Given the interest is still high, throw some discussions down here.
Secondary thing to do–lots of folks are visiting that have somehow relevant Illinois blogs–put the address in the body and when I get to fixing up the expanded blog roll, I will consider them.
After a day of reflection:
I’m still astounded by Hurricane Obama, which lashed the shores of Lake Michigan with such ferocity cynics like Mark Brown took notice.
I’m not at all surprised by the general low turnout. It seems the only ones energized were Obama supporters.
I’m curious about why Mike Madigan was out of town.
I’m desperately trying to care whether the Hynes machine is in decline or whether it was a machine at all.
I’m still waiting for my first Guiness.
“It seems the only ones energized were Obama supporters.”
Given the weather, the Chicago turnout was actually pretty high. I was a poll watcher for Obama and it was very slow early, so much so that around 9am I was scared that we would lose it. But it picked up late. I tried to hand a palm card to a woman who barely looked old enough to vote. She looked at it and refused it, saying “I’m already voting for him! He’s the only reason I came out to vote!” At that point I was pretty sure we would pull it out.
I was watching Gene Schulter’s home precinct. His guys, who were unfailingly friendly, thought that turnout from our precinct would be about 260 votes (out of about 750 registered). The total ended up being closer to 330, of which we won 52% and Hynes 32%. So some old Chicago political hands were completely blindsided by this–especially those people who count on low turnout.
http://tpi.blogspot.com
Take yourself back to Nov. 10th, 2000. Al Gore’s spokesperson Bill Daley, is attacking Jeb and W and the rest for the travesty of democracy in Florida, but then Jim Baker the old gray wolf of the Bush family, who was runing the post-election operation for the shrub, got up and said in a press conference – look Bill Daley, right in your backyard, the board of elections lost 120,000 votes for president, so don’t pretend that Florida is the only place where this happens. This is just normal.
It wasn’t really normal. With 5% of voters failing to cast a valid vote for president, Chicago/Cook County results were among the worst in the country. It was a clear sign that the new equipment had failed. It probably changed the course of the 2000 election, since it let the Bush forces get off the offensive and back on the attack.
A year later, with great fanfare, it was announced that the equipment had protective provisions that would prevent this from happening again.
But yesterday’s results prove those protective provisions don’t work.
In suburban Cook County, 3.8% of democratic ballots didn’t have a counted vote for US Senate. In the city, that number was 6.5%.
In DuPage county, with their optical scan ballots, only 1.2% of democratic voters failed to cast a valid vote for US Senate. In Lake County, it was 2.2%.
The protective provision – where the ballot rebounds out of the machine if you’ve ‘undervoted’, doesn’t work very well. It rebounds if you skip a race, and most people skip a race or two – the judicial races, for instance. It doesn’t give you a special warning if you’ve also inadvertently mis-punched, and failed to cast a vote in a race you were trying to vote in.
So it looks like we’re set to undercount our presidential tallies by another 100,000 this November. It probably won’t hurt Kerry, because the state won’t be in play anyway. Will it hurt Obama??
Personally, I think the turning point was the ad –>
Go click on the ad.
On another topic, any thoughts on US-Congressional redistricting in Illinois? With control of most state offices, isn’t this the time the Dems should “retire” Dennis Hastert? In a solid-blue state, a delegation composed of 10 Rs and 9 Ds is an embarrassment.
I think mid-decade redistricting is disgusting. I’ll campaign hard against any legislator who tries to push this in Illinois. I’m a Democrat, but I’d work for a Republican in a targeted district to punish this kind of cynicism.
Falcone–I’m trying to find an article about just that. I’ll post it if I find it. Mark–Madigan has said no, absolutely not. While I often make fun of the man, he sees this as an issue of integrity.
http://www.polstate.com/archives/003935.html#003935
ArchPundit. Isn’t it also likely that Madigan doesn’t want to incur the wrath (and corresponing attack $$) of the national GOP?
Wilson. I tend to think that the only “disgusting” behavior here is the willingness of some Dems to roll-over when the GOP decides not to “play fair”. If 2000 demonstrated anything, it’s that winning is really important — that just because the Rs win by very narrow margins, it doesn’t mean that they won’t use that victory for everything it’s worth. Dems aren’t going to get the Republicans to moderate just by setting a good example!
Sleeper Story of the Primary:
Obama draws more votes than Ryan — in DUPAGE COUNTY!
Nobody is going to beat Hastert. We can’t even get rid of state Sen. Lauzen. Aurora is the only Dem stronghold in his district and even then the City is about 50/50 but trending Dem.
Madigan lives by a simple, methodical ethical code.
