At the Fair
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For Wednesday and Thursday–will have pics, but not sure if I’ll have a chance to update.
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Who Received This?
Below is a picture of the postcard that Jim Leach and I both received. It indicates it is from the Brady campaign, but the Brady campaign denies sending it and there is no reason to not believe that denial.
What I’m curious about is who else received the card?
I received it in St. Louis. Am I right in guessing this was sent to a small group of people to generate buzz, perhaps against Brady?
Thanks to Jim for allowing me to use his scanned image.
OneMan Thinks He’s So Smart
He thinks that testicularvirility.com should be the new campaign web site for Blagojevich. Of course, as I noted previously, that address was registered on an anonymous service on May 17th. That was within 48 hours of the pronouncement of manhood.
There are two likely candidates for the domain name grab with me being third in line and I didn’t get it. The primary suspect (tongue in cheek) is Avenet LLC which ran Rod’s internet set-up in 2002 and are the registrants of Blagorgeous.com
The second is Rhodes School, but, frankly, he would have bragged about it by now.
If any bitterness is present in the above, it’s only because I got beat to the punch with registering the address.
In terms of the rest of the post–yeah, and that is why every one of my suggestions would still work for the way the current Illinois Democratic Party is organized. My belief is that change will come slowly–no one doubts that change will come after the Obama primary win, but a web site that at least increases contact between the party and others is a good first step.
New Sites to Check Out
Each will soon be blogrolled, but I wanted to point them out-
The Blogometer which has mentioned me a few times is the National Journal’s sampling of the day in the blogosphere and is available without the NJ subscription. It’s top rate.
Also, Danny Glover is writing the Beltway Blogroll. It is also available to those without the NJ subscription. I was mentioned in this story about the DCCC which I’ll expand on soon. I do consider myself on good terms with the DCCC and besides Bob’s misrepresentation of Rahm’s joke, I like Bob and respect him.
Finally, Lefty Blogs is a collection of blogs and their feeds organized by state. It’s a great tool-and it helps you get a handle on who is who in each state.
Rutherford Is Running for SoS?
Uhhh…why would he make a run against Jesse White? (video there too)
I know he sees it as the path to the Governor’s Mansion, but only if you win and I don’t see how you do that against White.
UPDATE: Does that mean Judy isn’t running for Governor? Hmmm…
The Message Sent by Jones and Madigan was to Edgar
Not only did Edgar sweep Republicans into office, he was a giant pain in the ass to Mike Madigan for 8 years. A Republican sweep like 1994 isn’t going to happen. Illinois’ ’94 sweep was a smaller product of a larger wave of Republican success that was temporary in Illinois. The conditions aren’t present for the Democrats to lose all three branches this cycle. Certainly the Governor could lose, but the downballot races on statewide tickets are pretty safe. Treasurer might be a serious race, but there’s little evidence that L Madigan, Hynes or White are in trouble. For that matter, on his own, Pat Quinn wouldn’t be in any trouble. The Senate is slightly problematic, but the map is pretty forgiving. The House could lose seats, but it isn’t going Republican during this cycle under the crurrent map. The Districts just aren’t there.
So Madigan doesn’t want to lose seats, but he especially doesn’t want a return of Edgar who was difficult to work with for the entire 8 years from Madigan’s perspective. Blagojevich might be a pain, but he’s a manageable pain. If Judy was the biggest worry, he could work well with her.
But the Madigan and Edgar’s first two rounds were not pleasant for the Speaker.
Madigan enjoyed that kind of give-and-take with the deal-making Thompson, a Chicagoan. But when Edgar, a downstater, moved into the governor’s mansion, the relationship between the legislative and executive branches changed. In the first legislative session under the new governor, Madigan battled Edgar over property tax caps and state spending.
The enmity was clear.
“I remember when I was first elected governor in 1990. It took almost four months before he’d meet with me. I met with Daley. I met with [former state Senate President Phil] Rock. But he went out of his way to make comments that were negative,” Edgar says. “This time, it’s been the opposite. Every time I’ve asked to see him, he’s come to see me.”
