Oberweis is wintering in Florida
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Mary Ann Ahern caught up with Republican US Senate candidate Jim Oberweis in Florida…
NBC 5 has learned that Oberweis flew out of Illinois Saturday, and is at his million-dollar Bonita Beach Florida condo until the end of the week.
When reached by phone, Oberweis would not confirm his whereabouts, and when he was repeatedly asked whether he’s in Illinois, he replied, “I think you’ve figured out by now that I’m not answering that question.”
Oberweis did say he’s “really focused on November,” where he hopes to battle incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
He won’t be back until Friday, Ahern reports.
* Here’s the audio of the TV story…
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* There should probably be another zero on that amount to be truly effective, but Sen. Kirk Dillard’s campaign just reported $400,000 in contributions from AFSCME, the IFT and the IEA.
Jim Edgar kicked in another $50K.
I’ll have more for subscribers about this tomorrow.
*** UPDATE *** Via Fred Klonsky’s blog, AFSCME’s Henry Bayer sent this e-mail to his members today…
By channeling our dollars directly to the Dillard campaign, which can purchase crucial television time at roughly half the rate of the independent expenditure campaign, we can get that information out most effectively.
When we started the independent expenditure campaign, we had not yet endorsed a candidate. We did not know who was best positioned to defeat Rauner.
The campaign has entered a new phase.
The independent expenditure effort did a good job of slowing Bruce Rauner’s momentum.
While he is still the frontrunner, Rauner can be beaten.
That’s why it is so important that we redouble our efforts to recruit volunteers for AFSCME phone banks and encourage each of our members to cast their vote in the Republican primary for Kirk Dillard.
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Poll: Hardiman at 36 percent
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Kevin McDermott…
A new poll by Strive Strategies shows Quinn with 64 percent of the Democratic vote, to Hardiman’s 36 percent.
In a news release, the polling firm calls that a “solid lead” and presents it as good news for Quinn. It isn’t. Hardiman has no political base, no money, and has received no serious media coverage. It’s unlikely that one-third of Democratic Illinois voters even know who he is, let alone are supporting him.
Which means this is a classic “anyone-but-Quinn” protest vote — from within Quinn’s own party.
I don’t know much about this polling firm, but I’ve been planning my own poll this week. I’ll let you know what happens.
* There are no silver medals in campaigns, but the more support Hardiman gets, the weaker Quinn’s gonna look when the primary is over.
Quinn has always had trouble with female voters, and Hardiman is winning 40 percent of Democratic women.
* Also, We Ask America is planning to release its GOP tracking results at around 8 o’clock tonight. Click here at that time and use this post to comment below.
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* From a press release…
Governor Pat Quinn today announced key campaign staff for his 2014 re-election bid. In addition to the campaign’s Chief Strategist Bill Hyers, the Governor named his Campaign Manager, Senior Advisor, Director of Operations, Deputy Press Secretary and digital and turnout powerhouse firm 270 Strategies. The latest hires join The Mellman Group and Joe Slade White & Company, the Governor’s nationally renowned pollster and political strategy and media firm who also worked on his 2010 campaign.
“I’m proud to have a dedicated and capable team who knows how to work hard and win,” Governor Quinn said. “We will run a strong grassroots campaign built for success in the 21st century.”
The Governor named former Deputy Chief of Staff of Legislative Affairs in the Governor’s Office Lou Bertuca as Campaign Manager. As the campaign’s top ambassador, Bertuca will lead day-to-day campaign operations. Carrie Glenn- a seasoned campaign operative - will serve as Senior Advisor to the campaign, providing critical field leadership, operations support and voter turnout expertise. Bertuca and Glenn will work hand in hand with Hyers, an Illinois native and one of the most highly-sought after campaign leaders in the nation.
In addition, other key staff members named today include: Deputy Director of Operations Sean Floyd, formerly of Bill de Blasio’s successful campaign for mayor of New York City as well as Deputy Press Secretary Izabela Miltko, formerly of SEIU Local 1. Governor Quinn also announced the hiring of 270 Strategies, a digital consulting and marketing firm led by former Obama National Field Director Jeremy Bird. The firm specializes in 21st century grassroots organizing and cutting-edge digital analytics.
More details below:
Bill Hyers - Chief Strategist Hyers most recently managed Bill de Blasio’s successful campaign for mayor of New York City. He also led Governor Steve Beshear’s successful gubernatorial campaign in Kentucky, Mayor Michael Nutter’s successful campaign in Philadelphia and Kirsten Gillibrand’s first race for Congress in 2006. In addition, Hyers managed President Obama’s campaign in Pennsylvania in his 2012 bid for re-election and was Midwest Regional Director for his 2008 campaign.
