* When Google launches a new product, I tend to pay attention. And since most of us here are pretty wired-in, I thought I’d do a bit about today’s launch of Google Buzz.
Go check out a reliable live-blogging of the big announcement by clicking here…
One of Google’s great [insights] was pagerank, which gave websites relevancy. Now, we need to find relevancy in social expressions on Twitter and other social networks. “It’s easy to start drowning in this.” How do we find relevancy in the real world? What signals do we use?
10:36 am: There’s a lot of noise out there but how can Google algorithmically help determine what’s important and relevant? Location is important to drive relevance. Where are you? At work? On road? In a meeting? Conversations and relevance are unlocked by locations. In mobile, there is GPS data today and there are many tools to help us understand location. Three new product experiences being announced today. You can go directly to Google’s main page. On Android and iPhone, you can also go to buzz.google.com. New Google Maps app for Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android and others (not iPhone) but more coming soon.
10:44 am: Looking at the Buzz app for iPhone and Android (Vic is using a Nexus One on stage) There’s a Following button and a Nearby button. You might not just want to see the most interesting buzzes based on who you’re following. Let’s say you’re walking down the street and want to see all of the buzz that’s close to you - people who are maybe at the same concert or are in your neighborhood. Of course, all of the posts are geo-tagged. And now, in maps, you can see an icon to see that people there are “buzzing” and you can read them.
* The Illinois Policy Institute, which has often teamed up with the House Republicans on policy issues, has published its new “Piglet Book.” It’s supposed to be a list of pork, but pork, as they say, is in the eyes of the beholder.
For instance, the IPI publication flat-out states while it “exposes” a relatively small grant to WTTW…
Unfortunately, there is no need for public broadcasting in an era of cable television and streaming Internet videos
That’s more than just a debatable point.
* Nurses…
The state is funding nurses’ tuition for $75,000 and nurse educator fellowships for $150,000. There is evidence that aspiring nurses are not in dire need of financial assistance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics, the median salary for nurses in May 2008 was $62,450, well above the 2008 median family income in Illinois of $54,141. Tax dollars of less well-off Illinoisans should not be funding education for people who will go on to make far more money than they ever will.
OK, first, they aren’t telling the whole story. The $62K figure is for registered nurses. Licensed practical nurses made, on average, $40,110, according to the stats. But that would be below the median family income, so it likely didn’t fit their meme. Nursing aides made $24,620.
What the IPI either fails to understand or ignores is that many, many lower-income people have historically turned to the nursing profession to improve their lots in life. But IPI can’t really come out and say “taxes for well-off people shouldn’t be helping low-income folks improve their lives.”
…Adding… Since the state partially funds universities, law schools and medical schools, how does that hold up to the IPI’s goal of: “Tax dollars of less well-off Illinoisans should not be funding education for people who will go on to make far more money than they ever will”? Using that logic, we’d be putting almost no money into higher education at all, and absolutely zero money into medical schools and law schools.
More tuition stuff…
Overall, the state has paid $1,049,639 from August 1, 2009 through January 7, 2010 in employee tuition and fees. If state employees are interested in taking classes to burnish their resumes or to bump themselves up to the next pay grade, it should be incumbent upon that individual to decide whether the long-term investment in additional schooling is worth the money. Many private employers subsidize education, but not with taxpayer dollars.
* Race and ethnicity play a pretty big role in the IPI report…
The state should be colorblind, treating all of its citizens equally. Unfortunately, in allocating tax dollars to specific ethnic service organizations, it runs the risk of looking, in the words of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, like “some are more equal than others.”
Certainly, many of these organizations are worthy causes; yet the unequal distribution of funds leaves some groups flush, and others underserved. Some ethnic groups should not receive more state money because they are better at applying for state grants. Organizations should be self-sufiicient, raising money from their communities in proportion to their need.
The IPI doesn’t seem to understand that distributing money to human service groups on the ground - like their listed Jewish Child & Family Services, Asian Human Services of Chicago, American Hispanic Wellness Services and Arab-American Family Services - means that the state can save money because it would cost more to deliver the services itself. They have the expertise and the constituencies.
