘bipartisan’ solutions with Bush Dog Democrat Dan Lipinski, as Kos noted earlier this month.
The Lipinski-Kirk plan calls for a phased withdrawal similar to the one that U.S. Gen. David Petraeus outlined on Monday. Under the plan, one troop brigade would return to the U.S. in December and three more would be removed in the spring, without replacement. It would provide for troop levels in July 2008 of about 130,000, which is equal to “pre-surge” troop levels.
Got that? We’d simply hit the “reset” button, taking 10 months to get us back to the pre-surge status quo. And somehow, this “bipartisan” bill (which Bush will announce this week anyway) is supposed to be a solution to anything?
Nope, it’s two endangered congressmen — one a Republican, the other a Lieberdem — clinging together for dear life in the face of an unpopular war that they in reality support. Their actions don’t change the facts on the ground (the surge was always unsustainable for the long haul). It does nothing to end a conflict in which a solution is far beyond our grasp.
We’ve already got Lipinski in our cross-hairs, and it’s going to be tough to take down the Chicago Democratic machine. But wouldn’t it be sweet if our response to Kirk and Lipinski’s bipartisan shill plan to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely was a bipartisan response of getting rid of both of them?
Yes, it would. Please throw a few coins to Dan Seals for Congress on Blue Majority.
At Least as Offensive as a Newspaper Ad
[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/4dWJgzGUGB8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
30 by 30 For Mark Pera
The ad is up in the corner and you can go here to donate. Please do. This is a winnable race with a reactionary, anti-democratic pol born on 3rd base thinking he hit a triple running against a strong progressive candidates who went to work in the steel mill.
Y’know all those races where you vote for the lessor of evils, this isn’t one of them. Mark’s a great guy-honest, humble, and a true progressive. Help him out.