Hull answers a question about whether he was treated for substance abuse.
Over. But I’m curious about the claim that he refused to tell the press where he would appear. I get his daily schedule from the campaign. It wasn’t hard to have it done, so what is Channel 7’s problem? This smacks of any unfair backhanded slap at him.
Zorn offers a very good take on the whole issue, but I’m still curious about why Channel 7 is having such a hard time figuring out where he would be. Am I to understand that a guy with an obsessive interest in Illinois politics who runs a web site narrowcast for others with similar interests is better able to track candidates than people who do this for a profession?
Mike Flannery is good friends with Dan Hynes and his whole side of the family. He’s been bashing Hull for more than a month. The Trib ran “Hull abused cocaine” on the front page today, burying Obama’s own admisison of the same thing at the bottom of the article.
This is getting disgusting. It’s pathetic that the other candidates can’t win on their own merits. If they’re happy to let the Republican Tribune hand them a nomination, good for them. Disgusting.
Wiz, it may be unfair how the Trib handled it, but that doesn’t mean the Trib, which is hardly as republican as it once was, is determining the outcome.
It’s also unfair to suggest the other candidates aren’t competing on the merits. Hynes and Obama clearly are, whether you agree with them or not. Hull has no elective or public service record (unless you count doling out cash to politicians, including some i can’t stand, like hot rod) so, of course, any news about him will get play because there’s so little else on which to evaluate him. I’ve got nothing against Hull and would happily vote for him in the general if he’s the choice, but i can’t look at a record to know how he might perform in a legislative capacity, so with better candidates who have such a record, my primary vote goes to Obama.
Obama’s drug use doesn’t get much play because he’s the one who voluntarily put it out there years ago, sort of like Eminem at the climax of 8 Mile.
I would love to let this issue die and I am sure hull will blame the “Insiders” and “my opponents” for this but the truth of the matter is, like the previous divorce debacle, blair hull seems to be drawn to dragging this information out in public and keeping it in the public eye. Zorn’s discussion of the situation points to the conversation with his daughter at his side. SHE seems to get this. It was almost like she was saying “Oh No, Not Again!”.
Hull has never hidden his substance abuse either. And Zorn’s take on Courtney’s response seems right. And Zorn seems a little too late with today’s column. His piling on to benefit Obama has been as off-putting as Flannery’s for whomever.
As to the merits: there are two ways to evaluate a candidate, and both require looking at what they have done with their lives. Have Obama or Hynes created jobs in the private sector? No. Can that experience be relevant to work as a legislator? Yes. Have Obama or Hynes served in the military, worked menial jobs, built a career from scratch? Not exactly. Have Obama, Hynes, and Hull dedicated time — and in Hull’s case, treasure — to progressive causes? Yes. Do they take stands on issues that we believe are correct and do we trust them to follow-through, never hedging on principle? Well…you decide. The notion that elected officials must somehow have prior political experience seems, well, contrived, particularly given our long tradition of citizen-politicians.
I’m not making a particular case for a candidate here, just reminding everyone that public servanthood can be based on more than, well, public servanthood.
It isn’t that the other candidates can’t win on their own merits–it’s that they don’t even have a chance to. They do both have good records, especially Hynes, but in a campaign that hasn’t been closely followed by Illinoisans, that really hasn’t been the deciding factor. The media, and especially the Trib, has made it their personal mission to make sure that voters practically have no alternative to Barack and Dan. I have a feeling that if you asked a lot of Dem. voters who are voting for Barack why they are doing so, it’ll be because they think he’s going to win, not because of his record. And the reason he jumped to such a lead was largely (not completely) because of the media campaign that focused on Hull when there were questions about the others, too.
Barack admitting he abused cocaine long ago in his book shouldn’t alter the issue. It isn’t as if Blair should have issued a press release last summer that said, “I used cocaine a few times 20 years ago.” They both abused cocaine. If the Trib is going to cover it, they shouldn’t put just Blair’s name in the title.
The Trib is still Republican as hell. Read their endorsement of Barack–they repeatedly talk about how they don’t agree with his stances, how they think some of his plans would be wasteful, etc.
8 Mile–good analogy. Seriously.
Well it appears i was wrong – the insiders really are trying to destroy hull with this divorce stuff and drug stuff. I just got a full color glossy direct mail piece digging the whole ugly divorce issue up. They had to have spent quite alot of money on it. They even had the disgraceful lack of tact to put “Authorized and paid for by Hull for Senate” on it. Those insiders can be real jerks.
Glenn:
What are you talking about? If it’s the “Judge Me by the Facts” piece Hull has sent out, wht the hell else do you expect him to do, particularly in the face of the ridiculous headline in today’s Trib that highlighted his substance abuse and not the others. At least Hull is going down fighting instead of happily winning by defaut.
Well personally I will take winning by default over losing any day but thats just me. Of course there is also the issue of Obama being the stronger candidate in just about any way you want to look at it save having 400 million (or, i guess, 371 million now) in the bank. But again, thats just me.
My primary argument is this:
While some of these allegations were not started by hull – and i will even agree that many were overblown in the press – there is a sense that hull is the one not letting these things die. This story had a 5 day news cycle at the EXTREME outside let alone. Hull has done everything but don a “I got in a messy divorce and all i got was this lousy t-shirt” shirt.
It was clear that his daughter knew this when he last-minute volunteered his 40-year-old “Youthful indescretions.”
If blair hull is looking for the person who has kept bringing up his negatives he need look no further than the man in the mirror.