* This story is ostensibly about the presidential race, but put that aside…
With trade and prosperity prominent in the campaign, Yahoo Finance analyzed economic data for each state during the last 10 years to determine which states seem to be feeling the most pain from globalization and the movement of jobs overseas. For each state, we calculated the change in manufacturing employment, total employment and income during the last 10 years. Then we ranked the states on their overall economic performance. (Full methodology is at the end of this story.) These 10 states are hurting the most
We calculated 10-year growth in overall and manufacturing employment using statewide data for the month of December in 2005 and 2015. Income data is also from December of each year, though those numbers date to 2007, the first year the figures were available state-by-state. Income figures are not adjusted for inflation. The unemployment rate for each state is the most recent. In each of the four categories, we ranked the states (plus the District of Columbia) from 1 to 51, with 1 being best and 51 being worst. Then we added those 4 numbers together and ranked the states by the aggregate of the four rankings. We weighted all categories equally.
Donald Trump’s Illinois campaign director has been sidelined after the national campaign grew furious over what sources described as a lack of organization in the state in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary.
Instead, two others have assumed duties that were held by Springfield-area attorney Kent Gray, who is also running for state representative, a person intimately involved with Trump’s political operation confirmed. […]
Sources told POLITICO that Gray was sidelined early last week after the Trump camp learned he made few inroads with get-out-the-vote efforts and organizing volunteers.
“One thing after another was bungled,” said one source with knowledge of the discussions.
* But as the above story indicates, Gray denies it…
“It is an anonymously sourced and recklessly inaccurate story,” Gray told The State Journal-Register via email on Monday.
“I have a six-month contract as Illinois state director that was always scheduled to conclude on Illinois’ primary, March 15,” he added.
I have no idea who’s telling the truth here, but I do have one simple question: What kind of a goofy outfit waits until a week before primary day to discover they have a field organization problem in a huge state like Illinois? Election day operations take weeks, even months to build.
I mean, seriously, they don’t have regular progress report deadlines?
…Adding… Trump also obviously has serious problems with his advance team and some of his supporters really are clueless…
Local firefighters from Bloomington and Normal teamed with other volunteers to repair gravesites and the grounds at East Lawn Memorial Gardens in Bloomington which were damaged by parked cars that turned the cemetery into a makeshift parking lot for the Donald Trump rally.
President of the Bloomington Firefighters Union IAFF Local 49 and Bloomington firefighter John Meckley said at least a dozen gravestones were damaged.
“There was trash everywhere, where they had driven over numerous stones,” Meckley said. “Fortunately, not all were damaged, but there were rows and rows and rows of headstones that were driven over.”
After pictures surfaced on social media, volunteers went to work with jacks, shovels, and rakes to re-level headstones and smooth out the grounds which were torn up by the cars and the rain.
“It was a community gathering of…. this is not tolerable, this is not acceptable,” Meckley stressed.
Cue Fox News white-hot outrage. Oh… wait. It’s Trump. Nevermind.
The Loading Dock looked a lot different this time to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner who visited Sunday when he talked to voters, shared youngsters’ birthday cupcakes and marveled at the venue’s flood recovery.
Rauner and state Senate candidate Bryce Benton, an Illinois state trooper who is seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Sam McCann in the state’s 50th Senate District, made a series of campaign stops Sunday in anticipation of Tuesday’s primary election.
“Last time I was here, it was under about five feet of water. I’m glad to see it’s recovered so well,” Rauner said Sunday. “It was a brutal, brutal flood.”
I really love that place. Listening to a live band on a sunny weekend next to the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers is about as good as a day can get.
But the venue floods on a regular basis. It’s designed to withstand flooding and ownership appears to use the floods as a marketing tool. They have marks on a wall which show how high the floods rose every year back to the big one in 1993. It just adds to the charm.
* For your added enjoyment, that’s state Senate candidate Bryce Benton behind the governor’s left shoulder. From the above story…
Rauner touted Benton as a “strong conservative” who was pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, supports term limits for elected officials, and wants to end legislative pensions.
“We have to change directions,” Rauner said. “Mike Madigan and the Chicago Democratic machine has been controlling Illinois for decades and they’ve run us into the ditch. He’s going to help me in the General Assembly standing up to Mike Madigan, that’s why I’m strongly endorsing Bryce Benton for state Senate.”
