* Shutting ‘er down a bit early today so I can get on with the weekend. Hope yours is as fun as mine’s gonna be.
* I agree with several commenters that this is probably the best song for today, but the original has that “bad” word in it, so I had to find an edited version. This ain’t bad at all, however…
*** UPDATE *** I didn’t even know he had an exploratory committee. I guess he thinks it went well, though. From an e-mail forwarded by a reader…
Statement by Robert L. Zadek, Republican Candidate for the United States Senate Illinois
Zadek Announces his candidacy for US Senate.
Rockford, IL (April 24, 2009) — “Several months ago, I began an informal exploration of a run for the United States Senate from Illinois. That informal exploration began with meetings with citizens and activists across the state. I attended many events across the state as well speaking to people and confirming the need and desires of the people for fundamental change in Illinois and our nation.”
Can’t you just feel the Z-mentum building?
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* This e-mail just arrived in inboxes throughout the state…
Breaking News!
This morning, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Rich Miller, reported the findings of a scientific poll pitting Pat Quinn against Lisa Madigan in a hypothetical Democratic Gubernatorial Primary. The poll asked Chicagoans who they would vote for; and, across the board, Lisa is the clear favorite. […]
While Lisa continues to contemplate her future in public service, please show her your support. Send her a clear message right now with a contribution of $25, $50, or $100 and let Lisa know that you support her too!
Doesn’t sound like an attorney general candidate to me.
So far, Quinn has given most of the top jobs to white men.
Seven of his hires are women, racial minorities or both. They include Quinn’s general counsel and policy director, but most are in second-tier jobs such as deputy chief of staff or scheduler.
The Illinois Association of Minorities in Government calls it “a huge concern” that women and minorities haven’t been more prominent among Quinn’s appointments.
“Minorities across this state have a lot of experience, and we think that experience should be reflected in his administration,” said Jonathan Lackland, the association’s executive director. “Those are individuals who can come in and help him see things differently.”
Quinn sounded pained by the criticism.
“Well, I don’t know how they can say that if they take a look at the people I’ve brought in and intend to bring in,” he said.
* Patterson has a review of Rep. Jack Franks’ radio appearance this morning with Mancow Muller.…
Muller asked Franks, who is an attorney, if Franks would represent him if Muller went on a parking meter vandalism spree in Chicago. Franks said yes. Muller blasted the city’s higher parking meter fees more than a dozen times during the show.
Franks did speak up to challenge show guest Gov. Pat Quinn to blow up the state budget in order to fix it. Rather than just continuing existing programs from year to year, Franks wants to start the entire budget at zero and rebuild it. Quinn was not persuaded.
But Franks was much quieter when Muller interviewed Kim Kardashian, who is mostly famous for being Kim Kardashian. She insisted that while she’s “a curvy girl,” she still wears a size 2.
Franks admitted he doesn’t know who Kardashian is.
The former law school roommate, longtime friend and onetime chief of staff to Rod Blagojevich is now taking a new role against the former governor: federal witness.
While Lon Monk showed up in federal court Thursday to plead not guilty to a wire fraud charge, a federal prosecutor said a plea deal is due in short order.
Monk was one of Blagojevich’s closest confidants. You can put it on the board. Blagojevich is going away for a very long time.
Sam Adam Jr. and his father, veteran Chicago lawyer Sam Adam Sr., are in line to join attorney Sheldon Sorosky in the governor’s corner. The younger Adam aided Blagojevich during impeachment proceedings in Springfield, and the father and son advised him during his media blitz earlier this year.
“We’re assembling the team right now,” the younger Adam said Thursday. “I am honored to have been asked to represent the governor, and we’re going to fight.”
The younger Adam would bring the somewhat bombastic style he has become known for at Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building to the more mannered halls of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. He may be best known for his fiery work on the team that won the acquittal of R&B superstar R. Kelly on child pornography charges last year.
The story notes that the two will join the team if Blagojevich’s federal judge allows them to tap Blagojevich’s campaign fund for legal fees. Adam Jr., however, said at least once that he would represent Blagojevich for free.
NBC executives have asked Patti Blagojevich to act in her husband’s stead and become a contestant on the reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!”
But a defense lawyer, who did not want to be named, said the couple will heed their attorneys’ warnings and not allow Patti to do the show. The attorney said the two were told: “They both should follow Judge [James] Zagel’s sage advice regarding Costa Rica.”
Actually, the judge’s advice was to take some time and think about his predicament. He’s obviously not listening…
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich eagerly became a Hollywood high-flyer, but his hair paid the price.
During filming Thursday of a promotional spot for the NBC reality series “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!” Blagojevich was strapped into a harness and hoisted in front of a blank “green screen” to simulate a parachute jump.
Wind machines mussed his famous mop of hair for the spot filmed at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, standing in for the Costa Rican jungle.