* More race and ethnicity…
To many Illinoisans, preserving their cultural heritage is a priority. In such a diverse state, however, it becomes problematic when legislators start doling out funds to support the artistic legacy of special ethnic groups or regions. Instead of picking “winners” and “losers” based on subjective criteria, the state should encourage communities to work together to honor their traditions.
For whatever reason, no Irish-American groups are on its pork list. Huh.
* To be sure, as with its Public Television slam, they also go after “elite” culture, like a $61,500 grant to the Art Institute of Chicago.
And they ridicule a $72,750 grant to the grape growers…
Illinois may have good growing conditions, but it is certainly not temperate enough for wine production.
Tell that to all those southern Illinois vintners who are bringing more tourists to the region every year.
* Look, I agree that in extremely tight budget times a lot of this stuff isn’t necessarily affordable. Maybe the state can’t afford to give WTTW a grant, but to just flat-out say things like cable TV and the Internet can replace Public Television tips their hand to where they are really coming from.
…Adding More… From comments…
It appears that about a third of their so-called savings would stem from ending the payments to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Company. I suspect that the $123,000,000 payment that they cite represents the amount of special local sales taxes that go to MPEA that are used, to pay off bonded indebtedness.
So, are they suggesting that the state violate existing law and keep these tax receipts and also cause MPEA to default on the indebtedness?
The “logic” of defaulting on debt in order to save cash that’s statutorially linked to paying off said debt is more than a little bit odd.
* Subscribers were told about this idea earlier today, but it turns out that the Sun-Times also has an editorial on the subject…
The state has been cutting appropriations for higher education for years, but it was not until this year that the state stopped regular payments altogether.
Since July 1, the state has made only sporadic payments on no particular schedule. At Southern Illinois University, for example, the state has paid only 23 percent of the appropriated funds. At campuses throughout Illinois, the state is $735 million behind, and as a result — just as they teach in Accounting 101 — the universities don’t have the money to pay their own bills.
The influx of second-semester tuition money in January is keeping the schools going at the moment, but that will work only until about the end of the month. That’s when the universities hit the falling-off point, the time when all the budget tricks have been played, the furloughs and hiring freezes have been announced, and there still isn’t enough money.
It doesn’t seem likely that the Legislature will suddenly find a way to balance the state’s declining revenues with its mounting pile of overdue bills. So the Legislature should approve a measure now before the Senate to allow public universities to keep going by borrowing against the money appropriated by the state but not yet paid. So far, Southern Illinois, Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois and Illinois State universities have asked for the borrowing power, and others may do so before the bill is acted on.
It’s not an ideal solution. The universities will have to pay interest on the loans, an extra cost they don’t need right now. And there’s a worry that once the universities can get money through loans, the state will divert additional dollars away from them to put out fires elsewhere.
* The Question: Should universities be allowed to borrow money based on unpaid state appropriations to help them get through this rough patch? Explain fully, please.
* Since December 1st of 2009, campaigns for all state and local offices received almost $10.9 million in loans, according to a search of the State Board of Elections website. That’s almost a quarter of the entire amount reported raised in all forms during that same time period ($44.8 million).
About $2.2 million of the total was lent by GOP gubernatorial candidate Andy McKenna’s wife alone. Another $1.5 million or so was lent by Scott Lee Cohen to his own lt. governor’s campaign. Republican lt. governor nominee Jason Plummer borrowed about $1.2 million from himself and his family businesses. Failed treasurer candidate Justin Oberman took out over $400,000 in loans from himself and others.
But it wasn’t all rich people who borrowed money. Gov. Pat Quinn, for instance, borrowed well over $700,000 since December 1st. The search shows that Sen. Kirk Dillard borrowed $650,000 from various individuals.
I have no problem with wealthy people running for office. It’s a free country and they have a right to spend their money. My problem is that they often loan themselves money. Here’s the rub: If they win, the cash they raise after they take office is going right into their own pockets. Not good at all.
I also have an issue with bigtime borrowing by non-wealthy candidates like Quinn and Dillard. I’ve never believed that campaign contributions automatically meant that the recipients were completely beholden. But borrowed money is different. What happens if Gov. Quinn, for instance, can’t pay that money back right away? Do those lenders have a special hold over him?
