Call It A Comeback
And I’m fine with that concerning Roberts being confirmed.
The thing that keeps rolling through my mind is that if Roberts rules to uphold Roe v. Wade, what does the religious right do? Start voting for the Constitution Party?
Someone is wrong about where this guy stands and if Durbin is wrong, it costs him a lot less than the Republicans if they are wrong.
So this one has been running around my head for a while, though I’d now title it, ‘Why Edgar Might Not Run’.
Certainly the signs from Edgar are more positive than I thought they would be and others like Mike Lawrence seem ready to saddle up.
There are problems for Edgar that no one is really talking about. Pete Giangreco covered some of it in the now famous Capital Fax column, but he left out a couple issues that no one has touched yet.
MSI is obviously a big issue, but how much can a 10 year old issue really matter? Well, when your Deputy Chief of Staff is named an unindicted Co-Conspirator*
From the AP on August 23, 2000
Named as unindicted co-conspirators were former Edgar deputy chief of staff Michael Belletire; former Edgar personnel director Janis Cellini; James Owen, longtime assistant to Senate President James “Pate” Philip, R-Wood Dale; and Terry Bedgood and Terry Logsdon, who were MSI’s politically connected marketing consultants and shared in the millions reaped from MSI’s contract.
Now, the first point is that all of the people foaming at the mouth over Daley’s patronage chief–where’s the outrage at MSI? Pretty similar huh?
That said, I don’t think that means necessarily Edgar knew or was involved. Underlings often do things that they think the boss wants, but that actually horrifies the boss.
Pete took on the wrong issue in relation to crime and punishment. The scandal that few talk about today, is the abhorrent lack of control and order in the Illinios Prison System under Edgar’s Administration. The Speck videotape was the only real widespread public incident concerning an Illinois prison system that was largely run by gangs and out of control. It would truly be a shame if the spotlight on this issue weren’t shown in a 2006 race. While the tape was made in 1988 under Jim Thompsons administration and Edgar blamed the problems on what he inherited, few think the prisons really changed until after George Ryan became Governor. Of course, Ryan had a self-interest in a decent prison system.
Below the fold is a portion of a Kurt Erickson story on the problems in the prisons from late in 1996. That issue is one of the toughest Edgar could face in a fight with Blagojevich.
Add to that and the disaster that was DCFS as Giangreco pointed out and there is some new material to hit him that people don’t remember, but will be a lot harder to avoid discussing if he’s attacking Blagojevich’s ethics.
Furthermore, the problem of how to run on school funding is more complex than Giangreco portrayed. Long time readers know that I voted for Edgar in 1990 because Neil Hartigan was lying about school funding. I then voted in 1994 for Dawn Clark Netsch because Edgar was lying about school funding. And then Edgar turned around, repackaged Netsch’s school plan and tried to pass it.
But how does he run to the right and left of Blagojevich. Edgar can’t run too far to the right–his appeal is being a moderate. And running to the left on school funding and a tax swap has a small problem of, “Haven’t we heard that before”
Get out the flip flop costumes! Is he for a tax swap or against it? If he’s against it, who believes him after 1994?
If he’s for it, how does he placate his base? He’s socially moderate being pro-choice (except about beer tents at the fair), generally supportive of gay and lesbian rights and isn’t likely to join a jihad against gay marriage. So why would conservatives vote for him? Taxes. But what if Blagojevich has staked out the anti-tax position and Edgar takes what I view to be the responsible position for a tax swap. Doesn’t he lose his right flank? Sure the Chamber will still support him, but do the social conservatives who are becoming ascendant in the State GOP?
Some might argue it’s a Hartigan-Edgar race all over again, but with the increasingly blue nature of the state, does that necessarily mean an Edgar win this time? I’m not sure though Blagojevich’s current poll numbers might mean that Edgar would win.
The impact of these issues aren’t only going to exist in the general election. Edgar faced two primary challenges when he ran for Governor by Steve Baer and Jack Roeser. Neither gained much traction, but both candidacies helped form a foundation for social conservatives in the Illinois GOP that had long been dominated by moderates.
Some of the current candidates will drop out if Edgar runs. Judy will jump out of the way. I imagine Gidwitz will, though he’s irrelevant enough to not matter anyway. I think Brady will get out–he’s made suggestions he might. Rauschenberger insists he is in, but one has to wonder if he won’t be able to be moved to a ‘dream team’ slot as Treasurer nominee to run with Edgar as a slate. O’Malley may run, but he’s increasingly marginalized within his own party.