Elected officials are on track to get a 3 percent raise next year, and lawmakers passed on an opportunity Wednesday to vote on skipping pay raises.
State Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, used a parliamentary maneuver to have the matter considered. Black said lawmakers should not be getting any raises on the heels of a probable income tax increase and at a time when the statewide unemployment rate is nearing 10 percent. […]
While Republicans in the House tried to get Black’s measure out of committee, all but three Democrats voted to keep it there. Unless the matter is revisited, the pay raise will take effect.
In reality, the bill was only just introduced Wednesday - weeks after the deadline to pass House bills over to the Senate. It was a purely political move. Had the HGOPs introduced the legislation earlier, it might’ve had a better chance. It was nothing more than a stunt, which is why you didn’t see much reporting on it.
Senate President John Cullerton said Thursday that Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal, which includes a tax increase, program cuts and budget maneuvers, does not have enough support in the Senate.
“I think [legislators] would have to focus on what the alternatives would be. I think if they really see what wouldn’t get funded … it would help of course if the public knew what the state government does. We have a problem in Chicago particularly where the media doesn’t cover state government like the downstate media does. And as a result, not only are the constituents not as informed, but the legislators aren’t as informed. And so when I go to the editorial boards, I’ve been to Champaign, Carbondale, Peoria … the editorial boards are very well informed about the state government and so are the constituents and the legislators.
“But in the Chicago media market, which is 80 percent of the state, people don’t know who we are or what we do. They just say, ‘cut the waste and reform the ethics.’ That’s fine but there’s $22 billion that we spend on school districts and nursing homes and hospitals and dentists. And they don’t want us to cut that.
“They want us to cut apparently the $6 billion that would be for the operation of state government. We could save $1.5 billion by not funding the prison system. That’d be one way of doing it. But we’d have to let all the prisoners out. And so that’s probably not a good idea. That’s the thing. We have to go through and educate people on what the state government really does.”
* There’s also growing worry at the Statehouse that Speaker Madigan doesn’t really care about passing a capital construction bill, as the AP hints…
House Speaker Michael Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said he doesn’t know what kind of support Quinn has for an income tax increase in the House, but said it is going to take a lot of cooperation to iron out a budget that will help the deficit.
A construction bill could take a back seat to the state’s annual budget, which Quinn says needs an income tax increase to bail it out of a deepening financial hole.
The numbers here aren’t terribly surprising (though keep in mind that the poll was conducted before the Dunnings/Cole scandal). Preckwinkle and Stroger are splitting the African-American vote and lagging way behind Claypool among whites. The survey didn’t test second-choices, so it’s hard to guage how either Stroger or Preckwinkle would fare in a head-to-head match-up against Claypool.
Meanwhile, the Latino community has the highest number of undecideds. Among those Latinos who do favor a candidate, however, the breakdown is pretty interesting. Both Claypool and Preckwinkle are in the low- to middle-teens, while Stroger has nearly three times as much support.
I’d add more, but I already did this one for subscribers.
Stroger declined to answer reporters’ questions, which he typically does after board meetings, and security blocked access to commissioners’ offices routinely open to the news media.
When Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) told reporters that Stroger has created “a total lack of confidence in this government,” Stroger spokeswoman Chris Geovanis interrupted to accuse commissioners such as Suffredin of engaging in “a smear campaign for purely political reasons.”
“Pat Quinn has done a very good job so far,” Daley said. “I think he has the passion and the heart. He does. He has a soul.” […]
Asked if his effusive praise for Quinn amounted to an endorsement in 2010, Daley replied, “You just asked me how well he was doing, and I think he is working really hard.” […]
“You know, the thing I’ve always been impressed with — he’s gone to every funeral of every young man killed in Afghanistan in Iraq, no matter what part of the state,” said the mayor, whose son was in the military in Afghanistan. “He doesn’t do it for publicity. He is just thanking them. Very, very interesting.”
Governor or not, they chanted outside the Radison hotel. With signs in hand, more then 100 educators protested against Governor Pat Quinn’s proposal for school funding.
There’s a program for doctors and hospitals called “Sorry Works.” The idea is to apologize to patients after medical mistakes are made and offer reasonable compensation. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it often helps avoid expensive malpractice lawsuits.
The Chicago Sun-Times editorialized in favor of the program in 2005 after the paper published an article showing the concept had seemed to cut legal actions in half against the University of Michigan Health System.
Anyway, this column isn’t about doctors. It’s about Gov. Pat Quinn.
Earlier this week, the governor was asked if he thought he should apologize for defending and even praising the now-indicted Rod Blagojevich, particularly during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. At the time, he was running with Blagojevich as his lieutenant governor.
“No, I don’t think apologies are necessary,” Quinn said, adding that voters “do not want to look backwards.”
