Stay updated
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
The Tribune is live blogging today’s immigration rights march. Pretty much everybody in the “mainstream” media was caught off guard by the last march, and it appears the Trib doesn’t want that to happen again. Here’s a sample:
10:38 a.m. At a busy McDonald’s restaurant at Randolph and Dearborn Streets, a crew of about a dozen mostly Hispanic workers was bustling to serve customers lining up for breakfast and coffee. “Everything is normal,” said a worker.
Nearby, a letter on the revolving door of a seafood restaurant, Catch 35 at 35 W. Wacker Drive, said the popular venue for business lunches would be closed due to a national boycott in support of legalizing illegal immigrants.
“This boycott of work renders Catch 35 without the staff levels necessary to serve you,” the message read.
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Question of the day
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
I think the most under-reported political story of the past four months has been the attempt to put an anti-gay marriage referendum question on the ballot this fall. I’m also guilty of not giving this enough ink, by the way.
What do you think is the most underreported political story of the year so far?
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Meeks beat
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
The Star’s columnist David Johnson points out that the south suburbs are playing a key role in the governor’s race so far.
The southern suburbs of Chicago will prove to be pivotal in determining who will be governor of Illinois in the next election. Two of Chicago’s most dynamic political figures, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and state Sen. James Meeks, are spending huge amounts of political capital in an attempt to get Gov. Rod Blagojevich to move in the right direction.
For Congressman Jackson, it is getting the governor to merely live up to his word. The governor said he supports the Jackson proposal for a privately funded airport in unincorporated Will County.
All the governor has to do, according the congressman, is lease the land to ALNAC. The governor’s position is he will not do so until there is a consensus in the region. It is not clear how that consensus will be built.
Sen. Meeks wants to see the governor step up to plate and provide the requisite dollars to fund high-quality education in Illinois. Meeks has threatened to launch a run for the governor’s mansion if his friend does not do the right thing.
This past week the leader of one of Chicago’s mega-churches expressed his displeasure with a recent conversation with the governor. In other words, the governor has placed the ball back in the court of preacher-politician Meeks.
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A peek behind the curtain
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
Judy Baar Topinka’s new campaign manager explains the campaign’s thinking to Bernie.
McFadden said the Topinka campaign has heard estimates that Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s campaign, which had more than $15.5 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, has spent at least $6 million on television ads since January. The governor’s campaign spokeswoman couldn’t confirm that amount, but there’s no question that Blagojevich has been spending a lot on ads - many of them attacking Topinka.
McFadden said the “early onslaught of negative ads†is unprecedented, and it sets a tough campaign tone.
But Blagojevich, McFadden said, has a “tremendous credibility problem … that’s making it difficult for him to sell both his positive and negative messages right now.â€
“It’s clear what his game plan is,†McFadden added. “He tried for a while to get his positives up, and polls show that didn’t work, so now he’s going on the negative side.â€
It’s not yet certain what direction Topinka’s ads will take, McFadden said.
“You try to walk through these things logically, and you try to develop your messages, do your polling, do those kinds of things, and see where all that leads to, instead of just jumping in and start flailing around and throwing stuff around,†McFadden said.
“One of the most difficult challenges we have, frankly, in the campaign,†he said, “is weeding through all the messages we feel are effective against the governor and trying to find out which ones can be the most effective.
“We’re going to have to be creative,†he added, to get through the “clutter†of what will probably be a sustained ad campaign from now through Nov. 7 from the governor. Many voters already are tired of the governor’s ads, and by fall, “they may be more tired of them,†he said.
Topinka needs to show she is a “good, credible alternative,†McFadden said, and he thinks she is positioned well for that, despite the bruising GOP primary.
Topinka is a moderate, in GOP terms, McFadden said, but she can regain support from those on the political right through a “strong record of fiscal discipline.â€
“If Jim Edgar can pull it off, I think she can,†McFadden said.
Topinka also is from suburban Cook County, where Republicans have to do well, he said. And “she’s with a lot of independent female voters on the issues.â€
And the back and forth continues…
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign unveiled another TV commercial Sunday, this time attacking state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s record of attendance on a board that manages state pension investments.
Meanwhile, in a dueling Chicago news conference an hour later and a few blocks away, Topinka said Blagojevich has refused to do anything to help lower gas prices, and she called for the governor to act on the issue before the Legislature adjourns. […]
The new commercial accuses Topinka of missing every meeting of the Illinois State Board of Investment, a nine-member board that manages $10 billion in state pension money.
“It’s hard to be a leader if you never come to the meetings,” Quinn said. “I think the other members of the state pension board would certainly listen carefully to what the treasurer of Illinois would say.”