Essentially that leaves either Oberweis or perhaps Oberweis and Rauschenberger to run against Edgar in a bruising primary. In past years, Baer and Roeser couldn’t get press to save their lives, but it would be different this time with Oberweis able to get plenty of press with constant attacks on Edgar.
Oberweis and his allies at Family Taxpayer Network will attack him relentlessly over abortion, immigration, gay and lesbian rights, MSI, and DCFS all the while Blagojevich piles on while Edgar is too busy to attack Blagojevich.
I think Edgar wins that primary by about 5 points and wins a general election by 2-3. But does he want that nightmare of a campaign? Does he want that to define his legacy?
* I believe this is the first time I’ve used the word not tied to Costello
Read More
To Keep Me Talking About Hurricanes.
Charles Kuffner is a daily read of mine and he’s blogging his preparations (probably to leave). One link is to the….Worst Case Scenario for Houston
Kudos to Thad Allen for knocking some sense into Nagin to evacuate New Orleans for Rita.
Discuss if Rita makes a direct hit on Port Arthur and the relative impact on the environment there versus Katrina’s hit on New Orleans.
Back a bit later today–lots of issues including a relatively big storm on Monday night have kept me from posting.
Check out the hurricane porn in the mean time or join Tucker and I discussing the TV themes that should have been offered up at the Emmy’s instead of the crap they pulled out.
He gave an address on securing energy resources at the RFF conference
Obama is also podcasting at his site–currently two Katrina related podcasts
Environmental Policy
Jack Darin at the Illinois Sierra Club points us towards Al Gore’s speech concerning the environment in the wake of Katrina
There are scientific warnings now of another onrushing catastrophe. We were warned of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda; we didn’t respond. We were warned the levees would break in New Orleans; we didn’t respond. Now, the scientific community is warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get stronger because of global warming. A scientist at MIT has published a study well before this tragedy showing that since the 1970s, hurricanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific have increased in duration, and in intensity, by about 50 %. The newscasters told us after Hurricane Katrina went over the southern tip of Florida that there was a particular danger for the Gulf Coast of the hurricanes becoming much stronger because it was passing over unusually warm waters in the gulf. The waters in the gulf have been unusually warm. The oceans generally have been getting warmer. And the pattern is exactly consistent with what scientists have predicted for twenty years. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming. [applause] It is important to learn the lessons of what happens when scientific evidence and clear authoritative warnings are ignored in order to induce our leaders not to do it again and not to ignore the scientists again and not to leave us unprotected in the face of those threats that are facing us right now. [applause]
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The scientists are telling us that what the science tells them is that this – unless we act quickly and dramatically – that Tucson tied its all-time record for consecutive days above 100 degrees. this, in Churchill’s phrase, is only the first sip of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year until there is a supreme recover of moral health. We have to rise with this occasion. We have to connect the dots. When the Superfund sites aren’t cleaned up, we get a toxic gumbo in a flood. When there is not adequate public transportation for the poor, it is difficult to evacuate a city. When there is no ability to give medical care to poor people, its difficult to get hospital to take refugees in the middle of a crisis. When the wetlands are turned over to the developers then the storm surges from the ocean threaten the coastal cities more. When there is no effort to restrain the global warming pollution gasses then global warming gets worse, with all of the consequences that the scientific community has warned us about.
Tie that in to this peach where the federal government appears ready to try and use evidence of particular levee opposition to environmentalists and you get some perfect examples of what is wrong with the Bush Administration. What is perhaps most ironic in this is that opposition to levees usually occurs because of a lack of wetlands–something that in the Gulf Coast region is especially problematic because barrier islands tend to slow hurricanes before they make landfall on the mainland.
A few of the significant others of my friends view me as adult supervision because I haven’t gotten so drunk since about college that I throw up. A few of my friends despite being in their mid-thirties haven’t quite got that balance down.
In a not dissimilar use of the phrase adult supervision, Barack suggests
Obama: This I think is where the problem comes in. You can’t fight a war in Iraq that’s costing upwards of 200 billion dollars and rebuild Katrina-rebuild N.O. and respond to the aftermath of Katrina-and try to deal with all the other domestic needs that we have, and- then cut taxes for the wealthiest 1% of Americana. I mean there was talk right-immediately after the hurricane that the republicans in the senate were still going to push forward with the repeal the estate tax which is mind boggling I think. We need some adult supervision of the budget process…
Please go recommend it if you find it worthwhile
Short bit is that Brown contradicts several other sources on the ground at the time he is talking about.
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