Illinois Senate

Vallas on Gidwitz

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 No Comments

I don’t know enough of Gidwitz’s history, but here is the first bit I have on him. Trib on January 27, 2000

Vallas called state officials “Keystone Kops” who were caught in “a comedy of errors” in the way they administered the new ISAT.

“The problem is that the state is running this (test) from a distance,” Vallas said during a morning appearance on WBEZ-FM. “They are just making arbitrary policy. First of all they get a superintendent (McGee) from the suburbs who had 3,000 kids in his district, and now of course he is in charge of overseeing all the schools in the state of Illinois.

“They appoint as the board president, Ron Gidwitz, who was an absolute failure in City Colleges–ran City Colleges into the ground. So of course he basically gets promoted to the state job. But that’s what happens when you’re worth a fortune.

“So we have basically . . . (people) setting state policy who basically are either not serious about it or being amateurish about it or maybe they have other motivations. But the bottom line is they are mismanaging the policy,” Vallas said.

I’ll be looking into this, but obviously I have a lot of respect for Vallas’ opinions.

McKenna Apparently Approached

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 1 Comment

And wants to help the party in other ways–from comments. Given how hard this race would be no one can blame him.

Roeser Still Pushing McKenna

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 3 Comments

Couldn’t see that coming could you?

Ideally, it would be Rauschenberger. I still think that would be a great race that would make Illinois proud–two smart articulate and thoughtful guys going head to head in a true debate over what government should be about.

As it stands now, I don’t know enough about Gidwitz to even make a snarky comment about the guy (errr–maybe that was snarky–shrug)

First Gidwitz Polling Data

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 2 Comments

From the Hotline:

Ryan Poll Tested Gidwitz Last Night; Obama Starts With 34 Point Lead
A Public Opinion Strategies (R) poll, conducted last night for Ryan’s campaign, surveyed 593 likely voters; margin of error +/- 4.2% (Hotline sources, 6/25).

General Election Matchup
Obama 55
Gidwitz 21
DK/Other 24

The Fax on Potential Replacements

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 1 Comment

Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax has some scuttlebutt on

The name most mentioned yesterday as a possible Ryan replacement was Ron Gidwitz, a wealthy businessman and education reform crusader. Gidwitz has a lot of friends in the party, but he is not loved by Mayor Daley and the teachers’ unions, which he battled at the City Colleges of Chicago. Another name that popped up out of the blue is Jayne Thompson, the wife of the former governor, although nobody really knows if she’d even accept such an offer. Of course, there are also the other usual suspects, Jim Edgar, Jim Thompson (both of whom reportedly don’t want it), Judy Baar Topinka (doesn’t want it), Steve Rauschenberger (wants it, but lost the primary), Jim Oberweis (anti-illegal immigrant weirdness in the primary rules him out), etc.

While Dems first choice is for Ryan to stay in the race, Oberweis is a close second. He won’t even challenge Obama and frankly, those commercials were the funniest damn thing on TV. Flashback to Polis’ take on the helicopter commercials.

The Happiest Man In Illinois

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 1 Comment

Danny Davis–a truly boneheaded event is getting more of a free pass because of Jack!

ArchPundit readers first read about it on March 30th, but real credit goes to Gorenfeld, Polis and Rich Miller at the Capitol Fax and then Eric Zorn.

Update: Eric Zorn reminds of me Christopher Hayes in the Reader.

Trib’s Defense of Going to Court

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 1 Comment

If find the stats amazing

In Cook County, there were more than 191,000 domestic relations cases filed from 1999 to 2003. Only 32 of those cases were sealed from public view. If you sought a divorce in Cook County, or just about anywhere else in the nation, chances are your records are wide open to scrutiny by anyone–friends, neighbors, reporters. You cannot have them closed to scrutiny.

Strangely, one of those 32 was Blair Hull. And another guy in a field of less than 20 had his closed in a different state–Jack Ryan. Hull seems to have not understood the warning flag that it sent up–Ryan understood it perfectly.

Can Jill Stanek Do Just a Little Research?

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 No Comments

In the comment boards at the Illinois Leader she is defending the claim that Jack! told her the custody files were always sealed. This is false and nearly every press account explains this well. The custody files were sealed about one year after the divorce was finalized.

The custody documents, according to Jack, have always been sealed. If Jack has lied to me on this point, and to pro-family leaders he said the same thing to Monday, then his alleged charcter flaws will be exposed.

If Stanek bothered to even know anything about the subject she’d be embarrassed by this. As it is now, she seems happy to be oblivious.

The First Polling Data

ArchPundit June 25, 2004 No Comments

Doesn’t look all that different from other polling data from before the file release.

The caveat to the above statement is that Southtown polls have had the race the closest so this may be a significant drop in support for Ryan.

Here is the report at Rasmussen. Rasmussen had them at 48-40 in the last poll—the closest any poll had previously.

The polling against three relatively popular Illinois Republicans isn’t very good either given what Republicans would want to see:

Former Governor Jim Edgar is essentially tied with Obama at this time (Obama 45% Edgar 42%).

The incumbent Senator, Peter Fitzgerald, trails Obama 47% to 40%.

Judy Baar Topinka is within 11 points of Obama, trailing 49% to 38%.

Stanek Claims Jack! Told her the Files Were Always Under Seal

ArchPundit June 24, 2004 1 Comment

If true that Jack! told her they were always under seal, Jack! lied to her too. And she is buying the line a little too easy that this is unprecedented–it isn’t.