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Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Charlie Johnston challenges conventional wisdom on the governor’s race and makes a bold prediction.

Hiram Wurf writes about a new candidate in the 13th CD.

Diane has some info about how the Illinois wine industry is being shafted.

Jack Darin takes a slap at those who oppose tougher mercury standards for power plants.

Bill Dennis chides the president for dissing the Cubs. (heh)

And much, much more. Get yourself there now.

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Box to head ICC

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

As I told Capitol Fax subscribers weeks ago, the governor has named former Rockford mayor Charles Box to chair the Illinois Commerce Commission. From a press release:

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today appointed former Rockford Mayor Charles E. Box as chair of the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), the state body responsible for regulating utilities and ensuring the citizens of Illinois safe, efficient, reliable, and uninterrupted utility services at reasonable prices.

â€œWorking families, senior citizens and individuals living on fixed incomes across Illinois are feeling the pressure from increasing energy costs. Itâ€™s critical that we have an Illinois Commerce Commission committed to making sure consumers are getting reliable service at fair, affordable and reasonable rates,â€ said Gov. Blagojevich. â€œCharles Box is a veteran public servant who has shown throughout his distinguished career that he can be fair-minded and make decisions in the best interest of the public.â€

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Illini Pundit says goodbye

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The blog will live on, but the blogger is leaving.

Due to my personal involvement this year on behalf of a number of active candidates for office - none of whom know that I am IlliniPundit - my contributions to this site must cease. While my activities here have always been independent of any candidate or campaign, Iâ€™m certain that if I were to continue, even without their knowledge, at some point they would be held responsible for the personal opinions Iâ€™ve written here.

I had fully intended to shut down this site completely, but a group of local Republican and/or conservative activists have asked for the opportunity to take over the site. To that end, these are the new authors of IlliniPundit.com:

* Jason Barickman: Chairman of the Champaign County Young Republicans
* Linda Bauer: Vice Chairman of the Champaign County Republican Party
* Joan Dykstra: Savoy Village Board Member
* John Farney: Candidate for Champaign County Board
* Deborah Frank Feinen: Champaign County Board Member
* Gordy Hulten: Champaign County Young Republican
* Greg Meves: President of the University of Illinois College Republicans
* Mark Randall: Candidate for Champaign County Board
* Red State Wannabe: IP.com commenter
* Mark Shelden: Champaign County Clerk
* Scott Tapley: Champaign County Board Member

IP told me about his plans last month and I tried to talk him out of it, but he was pretty intent on leaving.

Illini Pundit was one of my favorite Illinois bloggers. I’m bummed.

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Question of the day

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

As this State Journal-Register editorial noted yesterday, the Protect Marriage Illinois group is attempting to gather half a million signatures to put an advisory referendum on the ballot this November.

The referendum asks this question:

â€œShall the Illinois General Assembly submit an amendment to Article IX of the Illinois State Constitution to the voters of the State of Illinois at large at the next General Election stating as follows:

â€˜To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, a marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this Stateâ€™?â€

The campaign has been endorsed by the Catholic Bishops of Illinois.

You can read more background info in this Post-Dispatch story.

The question is, do you think they’ll succeed in getting this question onto the November ballot? Can it pass? Also, do you think it will have a significant impact on the fall campaign?

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Kabuki dance

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This quote from today’s Rockford Register-Star comes pretty close to what I wrote in the Capitol Fax last week about the upcoming debate over Gov. Blagojevich’s $3 billion road, bridge and school bonding plan.

“For the Republicans . . . it’s a double-edged sword,” said Chris Mooney, political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield: “Their constituents want roads, they want bridges, but on the other hand, to give this to the governor in an election year, they’ll be handing him a real gift - especially downstate, where his (polling) numbers are weak.”

That factor means the Republicans “may have some reason to sit on it,” Mooney said. But he noted that even that strategy wouldn’t necessarily be all bad for Blagojevich: “He could go around (the campaign trail) and say, ‘Look what these Republicans did, they killed off all these road and bridge projects.’”

