Turow on Obama

ArchPundit March 30, 2004 2 Comments

It helps to have an excellent writer profile you who happens to like you a lot.

I find the most interesting to be his ability to analyze legislation

In retrospect, that walk through the political shadows proved a turning point in Obama’s career. He recommitted himself to the Illinois Senate, where his intelligence and his growing savvy about the legislative process were combining to make him increasingly formidable. When Democrats took over the chamber in 2003, Obama won General Assembly approval of 26 bills, including legislation to expand healthcare benefits for uninsured children and adults, an earned income tax credit for low earners, and major criminal justice reforms.

The latter measures were of particular interest to me. In the summer of 2002, Obama had called me to get together to talk about death-penalty reform. For more than two years, I had sat as one of the 14 members of the Commission on Capital Punishment, a body that Gov. Ryan had appointed in 2000, after declaring a moratorium on executions in Illinois because of a growing record of mistakes in the capital process, most notably the death sentences of 13 individuals who were subsequently exonerated. In April 2002, the commission issued its report, including 85 recommendations for reform of Illinois’ laws.

Despite Ryan’s support for our recommendations, resistance to the measures ran deep in the General Assembly, due in large part to the barely tempered rage that had been been expressed by many Illinois prosecutors. After appearing at legislative hearings that spring, I grew skeptical that any of the proposals would become law. When I met Obama the following summer, he went through the recommendations with me, analyzing which proposed reforms had a chance of passing and which did not. I was impressed not only by the shrewdness of his analysis but also by his lack of rancor about those who disagreed with him and, most of all, by his refusal to bow to conventional wisdom about what was possible. There were a couple of provisions that had essentially been pronounced DOA, where I remember Obama saying, We might be able to do something there.

Oh, and no I haven’t seen any polls, but I check the Hotline every day so as soon as I see ’em, so will you.

What Should They Have Done Differently?

ArchPundit March 29, 2004 No Comments

OneMan is also running a good series on what Republican candidates should have done differently in the primary. The last is Jim Oberweis with the others linked from that entry. I hope he’ll continue to some of the others. I was thinking of the same for the Dems, but I think it is obvious so I’m leaning towards not ripping off his schtick. Any comments?

Ryan Divorce Files Go to A Referree

ArchPundit March 29, 2004 No Comments

The court case the Tribune brought to unseal Jack Ryan’s custody papers for his 9 year old son has been sent to a court referee to figure out what items should remain sealed to protect the child and what documents refer to simple disputes between Ryan and his ex-wife Jeri Ryan.

The telling part is the lameness of the arguments put forward by Ryan’s lawyer:

Ryan’s lawyer, Larry Ginsberg, said the situation has changed since Schnider’s original ruling.

“The detriment to the child is even more evident now,” he said. “The respondent is now the nominee for Senate for the Republican Party.”

Ryan won the Republican nomination in the March 16 Illinois primary. Some of his GOP opponents raised the issue of the sealed papers in the primary.

He said that the level of interest in the case has escalated and “it is now in the absolute worst interest of the child because it will be spun and reported.”

The judge commented at one point: “That’s the price of living in a free society that has open records, and Mr. Ryan is going to have to deal with that.”

I say lame because the interest of the child is only if there is information that damages the child. So information pertaining to the child’s whereabouts or his personal life separate from his parents is reasonable to exclude from the public only because it affects a party not included in the case, but the child trying to be protected. The rest is fair game and should be available because the courts should be an open institution. Protecting parents from embarrassment is not an acceptable reason to close files (or shouldn’t be).

In this case, the judge seems to be making very prudent decisions.

It is important to note that Jeri Ryan is now in favor of keeping the files closed. I’ve been somewhat reluctant to bring up some of this before, but I think it is important to note that the family did face a very serious and dangerous stalker some years ago. Jack Ryan’s fear of people misusing personal information isn’t without grounds. For some background on this there are some usenet discussions that detail the problems. As a warning they are not pretty and demonstrate a man who is clearly dangerous and in desperate need of treatment. Access his statements about Ryan here and for some of the Usenet commentary try here.

Not only did he do this on Usenet, he apparently sent many sexually explicit e-mails to Jeri Ryan and threatened her boyfriend Brannon Braga. So the concerns aren’t baseless, but instead of weeding out the material that is a concern from the rest, Ryan has created an issue that isn’t dying.

Defining the Race

ArchPundit March 23, 2004 6 Comments

Both Democrats and Republicans have come out swinging in order to define the other side as either too liberal or too conservative.

Tom Roeser devoted his Sunday column to pointing out Obama’s liberal policies.

As a screed to the party faithful that is fine, but Kerry is up on Bush by 11-15 points in Illinois so this hardly seems like an effective strategy. In another strange twist, Roeser seems to think that Obama would vote for an automatic pullout in Iraq. This strikes me as a strange criticism when the GOP nominee has said he’d vote for no more money in Iraq.

