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Obama Presidential Race

Illinois NOW Needs Some Help Finding Their Asses with Two Hands

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Below Gay Bruhn argues that Obama abandoned the pro-choice community by voting present. I then asked her why the endorsed Lisa Madigan:

ArchPundit Says:

February 2nd, 2008 e

===By reacting so emotionally you missed the real message: that when the time came to vote Obama took a pass. He did not vote as he promised us he would. That’s it. We needed him — he wasn’t there.

So why did you endorse Lisa Madigan?

gbruhn Says:

February 2nd, 2008 

She didn’t use this strategy on these bills.

gbruhn Says:

February 2nd, 2008 e

Attorney General Madigan voted no on the bills in question. To my knowledge she has never used this strategy.

ArchPundit Says:

February 2nd, 2008 e

The New York Times

December 20, 2007 Thursday
Correction Appended
Late Edition – Final

It’s Not Just ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nays’: Obama’s Votes in Illinois Echo

Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.

‘’It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,’’ Ms. Madigan said. ‘’In fact, it was the exact opposite.’’

ArchPundit Says:
February 2nd, 2008 eThe Associated Press State & Local Wire

April 6, 2001, Friday, BC cycle

BYLINE: By The Associated Press

SECTION: State and Regional

LENGTH: 269 words

The Illinois Senate voted 39-7 Friday for SB562, a measure requiring parental notification before minors obtain abortions. Voting “yes” were 30 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Voting “no” were 7 Democrats. Voting “present” were 1 Republican and 10 Democrats.
REPUBLICANS VOTING YES

Bomke (Springfield); Burzynski (Sycamore); Cronin (Elmhurst); Dillard (Hinsdale); Donahue (Quincy); Dudycz (Chicago); Geo-Karis (Zion); Hawkinson (Galesburg); Wendell Jones (Palatine); Karpiel (Carol Stream); Klemm (Crystal Lake); Lauzen (Aurora); Luechtefeld (Okawville); Robert Madigan (Lincoln); Mahar (Orland Park); Noland (Blue Mound); O’Malley (Palos Park); Parker (Northbrook); Peterson (Long Grove); Petka (Plainfield); Philip (Wood Dale); Radogno (LaGrange); Rauschenberger (Elgin); Roskam (Glen Ellyn); Sieben (Geneseo); Sullivan (Park Ridge); Syverson (Rockford); Thomas Walsh (LaGrange Park); Watson (Greenville); Weaver (Urbana)

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES

Clayborne (East St. Louis); DeLeo (Chicago); Demuzio (Carlinville); Munoz (Chicago); O’Daniel (Mount Vernon); Shadid (Edwards); Viverito (Burbank); Lawrence Walsh (Elwood); Woolard (Carterville)

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO

Cullerton (Chicago); Halvorson (Crete); Lightford (Chicago); Ronen (Chicago); Shaw (Chicago); Silverstein (Chicago); Trotter (Chicago)

REPUBLICANS VOTING PRESENT

Myers (Danville)

DEMOCRATS VOTING PRESENT

Bowles (Edwardsville); del Valle (Chicago); Hendon (Chicago); Jacobs (East Moline); Emil Jones (Chicago); Link (Highwood); Lisa Madigan (Chicago); Molaro (Chicago); Obama (Chicago); Welch (Peru)

PERSON: LAWRENCE E WALSH (54%);

COUNTRY: UNITED STATES (92%);

STATE: ILLINOIS, USA (92%);

CITY: CHICAGO, IL, USA (91%);

SUBJECT: VOTERS & VOTING (90%); ABORTION (78%); Abortion Notification-Senate Roll

LOAD-DATE: April 7, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Don’t bring junk in here…

Obama Presidential Race Uncategorized

Trib Polling Obama up 2-1 in Illinois

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55-24 Obama-Clinton 

The survey, involving separate samples of 500 Republicans and Democrats who said they were likely to take part in the state’s accelerated primary on Tuesday, has an error margin of 4.4 percentage points. The Democratic poll began Tuesday and the Republican poll began Wednesday; both polls concluded Thursday.

McCain’s up as well.
Suffredin for Cook County State’s Attorney leading

Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin held a narrow edge, with support from 17 percent of voters, the poll showed. Chicago Alds. Tom Allen (38th) and Howard Brookins (21st) each had 11 percent, as did Anita Alvarez, the No. 3 official in Devine’s office. Devine’s top assistant, Robert Milan, had 3 percent and Tommy Brewer, a defense lawyer and former FBI agent, had 2 percent.