* The current law in place will, when it finally takes effect, bar loans like the ones Quinn and Dillard received this cycle. I’m pretty sure it would also bar loans like the ones from McKenna’s wife (although McKenna could’ve probably gotten around the law by loaning himself the money).
Banning big loans might cut down on vanity candidates like McKenna and Cohen. If they know there’s no legal way to get their money back after the election, maybe they won’t spend as much on themselves. After all, the first thing Cohen wanted when the pressure ramped up was to be made whole.
Getting rid of those self-loans could also head off potential trouble if any of these candidates eventually take office and start raising money to replenish their own personal bank accounts.
* Mark Brown has a very good column today about late-arriving absentee ballots and uncounted provisional ballots.
According to Brown, the Cook County Clerk received 213 mailed absentee ballots on Monday, DuPage got 5 and Lake got 2. Lake has a total of 302 GOP ballots yet to be counted (232 absentees and 70 provisionals), but not all those provisionals will make it to the final cut. Bill Brady did very poorly in Lake, getting just 5 percent of the vote. DuPage has 126 absentees not yet counted, about three-quarters of which are Republican, and 256 provisionals, but only a fraction of those will survive.
Cook County’s newly posted totals shaved 42 net votes off Brady’s lead, Brown writes. But there aren’t many GOP ballots left to count in Cook.
His conclusion…
While a recount is still a possibility in the Republican race, that would also seem unlikely if the Brady lead holds in the 400 range.
What was less apparent to me on election night than it is in the cold light of day is that even 400 votes is a significant margin in this era of technologically advanced voting equipment.
When I started covering elections, a victory margin of 5,000 votes in a statewide race was cause to seek a recount. Now, nobody is quite certain where the cutoff line is. Is it 500? Is it 200?
Geographically, much of Illinois was for Hynes. Hynes beat Quinn in 88 of Illinois’ 102 counties. Quinn won just 14 counties. Quinn won five others by fewer than 100 votes each – and three of those by fewer than 10 votes each.
They go on to dig into the actual number of Downstate counties won by each candidate - and that’s almost completely irrelevant. This isn’t like the US Senate, where tiny states get two Senators like the big states. Many of those Downstate counties have incredibly small numbers of voters. Better to look at regions than numbers.
Still, the overall Downstate results are very important when looking ahead to the general. Hynes’ message clearly worked Downstate. That gives us a good preview of what’s to come in the fall as more conservative voters weigh in.
This is also important…
Brady received only 5 percent support in Cook County.
Brady’s totals in the all-important suburbs were just horrible. But that’s less to blame on his message than where he concentrated his message. He didn’t have the cash to compete in the Chicago media market.
* Does Pat Quinn want Tammy Duckworth as his running mate? Sneed says so…
Sneed hears former Illinois state veterans chief Tammy Duckworth is Gov. Quinn’s personal pick as lieutenant governor nominee — replacing the scandal-ridden Scott Lee Cohen.
• The upshot: Although Duckworth is at the top of Quinn’s original wish list, he will defer to the choice of the Dem State Central Committee led by state party chief Mike Madigan.
• The backshot: Duckworth, who is now assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was at the top of Quinn’s list during the infancy of his election campaign, said a top Quinn source. “Veterans groups are already petitioning Gov. Quinn for her to fill the role,” the source added. […]
• The militaryshot: “The governor has an incredibly high regard for Duckworth, a bona fide war hero,” the source said. “Gov. Quinn is dedicated to the American soldier — and the office of lieutenant governor is transformable into taking on that task during this time of war.”
But sources said Quinn has discussed with top Democrats the possibility of selecting Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost a 2006 run for Congress in the western suburbs before becoming an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Duckworth could not be reached for comment.
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, noted prior to a Monday meeting of Senate Democrats in Springfield that “half the people here want to be lieutenant governor.”
Some of the also-rans are lobbying hard. Rep. Art Turner, who finished second, worked reporters yesterday…
“Who better than a guy, me, who has worked with all the current leaders?” said Turner, a legislator for nearly 30 years.
Some suburban committeemen contacted Monday said they would consider appointing a downstate candidate to run with Quinn. Every candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket is from Chicago and Quinn didn’t do well downstate in his close primary against Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes.
