Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Tuesday, Mar 21, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Hizzoner fires back at reporters.

Daley and the others bristled when reporters asked what the party would do if Stroger wins but is unable to run in the November election.

“You have John Stroger in the grave. That’s the question. That’s Unfair. Theoretically, you have him in the grave. I’d hate to be your father,” Daley said.

“He’s not dead. He’s still alive and he will be there as long as he can wake up and open his eyes,” said Ald. William Beavers, 7th Ward.

Also, I loved the prose in this Tribune graf.

Writing another chapter to the region’s already healthy election lore, Democratic voters in Cook County also will decide the nomination for County Board president between a hospitalized John Stroger, who faces an uncertain future after suffering a stroke last week, and reform-themed candidate Forrest Claypool.

This is a Cook County presidential race open thread. Predictions, precinct reports, observations, etc.

22 Comments

- Randall Sherman - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 4:36 am:
At this point, victory will likely go to whichever side gets its vote out. Be sure to vote. If you don’t vote, don’t complain afterwards.

- ProudRINO - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 7:54 am:
Daley’s just showing how scared he is that Claypool may win this thing. If the press is putting Stroger in his grave, then Hizzoner is being more than generous with his assessment that Stroger is going to be back at work.

- Election Central - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 8:01 am:
Word of fairly widespread problems with the optical scan readers in Evanston and some broken machines in the 8th ward.

- Cassandra - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 8:13 am:
Durbin is chiming in with Daley re Stroger, demonstrating once again that he is a Daley stand-in with respect to any and all political issues. He has no independence whatsoever.

- KenoMan - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 8:36 am:
Received a robo call telling me that the GOP governor’s race was “over” so take a Democratic ballot and vote for Claypool and reform.

Sorry, but I’ll take a GOP ballot and let the Dem Committeman shoot themselves in the foot when they later nominate a replacement candidate that offends the African-American community.

- TomG - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 8:44 am:
I got that call about the republican primary being over and it is, this is not about politics and ‘getting’ the other side, its about who will run our district, state, county ect. best and thats why I am taking a D ballot just to vote for Claypool

- Anonymous - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 8:52 am:
Cassandra, your way off base. Durbin is a great Senator and has his own voice. He happens to want the same candidate as the Mayor and joined him in saying so. This does not rob him of his ability to support any candidate he chooses. I think you better look to the congressional record and see what the man has done. There you will see independant and progressive policy. It’s a powerful add if you ask me.

- Anonymous - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 9:27 am:
I vote for Durbin but will not deny that he, like many, perhaps more than many, is interested more with how he looks than what is best for the people of Illinois. I agree with many of his votes but I could do with less of his over the top self promotion such as telling people every four years he is a possible VP candidate..he is not fooling anyone!

- New Chicagoan - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 10:02 am:
First time voting in IL after years of political activism in Michigan. Not a machine type whatsoever, and living in Lincoln Park I’m not in a strong machine ward. Voted for Stroger after considerable indecision. Why? Cannot be sure what his health outcome will be, and he was my choice pre-stroke.I simply have found Claypool to be far less interested in the needs of the downtrodden than Stroger has been over his long career in public life, and choose to take a chance that Stroger will recover rather than hand over the Presidency to a so-called Democrat running on a Republican platform while calling it reform.

- Election Central - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 10:08 am:
LOTS of equipment problems in Chicago, mostly with the touch-screens. BoE is no longer taking complaints from campaigns, they’re demanding that the judges call.

- Jimbo - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 10:11 am:
Hey new Chicagoan, welcome to the city, if you were here for anytime you would have known that your assumptions about Stroger were about as far off as can be. Have you been to Stroger hospital? Have you heard from the people who have to wait months for a monogram or the people who cant pay their property tax because Stroger has raised it so high? Welcome to the city, its time to do some more research.

- Truthful James - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 10:54 am:
Pure touch screens without a paper back up are an invitation to fraud. They can easily be reprogrammed. to fit the desired results. Which is why they should be used only when there is a paper run through after the polls close to verify the optical screen use.