Lou Bertuca - Campaign Manager Bertuca has worked for Governor Quinn for eight years in a variety of capacities, starting when Quinn was serving as Lieutenant Governor in 2007 and later becoming one of the Governor’s senior advisors. Prior to joining the campaign, Bertuca served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Governor’s Office and Deputy Chief of Staff at the Illinois Tollway Authority.
Carrie Glenn - Senior Advisor Glenn has extensive campaign experience, which includes holding director and senior field positions in four states for President Obama’s 2008 campaign. Glenn most recently oversaw the Montana Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign. She will provide critical expertise on field operations, grassroots organizing and voter turnout.
Sean Floyd - Director of Operations Floyd previously worked as the Director of Operations for Bill De Blasio’s successful mayoral bid in New York City. He also served as the Director of Operations in Pennsylvania for President Obama’s re-election campaign.
Izabela Miltko - Deputy Press Secretary Miltko served as the Media Relations Specialist for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1, overseeing press outreach across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin. Her experience also includes working in Senator Dick Durbin’s press office, as well as Statehouse reporting in Springfield.
270 Digital Strategies - Founded by former National Field Director for President Obama’s re-election campaign Jeremy Bird, 270 Strategies is a next-generation consulting firm that specializes in 21st century, cutting-edge digital strategies and data driven ground game. The 270 Strategies team used grassroots organizing to build their 21st century turnout machine on the historic Obama re-election campaign as well as work on the 2008 campaign.
The Mellman Group - The Mellman Group is one of the nation’s top polling firms, providing opinion research and strategic advice to political leaders, public interest organizations, Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Clients include some of the nation’ stop political leaders, numerous U.S. Senators, Governors, members of Congress, and state and local officials.
Joe Slade White & Company –Joe Slade White & Company is a Democratic political strategy and media firm, whose clients have included Presidential candidates, U.S. Senators, Governors, members of Congress, and Mayors, including Vice-President Joe Biden and the former Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm. In 2012, White helped elect the only Democratic woman governor in the country, New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan.
So, the guy who has had serious problems dealing with the General Assembly names his former Deputy Chief of Staff of Legislative Affairs as his campaign manager?
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Rauner wants to know a lot
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* At about the six minute mark of his interview, Bruce Rauner told WBEZ he wants to have a “cooperative” relationship with state legislators. And then he said this…
“I want to get to know every legislator on a first name basis. I want to get to know them, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities. I want to get to know them well.”
Emphasis added for obvious reasons.
Be careful out there. He’s bringing the heat.
* Meanwhile, at about the 9:30 mark of this WTTW interview with GOP treasurer candidates Tom Cross and Bob Grogan, Mr. Grogan was asked about a comment he’d made earlier that running for office meant dealing with “a bunch of bullies”…
“Whether it’s the fake people on Facebook or on the Internet that are going out there and making up things about you and doing that sort of stuff. It’s rough and tumble… It’s not for normal people.”
Asked if he regretted running, Grogan took a very deep breath and said…
“You know, there are many a times that I do regret getting into it. I’m too stubborn and committed to turn around. Any time when you’re missing ball games with the kids and all that, obviously there’s a good deal of regret.”
He went on to say he felt he had to “stand up” and run, however.
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* I told subscribers about this development earlier this morning. Greg Hinz followed up…
In a critical development in the GOP race for governor, a union-backed group that had spent millions of dollars on TV ads blasting front-runner Bruce Rauner has decided to end its campaign, just as the race enters the crucial last week.
Michael Murray, a spokesman for the Illinois Freedom PAC, said the group has spent $3.1 million so far ripping Mr. Rauner but will spend no more, effective immediately.
Mr. Murray denied a report in Capitol Fax that unions that funded the effort concluded Mr. Rauner now is too far ahead to lose the race, and didn’t want to throw good money after bad. Rather, he insisted, “We feel we have accomplished our goal.”
“We wanted to highlight some issues with Bruce Rauner that the middle-class families of Illinois needed to be made aware of,” he said. “Now that we have achieved that goal, and all the top candidates are on the air, it’s up to their campaigns to make their final case.”
Yeah, OK. They “accomplished their goal” and now they go dark a week out? Right.
*** UPDATE 1 *** The full statement from Mike Murray…
We wanted to highlight some issues with Bruce Rauner that the middle class families of Illinois needed to be made aware of. You saw from the Tribune poll and Rauner’s reaction that we did just that. Now that we have achieved that goal, and all the top candidates are on the air, it’s up to the campaigns to make their final case.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Tribune…
Illinois Freedom raised more than $3.6 million and had begun a heavy schedule of TV advertising in early February. But a television industry official who asked not to be identified said the PAC’s spending on TV dropped noticeably on March 1 and fell even more this week. Murray said the group’s ads will run through the end of the week.
