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* Sources have said for months that Paul Vallas has reportedly been not so subtly promoting himself behind the scenes for an appointment as Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education. Perhaps that didn’t work out too well…

Chicago’s former schools chief has flunked the education foundation headed by Barack Obama and founded by 1960s terrorist Bill Ayers - saying it failed to monitor projects and funded school “reform” groups that campaigned against boosting academic standards.

“There was a total lack of accountability. If you went back and asked, you’d be hard-pressed to find out how the money was spent,” said Paul Vallas, the city’s school superintendent when Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Foundation from 1995 to 1999. […]

“Very little of the money found its way directly into the classroom,” Vallas said.

Most frustrating, Vallas said, was that Annenberg under Obama and Ayers funded groups that fought his mission, under Mayor Richard Daley, to impose uniform standards and stricter accountability in low-performing schools.

Vallas is respected here as a straight shooter, so it’s very possible that his comments had nothing to do with politics. Then again, his brother has been promoting Vallas as a possible Republican candidate for Cook County Board President in 2010.

* First it was the Tribune, then the Daily Herald, then the Rockford Register Star, and now the Bloomington Pantagraph becomes the latest Republican paper to endorse Barack Obama for president…

He has all the qualities to be a great president. It’s up to him.

The end is nigh.

* The Pantagraph also has a new poll that shows Obama with a huge lead here…

The poll of 800 likely Illinois voters gives Obama a decisive 59-35 lead over McCain in a state already assumed to be an Obama stronghold.

Toplines and crosstabs are here.

The only fault I can find with this poll is it shows McCain with a 52-41 lead in the collar counties. Recent congressional and legislative polling in Lake, Will and even DuPage and Kane are showing Obama doing quite well.

* A Daily Kos front pager looks at who might replace Obama in the Senate, but it’s not exactly a solid piece of work.

Among its problems is its claim that Senate President Emil Jones “holds a position of exceptional prominence in Illinois politics,” and that the governor “may also be reluctant to send one of his few friends in Springfield out of the state.” Jones, we all know, is retiring at the end of his term.

* I didn’t hear the conference call, but this article sure makes it sound like Republican congressional hopeful Martin Ozinga III sees the light at the end of the tunnel and suspects it’s a freight train headlamp…

Republican Martin Ozinga sounded a somber note during a conference call with reporters last week as he charted a course for the final days of his congressional campaign.

The Homer Glen concrete company owner and first-time candidate for public office said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending overwhelming resources in the 11th Congressional District in an attempt to “financially bury us.”

“That’s the circumstances we find ourselves in,” Ozinga said.

With just a over a week to go before voters in the 11th district head to the polls, Ozinga finds himself down in some polls and behind in money in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller of Morris.

* Republican incumbent Peter Roskam throws the kitchen sink at his Democratic opponent. She’s a Blagojevich crony, tax-hike lover and doesn’t live in the district…

* An ultra conservative 527 is dumping big bucks into the avowed moderate Republican Mark Kirk’s reelection bid…

A conservative group with ties to the Bush administration has donated about $453,000 for television ads to benefit GOP Rep. Mark Kirk’s tough re-election bid in Chicago’s affluent suburbs.

The ads funded by Freedom’s Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization, accuse Democratic challenger Dan Seals of favoring higher taxes.

Freedom’s Watch has made three major advertising-related expenditures of around $150,000 each since late September and as recently as mid-October, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

One ad says, “Families are hurting, small businesses are struggling, times are tough, that’s why Dan Seals plan for higher taxes is so wrong.”

* Pay raises an issue in Biggert’s reelection bid…

As the race for the 13th Congressional District draws closer to the finish line, Democratic challenger Scott Harper is criticizing Republican incumbent Judy Biggert’s approval of pay raises for members of Congress.

At his Naperville campaign headquarters Friday, Harper, 47, pledged to vote against any Congressional pay raise if elected.

“Judy Biggert has … voted against raising the pay of combat veterans and increasing the minimum wage but voted for giving herself $33,000 in pay increases over the past 10 years,” Harper said in a statement. […]

“She’s never voted for an actual pay raise while in Congress,” Biggert campaign spokesman John Noak said. “All of those were part of larger appropriations bills, for the departments of Treasury, Transportation, and Health and Human Services.”

The cost-of-living increases for Congress ranged from 1.9 percent to 3.4 percent, he said.