Open Thread 6th CD
ArchPundit
Have the flame war hear
(down one more for new stuff
Illinois Congressional Races
The Nastiest Race in Illinois
is probably the GOP primary in IL-08. Salvi and McSweeney are firing wildly at each other with tons of cash. If Churchill had done some serious fundraising, he might have been able to thread the needle while these two battle it out–he still might have a chance with a low enough turnout since he has built in name recognition from being an office holder.
Cal is following the race closely and has a lot of the mail from the race.
But They Have Great Services
Kadner offers up one of the classic defenses of corrupt machine politics. It’s not a horrible point in one sense. Individuals do get an efficient mechanism to solve their problems.
But weren’t these argument addressed back in Boss?
Why does the Machine act like it does?
Despite all those safeguards and its lopsided superiority over local opposition, the Machine never fails to run scared. For this reason, or maybe out of habit, it never misses a chance to steal a certain number of votes and trample all over the voting laws
The Machine isn’t the Machine of Royko’s Boss. The Machine has lost a lot, if not most of its power, but the remnants still exist and they still play the same games, just not as successfully. While everyone wants to point to Madigan’s effectiveness as a sign of the Machine, Madigan long ago evolved and created an actual sophisticated political operation and brought in new interests in his own area. One should remember his Ward is relatively well integrated because he’s found ways to make the whites feel comfortable with integration on an economic level.
Others, like Lipinski just kept on playing the same game–planting candidates, burying the opposition, and tricking voters into not having a choice.
Sure, the old man ran paranoid and provided lots of services, but those services come at a price.
20% of the 3rd District is Latino—why aren’t the Lipinski’s at the forefront of issues affecting the Latino community? Is the office that responsive if it ignores a growing base of citizens and voters in the District by clinging to politics of the past? The District is far more progressive than in the past, is a social conservative really the best way to represent them?
Machines put hacks into public positions–so those who don’t know to complain to the right person are stuck in substandard public housing. Or they get a toxic site next to their house, or they get bureaucrats in the proper office too busy with those who went to the Congressman.
Even if you accept Lipinski’s people help people out individually, the patronage and the corruption saps money away from legitimate governmental functions.
And Dan Lipinski understands of all this and that’s why I don’t give him a pass. He’s a good scholar who has done some good political science. To do that, he has to understand democratic theory, and yet he went along with this fundamentally anti-democratic move. He might not seem evil, but his actions undermine the integrity our electoral system and the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. And that hurts us all.
Yard Sign Time
Regular readers know that yard sign wars drive me batty as the primary purpose of yard signs in most campaigns appears to be to give volunteers something to do more than influence votes. There’s a mild impact of yard signs in giving a sense of momentum, but generally they aren’t that useful.
Even better, McQueary touches on the issue today. First, I can vouch for John, I talked to him well before he got in the race and was seeking out help and assistance from other relatively successful grass roots candidates so the notion he is a plant is incorrect–and he did put out the yard signs, but apparently Mike Joyce didn’t have anything else to do with his life because:
REAKING SULLIVAN NEWS- Kelly Campaign Guru Mike Joyce
Caught in the Act….AND THE ILLEGAL ACTIVITY CONTINUES …. thought you’d
all want to know the latest!Last night, John Sullivan’s campaign for Congress in
the 3rd Congressional District put up 1,000 yard signs
in the 19th Ward and Oak Lawn. This morning about 3
were left. The signs had been torn down over night.That, evidently, was not enough for Sullivan’?s
opponent John Kelly. This afternoon, Kelly Campaign
guru Mike Joyce, drove his official Cook County car
around the district to tear down more signs. He
stopped out in front of the Sullivan campaign
headquarters and his accomplice got out and ripped
down all of the Sullivan signs in front of the
Sullivan campaign office. Campaign Manager Andrew
Moore ran out of the office and stopped the thief with
signs in hand. In an act of courage, Mike Joyce drove
off in his county car and abandoned his young
accomplice. Later he called the kid on his cell phone
and told him to take the bus home.John Sullivan, who at the time of the sign theft was
receiving the endorsement of the Concerned Latino
Voters, said, “I can’t believe that my opponents’
campaign is more interested in campaign thuggery than
in talking about the important issues in this campaign
like the need for universal health care, a plan to get
of Iraq, safeguarding pensions and protecting civil
and human rights for all.”Sullivan went on to say “The county policy about use
of cars is clear. They are only to be used for
official county business, not political shenanigans.