It returns a fight over Peotone that Madigan doesn’t want–he’s fine with a scaled back deal that doesn’t cost the state much. Madigan fought Edgar over tax increases in 1992–Edgar wanting them.
Edgar himself got into the act, describing the House Democrats’ cuts as a “meat ax approach.” The governor said that Democrats chose the wrong priorities, sidewalks and buildings for cities, while he favored human services. “My priorities are abused kids and others in our society who have special needs,” Edgar charged.
Madigan was undeterred. He continued his attacks on Edgar and moved to take the offensive, in the process labeling the House GOP plan as “budget gimmicks.” On June 17 Madigan put the entire state budget on two bills and moved them out of the House with 62 Democratic votes.
In those two bills, there were $372 million in cuts and a lot of pain. By Madigan’s count the plan would have laid off 1,800 workers, eliminated 1,000 proposed new jobs and 600 vacancies. Madigan included no funding for the built-but-unopened prison at Mount Vernon or for four prison work camps. His plan returned spending levels for the Department of Children and Family Services and the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities to their fiscal 1992 budget levels. It kept education funding, however,at Edgar’s proposed level.
And upon hearing Edgar might run, both Daley and Madigan probably sent bulldozers back to Meigs just to make sure the airport was gone.
I Wonder if Stroger Thinks The Unions Are Going to Give Up Much
Stroger announced a projected budget deficit of $186 Million for the next fiscal year.
The expected budget gap remains about what the county’s finance team estimated in February. Escalating payroll costs are the driving factor.
In addition, Medicaid funding is expected to decline as the federal government follows through on an expected reduction in revenue that will place further pressures on county finances.
Stroger’s two-page statement did not call for new taxes, but clearly laid the groundwork by spelling out the county’s numerous fiscal challenges, including union contract talks.
Medicaid is a national problem of course, but why would unions be willing to take cuts if the number of frontline workers is being significantly reduced while higher paying administrative jobs are increasing? I’d hate to try and sell that story to a bunch of tradespeople.
What To Do About the Illinois Democratic Party’s Web Site
The first rule of Illinois Democratic politics is that if you want to get something done, don’t attack The Speaker’s people. You can cajole, maybe make some jokes, but make sure the message isn’t that the Speaker sucks. He doesn’t–and more on that later. But the second rule in this case is don’t be expecting the Speaker to be doing any blogger conference calls anytime soon. He doesn’t talk to the regular press very often, so let’s be realistic here.
I’m one of the loudest critics of the current complete lack of on-line presences for the Illinois Democratic Party, but I’m also keenly aware that a party that is in power such as the Democrats are in Illinois face a different type of challenge in on-line activism.
The first thing that needs to be figured out is what the hell is the online strategy supposed to accomplish. I’d love for the Party to become more inclusive in decision making, but let’s not get carried away here–fixing the on-line presence is a baby step on that issue. If successful, it might lessen concerns about grass roots activism that concerns some of the Party Leaders.
So what should the strategy be? The primary issue is how to frame the debate on issues. The perfect example of this is how Democrats in general and Trial Lawyers were outmaneuvered on tort reform. Madigan saved the day with a not bad bill, but the point should be to not get to that point and a big part of the way the Republicans did that was by setting the agenda. There was little talk of insurance regulation during the debate when that is one of the three legs of the issue, but instead ‘out of control’ litigation became the story.
The specific on-line methods are not as important as understanding the goal is to take control of the public debate and thus control the legislative agenda.
Blogs are often seen as the ultimate solution, but I recommend against it for the Party, at least for now. Blogs are hard to work out an interesting message especially when you are in power. Parties that have unified control of a State Government inevitably have several centers of power all with different policy agendas so trying to hard to set up a unified message on a Party blog is very complicated and what is likely to result is unlikely to be interesting.
Blogs work because they pull people in with consistent content that is worth seeking out. Instead, the Party should focus on making a serviceable site that is functional and pushing information through e-mail and other push technology.