Byrne takes on Obama suggesting that Obama should embrace vouchers and cites the numbers that show heavy support in African-American and Latino communities for vouchers.

As they might say, the devil is in the details because minority voters want vouchers under the condition that they are real vouchers and not some pittance that will only help a few. Ryan’s proposals are unlikely to be very helpful. Small scholarships only help in Catholic schools–of which there are limited spaces. Remember the theory behind vouchers is that they will spur development of more choices, but to only give an amount to cover a Catholic school misses the fact that the Archdiocese often subsidizes tuition and always subsidizes buildings–the existence of current buildings is a tremendous benefit to a school. Trying to run new schools on the same cost–even if one included the subsidy would be nearly impossible. Add to that the problem of students having a high proportion of special ed kids and the costs only increase further.

Now, if Ryan is serious about public school choice and opening up schools like New Trier to out of district students—go for it Jack! Just let me know how you handle the bourgieous riot outside of your house in Wilmette.

Axelrod, Obama’s political consultant, suggested that Jack! was too extreme. Is he any more accurate? Well, I tend to think he is too conservative for Illinois, but I’ll get into that over time. The key to paint Obama as too liberal is to tie him to issues that people see as silly positions on the left. Unfortunately, neither Roeser or Byrne identify such an issue in their arguments. They might reinforce conservative beliefs about Obama, but not much else.

Patrick Fitzgerald Safe?

ArchPundit March 23, 2004 No Comments

In what I think is one of the more interesting developments in the Senate race, it appears the US Attorney for Northern Illinois is now out of play as an issue—both Dick Durbin and Obama support keeping Patrick Fitzgerald regardless of who is President.

Okay, quick, get them to both agree to appoint a Fitzgerald like guy if he moves on to bigger and better things and get Hastert and Ryan to agree to the same thing.

DSCC Dream Team

ArchPundit March 23, 2004 2 Comments

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has unveiled Brad Carson (OK), Barack Obama and Ken Salazar (CO) as their Dream Team. Uhhh…guys, it is nice to showcase the diverse talent in this year’s race, but women tend to throw more money in when there is a little testosterone balance on the Dream Team. Admittedly, of the challengers for the Dems this year only Farmer has any shot–and that isn’t a good shot, but as a fundraising appeal, it might help.

(story on The Hotline)

In other Senate news, Grassley has a challenger in Iowa. Art Small. He will probably do worse than the last challenger, one David Osterberg–a former professor at my alma mater–Cornell College. But that wasn’t very good either.

Pictures from Obama/Terkel Fundraiser

ArchPundit March 23, 2004 3 Comments

Goldberg passes on pics of Obama and Terkel and Goldberg himself at a fundraiser

Full Run Down On Barack’s Victory

ArchPundit March 19, 2004 1 Comment

Rich Miller has his weekly column up at the Capitol Fax and it demonstrates where the numbers were.

And he made a point about St. Clair where Obama didn’t win, but did better after showing just a few commercials. On Daily Kos there was some chatter that the commercials weren’t that good–the one I saw–where he talked to the camera was Clinton like in its warmth.

Eric Zorn: Our Press Agent

ArchPundit March 19, 2004 No Comments

For all of the bloggers popping up covering Illinois Politics, our ambassador to the regular world is Eric Zorn who appeared on WBEZ’s 848 last Friday. He gave Polis, Oneman, me, and others some great press which is very much appreciated. While I don’t mention it often, 848 is one of the better news sources for political junkies taking political reporters from around the state and getting them to chat about the news of the day.

One minor thing about Eric’s discussion–I was blogging the 2002 General Election so this is my second big election. But his point is correct that overall this is the first major Illinois election with significant blogger attention.

Of course, my projections for that one were nearly as bad as this one.

My Hobby-Horse: Disclosure

ArchPundit March 19, 2004 No Comments

The Trib has a great article detailing the issues Blair Hull faced in the primary. My argument about potential scandals or any information that may be detrimental is release it about two weeks after the formal announcement. Get the story on the radar of the news media, address it, and move on. If you wait it will kill you later. In Hull’s case it took him off message and killed the good momentum he had–ceding it to a very charismatic candidate (who I happened to favor). Like all news stories, I think the insiders would say it was more complicated, but the big issues are covered well.

But politicians running for high offices are kidding themselves if they think that a negative information will not come out. Sometimes that fact is unfair, most of the time given the past abuses by candidates, the voters should be able to judge someone in their entirety. That said, the problem of not controlling the release means that a candidate is judged on their worst days and not on their life as a whole often. Releasing on the candidate’s timetable allows he or she to put it into the context of their life. Allowing the press to do it gives them juiciness and makes them salivate at eating you alive.

I’ll note this is the first sympathetic article in the last month for Hull–after he lost.