Our pal Glenn Hodas has generated some new maps for us. You can also see larger versions on his website. Click for the big pics.
The first has results from the governor’s race in Chicago. Seriously blue, but with some Green influence…
![guvchi.jpg guvchi.jpg](https://capitolfax.com//wp-content/guvchi-thumbnail.jpg)
Here’s the guv’s race in suburban Cook County…
![guvsubcook.jpg guvsubcook.jpg](https://capitolfax.com//wp-content/guvsubcook-thumbnail.jpg)
The Cook County Board President’s race in Chicago…
![cobochi.jpg cobochi.jpg](https://capitolfax.com//wp-content/cobochi-thumbnail.jpg)
And, finally, the Cook County Board President’s race in suburban Cook…
![cobosubcook.jpg cobosubcook.jpg](https://capitolfax.com//wp-content/cobosubcook-thumbnail.jpg)
*** UPDATE *** SurveyUSA has a chart on its website comparing poll results for all recent polls to actual vote totals. Here are the Illinois results. If it’s too wide for your screen, just head to the above link and scroll down.
![pollcompare.jpg pollcompare.jpg](https://capitolfax.com//wp-content/pollcompare-thumbnail.jpg)
And the Wall Street Journal had an analysis today.
I looked at five pollsters that were among the most prolific: Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, Zogby (which releases separate telephone and online polls) and Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon. For all but the latter, I used the numbers posted on the organizations’ own Web sites. For Mason-Dixon, which keeps some of its poll data behind a subscriber wall, I used Pollster.com to find polls from the two weeks before the election. I checked the results against vote counts as of this Tuesday […]
There were some interesting trends: Phone polls tended to be better than online surveys, and companies that used recorded voices rather than live humans in their surveys were standouts. Nearly everyone had some big misses, though, such as predicting that races would be too close to call when in fact they were won by healthy margins. Also, I found that being loyal to a particular polling outfit may not be wise. Taking an average of the five most recent polls for a given state, regardless of the author — a measure compiled by Pollster.com — yielded a higher accuracy rate than most individual pollsters.
On to the results: In the Senate races, the average error on the margin of victory was tightly bunched for all the phone polls. Rasmussen (25 races) and Mason-Dixon (15) each were off by an average of fewer than four points on the margin. Zogby’s phone polls (10) and SurveyUSA (18) each missed by slightly more than four points. Just four of the 68 phone polls missed by 10 points or more, with the widest miss at 18 points.
But the performance of Zogby Interactive, the unit that conducts surveys online, demonstrates the dubious value of judging polls only by whether they pick winners correctly. As Zogby noted in a press release, its online polls identified 18 of 19 Senate winners correctly. But its predictions missed by an average of 8.6 percentage points in those polls — at least twice the average miss of four other polling operations I examined. Zogby predicted a nine-point win for Democrat Herb Kohl in Wisconsin; he won by 37 points. Democrat Maria Cantwell was expected to win by four points in Washington; she won by 17. (Zogby cooperated with WSJ.com on an online polling project that tracked some Senate and gubernatorial races.)
The picture was similar in the gubernatorial races (where Zogby polled only online, not by phone). Mason-Dixon’s average error was under 3.4 points in 14 races. Rasmussen missed by an average of 3.8 points in 30 races; SurveyUSA was off by 4.4 points, on average, in 18 races. But Zogby’s online poll missed by an average of 8.3 points, erring on six races by more than 15 points.
I never posted about any of Zogby Interactive’s results, and now you see why.
The point about taking the average of the five most recent polls is a good one and shows why some blogs can have much better analysis than traditional news outlets, which tend to be completely and exclusively wedded to their own company’s polling results.
[Emphasis added. Hat tip: Kos]
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Question of the day
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
This has been a major bone of contention in the minimum wage debate this fall.
The state legislation also would no longer let employers pay 50 cents under the current minimum wage to people under 18.
Although theater and restaurant owners have complained of the added costs, Lightford said many youths supplement their parents’ income and should get the higher pay.
“Hard work should be valued, and they should be paid a decent wage,” Lightford said.
Setting aside the debate over whether the minimum wage should be increased at all, should employers be allowed to pay teenagers less than the minimum for adults? Explain.
