Michael Madigan is a regular whipping boy for progressives, but he also illustrates important points about how to win and pass progressive policies.
Madigan doesn’t run large, loud campaigns to win as many seats as he can. He runs campaigns that keeps Democrats in the Majority and insulates them as much as possible from waves by localizing elections. That means not every District gets a strong challenger, but it does mean that other than 1994 the Illinois House has been Democratic since before I started voting.
Madigan is very much an institutionalist that people like to deride, but the reason for that is if you control the institution, you control the outcomes. When he was dealing with Republican Governors and/or Republican Governor it meant he could fund the programs he felt necessary and stop raids on social services where needed. But when freed of Pate Philip and a Republican Governor, we’ve seen a great deal of progressive legislation pass. Nathan Newman pointed out the success this winter.
I often make fun of Madigan for speaking rarely and smiling perhaps even less. But that’s the point, yelling loudly about policy isn’t governing. Sometimes you have to crash the gate. Other times, you just need to get to work. Many progressives claim to be more progressive than thou by how loudly the promote themselves instead of what they accomplished. I’ll take Mike Madigan over them anyday.
But fix the fricken web site people.