* I went to the Illinois State Fair eight different this year. I think that’s a personal record. The weather was darned near perfect, but I thought the Fair was better than in years past and attendance jumped despite a price increase…
(T)his year’s attendance for the 10-day fair was 844,051, according to fair officials. That’s nearly 15 percent higher than last year’s 10-day total of 735,599.
Grandstand concert attendance also was up this year, with 51,732 seeing the nine ticketed events, compared to 49,649 people last year.
After hiding out from the heat for most of the summer, people seemed to relish the chance to get outside and enjoy the food, games, rides and other attractions at the fairgrounds, Bliefnick said.
Ticket prices jumped to $7 for adults this year from $5 last year, but that didn’t appear to hurt attendance.
Reported attendance at the Illinois State Fair was approximately 650,000 in 2003, 671,333 in 2004, 672,615 in 2005, approximately 705,000 in 2006, and 737,052 in 2008.
* Just two shows, Eric Church and Miranda Lambert, accounted for about 44 percent of the Grandstand attendance.
More like this, please.
* Meanwhile, a couple of buddies and I had another adventure with a borrowed golf cart this year. I posted one two years ago, but we made an unreleased video last year as well. I never posted it because somebody stole the cart and I figured I was in enough trouble already without adding to my woes.
Thursday’s rain got things a little muddy, so we went over to the steep hills surrounding Happy Hollow for some fun. Enjoy…
Yes, we were bad. No, you shouldn’t do this. Yes, I’m probably in trouble… again.
* Online campaign videos are different from TV ads, so keep that in mind when rating this online video from Democratic state Sen. Gary Forby’s Republican opponent Mark Minor. From the campaign…
This is going to folks who work at the Department of Corrections and supporters
* I arrived a bit too late to see her, but a Democratic “tracker” showed up at a Republican State Fair event on Wednesday. That’s not so unusual. Video trackers go pretty much everywhere these days.
What is somewhat unusual about the tracker’s presence was that the event was held in a tavern. People were drinking. I really don’t like this idea. There ought to be things that are off limits to video trackers, and taverns are one of them, unless maybe a candidate has a DUI or something.
This particular tracker apparently follows Republican congressional candidate Rodney Davis. “She’s everywhere,” said one Davis friend. And she was at DH Brown’s on Wednesday for a state party function. It was a private affair, so she was given the boot. Figuratively, of course.
* But then this same Democratic tracker reappeared Thursday evening - at a function for two Democrats. The Democrats, Rep. Elgie Sims and state House candidate Lance Tyson, were holding a joint fundraiser at an office on West Capitol Ave.
I try to attend as many State Fair political events as I can, and I showed up for that one. The tracker was on the sidewalk across the street from the building. She had been in the building’s private parking lot before she was shooed away.
* As you can see by the video, the tracker originally identified herself as working for “Coulson Research,” then said she worked for “Olson Research.” Neither of those firms show up in a Google search, nor in the candidate disbursements.
The DCCC confirmed later that she was a Democratic tracker, but denied that she works for them. The DCCC person I communicated with did not respond to my questions about why this person would be sent to a Democratic event. The Democrats involved weren’t exactly pleased, to say the least.
* The bottom line is I still don’t know why this Democratic tracker showed up at a Democratic event. I’m posting this in case somebody can help me out here. Thanks.
In politics, perception often trumps reality. Put another way: What people think they know about a politician, an issue or anything else goes a long way to determining how they feel about it — whether or not their initial perception is based in reality or not.
That perception obsession has lead us to seek out any and every tool that helps us get at how people think about their politics — and each other.
Today we happened upon an awesome map put together by Renee DiResta at her No Upside blog. What DiResta did is simple but revealing. In Google she typed in “Why is [fill in the blank state] so…” and let Google’s autocomplete function, which tracks the most common words typed after “so”, do the rest. She mapped the top four auto-completes for each state. […]
* One of the top four autocomplete terms for Alabama, Missisippi, Georgia and South Carolina is “racist”. It’s the most common autocomplete in Alabama and South Carolina and number two in Mississippi and Georgia.
* In California, Oregon and Washington State, one of the top four terms is “why is [state] so liberal?” That’s also true in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.
* The four top Google auto-completes for “Why is Illinois so…” are…
The data set is Google auto-complete results for “Why is [insert state] so “. I took up to four results per state - one or two states didn’t even have four results - then grouped the results by term. I categorized the terms into buckets: economic, geographic, health, history, political, population, sports, weather, and “culture/sentiment”. The latter was a bit of a catch-all for ‘judgey terms’, ranging from “awesome” to “boring” to “racist.” Sometimes the classification wasn’t immediately obvious; for example, “Why is Alabama so good?” is pretty vague, so I followed the query through to the results, and determined it was most likely sports-related. (“Why is New Jersey so bad?”, however, was not about sports.) Your search results may vary (due to past search history, region, autocomplete results changing due to news events, and other factors). I did run these in both Incognito mode and regular mode, and the vast majority of results were identical. If you’d like the raw data, contact me.
* The Question: What one word immediately comes to your own mind when asked “Why is Illinois so…”?