Obama Presidential Race

Lorna Brett Howard Responds

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From Comments:

A response to Bonnie Grabenhofer, Illinois NOW President, from Lorna Brett Howard:

Bonnie is correct. I was not the president of Chicago NOW when Senator Obama made the “present” votes. I never said I was. Somehow it was reported that way, but you can review the video blog for yourself at www.youtube.com., type in Lorna Brett Howard. Here are the facts: I was president from 1995 – 1999. Barack Obama was elected to the state senate in 1996. He had a 100 percent voting record on choice all the time he was in office and Chicago Now and Illinois NOW endorsed Barack in all his state senate races, as did Planned Parenthood and NARAL. NOW relied on Pam Sutherland, Illinois Planned Parenthood’s lobbyist, to do all our work in the state legislature. She did a great job and it was because of her strategy we defeated many measure designed to restrict a woman’s right to choose. It was with heavy heart that I first went on the record to defend Obama’s record on choice, being a firm Hillary supporter. When the line of attack did not stop but was escalated in a direct mailer in New Hampshire to pro-choice voters from Hillary’s campaign I stopped being sad and got mad. This is bad for the pro-choice movement. It hurts our reputation and credibility. I stand for choice and truth.

In addition, does it not mean something that National NARAL president Nancy Keenan released a statement saying both Hillary and Barack are both 100 percent pro-choice?

Illinois and New York NOW have done serious damage to their organization’s reputation among serious pro-choice men and women. It is really distressing as a feminist to watch.

Glad to set the record straight.

Lorna Brett Howard

Obama Presidential Race Uncategorized

Zorn on Obama/Rezko

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Eric points out that a big part of the problem of the Rezko-Obama story is self-inflicted.

Rezko’s looming trial date (it’s next month) was bound to exhume any part of the story that had died. The national media was inevitably going to want to take a crack at the tale that places Obama squarely in the skeezy milieu of Illinois politics.

And if he became a top contender, his rivals were bound to look for ways to play the Rezko card and throw him off for at least a few news cycles.

Spring of last year would have been the time for Obama and his advisers to write “The Audacity of Tony,” a meticulous, utterly honest, month-by-month, day-by-day account of all his dealings with Rezko since 1990.

Then to scrub all his political accounts of any donations somehow attributable to Rezko (instead of doing this by conspicuous degrees).

And, finally, to sit with interested reporters until he’d addressed every last question they might still have about the legal work he did for non-profits who worked with Rezko and the granular details of the real estate deal.

His failure to have done this for 15 months doesn’t speak to a guilty conscience so much as it speaks to dubious crisis-management skills.

The real questions left are less to do with the house and more to do with the relationship.  In fact, the house seems somewhat settled by most who have looked into it, but the extent of Rezko’s fundraising is stuck in the fog of campaign finance reports.     As it stands now, everytime anyone with a bit of connection to Rezko surfaces Obama has to account for that person and it’s a never ending cycle.

Obama Presidential Race Uncategorized

Those Great Folks at Illinois NOW

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Grabenhofer shows up at…Taylor Marsh’s

I thought I’d take a moment to try to add some clarity to the anti-choice Present votes in IL.

Lorna Brett was president of CNOW from 1996-1998. She was not president at the time we were lobbying on these bills. Five of those votes occurred in the 92nd General Assembly session in 2001. NOW records indicate that she hasn’t been a member since 1999. She was not there when we were lobbying against these bills. She is using her very old affiliation with NOW to try to validate her criticism of Hillary Clinton.

Voting Present on those bills was a strategy that Illinois NOW did not support. We made it clear at the time that we disagreed with the strategy. We wanted legislators to take a stand against the awful anti-choice bills being put forth. Voting Present doesn’t provide a platform from which to show leadership and say with conviction that we support a woman’s right to choose and these bills are unacceptable.

The Present strategy was devised to give political cover to legislators in conservative districts. Barack Obama did not represent a conservative district; he could have voted No with very little negative consequence in his district.

– Bonnie Grabenhofer
IL NOW State President

So we have Bonnie Grabenhofer of Illinois NOW against

Illinois Planned Parenthood
NARAL
Chicago NOW
Personal PACPerhaps someone could ask why Illinois NOW endorsed Lisa Madigan when she had also voted present on some of the bills. To further make the point NARAL hasn’t endorsed and Chicago NOW has endorsed Clinton.
Illinois NOW backed  Blair Hull over Obama in 2004 even after the domestic violence accusation. Given it wasn’t clear that Hull had a pattern I’m not sure that was so ridiculous, but it’s hard to understand how forgiving Illinois NOW is to Lisa Madigan and Blair Hull, but not Obama.