To do that it will have to make a far better site–one that attracts people to it for functional reasons.
Let’s start with keeping it up-to-date. Every person visiting should be able to find their State Legislator in a list with a link to their official office, their e-mail posted and their campaign web site linked. Every Democratic candidate who wins a primary should get the same for their campaign web site. There should be a function or quick link to finding what Districts voters are in–sure other sites may do that, but the point is to make the place functional.
The front page should have a page to capture e-mail addresses and at least zip codes though preferrably snail mail addresses. Those e-mail addresses then go into a database that can be accessed by any Democratic Nominee as well as regular updates from the Party. There should be a volunteer sign up page–where someone can sign up to volunteer for Party activities whether it be phone banking or whatever. With that should be a series of options about how they can best participate.
There should be a donation page with suggested amounts and an amount identified as being a Democratic Party Member between $10 – $25. The point here isn’t to raise a lot of cash, but get Party activists to feel like they are a part of the Party. Belonging is important.
A section on recent news stories that make the Illinois Democrats look good. This is part of the messaging issue–highlight successes and make visitors realize something is going on and the Dems are responsible for it.
An issues page–and no not some ridiculous and useless page on the ‘Party Platform’. Platform, Schmlatform. Many issues cut differently in different areas so the key issues should be stressed here including things like economic security, health care, working families–that kind of thing–but with updates to them as stories evolve. A key aspect of this sort of page is making sure it isn’t just a placeholder, but actively updated with news stories or just updates on key bills.
An area that is designed to highlight key lege members. And when I say key I do mean leadership and such, but more importantly those in targeted races. Set up a system whereby they are given some space to highlight their activities—a good move here to create some buzz would be the use of Podcasts. I know–most people who use the internet still think Podcasting is something out a War of the Worlds or a new fishing fad. But the idea is simple–have a lege member talk about a key issue to their district and highlight it and perhaps incorporate it into their specific campaign site as well.
A calendar is also essential. Updating it regularly–with more than relatively big dollar fundraisers is critical. It’s a key reason for people to keep coming back to the site. I’d first suggest syndicating the calendar from affiliated groups like Illinois Democratic Network and Democracy for Illinois. This has a double advantage of covering far more events than the State Party can concentrate upon and including those groups in an important function while not giving away message control for the State Party. The State Party calendar should focus on Lege Member activities, federal officeholder events, Statewide Officeholder events and State Party Events.
In line with this–host more events that aren’t big dollar events in conjunction with such groups. Again, it doesn’t require the loss of message control, but it makes people feel a part of the party and it’s mission.
On messaging, if there aren’t good issues to focus on at the State level, there are always issues to tackle at the federal level. The Illinois Republicans are pretty good at using such issues to paper over local fights–and this should work with Democrats as well. If the State Party were to call for action on Karl Rove or to call for action on Social Security it can reach out while not necessarily aggravating differences within the Party when there isn’t a consensus for state issues.
Create a set of resource pages to local parties that are organized by region or some other intuitive manner so those looking to get involved at the County level can. In fact, combine this with the original e-mail intake and have an autoresponder that sends out an e-mail with the local information to the person who just signed up. Web links and e-mail when available, phone numbers and addresses when they aren’t.
Included in the resources should be activist groups also grouped by region–they should be secondary to the County Parties (this is after all the Democratic Party Web Site), but still prominent. Again, this creates goodwill without a lot of effort. Adding blogs and news sources isn’t a bad idea, though there are some downsides when someone jumps off a cliff with a crazy idea.
With Party Committee Members include pictures and brief bios–it personalizes the site. Just no pictures of Madigan with gavels (thanks for changing that at least).
Voting information–links to how to register, deadlines and election dates. Make this the place voters come to figure out such things. Needs to be very user friendly.
Include photos of Democratic events. It’s a small thing that people love.
Think about a letter to the editor page that allows party members to look at a prototype letter, write their own, and send it to their local paper—all without more than a few clicks.
Then do the requisite press release and e-mail archive page.
Get some graphics with people in them besides Barack Obama and a bunch white stiffs. And remember—No Gavels!