Interested obssrvors should take a sampling of palm cards from the machine hacks to see whetehr Daley’s TV endorsement of John Stroger holds in all the wards.

- grand old partisan - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 11:19 am:
Wait a second, does Mayor Daley really think that the only scenario in which Stroger might wouldnâ€™t be the nominee in November if he wins the primary is if heâ€™s dead? Does Alderman Beavers think that as long as Stroger is alive heâ€™ll really be capable of effectively doing the job?

- Silas - the assassin opus dei monk - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 11:50 am:
Claypool will win…the undecided voters will vote his way seeing that Stroger may not be able to serve his term. If i were undecided and saw what transpired why would i vote for a candidate that may not be able to serve? I would either stay home or vote for Claypool since he is an appealing candidate.

Stroger and Daley are part of the old machine that is being phased out so its no surprise that they have each others backs.

Claypool wins with 52% of the vote.

- ChicagoCynic - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 11:59 am:
New Chicagoan, Unfortunately you have bought the spin and ignored the facts. Stroger’s claim to be for the downtrodden works the same way George Bush’s claim to be for accountability in government. It sounds great until you take a look at how they’ve governed.

Rather than spend money where it is needed such as in services for the poor or in improving the disastrous forest preserve, Stroger spends it stuffing the county with cronies, family members and mostly people from his 8th ward. He is truly the last of his breed of unapologetic machine pols who view the taxpayer funded county payroll as nothing more than an employment agency and vows never to cut the bloated payroll. Instead he prefers to raise taxes on businesses, homeowners and “sinners”.

But just for a couple of facts you might find interesting: Stroger received more than 51% of his campaign contributions from county contractors and county employees - that’s a higher percentage than even Daley or Rod.

Point 2, while Mayor Daley was finally beefing up his inspector general’s office, Stroger was taking campaign contributions from the few people who worked in his IG office and cutting their budget. For a county budget of more than $3 billion, Stroger has an IG office that costs less than $380,000. By comparison Daley’s new IG office has more than 10x the resources and those people are barred from making contributions.

In short New Chicagoan, if you stick around and Stroger wins (i.e. the committeemen get to select the next president), you will soon regret your vote.

- Anon - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 12:10 pm:
Daley vocally supports Stroger for no other reason than he wants the black vote for the next mayoral election. Claypool knows this, Stroger knew this last week, etc., etc. If Claypool wins Daley will make nice and it’ll be biz/boss as usual. If Stroger wins it’ll be what the f do we do with the County Board now, which is really no different than the last election.

- Truthful James - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 1:07 pm:
Does anybody really think that the Beaver and the rest give a rat’s ass about whether John lives or dies as long as his line wins? The way they talk you would think the RC church was ready to beatify him. Think the Beaver give a dam about anything other than possibly being anointed himself?

- ChicagoCynic - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 1:30 pm:
Beavers is the only guy in this city that makes Stroger look like a reformer…

And no, they don’t care. Daley’s reaction was comical. He’s a master at insult and deflect. Insult the reporter and deflect attention from the question he really doesn’t want to answer.

- johny r - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 3:59 pm:
rev. meeks for county board pres!

- nobody important - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 5:09 pm:
New Chicagoan, your assessment of Claypool is on target– he’s all spin, no substance. That’s not to say that Stroger doesn’t have his faults, but at least you know what you’re getting.

- Papa Legba - Tuesday, Mar 21, 06 @ 5:34 pm:
Regarding Strogers medical condition, didn’t Bush’s goofball AG Ashcroft lose to a dead guy in a MO. election? So why do poeple think Stroger will not win?

Aren’t elections great?!!!

- Wow - Wednesday, Mar 22, 06 @ 1:27 am:
Maybe the Tribune, in its finest tradition, will run its latest headline:

CLAYPOOL DEFEATS STROGER

BTW, for all your deifying of St. Forrest, his “reform” campaign made NO effort to campaign in African American communities in Evanston. Why not campaign everywhere in your “home base.”

Hey Randall Sherman: I’m still here baby!

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