“We have a ticket packed with Chicago people,” noted Dan Pierce, a former Highland Park mayor and 10th District committeeman.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello of Belleville, a member of the committee that will pick Cohen’s replacement, said through his spokesman that the candidate should come from outside the Chicago area.
State Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, also wants consideration, saying he won more downstate counties last week than everyone but Cohen.
He notes that with state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington and businessman Jason Plummer of Edwardsville, the potential GOP ticket has two downstate candidates.
“We’re loaded up with Chicago people,” Boland said of Democrats’ statewide nominees. “We need a little balance there.”
I believe that there’s almost no chance Boland will ever get the nod. Besides the fact that he finished fourth in the LG race, the issue of him giving a legislative scholarship to the daughter of his largest campaign contributor will dog him to death.
State Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, said he heard that his name has come up as a potential contender. He said he’s not necessarily pursuing the spot, but that he’d seriously consider it if Quinn and party leaders asked him.
Former Peorian and comptroller candidate Raja Krishnamoorthi wants to be considered for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and says he can bring the votes to help clinch victory. […]
Krishnamoorthi said the pairing with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Pat Quinn would make sense because he could help Quinn grab more votes, a key concern for Democrats who don’t want to lose the state’s top elected post to a Republican in November.
“Pat Quinn has to feel comfortable with whoever the state central committee picks,” said Steve Powell, an 8th District committeeman and UFCW union leader. “This is a process that will unfold in a public way, and I think there are a lot of potential candidates out there.”
“The person who first and foremost should have input is the governor himself,” Hoffman said. “The governor should be comfortable with the choice. The final decision should be the competency of the person to hold the office.”
“The party does not have to choose one of the five of us who ran,” Hendon says. “They could pick someone outside of the five of us left standing. And I just caution the party to take their time and get it right. We get this one wrong, and we’re done.”
* Related…
* Sullivan, Koehler say no contact about lieutenant governor nomination
* Who Will Replace Scott Lee Cohen?: Gov. Pat Quinn, though, was deeply touched, as so many were, by the obvious pain of 11-year old Jacob Cohen, who sobbed as his father announced he would quit. “I don’t think there’s any more poignant moment, when a young boy is next to his dad who’s making a very hard decision,” Quinn said. “I was certainly touched by that. I think everybody in Illinois knows that was a heartfelt decision by Scott Lee Cohen.”
* Illinois Democrats Look to Fill Sudden Ticket Gap
* Picking Cohen’s replacement: Turner, after all, got only 22 percent of the vote. Had Cohen fallen ill and had to withdraw next September, no one would think Turner would have any automatic claim on the spot. The party would merely choose whomever it deemed suitable, and that’s what it should do now.
* Quinn says no payback for pawnbroker out $2 million for lieutenant governor
* Police called to Cohen party: When Cohen aides “saw I was calling police, they asked me, ‘Please don’t do that. It’s going to cause negative press,’” said Cecili Tomlin, a Cook County medical examiner’s autopsy technician who was at the party with a friend… Tomlin said Monday she’s aggravated not only because the coat remains missing but because she felt hotel staff and Cohen workers weren’t taking her seriously. She also was perturbed by an offer from Cohen’s brother, Randy, to sell her a mink coat from a Cohen-owned pawn shop.
When developers unveiled plans for the 900-acre University Town Center in Glen Carbon and asked the state to create STAR bonds to finance it, they predicted the development would generate millions of dollars in state and local tax dollars.
But the Illinois Department of Revenue says state and local governments could lose money on this project — up to $267 million over 20 years. That’s because 100 percent of taxes generated by so-called destination projects like the rumored Legoland would be diverted to pay for them — an estimated $1 billion to $1.3 billion — and sales would be siphoned away from surrounding areas. […]
We’re all for new development, especially a unique destination development like Legoland, but not if the numbers don’t work.
* ‘No major delays’ after first day of cuts, CTA says
The only reason the compliance office exists is because the mayor and his legal staff didn’t want then-Inspector General David Hoffman poking into what they saw as their — not citizens’ — business…
The move was endorsed by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, who while appointed by the mayor is considered more independent than the Daley administration’s Office of Compliance….In a report last month, Ferguson said “the dangers of political hiring remain real and constant” and recommended that a city ordinance that bars him from investigating aldermen be lifted.