That county business hopefully does not include theft,
vandalism and electioneering on a Sunday afternoon.”Sullivan received the endorsement of the Concerned
Latino Voters because of Congressman Dan Lipinski’s
vote in favor of HR 4437. (Lipinski is Sullivan’s
other opponent in the race.) That bad vote by Lipinski
served as the catalyst for the March 10 protest march
in Chicago. Sullivan is strongly committed to the
cause of justice and integral immigration reform that
respects the human and civil rights of ALL immigrants.
You could at least have the respect to go pick up the poor kid….
Luis Shows a Little Temper
But hey, it was at Tom Tancredo, so go ahead.
Congressional debate about immigration has gotten ugly, according to Thursday’s edition of Roll Call.
Excerpts from the Roll Call story follow:
###
We knew immigration was a contentious issue and all, but wait until you hear the epithets that Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) hurled at Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), Congress? chief immigration critic, after a live debate they had on CNBC Wednesday. Sneak preview: They include ?bigot,? ?racist? and ?KKK.?After the lunchtime show in the Cannon Rotunda ended, Gutierrez made a joke about how the ?immigrant? (him, though he was born in Chicago) showed up on time while the ?Gringo? (Tancredo) was late. Gutierrez told Tancredo that he had a ?really ugly policy.?
The way Gutierrez?s office tells the story, Tancredo and the two aides who accompanied him followed Gutierrez to his office. Tancredo kept ?following him, touching him, following him, touching him,? Gutierrez spokesman Scott Frotman said.
At that point, Gutierrez pretty much snapped. ?Have you ever eaten in a restaurant?? he asked Tancredo, adding with feigned disgust, ?How could you eat from the plates touched by those nasty illegal immigrants??
###
Read the full, registration-restricted story here.
One Can Only Hope This is a Metaphor
Lipinski and others abandon parade float as smoke erupts
Everything was going smoothly for U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) during the South Side Irish parade on Western Avenue Sunday until his float got to 112th Street.
That’s when a thick, white cloud of smoke erupted from the front of the Chevy pickup carrying a float that was decorated with a plastic picnic table, a long white platform adorned with shamrocks and green-trim–and Lipinski, another adult and six children.
Lipinski and the others on board scattered, as did the float’s driver. Meanwhile, the crowd cheered mercilessly.
A contingent of marching New York City firefighters, who had been invited to the parade by Lipinski, ran to the smoking vehicle. They quickly made sure no one was still aboard and pushed it out of the parade route. Chicago firefighters later doused the truck’s engine with water.
Lipinski, who faces two challengers in the March 21 Democratic primary in the Southwest Side’s 3rd Congressional District, said the float was rented.
“It was cheap,” he said disgustedly as he decided to hoof it along the parade route. “It was a good thing we had the New York Fire Department right behind us.”
The driver, Robert Munoz, said the truck’s “check engine” light flashed before smoke began pouring out from under the hood. There was no fire, and Munoz thought it possible that a hose burst.
The Buchanan-Lipinski Front
Leo hits a point that has been missing on IL-03 race. The issue of social conservatism is too often thought of as an issue of abortion only. There are many issues that social conservatives have latched on to though and one of the important ones is immigration and trade.
Lipinski looks like a Dem because he voted against CAFTA, but not for the same reasons most Dems would have (I’m pretty agnostic for a whole bunch of reasons). The reality is that Dan Lipinski is a guy by all accounts I can gather, voted for Pat Buchanan in 2000 and I’m pretty sure that Buchanan’s views on social issues and immigration were key. 36 Democrats voted for HR 4437 and I’m betting the Lipinski was the guy with the highest Latinor or close to the highest Latino population to vote for it at 21.3%. The continued exploitation by both parties in Southwestern Chicagoland of Latinos must stop. Parties have used and abused them throughout the area including Cicero and other areas where Latinos were only allowed to progress if they helped the machines out (remember this is an area of both Democratic and Republican machines–Skippy).
