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Last Day to Register in Illinois

ArchPundit January 8, 2008 No Comments

For the February 5th primary–go now if you aren’t.

The likelihood of my readers not being registered is rapidly approaching zero, but it’s a reflex.

When Pandering Doesn’t Work–Immigrant Bashing Fails in Iowa

ArchPundit January 6, 2008 3 Comments

Joshua Hoyt, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, points out that scary brown people aren’t nearly as scary as immigrant bashers would like you to think:

The results are in. In a state where voters had a clear choice to vote for Romney’s tough stance on illegal immigration in the Republican caucuses, they instead turned out in historic numbers to vote Democratic. There they picked Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who has unabashedly advocated an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented.

On the Republican side, Romney, despite his overwhelming funding advantage, came up short. University of Iowa polls showed that 57 percent of Iowa voters favored earned citizenship for the undocumented and only 23 percent favored deportation.

This is consistent with national polling. In 20 of 22 separate public opinion polls conducted between March and December, somewhere between 55 percent and 83 percent of the respondents favored some form of earned legal status. In the remaining two polls, the majority favored this option.

Immigrant bashing just does not move votes. The 2006 elections were a disaster for anti-immigrant demagoguery. Not only did the issue fail to stave off the Republican loss of the House and Senate, but leading Republican anti-immigrant campaigners such as Reps. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and John Hostettler of Indiana and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania all lost their races. And in a telling portent of the future, Latino support for the GOP dropped to 26 percent from 44 percent.

While addressing immigration is necessary given the utter incompetence carried over from the INS to Homeland Security, it’s not an issue that is going to deliver a national election or take a good lead and turn it into a loss.  It does matter on the periphery of elections and certainly if you are in a close election, it can hurt a candidate who isn’t bashing.  At some point you have to stand up and do the right thing though and there are a lot of positive ways to address the issue and still win.

More than anything, the Democratic Party’s future is going to rely on building a base for constructive immigration reform.

But even in the party where the issue is hot, the guy who is relatively moderate took a greater percentage of the vote for those who thought the issue was important than did Romney.

After the jump, an e-mail from the Americans for Legal Immigration–a fine example of hysteria about brown people

Read More

Steve Earle–The Wire Season Five Opening Song–Down in the Hole

ArchPundit January 3, 2008 No Comments

I love Earle and I love the Wire:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/k0IRnSWlM-E" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Adding to Zorn’s Predictions

ArchPundit January 3, 2008 10 Comments

• Will the feds indict Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges?

Not by the end of the year, but the writing will be on the wall

More Endorsements for Pera

ArchPundit January 2, 2008 No Comments

Illinois Sen. Carol Ronen, D-7th, Illinois Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-12th, Chicago Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th Ward, and Ald. Joe Moore, 49th Ward formally announced this week their support for Mark Pera for Congress.

The group, along with Rick Garcia, the founding executive director of Equality Illinois, Art Johnston, the co-owner of Sidetracks and a leader in the gay community, Ray Koenig, a gay rights activist and a member of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago, and Bill Weeks, political co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), has joined the host committee for Pera’s January 9 fund-raiser at The Mix, 2843 N. Halsted St., in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.

Ronen and Feigenholtz are both prominent progressive leaders in the Illinois General Assembly. Moore is a leading reformer and a progressive-minded member of the City Council. Tunney is a progressive leader and the only openly gay member of the Chicago City Council.

Pera’s aggressive Congressional campaign against Dan Lipinski in Illinois’ 3rd District has been named one of the top primary races to watch in the entire country by the Washington D.C.-based Congressional Quarterly and a number of online publications.

Pera said he’s attracting such wide support from across the city and suburbs because progressive politicians and voters are disappointed with Lipinski’s voting record on the issues that matter to them most, such as Iraq, energy and the environment, choice and LGBT rights.

“Illinois Democrats take great pride in delivering forward-thinking, progressive candidates to Congress. They believe Illinois’ 3rd District should be represented in Congress by a Democrat who votes with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, not President George Bush and the Republicans,” Pera said.

These prominent supporters join a number of Democrats who have already endorsed Mark Pera for Congress, including Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, Illinois Sen. Dan Kotowski, Illinois Rep. John Fritchey, Chicago aldermen Manuel “Manny” Flores, Brendan Reilly and Scott Waguespack and Water Reclamation District Commissioner Debra Shore.