SuperComm is a telecommunications and digital technology trade show. It was scheduled to hold its event at McCormick in late October. But a spokesperson says the show is being shelved because of low attendance projections.
* White House pledges $78.5 million to keep species out of Great Lakes
The council on Monday discussed $66.4 million in proposed projects for the upcoming fiscal year and $328 million over five years. The city previously had been averaging about $80 million a year.
* East Peoria offering architects blank canvas for Downtown 2010 site
Most of the 89-acre site was home to the first manufacturing plants of Caterpillar Inc. City officials want to transform the space between West Washington and Camp streets into a retail and commercial center by introducing new shops, restaurants, offices, civic buildings and more.
* Scott Lee Cohen hasn’t yet filed his formal withdrawal papers with the State Board of Elections, but he will tomorrow, his spokesman Baxter Swilley said this afternoon. The campaign was simply distracted with media interviews today and hasn’t had time to file the paperwork.
Swilley also tried to tamp down speculation that Cohen would run as an independent candidate. Here’s the NBC5 report….
[Cohen] alluded to the possibility he would run independently in an interview Monday.
“I ran for office to help the people,” Cohen said. “The problem was the media was hammering me so bad…This is more outrageous because I gave the people the opportunity to know. It was out there, they all knew!”
Asked whether he wouldn’t run for office, Cohen said “I never said that. I realized from this whole thing that every single thing you say is on the record.”
As for the signatures required to run as an independent, Cohen says it wouldn’t be a problem.
“You know how many signatures I had before? 47 thousand.”
The spokesman emphasized to me today that Cohen never actually said he is intending to run for any office as an independent.
Nerves are obviously a bit frayed over at HQ and the media may be trying to make more of something than is actually there.
...Adding… Cohen had this to say to Channel 5 today…
“There were no promises,” Cohen said. “[Speaker Madigan] never promised he was going to fundraise for me.”
Madigan’s spokesman just said that there were zero promises made to Cohen and that Madigan would neither directly nor indirectly help Cohen raise money in any form whatsoever.
* The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association knows a legislative backlash is coming in the wake of the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision knocking down the medical malpractice law. So, the group is running a new radio ad. Click here to listen.
House Republican Leader Tom Cross responded to the court’s decision last week. We have the video…
* We’ve given plenty of attention today to US Senator Dick Durbin’s criticisms of the way Michael Madigan runs the Democratic Party of Illinois. Thanks to an anonymous YouTuber, we now have the full video.
Durbin was asked right off the bat if he thought Madigan should “step down when his term is up.” You can see the full videos here, here and here, but I’ve preserved the relevant parts here…
* Gov. Pat Quinn talked about what he’s looking for in a potential replacement today. Progress Illinois has the video…
Should a candidate for governor be able to get a major-party nomination if only one-fifth of an already small number of primary election voters give him or her the nod?
Doesn’t it seem reasonable that some threshold percentage should be crossed?
What a difference a couple of years makes. Well, a couple of years, a couple more candidates and a whole lot of apathy.
Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, ran for governor in 2006. He got 135,370 votes in the primary election, according to State Board of Elections records. That was good for third in a field of five candidates.
This year, Brady ran again, and the latest unofficial tally gives him 155,263 votes. This time, though, Brady is in first place, at least for now.
* The Question: Should we have runoffs for primaries when candidates don’t receive at least 50 percent of the vote? Or, do you have a better idea? Explain fully, as always. Thanks.
* Dan Hynes’ former campaign manager Mike Rendina just called and said this about the Sun-Times report that Hynes would consider taking the lt. governor position if asked…
“The Sun-Times is wrong. Dan is not interested in that position.”
Sounds pretty clear to me.
Rendina called and texted me this morning and asked me not to write anything about lite guv until I talked to him. I didn’t see either one until now. Oops on my part.
Gov. Pat Quinn said today that his Democratic rival, Dan Hynes, does not want to be his running mate to replace the controversial Chicago pawnbroker who announced he would walk away from the party’s nomination for lieutenant governor.