Too often, the discussion over on-line activism focuses on blogs. Blogs are one method, but for a State Party often very hard to pull off. The key to whatever is done is to give party activists something to do like
1) write a letter
2) Volunteer
3) Donate
4) attend an event
5) or something else.
and make it a resource when they have a question. Voters don’t know what district they are in so the current organization is virtually meaningless to the average person visiting the site. And people don’t know where to find information about voting, make it easy and they come back to the site for more information–and get the Party’s message thrown in for good measure.
By producing content to attract people to the site, the Party can then use the information collected to push information out. By making the site useful, people come back to use it again and get hit again with the message. Activists are given specific methods to be active at the same time message control is kept. By institutionalizing a system of support for Lege Members, targeted races can have the profiles of incumbents (and potentially challengers) raised.
Further, the party needs to work the blogs–include them on press releases and treat them as a regular member of the press. They, ahem, we aren’t, but it makes many feel special and that generates good will. Push stories to them–unlike regular reporters who get nervous that they are being used, bloggers like to do it often. I’ll have more on that later.
Claypool’s Personnel Trends Report on the County
I’m a bit behind the curve on County issues, but I just got my hands on Forrest Claypool’s recent report on Personnel Trends for the County.
The preface sets up the report well
Since December of 2002, when there first emerged a strong block of reform-minded commissioners on the Cook County Board, there has been a decline in the payroll of the county government. However, the virtually all of these cuts have come at the expense of line staffers who deal directly with, and provide direct assistance to, the residents of Cook County. These positions also tend to be unionized and with salaries below $60,000 per year. At the same time that line staffers are being cut, the number of administrators who earn more than $60,000 per year has increased.
We have used $60,000 as the dividing line between administrators and line staffers. It is true that there are line staffers who earn more than $60,000 and administrators who earn less than $60,000. Additionally, there are some employees who earned less than $60,000 in 2003 but have now crossed the benchmark due to step increases and cost of living adjustments. We will explore these and other caveats in the report to preserve the integrity of our data.
Each department with a separate section in the Cook County Budget, plus the Forest Preserve District, has been chronicled in our report. Of the twenty departments, all have seen a decline in the number of salaried positions, save two that are exclusively concerned with law and order and three other small departments whose payrolls have largely remained the same. However, of the fifteen departments that have reduced positions, the bulk has come at the lower end of the pay scale. In some cases, the number of highly paid administrative positions has actually increased, while the number of lower paid line staffers has decreased.
The total numbers are above the $60,000 line, just under 37 jobs have been added. Below the $60,000 line, just under 985 jobs eliminated. In one year.
As always with such reports there are caveats and issues to more fully explore. And frontline workers always bear the brunt of budget cuts simply because of the numbers–however, adding nearly 37 jobs at high pay when you are eliminating nearly 1,000 front line workers is astoundingly irresponsible and a slap in the face of those who are doing the tough jobs.
Where’s The Anger Towards Sheehan Coming From?
I’m not terribly comfortable saying Cindy Sheehan should get an automatic meeting with the President, but I also don’t think one has to be angry with her for protesting the President. Jim Leach does a good job making the point about the loud conservative response to Sheehan
Let’s compare and contrast the treatment of this mother of a dead soldier with another story in the news today. Rich Miller at Capitol Fax blog has the latest on the plans by the hideous Fred Phelps and his group to demonstrate at a military funeral in East Peoria. Disgusting, and yet how does it — the exploitation of a family’s grief for his own twisted political agenda — truly differ from what the right is doing to Cindy Sheehan?
Does Sheehan have a ‘political agenda’–well yeah, getting out of a war (a position I don’t really agree with in terms of immediate withdrawal). Has she said some contradictory things. Sure. So what? Does that change her grief? No. If you don’t like Cindy Sheehan you can ignore her, but I don’t understand why anyone should be angry with her.
Or as Jim ably puts it:
George W. Bush should be able to handle one grieving mother on his own without the right-wing echo chamber ganging up on her.