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Not as bad as expected
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
I was wondering recently what happened to this state law. Apparently, we now have a report.
According to a report compiled by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and mandated by the legislature, Illinois hospitals provided charity care, or unpaid care, to at least 1,132 Wal-Mart employees from August 2005 to March 2006 at a cost of $2.49 million. […]
Other uninsured hospital patients identified in the report worked for: Caterpillar, Target, Laidlaw Transit, Chicago Transit Authority, AT&T, Remax, Manpower, Chicago Public Schools, Addus Healthcare, Harrah’s Casino, McDonald’s, Burger King and the state of Illinois, to name a few. Even Jewel Foods made the list, despite its affiliation with United Food and Commercial Workers.
More than 1,200 McDonald’s workers required $2.41 million in free care. Labor unions employing 571 workers required $1.30 million in care at Illinois hospitals.
Admittedly, the report did not track whether employees worked full or part-time. Some of the corporations named in the report provide health care coverage for full-time workers. Many of the uninsured may work only a few days a week.
The legislature created the Public Health Program Beneficiary Employer Disclosure Law at the behest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who expanded health care programs for the working poor and their uninsured children.
By disclosing the identities of companies with lackluster employee benefits, Blagojevich and the Democratically controlled legislature hoped to nudge corporations toward more health care coverage.
Maybe it got so little notice because the results weren’t exactly blockbusters. If labor union employees got just a million dollars less in free healthcare than Wal-Mart workers I can see why the report wasn’t released with a wild flourish.
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Bayer: Government in crisis *** Updated x1 ***
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
AFSCME refused to endorse anyone in the governor’s race this year and a showdown has been expected between the union and Gov. Blagojevich. Henry Bayer took the first post-election shot yesterday.
In a speech laced with enough purported monetary injustice to get any working stiff’s blood to a rolling boil, AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer described the state of Illinois government Wednesday night at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The Cliff Notes diagnosis: State government is in an all-out crisis.
Bayer, who oversees 200 unions covering 44,000 employees in Illinois, spoke at the Student Center in a speech presented by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. The short but not-so-sweet presentation of public policy according to AFSCME slammed re-elected Gov. Rod Blagojevich for allowing a $3 billion-a-year budget deficit into his financial plans, lamented the $48 billion deficit plaguing the state pension system as well as understaffing at many state agencies and kicked the already down former Gov. George Ryan for his early retirement incentive, which ushered the exit of 11,000 state workers in 2001 but never quite re-staffed the empty positions.
Despite the campaign promises both voters and political candidates have likely forgotten one week after the election, Bayer said the current roster of state leaders doesn’t appear ready to take on what he called a “structural deficit” that exists in the Illinois revenue system. […]
Blagojevich is holding fast to his renewed no-tax-increase promise for the upcoming second term, and Bayer indicated during both his speech and the question/answer session that followed, the administration will have no shortage of “schemes” to prop up increased government spending with one-time funding sources - a tactic Bayer described simply as “bad public policy.”
“It’d be one thing if we were a Third World country, if we didn’t have the resources � but in fact we do if you look at what’s going on in the economy,” he said.
Thoughts?
*** UPDATE *** From an AFSCME press release:
Weighing in on the much-debated proposal to raise the statewide minimum wage, the largest union of public service workers in Illinois says the hike should be accompanied by a pay increase for the very low-paid employees of community-based nonprofit agencies that provide direct services to individuals with developmental disabilities.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 has made a pay increase for direct-care workers its top legislative priority in the General Assembly’s current veto session.
“We support the proposal to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said. “At the same time, we think the General Assembly has an opportunity to lead the way to higher pay by raising the rate at which it reimburses community-based nonprofit agencies for serving individuals with developmental disabilities.” […]
More than 15,000 individuals with developmental disabilities are served in community settings by agencies that receive almost all of their income from state reimbursements. But those reimbursement rates are too low, too infrequently adjusted, and don’t keep pace with inflation. As a result, most direct-care workers today have incomes below the federal poverty line.
“Low pay leads to high turnover in these agencies, which in turn places a cost burden on the employer and drives down the quality of care available to consumers,” AFSCME director Bayer said. “As lawmakers consider raising the minimum wage, they must make sure direct-care workers aren’t forgotten. If other private employers raise wages but the state doesn’t keep its reimbursement rates ahead of the curve, turnover among the direct-care workforce will only get worse.”