“We’ve had a standstill down in Springfield, and I think the Governor and Ken Dunkin have a partnership, and I think it’s bad for Chicago, bad for Illinois. And the question is: Are we going to have somebody rewarded that, in my view, is not going to pass a budget that invests in Chicago and in Chicago’s schoolchildren, or are we going to hold everything hostage?”
* And if you have the time, watch this video of Rep. Dunkin speaking to elderly constituents, many of whom won’t look at him…
From the video…
“All I did, all I did was go around Mike Madigan and got the governor to release $2 billion. $2 billion for child care assistance, for the developmentally disabled and for senior services.”
* A group of committed volunteers goes into the worst cell block in all of Cook County Jail and produces unheard of results. Wow…
The combined number of incidents prior to the implementation of Malachi Dads in September 2015 was 83.
“The numbers don’t lie,” says Dart. “As a group, they had incident after incident, fighting, fighting with correctional officers and exposing themselves. Now, it’s zero. I’m not saying it went from whatever to zero and back up. It has stayed at zero. I was blown away.”
* By far the single most underreported political story of the season is the involvement of Dan Proft’s Liberty Principles PAC…
Spending in the 2016 Illinois Primary Election may end up a record-breaker as Super PACs take aim at incumbents and challengers who have either opposed or supported Governor Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda.
One of those PACs - Liberty Principles PAC - has spent massive amounts of cash this year. As of Friday, the PAC, which is chaired and directed by radio talk show host Dan Proft, has spent over $4,835,000 on nine races throughout the state.
Starting with televison ads in late January, Proft’s PAC has reported spending thus far over $3,075,400 on mailings, robo calls, television and radio ads to boost law enforcement officer Bryce Benton of Springfield, who is challenging incumbent Republican State Senator Sam McCann.
Honestly, not a parody, but the attempt by Dorothy Brown to argue that she runs a modern court system. Never mind the outdated computers in the video, the piles of paper in the stock footage, and the incredibly low tech productions values of the video itself.
Whoever produced this has a brilliant future. . . . as a video producer for The Onion.
Jacob Meister, candidate for Clerk of the Court, who has been endorsed by all 3 major dailies, will hold a media availability and phone bank at his campaign office today (Monday 3/14) from 1 – 2pm. Meister will discuss the legacy of corruption and patronage Clerk Dorothy Brown and Alderman Michelle Harris offer voters.
Last fall the campaign season kicked off with the revelation that Brown was being investigated by the FBI for selling jobs. Now, just days before the election, Brown has released a bizarre re‐election campaign videoon social media containing footage filmed in the Clerk’s office on government property, seemingly during business hours. Has Dorothy learned nothing from her past illegal behavior?
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner spent his Sunday trying to give a boost to a central Illinois Republican candidate for state senate. The race is seen as a key test of Rauner’s own agenda, and power within his party.
Gov. Rauner stopped by a table of folks waiting for pancakes at Charlie Parker’s diner in Springfield.
He gestured to the man by his side — Bryce Benton. He’s a state trooper, and homeland security officer, Rauner told them. Vote for him on Tuesday.
“I need him in the legislature to help me battle Madigan. So. Bryce Benton for State Senate,” Rauner said.
(Benton himself didn’t say much; he told them to enjoy their breakfast).
Dude, you’re the candidate. Yeah, I know you’ve raised almost no money on your own and are being almost totally bankrolled by Rauner, but for crying out loud take a little initiative.
Keep in mind: Even if Rauner-backed candidates win, one of Madigan’s unique strengths is making friends of foes. Plenty of Democrats have joined the House as self-proclaimed Madigan rebels, only to fall politely in line. Why? They need Madigan. They need his staff. They need his campaign war chest. They need his attorneys to protect them on the ballot. They need his approval to pass legislation.
Stockholm syndrome is endemic among House Democrats.
There’s nothing quite like an armchair mass diagnosis.
* Same message, but said less politely by someone else on Twitter…
@GovRauner ignore the haters gov. rauner.. they're just demo rat trolls. stay strong.. dictator madigan wants to bankrupt us..
* For as long as I can remember, the SJ-R’s political columnist has made predictions the Sunday before an election. Here are Bernie’s…
In the end, it looks like the Benton-McCann race could be very close. I’ll guess McCann gets a slim win. […]
* In the 95th House District, I think Rep. AVERY BOURNE, R-Raymond, will remain the party’s standard bearer despite a strong challenge from DENNIS SCOBBIE of Litchfield. CHRISTOPHER HICKS of Sawyerville is also in the race. The Democrat in the November contest is MIKE MATHIS of Gillespie.