“They want to look forward, and that’s what I’ve tried to do in the last 12 weeks, find every way we can to open up our government and to have reform in every place in our government,” Quinn said.
In a way, he’s right. It most certainly is time to fix the many horrific problems Blagojevich created. We shouldn’t be overly fixated on the past.
But, we cannot turn a blind eye to the terrible mistakes that many of us made. If we don’t own up to our mistakes, how can we expect others to believe that we won’t avoid similar errors in the future?
I for one, was at times taken in by Rod Blagojevich. Usually, I was pretty circumspect, but I believed some of his stories about the trouble he was in and occasionally fell for his considerable charms.
So, just let me say right here and now, I sincerely apologize and I’ll try never to let that happen again.
I feel better now. You might want to try it, especially if you voted for Blagojevich, or believed his lying campaign ads, fell for his spin doctors’ lines or ever defended him during a conversation.
Go ahead. I’ll wait. Just say it out loud. “I’m sorry.”
See? Don’t you feel better?
And if doctors can avoid lawsuits by apologizing, Quinn might want to start thinking about how voters will react to his refusal to say, “I’m sorry.”
A new poll conducted by the widely used Democratic firm of Bennett, Petts & Normington shows Attorney General Lisa Madigan is already thumping Quinn 2-1 in a Democratic primary.
Five hundred Chicagoans were surveyed March 23-25 and the margin of error is 4.5 percentage points. The poll was conducted on behalf of the Service Employees International Union.
According to the poll, Madigan has 44 percent to 22 percent for Quinn. Add in those who are leaning toward one candidate or the other, and Madigan is ahead 48-24. About 28 percent were undecided. She’s way up in the African-American community as well, 51-23.
Madigan had $3.5 million in her campaign account at the end of last year and has since been on a fund-raising tear. That’s a whole lot of money to bash Quinn for trying to raise taxes and stubbornly refusing to apologize for praising Blagojevich.
Quinn had just $85,000 on hand last year and is about to hold his first major fund-raiser since being elevated to the governor’s office.
A recent poll taken by Rasmussen Reports had Quinn with a 61 percent job approval rating. But most — 44 percent — only “somewhat” approved. His numbers are soft and he’s vulnerable.
Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley is opting off a political fast track.
• • To wit: Daley, the brother of Mayor Daley, told Sneed in February he planned to enter the U.S. Senate sweepstakes for the seat once held by President Obama, now held by the embattled Roland Burris.
• • It’s over: “I was gung-ho, and hired pollsters and talked to fund-raisers and planned to make an announcement in mid-April,” Daley told Sneed yesterday. “But I’m getting remarried in June and decided I want to take a new tack in my life. I just don’t want to live a commuter life back and forth from Washington.”
• • The China connection: Sneed also tipped March 25 that Daley may be getting his chopsticks ready — becoming the next U.S. ambassador to China, but has nixed that idea. “It’s true, there were serious discussions about China, but I recently decided, ‘No.’”
* Meanwhile, the Post-Dispatch looks at the Bright Start loss which might possibly haunt Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ race for US Senate…
Imagine your shock when, on opening your statement, you learn that your conservative, state-sponsored fund lost 38 percent of its value last year. If you’re astute enough to dig deeper, you learn the fund was using derivatives to increase its exposure to mortgage-backed securities.
Yes, even as the housing market was tanking, someone thought it was a good idea to make a risky, leveraged bet on mortgage bonds. And they did it with your kid’s college fund. […]
Illinois was the first state to react to the problems. On Dec. 4, it began directing new money into other investments instead of Oppenheimer Core Bond.
However, Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that existing balances would remain in the Oppenheimer fund “to avoid locking in past performance declines.” That looks like a mistake: Core Bond has lost 3.2 percent since early December, compared with a positive return of 4.7 percent for a Bloomberg bond-fund index.
The piece concludes with a generally positive view of the Bright Start program, however.
* Incumbent US Sen. Roland Burris was recently endorsed by, um, this guy…
Scott Baier, a 28-year-old former Mercer County [New Jersey] Republican Committeeman who was a Socialist Party candidate for State Assembly in 2005. His platform includes putting George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on trial for war crimes, abolishing the U.S. Department of Defense, the nationalization of the media, legalization of all drugs, a constitutional amendment banning all guns, and a “total ban” on pornography.
That will be an advantage, said a nervous state Rep. Jack Franks, a Marengo Democrat, who follows in the footsteps of impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich this morning by co-hosting a radio show on WLS-AM.
“I would not even be close on that one,” Franks said of a contest between Blagojevich’s famous do and Franks’ sometimes less than perfectly coifed silver mane.
Franks fills in from 9 to 11 a.m. for the vacationing Pat Cassidy on the “Mancow and Cassidy” show. While Franks has been on the radio many times during his decade as state representative, this morning he’ll be on the air with Erich “Mancow” Muller.