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I’ve noticed this is a problem in my area, too.
The polls have closed, the votes have been counted and the newly elected are preparing to take office.
Win or lose, there is a legacy the candidates in this year’s election have left behind for voters: Signs, lots of them.
Just as the November election altered the political landscape, the yard signs and banners generated by the campaign season have left a mark on the physical landscape.
Hundreds of campaign signs still litter the region, the flotsam of competitive races for governor, U.S. senator and state auditor, as well as a handful of expensive ballot initiatives.
While some candidates are scrambling to collect them, others, apparently, are in no rush. Politicians who had no opponents in November — and some not even on the ballot this month — still have signs around the St. Louis area.
“Most of the time, the groups that put the signs up, they think their job is done when the election is over,” said Dave Tomek, planning manager for St. Charles city.
Who is the worst offender in your area? Maybe a little public shaming would help clean up the old signs.
*** UPDATE *** Topinka’s campaign has been tossing out their signs.
Tuesday, a dumpster appeared in front of the Republican campaign headquarters in downtown Springfield and by evening it was filled with Topinka campaign signs and other Republican wares.
![](/wp-content/jbtsignsa.jpg)
*** UPDATE 2 *** The New York Times had a story about signs this week.
Election Day has come and gone, and now comes the true test for candidates: how well they clean up after themselves. With a bumper crop of more than 20 million campaign signs this election season, the race has begun.
“Only shallow candidates have lots of volunteers ready to put the signs out but not enough volunteers ready to take them down,†said Steve Grubbs, a former Iowa legislator and founder of VictoryStore.com, which sold more than five million yard and roadway signs this year, double the number from 2004. “It’s a lot of signs to deal with, but they’re slackers if they can’t get them down within a week of the election.â€
For some, that is too long to wait.
In the last year, county and local officials in at least nine states have imposed new restrictions on where political signs can go and how long they can be left out
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Morning shorts
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Editorial: Did Rezko leave Gutierrez with lot to be thankful for?
* Pastika: Governor must get serious about campaign reform
* Editorial: State can wait on minimum-wage decision
* Thompson urges board to restore portion of Ryan’s pension
* 1 indictment dismissed against insider Levine
* Editorial: Wrong to let bills pile up
* Tribune: City budget vote all but a love fest - A few grumble, but not 1 alderman says nay
* Sun-Times: Three black aldermen rained on Mayor Daley’s parade Wednesday, spoiling unanimous approval of his election-year budget: They branded Chicago a “tale of two cities” and condemned the corruption scandals that have made Daley’s life miserable for nearly three years.
* Sex offender override fails in House
* Sun-Times’ settlement nets charities $4.8 mil.
* Libel suit appeal could be tricky - Colleagues of Thomas may have to hear his case
* Hooray? “A $49,500 state grant will be used to plan for the potential conversion of several one-way thoroughfares in Springfield’s medical district into two-way streets.”
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14 vets signed up for much-hyped program
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
When people claim that the Blagojevich administration is more interested in grand press pops than actually getting anything done, this is a perfect example of what they’re talking about.
Only 14 people have enrolled in a new Illinois veterans health care program that Gov. Rod Blagojevich billed as vital to helping thousands of people who don’t qualify for federal aid.
Aides to the governor called it “a very good start” Wednesday, although some lawmakers criticized administration of the program and one veterans group said it diverts resources from more important needs.
“They’re putting money in the wrong place, as far as we’re concerned,” said Matthew Claussen, commander of the Illinois department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Enrollment for the “Veterans Care” program has been open for 75 days, but only 14 people have enrolled, with an additional 19 applications pending, the Blagojevich administration said.
Officials said hundreds of other veterans expressed interest but turned out to be eligible for federal programs.
And…
Blagojevich made creation of Veterans Care a key issue in the just-concluded campaign for governor. He claimed his Republican opponent, Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, would cut money for veterans health programs if she were elected.
Despite repeated requests from the news media, state officials would not release enrollment figures for the program before the Nov. 7 election. Cardenas denied that decision was political.
Release of the figures “has nothing to do with the date of the election,” he said. “We were awaiting final word from the federal government. It’s information as we received it.”
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