* Gov. Pat Quinn issued this statement Friday afternoon after the House advanced an amendment which would reform only the General Assembly’s pension system…
“I met with the legislative leaders this morning, and we discussed a number of pension proposals that could be voted on today. I asked them to vote on a proposal that reforms four of the systems and eliminates the unfunded liability, as I have repeatedly advocated.
“Republican leaders said no.
“I asked them if they would vote on a proposal that reforms three of the state’s systems. Republican leaders said no.
“I asked them to vote on SB1447, passed by the Senate, to reform two of the systems.
“Republican leaders said no.
“I asked them if they would lead by example, at the very least, and vote to reform the General Assembly pension system.
The only problem was that Biss was arguing in favor of Friday’s legislative pension charade and admonishing Republicans not to seek partisan advantage, which put him in the same boat as the rest.
After a do-nothing special legislative session Friday, Illinois remains rock bottom in pension stability. The House couldn’t even pass a sliver of reform: a bill that would affect pensions for lawmakers, a tiny fraction of the state pension system’s enrollees. The governor’s office estimates that narrow measure would save the state $43 million to $45 million right away and about $111 million by 2045. In context, not much — but too much for Illinois lawmakers to save. Thank you, members of the House, for not even tossing a thimble of water on your roaring bonfire.
The Senate adjourned before taking up the legislation at all. Without any bill on Quinn’s desk, the state realizes no immediate savings. So we are exactly where we were 11 weeks ago when the General Assembly went on summer vacation without doing anything to mitigate that “staggering” pension debt. Eleven weeks from now is the reason why: Election Day.
We could fill this page with who’s to blame. We could call them out by name.
But to keep it simple — to make it crystal clear — we’ll point the arrow here: It’s the incumbents, voters.
That was one of the more interesting editorials on this issue I read because it didn’t follow the accepted journalistic line that this vote was a complete and utter sham.
* The conservative Daily Caller is practically giddy today…
President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in November, a new poll shows.
A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely.
Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also the most populous.
Those numbers do not bode well for the president. […]
In the city of Chicago itself, he retains a 60-29 lead over Romney. But the Republican challenger leads 45-38 in the surrounding areas. Across the county as a whole, Romney leads 43-31 among independent voters, a crucial voting bloc. Romney also holds a 44-38 lead among male voters, and a 53-40 lead among white voters.
Illinois is not considered a swing state by any means; it is seen as solidly blue, and has been for the past two election cycles. But McKeon pointed to the 2010 gubernatorial race when Republican Bill Brady came within a single percentage point of now-Gov. Pat Quinn because Brady won most of the downstate counties. That is a feat Romney could repeat this year, leaving Obama vulnerable if he cannot expand his lead in Cook County.
* But Lynn Sweet has some recent county-wide poll numbers from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s campaign which shows that President Obama has high favorables and high job approval ratings in Cook…
72/27 Obama
69/26 Emanuel
67/15 Preckwinkle
54/43 Quinn
*Madigan not included [Emphasis added.]
I wouldn’t bet the farm that Romney has a shot in Illinois. He’ll do much better in the suburbs and Downstate than John McCain four years ago. But a shot at winning Illinois? Not yet.
Also, notice Gov. Quinn’s ratings. Not good at all. The person who probably should be worried is Gov. Pat Quinn, not President Obama.
A new poll of likely voters in the 17th Congressional District puts U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling ahead of his Democratic opponent, Cheri Bustos, by 13 points.
The internal poll by the Schilling campaign surveyed 400 people between Aug. 8 and 9 and found that 50 percent would vote for Rep. Schilling, R-Colona, and 37 percent would back Ms. Bustos, of East Moline.
Ms. Bustos has increased her support by 2 points from the last poll of the district conducted by the Schilling campaign in May. Rep. Schilling had the support of 51 percent of those polled in May to 35 percent for Ms. Bustos.
Terry Schilling, Rep. Schilling’s campaign manager, released the new poll on Friday and said he was pleased with the numbers. The poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.
Prompted by the release of the Schilling poll, the Bustos campaign released its own numbers from an internal poll taken in February. The poll found support of 44 percent for Rep. Schilling to 35 percent for Ms. Bustos. But when the 400 likely voters surveyed where given positive information about both candidates, Rep. Schilling’s lead narrowed to just four points. [See below for more info. The Bustos poll showed she actually led by four points after the positive pushes.]
1. Bobby Schilling continues to have a solid image in the district. Incumbent Bobby Schilling’s name ID is 84% and he has positive image ration of more than two to one (42% fav/20% unfav). These numbers are especially strong given how much of the district is new territory for Schilling.
2. Democrat challenger Cheri Bustos’ name ID is under 50%, and her image is polarized among those with an opinion of her. Cheri Bustos’s name ID sits at 49%, and just 29% of voters have an opinion of her (16% fav/13% unfav). Bustos’ image is essentially unchanged since our May survey, and she is running out of time to adequately define herself.
3. Bobby Schilling continues to lead by double digits on the Congressional ballot. Schilling leads Bustos by thirteen points on the ballot (50% Schilling/37% Bustos). Schilling’s support from Republicans is north of 90%, and he also has a significant advantage with Independent voters (50% Schilling/22% Bustos).