The State Journal-Register has Senate GOP Leader Watson turning thumbs down. [emphasis added]

Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville, said Republicans aren’t convinced the state can afford a new bonding program. He also said Republicans don’t trust Blagojevich to give them their districts their fair share of the construction money. For now, Watson said, the chances of a bond program “are zero.”

“I’ve not been called or solicited by anyone in the governor’s office,” Watson said. “Every other governor, when he needs to have a program like this, takes the lead.”

There’s also what could be the quote of the month buried in the story.

However, deputy governor Bradley Tusk said the administration believes Senate Republicans “are more amenable than they were last (year).”

“You hope once in a while people think of things other than elections,” Tusk said.

Oh, brother.

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DuPage party-switchers

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The map below shows party-switching households in DuPage County that went from being Republican to casting at least one Democratic primary ballot in the spring of 2004. Each green dot represents one of those households. Click on the image for a much better view.

There are about 25,000 of those households, according to political consultant Glenn Hodas, who put the map together not long ago.

Hodas, who has a ton of fascinating maps at his website, thinks the reason for the switch, at least partially, was all the campaigning that Barack Obama did in DuPage before the primary.

Feel free to add your own analysis below.

Glenn has done such a good job gathering numbers that the folks who publish the Almanac of Illinois Politics bought much of their data from him for the 2006 edition, rather than spend the money to do it themselves. The edition is at the presses now, by the way, and should be out in a month or so.

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Playing the “corruption card”

Monday, Jan 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

From Bernie Schoenburg’s column:

The campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate EDWIN EISENDRATH won’t be shy about playing the corruption card in the Democratic primary race against Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH.

BRANDON HURLBUT, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., has signed on to run the primary campaign of Eisendrath, a former Chicago alderman who is now vice president of academic affairs at Kendall College in Chicago.

Hurlbut, 30, was born in Melrose Park and got a political science degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign in 1997. He then was a full-time staffer on the gubernatorial campaign of then-U.S. Rep. GLENN POSHARD, who lost a close race to Republican GEORGE RYAN in 1998. Poshard was recently named president of Southern Illinois University.

“I saw up close and personal the tragedy of (the) Poshard race, which is that we were right about George Ryan’s corruption, but the indictments came down after Election Day,” Hurlbut said. “It was too late.

“Democrats should remember that experience, because if we trust the governor and wait until the current investigations are completed, we could have another George Ryan disaster, and that could mean more trials and embarrassments for Illinois. And if something comes out after March, we will lose in November again, after we fought 30 years to get the seat back.”

Bernie also noted that the Eisendrath campaign has hired Sean Smith of Smith Strategies as its political consultant. There’s not much on his website, but here’s an interesting nugget:

Sean has pioneered a communications technique known as â€œimpression management.â€ Based on the premise that it is the low-information, episodic voter that swings electionsâ€”and that those voters only make broad impressions of candidatesâ€”Sean has developed an innovated [sic] approach to political communications. He has successfully applied these principles to issue campaigns and general communications campaigns.

Meanwhile Carol Marin’s column took a look at the campaign over the weekend. Worth a look. A couple of quotes, the first from Larry Suffredin:

“[Blagojevich] communicates too much through grand event. You wouldn’t have a fireside chat with him. You’d expect him to address you in Rockefeller Chapel.”

And then one from Sen. John Cullerton:

“There will be protest votes against Rod in the Democratic primary for [former Ald.] Edwin Eisendrath,” predicts state Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago). “Eisendrath will get a surprisingly higher number of votes than people expect.”

Many of those votes may come from Downstate, where there is great disaffection with Blagojevich’s decision to live in Chicago. “Edwin, if he spends money, stands in front of the governor’s mansion with his pretty wife from Champaign . . . and says if you elect me governor, I’m gonna move in here” would, according to Cullerton, send a powerful message.

For more on the race, click here and here.

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