ArchPundit

Chief Referendum

ArchPundit March 17, 2004 2 Comments

I’ve been swamped with the Primary, but the Squire has been all over an on campus referendum over Chief Illiniwek.

I’ve argued before that I find the Chief to be a horrible anachronism that uses stereotypes to represente American Indians.

Certainly a mascot could be a proud figure representing everything noble about American Indian culture in general and the Illini Tribe specifically. Instead, the student playing him performs an atrocious and stereotypical dance that degrades the proud heritage of American Indians.

U of I students still have 2 hours to vote. Squire had this to say in comments:

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.

He also points to this article on David Gill, Democratic Candidate for the 15th District.

Missouri Panhandling

ArchPundit March 17, 2004 6 Comments

A good friend of mine is running in the 3rd Congressional District to replace Dick Gephardt. His name is Jeff Smith and I’d appreciate if you could drop by and help him reach his March Madness Goal of $10,000. You can just donate, or you can enter a pool for the NCAA Tournament. If you win, you get to play Jeff in a game of basketball. Given his stature, that might not seem like much, but he is very fast.

Also, for those of you in Chicago, he will be having a fundraiser on March 27th. Donations start at $50 so consider attending. Details will follow.

Jeff is running in a fairly crowded field. Amongst them he is the most progressive candidate with a chance to win the primary. He has had good success raising money to date, but needs more help.

His opponents includ State Senator Steve Stoll, former State Rep. Joan Barry, and State Represenative Russ Carnahan. Stoll is conservative for a Democrat, but a decent guy. He is pro-life, anti-gun control an pro-death penalty. Barry is pro-life and also a very decent person. Russ Carnahan has the largest name recognition largely due to his parents, former Governor Mel Carnahan and former US Senator Jean Carnahan. Russ is more liberal than the others, but suffers from a bad case of being inept and horrible in public.

I’m sure Russ is a nice guy, but he is one of the most ill-prepared candidates for office I have ever observed. The reason this matters is that the Republican in the race is one Bill Federer. For those unfamiliar with the wing-nuttery of Federer, you will know that he has the strong endorsement of Phyllis Shafly and Grover Norquist. And he has money-he is already at $450,000 for the race.

While I don’t shun more conservative Democrats like some, I will say that I’d far prefer a progressive candidate in the 3rd to challenge Federer and replace Gephardt. A conservative Democrat isn’t necessary here. The District is 60% Democratic.

I’m asking you to donate to Jeff today to ensure that he remain competitive. For those concerned over whether he is viable, take a look at the articles on the front page–Jeff has already shown that he can raise money and Roll Call has even noticed.

I’ll be asking for lots of donations for candidates in Illinois throughout the year. For those that can do it–that money is essential to a winning campaign by Barack, Bean and others, but this is an option to help out another candidate who can make a difference in Washington.