The Wire: Season 5 Opener

ArchPundit January 2, 2008 1 Comment

Good episode with some great flashbacks to Homicide.  The neutron lie detector that made an appearance in the first season of Homicide and in David Simon’s book made an appearance in the show this week (it’s on On-Demand before it airs).  Also, Clark Johnson A.K.A. Meldrick Lewis in Homicide is back as a Baltimore Sun Editor–he also directed the final episode.  He’s direct a few of The Wire episodes and has done other directing including The Shield.

Johnson is fantastic in the episode providing the sort of gruff humor that he was excellent with when playing Meldrick.

Much of the episode was set-up so the performances were slightly uneven with McNulty’s character having to talk a bit too much to get his point across, but overall, incredibly promising.  And McNulty is back in traditional form with drinking and carousing going on already.  Season 4 ended a little to neatly and Season 5 is bringing us back to the notion that nothing ever really changes.

Again, it’s a bit uneven of a first episode, but it foreshadows a fascinating season.

Merry Christmas

ArchPundit December 24, 2007 3 Comments

Scott Skiles Fired.

Proof that Bill Wirtz wasn’t the only grinch in Chicago sports.   It couldn’t have waited for Wednesday?

Donate to Pera and Get Matched

ArchPundit December 18, 2007 1 Comment

If you – or your friends or family – give to Mark Pera on my Mark Pera fundraiser page by next Saturday, I’ll kick in a matching donation of my own.  Check it out.

(I’ve done this kind of matching pledge before (including earlier this month for Mark Pera) so take that as assurance that my pledge is for real).

The details:

• PeteB2’s diary :: ::

Mark Pera is a great candidate, he’s got endorsements from Chicago’s reformers, and he’s trying to throw out a Chicago-machine, Bush Dog Democrat named Dan Lipinski.

I’ve supported Mark Pera with contributions in the past, but won’t any more…..  unless you (or your friends and family) do.

I’m through with donating money to candidates without leveraging it against other folks donations.  So, I simply won’t be donating another dime to Mark if I can’t get you and others to join with me.

Of course, I am doing this to get you to donate if you haven’t already.  But more importantly, I want you to approach your off-line friends and family who’ve never once been asked to donate to Mark Pera or Dan Lipinski, but who you know would want to donate to help a progressive, reform-minded, pro-choice Democrat replace a Bush Dog, “pro-life” Democrat in a super-safe Democratic district that will never elect a Republican.

We in the left blogosphere have seen a kazillion ‘asks’ for Mark Pera – we all have been pretty thoroughly canvassed.  More “roots-spreading” action on all of our parts can make $15 or $25 donations turn into a really impressive amount by widening the reach of the campaign.  All it takes to do that is a donation on your part (which you may have done) and a quick email of your own to select contacts asking them to do the same.

I will be kicking in a matching donation for ones received on my ActBlue page for Mark through next Saturday night (Dec 22) — and when I match them you’ll know it because you see my donation here.  This isn’t a match program like you see at the DCCC or other Democratic organizations — unlike those, you’ll literally be able to see when I’ve put down my money for Mark – and I’d love it if you help tap me out for Mark.  Check out the site for details.

Chances are, you’ve donated to Mark if you’re reading this diary.  (If not, please do).  But I hope this diary will encourage you to approach a handful of contacts you know who believe in the importance of electing great progressives like Mark but who don’t know about him yet.   The case should be an easy sell all by itself (this recent post makes a damn good case that Pera’s got a campaign that can win), but just to give you another hook, I’m adding on the incentive that they can make their donation bigger because I will match it – as well as the sense of urgency for them to act now, since my offer expires on December 22.

Please give and ask others to give!

Pattern Identification over At Rich’s

ArchPundit December 14, 2007 No Comments

What is the pattern?

Frontrunner billionaire Democrat plummets in the polls after press reports that he hit his ex-wife’s shin during a drunken, late-night argument.

Attractive Republican millionaire forced out of race after press reports that he dragged his TV star ex-wife to a swingers club.

High-flying, millionaire out-of-state African-American former presidential candidate and ambassador anti-gay rights ultra-conservative embarassed to no end when blogs report that his daughter is an anarchist lesbian activist.

Universally known, widely acknowledged prohibitive rontrunner ex first lady loses frontrunner status after she and staff go on the attack.

Discuss.

Snark heavily encouraged.