There were no ultimatums or incentives, but Madigan explained to Cohen “the trajectory of how the race would go” if he remained in, and that if he got out now he may be able to salvage a future in politics, Swilley said.
Swilley said the conversation left open the idea that if Cohen helped the party control the damage, he could begin to rebuild his name and move on, perhaps running for public office down the road.
Cohen asked Madigan for help recouping the millions he spent on his campaign. Madigan made no such offer, Swilley said, but Cohen views the matter as an “open discussion.”
“We are certainly going to ask for help,” he said. “We’re going to ask them to help us with some fundraisers.”
John Gianulis, the man credited with transforming the Rock Island County Democratic Party into a dominant political machine that’s reigned for years in the Quad-Cities, has died, officials said Monday.
He was 87.
Gianulis stepped down as party leader two years ago because of health problems. […]
Friends say that Gianulis’ drive — and a knack for fusing the different factions of the party — put together winning coalitions.
He also was known over the years for having a sharp memory, with the ability to recall dates and past events in party history with clarity.
Every Democratic activist I’ve been talking to the last few days says it is time for Madigan to step up or step out. […]
But blaming the press does not excuse Madigan. Most party chairmen would have started caring about the viability of the top of the statewide Democratic ticket — no matter if Quinn or Comptroller Dan Hynes were to be the eventual nominee — once Cohen started pouring huge sums of his own money into his race. […]
The Cohen episode demonstrates that Illinois Democrats could use a real state party leader. Even if Madigan did not want the party to endorse anyone, usually a chairman would at least try to make sure the least-electable contender does not get the nomination.
“In any other state, campaigns or interested parties would have gone to the state party chair and aired their concerns about Scott Lee Cohen’s candidacy,” said Kitty Kurth, a Chicago-based Democratic consultant. “The state party chair could have asked Cohen to step down for the good of the party. If Cohen said no, then the party chair could have stood up in the press and said to voters, ‘Vote for any Democrat, but not this one.’ ”
She made a lot of good points. Madigan didn’t do anything except try to kick Sen. Rickey Hendon off the ballot. However, Kurth’s comment rings somewhat hollow since nobody went to Madigan. The Madigan people claim ignorance of Cohen’s background.
House Speaker Michael Madigan faced a rare public rebuke Sunday for his stewardship of the state Democratic Party from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who questioned why the party failed to properly vet pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen before his stunning primary win last week.
“I think that Chairman Madigan needs to have a much better process in place so that we know the backgrounds of all candidates as they put themselves up to be Democrats,” Durbin said after announcing his chairmanship of Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ U.S. Senate campaign.
“I would say to [Madigan] and to every member of this party at every level: We have a special responsibility to make sure it never happens again,” said Durbin, who also laid blame on himself and the news media for Cohen’s election.
Attempting to rebut criticism that the Illinois Democratic Party should have done more to prevent Scott Lee Cohen’s nomination for lieutenant governor, Brown said earlier today that Madigan met with Cohen on Friday and urged him in a “very direct and very frank” way to drop his candidacy.
Brown was unable to characterize Cohen’s response to Madigan during the meeting in Madigan’s Chicago law office. He said the meeting had previously been kept under wraps to avoid the appearance of backing Cohen into a corner.
But Brown said he believed the meeting should be publicized after Madigan has become the subject of criticism for failing to do background checks on the candidates for lieutenant governor, including Cohen.
Larry probably had it right about the Friday meeting…
Generally, the most intimidating thing the Speaker can do is glare at you. Even if he did speak I imagine it was something like the glare and “get out, now.”
About 90 minutes after telling the Sun-Times that he was not quitting the race Sunday, Cohen received an afternoon call from House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, the state Democratic Party chairman.
According to Madigan spokesman Steve Brown, Madigan called because he heard Cohen was dropping out of the race and wanted to confirm it.
Cohen spokesman Baxter Swilley said Madigan made it clear to Cohen that stepping aside was the best course of action for his personal life and his career and that if he did so, he would have a chance to rehabilitate his image.
Madigan, by the way, was the only party leader to call Cohen last Tuesday night to congratulate him, and Cohen had this to say last night…
“I want to thank Speaker Madigan, who met with me on a personal level to give me advice, give me some reasons why it would be best for me not to be on the ballot,” Cohen said.