His loss in 1994 reminded him that playing fair while in the majority is important.
That, and I think Madigan could give two cents for the congressional delegation. He’s concerned about the Illinois House and only the Illinois House. His singleminded determination (with a sidestep in 2002 for his daughter) is what has kept the Illinois House Democratic and has changed Illinois from a Republican stronghold to the most rapidly-moving D state in the US.
There are not many men like Michael Madigan and Democrats could use 536 like him, if you ask me (which of course you didn’t.) His wife is a gem, too.
Ralph makes a good point. There are many criticisms of Madigan, but he lives by an ethical code. It might not always be the choices I’d make, but hey.
That said, I think Mike Madigan would be happy to double dog dare the national Republicans to come after him. He might even smile at the thought. He’d have to hire Steve Brown a helper though.
I don’t want the party in power constantly re-drawing districts to protect themselves, even if that party is mine. Entrenched, lazy and corrupt Democrats do about as much damage to the democratic party and its legislative goals as Republicans do.
The fact that demographics change for a decade often means that incumbents of both parties find themselves in difficulty.
Look at the 1980 Indiana map. It was drawn by Republicans to ensure themselves a 7-3 congressional majority, but they left the decade at either 3-7 or 2-8, as people moved and the map changed.
What mid-decade redistricting will mean is that all the scum from our safe Democratic districts will be able to protect themselves every time they begin to think the slaves on the plantation are getting restless.
The result, over the course of a decade or two, will be that we’ll elect more ‘democrats’ but that the democratic platform will move further right, as well as just getting scrambled, because it won’t be refreshed by input from voters and outsiders nearly as often.
I think Wilson is absolutely right. Don’t approve today something your enemy may do tomorrow. The Democrats in Texas had to flee to keep it from happening, remember. I’d rather have the ethical high ground in that debate that fall for it just because we could.
Wilson’s other point, about right-moving Democrats and Democrats-in-name-only is also a good point; the last thing we want is John Breaux.
Hey, I like Michael Madigan too. He surely doesn’t get enough credit for how he’s kept the state Democratic Party relevant outside of Cook County in his years running that group.
The two-day campus voting period ends at midnight tonight, and with it the referendum on the Chief. As I stated earlier, the Pro-Chief option will likely win due to the heavy amounts of social ignorance in the student body. The pro-Chief faction will likely decide that might/numbers makes right and trumpet the results while still not getting what the issue is truely about. At least spring break is next week so hopefully no group on either side will do anything too terribly stupid.
With the (underhanded) cancellation of the April meeting the Chief resolution will be voted upon at the June meeting of the Board of Trustees. That meeting will be Allen’s last before his term as UIUC Student Trustee expires. The BoT really does not want to vote on the issue – it’s a lose-lose situation for them – but they really have to sometime soon. Tension on campus is getting a tad out of hand and we need a vote one way or another just to settle the student body down a bit.
http://thesquire.blogspot.com
On DuPage county, I have been out there several times to help with the Kerry volunteers and the Democratic crowds keep grow. Dems are coming out of the woodwork in DuPage. This trend is just going to keep growing in the collar counties.
Blog4Kerry at http://evanstonforkerry2004.blogspot.com/
Wilson. I agree with your assessment that redistricting (with the goal of increasing Dem US-house seats) could potentially move the party to the right because races would be inherently more competetive and now-safe Dems would have to reach out to more moderate voters.
However, I strongly disagree that such redistricting would protect current Dem incumbents. In order to increase the number of Dem seats, the map would have to be redrawn to have fewer 70/30 districts, and more 60/40 or 55/45 districts. That would force current incumbents to work harder for re-election, NOT make their seats safer.
Frankly, I’d rather have more Dems who feel they need to deliver for their base (or they’ll lose that small majority they’ve got), rather than a smaller crowd who takes their re-election for granted, and doesn’t have to deliver anything.
For all I despise Tom Delay and company, at least they understand that they’re elected to serve their constituents. Delay and Bush have done a remarkable job of achieving large policy gains with very small margins of victory. Notice that they aren’t worrying about what the Dems will do to them in 10-20 years, they’re delivering today for the folks who put them in office.
And Wiz… The Texas redistricting effort was successful. Dems without backbones caved and a new map was redrawn that will net the Repuplicans several more house seats.
The argument that IL-Dems shouldn’t redistrict because the Rs might do it here someday is ridiculous. If/when they get a chance, they will, regardless of how “nice” we’ve been over the years.
Another Chicago based blogger who has a well visited site is Dan Conley (former Daley speechwriter).
http://www.danconley.com