Then again, the site where the letter is posted seems to think they have the Zapruder film of the snub.

Obama Presidential Race

And Your Most Liberal Rated Senator is

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That milquetoast, middle of the road, centrist guy running for President:

Get your talking points ready, Republican National Committee: Barack Obama is the No. 1 most liberal senator in National Journal‘s vote ratings this year.

The freshman senator from Illinois appears to have tacked farther left after declaring his candidacy for president of the United States. He zoomed to numero uno — bypassing such liberal lions as Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy — after placing 10th in NJ‘s 2006 ratings.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, is relatively far behind at No. 16. NJ hasn’t released the full list yet; we’ll post it here when it’s available.

Obama Presidential Race

The Extent of the Rezko Cash

ArchPundit 4 Comments

The Sun-Times and Trib really have covered this story well and are simply outperforming the supposed national media stars who continually get the portions of the story just wrong.

Here is a list of top receivers of Rezko cash (Sun-Times April 27, 2007)

1. John Stroger, ex-Cook County

Board president — $148,300

A Rezko company had a contract to maintain pay telephones at the Cook County Jail under Stroger. Also, Rezko has had business ties with Stroger family members and friends.

2. Gov. Blagojevich Gov. Blagojevich -Search using:— $117,652

Rezko has been a longtime supporter and top fund-raiser for Blagojevich, having raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaigns. As governor, Blagojevich gave jobs and state appointments to Rezko friends. Rezko has been indicted on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Blagojevich.

3. Mayor Daley — $55,950

Soon after Daley became mayor 18 years ago, Rezko’s company, Rezmar Corp., got into the low-income housing business with the city. Rezmar ended up getting more than $25 million from the Daley administration to rehab buildings for affordable housing.

Sen. Barack Obama -Search using:— $54,416

Rezko has been friends with Obama for 17 years. As a lawyer at a small Chicago law firm, Obama worked on low-income housing deals involving Rezko’s company. Rezko has been Obama’s political patron since he ran for the Illinois Senate a dozen years ago. Obama has apologized for buying a piece of property from Rezko’s wife last year to expand his yard.

5. Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan — $43,000

6. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan — $35,500 Madigan got those donations between 1998 and 2000 — “ancient history,” according to a Madigan spokesman.

7. Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn — $32,000

As state treasurer, Quinn appointed Rezko to serve on a state housing task force.

8. Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) — $31,375

Rezko was the longtime head of Preckwinkle’s campaign-finance committee. Six of Rezko’s troubled housing projects were in Preckwinkle’s ward.

9. Rep. Luis Gutierrez — $27,250

Friends for more than 20 years. Gutierrez was working for then-Mayor Harold Washington when he met Rezko, at the time a top official with a company that had a Chicago Park District concession contract. As alderman, Gutierrez chaired the Chicago City Council Housing Committee that gave Rezko city property to redevelop into affordable housing. Four years ago, Gutierrez paid the lowest price for a riverfront town house in a Rezko development. The congressman sold it last year for a 40 percent profit.

10. John Schmidt — $25,000

Mayor Daley’s former chief of staff, who ran losing campaigns for attorney general and governor.

11. Secretary of State

Jesse White — $23,848

12. Illinois Comptroller

Dan Hynes — $22,500

13. Ald. Arenda Troutman (20th) — $20,750

Most of Rezko’s low-income buildings were in her ward. Rezko’s contractor and his architect also rehabbed a building owned by Troutman’s late father, Benjamin Troutman.

14. State Sen.

James Meeks — $20,000

15. Former Gov. Jim Edgar — $18,804

Rezko “was very helpful” raising money when Edgar was first elected governor in 1990, according to one of Edgar’s top fund-raisers. While Edgar was governor, Rezko’s company got $9.7 million in state loans to fix up apartments in Chicago

Obama Presidential Race

Big Endorsement on the Way

ArchPundit 2 Comments

Sweet says there is a big Obama endorsement planned for tomorrow

Sweet: Obama wins South Carolina. His way. Big endorsement coming Sunday?

COLUMBIA, S.C.–Barack Obama clinchedt he South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday after a race with a nasty tone where former President Bill Clinton’s aggresive push for his wife became an issue.

In a state where race played a roll, and with a hefty black electorate, exit polls showed that Obama snared a whooping 81 per cent of the African-American vote and the white splitting between the three rivals.

Obama delivers a victory speech at 9 p.m. eastern, and I hear that Obama will talk about how his victories in Iowa and South Carolina–states with vastly different popullations–show that his “movement” politics are taking hold.

And that big endorsement I hear is coming….the two biggest out there are Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) and former Vice President Al Gore.

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