Via Illinois DemNet we see what Blagojevich had to say:
“Whether their names are Gutierrez or Lozano, Lipinski or Blagojevich; it doesn’t matter. This is a country built by immigrants.”
I don’t know if the Governor realized it or not, but either way, he made a fantastic point. Go down to Elmwood Park or that area and see the Polish immigrants that still live down there. When I worked for Circuit City back when it opened the Chicago market, I visited that store. The number one salesman was a guy who worked the warehouse until they figured out he could speak Polish and needed him on the sales floor. A guy like Lipinski might get that. They were people who and/or both fled persecution and a bad economy and that is the most American thing of all.
My relatives fled the potato famine from what I understand and some of them became thugs on the East Side in St. Clair County when Irish gangs ran the rackets for others. Most of the family worked hard and made a better life for themselves.
I’d bet the Lipinski’s have a similar story, but with more of him around, there won’t be many more families like that. We’ll be the poorer for it.
One-fifth of the 3rd District is Latino. It would be a shame if they were represented by a guy who seems to think they are only good as machine cogs. Go visit John Sullivan’s web site and volunteer and donate.
I consider there to be three vital races in this years election for progressives, this is one of them.
The Quote from Weller’s Office
Grand Old Partisan raised some questions concerning the City News Article that were reasonable.
There is something else I’m tracking down that made me not even flinch about the quote, but still a reasonable question so I tracked down the journalist, James Taylor, who wrote the story. He graciously allowed me to print the quote from Weller’s office in Taylor’s voice describing the situation
The quote followed the man being informed of our poll and the results and it also followed our reply to questions about the newspaper, ie. who are our primary readers, area we circulate in and a statement, “Aren’t most of your readers black and Democrats…”
“We don’t think that the opinions of African American voters will have a big impact on this election.”
Taylor’s reasoning for not naming the staffer is not the usual one, but I think makes a good point. He doesn’t want the staffer to be a scapegoat. You might disagree with Taylor on it, but I see his point and personally think its a good idea.
Taylor also said the poll was a survey of the general public and readers. As I mentioned before, the methodology what you’d expect from a full blown pollster, it’s an interesting finding for a paper that serves a defined community. Again, I wouldn’t hold it up as gospel, but as an interesting story for the community served.
Grand Old Partisan also questions whether or not a staffer in a Congressional office would answer that question–my take is that it isn’t that uncommon. Some offices are sticklers for avoiding that sort of thing, while others are pretty loose so it didn’t stick out to me, but a reasonable point to make. I’m pretty confident in Taylor’s reporting and while I don’t take the poll overly seriously, it’s interesting which I’m betting is what they were shooting for.
And thanks again to Taylor who was very quick to reply and quite helpful.
Best Line of the Week
Rich has a column that wins hand down for the best political column in sometime, but Lynn Sweet’s column on the 3rd District has a great line:
The poll also shows that if enough people know about how William Lipinski sneaked his son into office, it will change their opinion of if he deserves another term. Happy to oblige.
I don’t have high ethical expectations of Illinois politicians, but the Lipinski switch really was quite brazen.
She also mentions those of us who pointed out her blog before it went with a big public announcement–and of course, she’s welcome. I’m a big fan of reporters having a chance to report the small tidbits that don’t fit in a column and have the basic source material available. It’s a huge addition to the news organizations and I am a big fan of her columns anyway.
Kelly: A Financial Planner
Under the category of when your campaign can hurt your business, the man claims to have $78,001 cash on hand having only raised $43,900. It’s Bush Math!
It’s as if negative numbers hadn’t been discovered yet. I’m pretty sure this is not a good sign for his business, his campaign, his legal situation, nor if he were by some miracle to make it to Congress, his ability to know a damn thing about the federal budget.