So, while Madigan still gets part of the blame for Cohen being on the ticket, he does get some of the credit for getting him off.
* Meanwhile, take a look at this handy Sun-Times map of which counties were won by which candidates…
Notice that Castillo won many of the Metro East and southern Illinois counties? Do you think voters thought he was related to Jerry Costello? [ADDING: Castillo finished second in Madison County by 59 votes - buttressing the theory.]
Also, note that Rep. Mike Boland won all of the Quad Cities area, even though Congressman Phil Hare endorsed Terry Link, who did not exactly run a great campaign.
Considering all that, the Daily Herald editorial is pretty spot on…
Widespread apathy and disinterest were the unfortunate winners Tuesday, and to say that is not necessarily a knock on Cohen or Plummer. Either could have been anywhere from history’s worst candidate for office to history’s greatest. That’s not the point. The point is, they were elected without many people having any idea where they fell on that scale. They were elected, mainly, because nobody cared.
That is the hard truth.
And it is an indictment of everyone - of the electorate, the news media, the political parties, even most of the candidates running for governor (only Andy McKenna, who endorsed a running mate for himself, gets dispensation here).
None of us cared enough to go beyond the most cursory exploration to find out who these candidates were.
And that is leading to many editorial pages to call for eliminating the office or reform the selection process. Southtown…
Reformers for years have called on lawmakers to revise Illinois’ goofy running-mate system in which candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately in the primary and get paired for the general election - reinforcing that old saying about politics making for strange bedfellows.
Reformers for years also have called for the elimination of the lieutenant governor’s office altogether which costs about $2 million annually to operate - the same amount that Cohen spent to try to attain it.
The most important lesson, though, may be that, since the story broke Wednesday evening, Illinois has been in a tizzy because of a statewide office that doesn’t need to be. Lieutenant governors sit around waiting for governors to die or be impeached and ousted. Doesn’t happen much. Why not change our order of succession so that the attorney general or president of the state Senate is next in line? The lieutenant governor’s budget isn’t huge, but spiking this office pronto would free up some money and real estate for a state government that needs every dollar it can save.
So let’s thank Scott Lee Cohen for forcing all of us to focus on the office of lieutenant governor. Let’s wish him well. And, now that he has shuffled off the stage, let’s hope both major parties see an opportunity to cross this office off the state’s organization chart.
We urge the Legislature to revise the state’s election law so that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run as a team not just in the general election, but also in the party primaries.
More importantly, until candidates for governor are forced to choose and vet a compatible running mate, as presidential candidates must do, we can only expect more surprises like this one.
* Related…
* Where did Cohen win? Examine vote totals in the lieutenant governor’s race By Ward, By Cook Township, By County
* 3 aldermen were critical to Cohen’s election - Democrat now dropping out was supported by 2 dozen elected officials in Illinois
“He’ll do whatever he can to help the Democratic Party this fall,” the source said.
The question now is how Gov. Quinn feels about that. As we’ve already discussed, this would be a very dramatic choice that could put a whole lot of this year’s ugliness behind the governor.
More names from the CS-T…
Second-place finisher Art Turner, a West Side state representative, said Sunday he wants to be a contender. He was House Speaker Michael Madigan’s endorsed candidate. Other names kicked around included the four others in the primary: Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago), Sen. Terry Link (D-Waukegan), Rep. Mike Boland (D-East Moline) and electrician Thomas Castillo.
Link said he could offer more regional balance to the ticket and help attract collar county votes.
“I’m not lobbying, I’m not pushing for it, but am I still interested? Yeah,” Link said Sunday night.
Former Deputy Treasurer Raja Kirhsnamoorthi, who narrowly lost the primary election for state comptroller, reportedly would be interested in joining the ticket to add ethnic and regional (he was raised in Peoria) balance.
Also discussed was Veterans Affairs official Tammy Duckworth and Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Wilmette), who just lost a primary for Congress.
Others?
…Adding… I think I posted this earlier, but here’s the Tribune article again…
Democrats now face the prospect of filling Cohen’s vacancy on the ticket, a decision to be made by the 38-member Democratic State Central Committee. The committee, the governing board of state Democrats, is headed by powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, the state Democratic chairman.