Quinn also said while Blagojevich intends to propose a “pro-consumer” plan regarding gas prices after the Legislature passes the budget, the issue is a national problem that needs to be addressed in Washington D.C.
Regarding the pension board, Topinka campaign spokesman Dave Loveday said Topinka is an ex-officio member — automatically getting a seat because she is treasurer — and one of her representatives attends every meeting.
“It’s just a diversion and they knew that,” Loveday said. “He (Blagojevich) should worry about his attendance in Springfield, go to Springfield and work on the budget, work on trying to do something for gas prices.”
UPDATE: Andy Plonka satirizes the guv’s new TV ad campaign:
Governor Rod Blagojevich has another campaign commercial, this time attacking state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s record of attendance when she was an eighth grader in Riverside. […]
Each of the attack ads ends with a voiceover wondering, “What’s she thinking?” Future spots in the series will question Topinka’s choice of hairdresser, her parking ticket from 1987, a game of “Spin the Bottle” with Future Teachers of America club members when she was a sophomore in high school, and her involvement with the West Suburban Chapter of the Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority.
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Stroger’s future
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
Kristen McQueary has a good column this week about John Stroger.
Cook County Board President John Stroger is going home.
In a few weeks, he’ll leave an institutional setting and begin rehab from his 8th Ward bungalow.
No one wants to talk about it — at least publicly — but if his condition as a result of a stroke he suffered earlier this year remains the same, it is unlikely Stroger will return to the office. He is relearning how to speak, how to form words, according to his son, Chicago Ald. Todd Stroger.
His condition is so fragile that family members have refrained from discussing county business or politics with him, let alone the possibility he may have to step aside. It’s the most telling detail about his recovery: I doubt Stroger has gone a day in his adult life without talking about Cook County government until now.
Six people I talked to last week cautioned me it’s too early to talk about a replacement. It’s only been a month and a half, and stroke patients often take many, many months to relearn basic tasks.
Three others didn’t return my call, knowing the topic. The only thing more delicate than talking about Stroger’s health is talking about Stroger’s future.
His son has been gracious in answering the question that comes daily, hourly — probably minute-to-minute. “How’s your father?”
I asked Ald. Stroger last week if party leaders approached him yet about taking his father’s spot. He answered coolly: “No. Only the press asks that question.”
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Blacks and immigration
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
The people at Pew have a new poll about African-American views on illegal and legal immigrration and even breaks it down by region, including Chicago.
In Chicago, where 80% of blacks say jobs are difficult to find, there is a widespread perception among African Americans that immigrant workers are damaging local job prospects. Fully 41% of African Americans say they or a family member have lost a job, or not gotten a job, because an employer hired an illegal immigrant instead. That is nearly double the number of blacks nationally who say this (22%), and almost triple the number of Chicago-area whites (15%) who say an immigrant worker has cost them or a family member a job.
Nearly half of Chicago-area African Americans (46%) favor decreasing the level of legal immigration into the U.S. This percentage is significantly greater than the fraction of blacks nationally expressing this opinion (34%). On most other immigration issues, however, blacks in Chicago have attitudes similar to those of blacks in the national public. For instance, fewer than half (45%) think that illegal immigrants should be required to return home, which mirrors the opinions of blacks nationally (47%), and is a bit lower than the percentage of Chicago-area whites (54%) who favor requiring all illegal immigrants to leave the country.
Meanwhile, the Tribune has a story on the issue’s impact on Republicans and Topinka expresses concerns about today’s planned protests.
Also Sunday, while Topinka said she supports the right of demonstrators to participate in a massive Chicago march promoting immigration reform on Monday, she worries that emotions are clouding the debate.
“I hope I won’t see a lot of foreign flags floating around or versions of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ that are not in English because it just highlights the emotionalism of what is a very complicated problem,” she said. “That just aggravates it, makes it worse, and ultimately keeps people from coming together to come up with an answer.”
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Morning shorts
Monday, May 1, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
· Sun-Times: A top Illinois environmental official has told investigators he “may have” warned a landfill owner that his state permit problems would not clear up until his relative, Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), patched up a feud with Gov. Blagojevich, sources told the Sun-Times.
· Crain’s: GOP targets Illinois as battleground for House seats
· Shabbona casino may not be dead. And Jumer’s unifying casino, hotel projects
· Will politics determine FutureGen site?
· Obama’s money machine (scroll down)
· Carol Marin tries to get around the censors.
· Clinics feeling Medicaid squeeze
· Editorial: Six figures for aldermen? We raise objections
· Oops, forgot to open comments. Sorry about that.
· Miller: Ryan case prompts reform talk, but real changes aren’t likely
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