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* Pfleger does have a point, but the governor’s anti-violence program is in definite need of a thorough legislative examination…
South Side activists denounced “cul-de-sac” critics Monday and called for more cash — not less — for anti-violence programs such as Gov. Pat Quinn’s troubled Neighborhood Recovery Initiative.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger and former state Sen. Alice Palmer were among those who appeared at a news conference at The Ark of St. Sabina in the Gresham neighborhood to support the now disbanded program that was assailed in a blistering audit last month and is now facing a steady drumbeat of negative headlines. […]
“It angers me when people from Lemont and Palatine and Springfield, and suburbs all around Illinois, love to launch their attack on programs that seek to reach the most at-risk youth in our city,” Pfleger said. “It also bothers me that they never come to the South Side or to the West Side to say, ‘What can we do? How can we help? How can we stop this carnage of blood in our streets?’”
Pfleger and others shared troubling statistics — 216 school-age children killed in Chicago in 2010, 92 percent of black male teens unemployed in 2012 — and said success stories within the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative are being ignored, including “thousands of lives that were saved.”
* More…
“There are good and bad things about every state program, but why must we always concentrate on the bad when it involves youths on the South and West Sides?” said Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham. “I am sick and tired of people who do not live in our community and have never been to our community telling us what’s good for us.” […]
“Across the state 85 percent of black teens are unemployed. Across the city it is 89 percent,” said Jack Wuest, executive director of the nonprofit Alternative Schools Network, citing a January report by his organization. “Young blacks males in the city living with families earning less than $20,000 a year are 95 percent unemployed. This is an epidemic that has to be addressed in a broader fashion.”
* But…
Alice Palmer, a community activist, worked with 80 South Shore youths in programming supported by the initiative in 2010, including some who went on to get further training.
“These young people were well-received by businesses because they brought a positive message,” she said. “We have one young lady who is in nursing school thanks to the training and motivation she received from the neighborhood program.”
* According to an internal e-mail exchange posted by the Sun-Times in its original story, Ms. Palmer apparently knew the guy who allegedly killed his cohort during an alleged home invasion…
In a 2012 email, Betts identified Alice Palmer as his organization’s point person in the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative’s Mentoring Plus Jobs program for South Shore, of which Brown and Bufford were a part.
Palmer served in the Illinois Senate, involuntarily relinquishing her seat in 1997 to Barack Obama after being knocked off the ballot because her nominating petitions were insufficient. While Betts would not do so, a Quinn administration source confirmed the woman Betts referred to is the former state senator. Messages left at multiple phone numbers tied to Palmer were not returned Thursday.
“Dr. Palmer has first-hand familiarity with the youth involved in this tragic incident,” Betts said in his Aug. 8, 2012, email response to Barbara Shaw in which he promised to develop a “more formal response strategy” to the murder.
It would be nice to see her testify about this mess.
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Mr. “.01 percent”
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the Sun-Times’ profile of Bruce Rauner…
Within minutes of sitting for an interview, gubernatorial front-runner Bruce Rauner makes a bold correction about his personal fortune when asked if he is among the so-called 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans.
“Oh, I’m probably .01 percent,” said Rauner, who owns nine homes, and made $53 million last year. […]
Rauner quickly grew perturbed when asked if the comparisons are true that he’s the “Mitt Romney of Illinois.”
“I am a very different person from Mitt Romney,” Rauner said. “I drink beer. I smoke a cigar. I use a gun. I ride a Harley. My grandparents lived in a double-wide trailer. I’m a salesman. He’s an analyst.” […]
“I get a crowd going to a standing ovation. I never saw [Romney] do that,” Rauner said.
* Sen. Kirk Dillard responded…
In a campaign statement today, Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican, called Rauner “out of touch,” and said he was concerned with “how” Rauner made his money.
“There’s no way someone who admits being in the top .01 of America’s richest people can relate to working families,” Dillard said. “How can someone with nine luxury homes relate to someone struggling to make ends meet? The answer is obvious: he can’t”
* As did somebody from Romney’s former campaign…
A former top Romney 2012 campaign official scoffed at Rauner’s comments.
“I don’t know what cave Bruce was stuck in during 2012, but of the 60+ million people who voted for Mitt Romney, tens of thousands would regularly show up to stand and cheer at our rallies,” the official told TPM.
* Rauner’s campaign responded to Dillard…
“Attacking success, on top of taking hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from some of Pat Quinn’s biggest allies, is why Kirk Dillard should be running in the Democrat primary,” said Rauner campaign spokesman Mike Schrimpf.
So far, though, there’s been no response to the Romney folks.
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* It’s been quite a lousy morning. I wasn’t feeling all that well, and then I finally woke up only to find that my Gmail account “has been disabled due to suspicious activity.” Trying to fix that now.
So, while I do that, how about we do this…
* The Question: Are there any local primary races that you are following? Who’s gonna win?
…Adding… Gmail is finally working. I had a real problem getting my computer to deal with the new password, but that’s fixed now as well. Hopefully, I can return to some sort of normalcy soon. What a lousy day.
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