“The speaker is prepared to work with the members of the (Democratic) State Central Committee, Gov. Quinn and Senate President (John) Cullerton to work on selecting a replacement,” said Madigan spokesman Steve Brown. “We’ll start with members of the central committee and work on ideas.”
The Democratic panel is scheduled to meet March 17, though a meeting could be held sooner. The state central committee is not bound to select any of the candidates who lost to Cohen in last week’s primary. State Rep. Art Turner, of Chicago, a member of Madigan’s House leadership team who was backed by the powerful Southwest Side lawmaker, finished second to Cohen.
Even before Cohen stepped off the ticket, some Democratic leaders said privately that they would like to expand a search beyond the primary election contenders and look to fill the vacancy to provide some regional balance — namely a downstate resident. Currently, all of the nominees on the Democratic statewide ticket come from Chicago.
Every night before an Election Day, I spend four or five hours on the phone with people I trust asking what they think will happen.
There are always a couple of races that will have them stumped, but I’ve never seen everybody perplexed about so many outcomes until the night before last week’s election.
Take, for instance, the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Gov. Pat Quinn had what can only be described as a nightmarish few weeks in January. His job disapproval rating shot skyward, his support tanked everywhere and Dan Hynes pulled even in the polls.
But things started to change eight days before the election when word leaked out that Ford Motor Co. had agreed to add 1,200 jobs to its Chicago assembly plant. Factories are closing all over the country, yet here was a major success. Quinn on the Tuesday before the election held the official ceremony, which was attended by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
On Wednesday of that week, Quinn announced a $366 million upgrade to Wacker Drive in Chicago and held a ceremony at Northern Illinois University to release millions of dollars to “repurpose” Cole Hall - the site of the tragic campus shooting which left five students dead.
On that Thursday came a radio debate on WVON - an African-American station - where Quinn cleaned Hynes’ clock, and the announcement of big federal money for high-speed rail, with a subsequent Mayor Daley news conference and a statewide fly-around with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Friday. Quinn owned the entire week.
By Friday afternoon, Quinn had put Hynes on the defensive after the governor’s campaign leaked some explosive documents to a Chicago TV station about Burr Oak Cemetery. The cemetery was the object of much controversy in the Chicago area last summer when it was discovered that graves were being resold and bodies were being dug up and cast aside. Quinn’s new information made it look like Hynes should’ve known back in 2003 that there was a serious problem with grave reselling.
After being, um, buried by Quinn’s super-positive announcements all week, Hynes clearly lost the weekend. Both candidates did their best to stay positive the day before Election Day, so even if it was a draw, that’s still a loss for the challenger.
“Earned media” can’t win an election on its own. Topnotch advertising is essential. Quinn’s closing TV ads were very positive and, to my eyes, very effective. In one, he looked directly into the camera and said: “You know who I am. For years, I’ve fought the big shots on behalf of everyday people.”
A trusted friend of mine believes that was the best ad of the season. It surely was close. The governor and his team did an amazing job of framing what was really at stake. “On Tuesday,” Quinn said in the ad, “my opponent’s counting on false, negative ads to win. Me? I’m counting on you.” Perfect.
So, the night before the election, the big question was whether all of that was enough to put Quinn over the top. While he obviously stopped the hemorrhaging, was the patient just too far gone to be saved at the last minute? Or did Hynes peak too soon? Did he start running the now-infamous Harold Washington ad too early (even though it totally blunted Quinn’s initial Burr Oak Cemetery ad, which started the same day and could’ve been very damaging)? Etc., etc.
Everybody I talked with went back and forth. If they started by saying that one would win, they would always find a way to reverse themselves or seriously question their own logic. It was a maddening exercise. I learned nothing except that everybody is confused and nobody wants to stick their necks out.
As we all know by now, that last, incredible week was enough to boost Quinn’s prospects and help him squeak by Hynes with an 8,000-vote win, out of more than 900,000 votes cast - a little over a vote per precinct statewide.
It was one of the greatest comebacks I’ve ever seen. My hat’s off to the guy.
It’s just too bad he didn’t vet all the lieutenant governor candidates ahead of time. His election night would’ve been perfect. But that’s for another story.