Public Opinion Strategies completed a survey of 400 likely voters in Illinois’ newly drawn 17Congressional District August 8-9, 2012. The survey has a margin of error of +4.9% in 95 out of 100 cases.
* The Schilling campaign also provided this polling roundup…
Schilling 44, Bustos 35 (February 2012) — The Bustos campaign released this internal poll—conducted in February—during the weekend of August 18 in response to the latest Public Opinion Strategies poll released by the Schilling campaign. Bustos was nominated in early March.
Schilling 51, Bustos 35 (May 2012) — In May, the Schilling campaign released this poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies. This was the first publicly released poll of the cycle.
Schilling 50, Bustos 37 (August 2012) — The Rock Island Argus and Moline Dispatch reported this new poll result on Sunday. Public Opinion Strategies also conducted this poll.
…Adding… The Bustos campaign notes that their polling memo from May showed this…
After hearing positive information on both candidates (slightly more on Bustos than Schilling), the Congressman’s lead evaporates and Bustos opens up a 45 – 41 percent lead. In other words, Bustos gains the lead before voters even hear about Schilling’s vulnerabilities.
* Doug Finke asks some good questions about AFSCME…
They can boo and shout down all the Democrats they want, but where do they go politically? To the Republicans? The GOP argued for pension reforms long before the Democrats climbed on board and for harsher ones than are being debated now. They also tend to think government should be shrunk, not expanded.
The unions can sit out the elections, which means they’ll be decided by voters who pay taxes, but don’t collect state pensions. Many of those voters might think Quinn has the right idea.
Not much of a choice, is it?
* My syndicated column is about the union’s anger…
If you were following the news last week, you already know that hundreds of AFSCME members packed the Illinois State Fair Director’s Lawn last Wednesday afternoon and booed pretty much everybody who tried to speak at the annual Democratic event.
The only person of consequence to escape most of the hostility was Secretary of State Jesse White (who is also exempted from the traditional fan booing of politicians at Chicago baseball games). But even White received a few boos at times.
“It is a great day to be a Democrat in Springfield, Illinois!” shouted Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, the event’s emcee, over loud catcalls. “And I am happy to be here with all of you, no matter what your point of view is,” she continued, hoping to calm the angry crowd, which was far more AFSCME than Democratic.
It didn’t work.
The shouts were so loud during Gov. Pat Quinn’s brief address that nobody could listen to the speech except reporters with direct electronic access to his microphone. The governor showed some real guts by directly challenging the assembled protesters during his remarks, but it didn’t really matter because the workers (and everybody else) couldn’t hear a word of what he said.
Even President Barack Obama was heartily booed by union protesters both times his name was invoked from the stage, suggesting to some Democrats last week that many of the union protesters were actually hardcore Republicans with a political ax to grind. The fact that no AFSCME protests were planned for the following day’s Republican Day event at the State Fair was pointed to by more than one upset Democrat last week.
But there’s no doubt that the union intimidation did have an impact. Secretary White nervously joked with protesters not to “kill the messenger” when he was briefly booed. White made sure to emphatically promise the crowd that his planned closure of a Rockford facility would be addressed soon.
The fact that fewer top Democrats were willing to appear on the dais with Quinn than ever stood with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich at previous fair events also showed the power of the issue to frighten away the governor’s fellow party members. Just one congressional candidate with a serious race, Democrat David Gill, showed up. Gill was lightly booed at times, but the experience as the event’s first speaker appeared to shake him up a bit. He looked upset after his speech and nervously wiped his brow before sitting down.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan laughed heartily and smiled wide when his own introduction was loudly booed. Madigan chose not to speak, however. Senate President John Cullerton and Attorney General Lisa Madigan did not appear on the podium.
Blagojevich gave AFSCME some of the best union contracts in the nation. But even he was subjected to an AFSCME State Fair protest when he attempted to make union members pay more for health insurance in 2008. Workers only briefly interrupted Blagojevich’s speech before marching out of the event. Quinn didn’t get so lucky.
A much stronger message had to be sent last week. Quinn is not only attempting to reduce union worker pensions and health benefits, but word from inside the contract negotiations is he’s demanding that every union member take a two-grade reduction in their pay, which would amount to at least a 10 percent pay cut for employees. He’s also demanding a ton of other concessions and closing several state institutions. Union members are fed up with the demands for givebacks from a guy they backed to the hilt last election.
Bill Brady slightly underperformed Mark Kirk in just about every downstate county in 2010, almost totally because of union opposition to Brady’s anti-labor beliefs. Those slim Downstate margins (along with the pro-choice northern suburban backlash against Brady) elected Pat Quinn governor two years ago. There are a ton of Downstate public employee union members. So, he took their votes and he took their money and now they believe that he’s totally turned against them. Rank and file union anger is completely understandable in this context.
It’s little wonder that legislative Democrats didn’t want to advance a major pension reform proposal two days after the State Fair debacle. AFSCME’s tactics may have been over the top, but the union appeared to succeed, at least for now.
We’ll have much more on the pension issue in a bit.