* In the 99th House District, Jimenez will defeat fellow Leland Grove resident KENT GRAY, winning the right to take on Democrat TONY DelGIORNO of Springfield in the fall. And in the 96th, CINDY DEADRICK WOLFER, a Macon County resident, will defeat GARY PIERCE of Springfield for the GOP nomination, and the chance to challenge Rep. SUE SCHERER, D-Decatur, in November.
Illinois Republicans have long complained that House Speaker Michael Madigan’s campaign organization doesn’t just beat you; it destroys you. Madigan doesn’t set out to merely win; he wants to make sure he doesn’t ever have to deal with you again.
Madigan’s own Democratic primary race was a good example. He posted yard signs all over his district urging his constituents to vote against “convicted felon Jason Gonzales,” and his cable-TV and direct-mail ads ceaselessly pounded home that very same message. His captains also reportedly had volunteers holding those signs at the entrance to voting locations.
Gonzales was, indeed, a convicted felon. But that happened two decades ago, and he was pardoned by former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn. To hear the Madigan campaign tell it, however, you’d think the guy just walked out of prison.
Or take a look at what Madigan did to Katelyn Hotle. The House speaker’s operation dropped at least nine negative mailers on the little-known, lightly funded candidate in the Quad Cities-area Democratic primary to replace retiring state Representative Pat Verschoore (D-Milan). The gist of the attacks was that Hotle, a Rock Island city-council member, profited personally from her shoddy government service, but none of it was true.
They also smeared Hotle in the media for being a “plant” of Governor Bruce Rauner. Why? The only real explanation is that she was the lone female in a four-way primary, so she could do well on demographics alone and they had to take her out. For good.
The Madigan operation reached way back into the past of Representative Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago) to find an arrest, some formal allegations of domestic abuse, and troubles paying his child support and then used that against him in his Democratic primary campaign. Dunkin started the fight by so closely allying himself with our Republican governor and thumbing his nose at his fellow Democrats, but he seems to have personally rehabilitated himself. Madigan and the people around him didn’t care. It’s a matter of public record, and Dunkin got whacked with it.
But as we’ve also discovered this year, Rauner’s legislative-campaign operation is eerily similar to Madigan’s. And while that’s making some Republicans privately uncomfortable, Madigan’s way has proven to work far more often than not over the years.
A good case in point is conservative activist Dan Proft’s TV ads against Jim Acklin in the three-way 102nd House District GOP primary.
Proft’s Liberty Principles PAC ran a blistering TV ad that claimed Acklin, as a school superintendent, “blamed the victim” and “did nothing” about a sexual predator in his school system who also happened to be a “family friend.” The ad was based on a failed civil lawsuit – a very thin reed indeed – but it was brutal.
Rauner and his pals have pumped seven-figure contributions into Proft’s PAC over the past few months. They’ve clearly been involved in several races through Proft.
Rauner and his people do not want Acklin nominated because he is backed by former Republican Governor Jim Edgar, a frequent Rauner critic. So they’re supporting former state Representative Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville), despite the fact that they don’t really love the guy. Keeping Edgar’s fingers out of the House has been their priority.
So they launched a second killer TV ad to build on their theme. The new spot used Acklin’s own videotaped comments at a candidates’ forum where he claimed to have acted “quickly and decisively” to remove the predator teacher from his school.
But the second Proft ad claimed: “In his own words, it took him four years to act. Four years.” A news clip on the screen indicates that Acklin said “he was aware of an incident involving [the predator] in 2008.” That “incident” was an allegation that the teacher was texting a student, but the student denied at the time that anything inappropriate was going on. The teacher was warned, and that was the end of it until the predator’s arrest four years later. The ad concludes: “Acklin touts his judgment. On March 15, make your own.”
Acklin raised a decent amount of money compared to similar races in prior years, but times have changed. Both sides in Dunkin’s race (including Rauner’s allies) dumped well over $5 million into the contest. A Senate Republican primary race in the Springfield area where the governor opposed the incumbent saw spending top $3.5 million.
Acklin wasn’t able to air a response ad until a full week after the initial Proft ad aired, and after he’d already been buried with Rauner’s money.
