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The debate debate - No debates *** Updated x6 ***
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller It certainly appears that there will be no more debates. The Sun-Times starts us off. Producers at Chicago’s major public television station figured it was official when Gov. Blagojevich and Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka agreed months ago to participate in a live TV debate in late October. The governor is not exactly telling the truth. Here’s the e-mail exchange referenced above between WTTW and the governor’s campaign. I’ve taken out the actual e-mail addresses and put it in chronological order.
Here’s part of Copley’s story: Incumbent Blagojevich issued a “final” offer last week to meet with Topinka at two forums - an Oct. 13 radio debate in Chicago and an Oct. 15 debate in southern Illinois - and set a response deadline of Monday morning. Topinka, who offered a counterproposal that her opponent’s campaign rejected, told reporters that Blagojevich was issuing an “ultimatum” and trying to control the terms of their meetings. […] ABC7: The League of Women Voters is hesitant to blame one side or the other, but it’s safe to say a governor who is leading in the polls and has millions to spend on TV probably needs and wants debates less than an under-funded challenger, but Topinka is pledging to truck on. Christopher Mooney, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said further debates could only become an impediment to Blagojevich, who is leading in the polls and in campaign fundraising. Short answer to Mooney’s confusion: She can’t stand Blagojevich, so she won’t let him dictate terms. Discuss. *** UPDATE *** You can watch last week’s Illinois Radio Network debate at C-Span’s website by clicking here (.rm file). [Hat tip: Inside Dope] *** UPDATE 2 *** Topinka and Blagojevich will square off in front of the Tribune’s editorial board today. Apparently, the governor’s team refused to allow the Trib to tape the proceedings and the paper caved. *** UPDATE 3 *** Good news. The Tribsters confronted Gov. Blagojevich directly at the editorial board meeting and he agreed to let them *** UPDATE 4 *** The Trib story on the edit board “debate” is up. Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Tuesday that scrutiny of his administration is “not necessarily a bad thing,” but he would not say whether he has retained a criminal defense attorney to handle federal and state investigations into allegations of wrongdoing involving hiring, contracting and fundraising. […] I hear they asked him the criminal lawyer thing over and over again. Not totally sure why. *** UPDATE 5 *** Check out the Trib photo that accompanied the debate story. [Hat tip to a commenter] *** UPDATE 6 *** CBS2: Blagojevich insisted the Tribune session not be videotaped or recorded for broadcast purposes. The board up until now has been recording their sessions, but agreed not to, saying the governor probably would not show up if they did. [Comments closed. Move over to Wednesday’s story please.]
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY (Part 2) - Conservative voter guides; Edgar; Champaign-Danville; Lisa Madigan; Schock; Aurora; Flider; NCSL; Fritchey; Woolard
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Election 2006 menu
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller I can’t track whether you’re using the pull-down/drop-down (whichever floats your boat) menus, so I wanted to let you know there are some new additions to the “Election 2006″ menu which is just above the YouTube emblem on the upper right side of the page. Here are all the links you’ll find in that menu.
Use the comments to suggest any additional links. Also, since I mentioned YouTube at the top of this post, I might as well use this to tell you about two new videos on the YouTube “vlog”: * JakeCP “fires back at the people who call him a fraud on thecapitolfaxblog.com” 
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Boland radio/TV ads; Special session; Flider; NW Burbs; Munson; Harmon; Target feed (Use all caps in password)
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller How about instead of a QOTD we have a caption contest of this great photo by Charles Rex Arbogast of the Associated Press? The pic was snapped yesterday at Chicago’s Columbus Day parade.
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Still more of that yummy reform and renewal
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller The AP fills us in. Legal documents filed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration in the case of two fired employees suggest that other officials under the Democratic governor shuffled politically connected job applicants into internships for which they were overqualified. The AP notes that some of those “interns” were connected and produced a list. Here’s one: • Brenda Cockrum, sister-in-law of U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, a Belleville Democrat. She got “A” grades for two categories in April 2003; three weeks later, she began her career as a 60-year-old intern. Not exactly a recent college graduate.
Except that the governor’s office had to approve all new hires. Meanwhile, AFSCME sent me its full statement that it gave the Tribune this week in response to what Gov. Blagojevich said about the union’s objections to his expensive internal “investigation” of alleged hiring fraud. Blagojevich told the Tribune “The public employees union is upset about it because in the old days no one bothered to look into the wrongdoing of state employees. Their job is to represent the state employees.” AFSMCE responded thusly:
I’m so looking forward to the next four years.
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Peraica poll has him eight points ahead
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller Peraica’s got a new poll. Republican Tony Peraica released an internal campaign poll Monday that shows him leading Democrat Todd Stroger by eight percentage points in the race for Cook County Board president. CBS2 has a little more: Of the 400 voters surveyed, 64 percent had heard of Peraica, 31 percent have a favorable view of him, and 15 percent have an unfavorable view. There is one thing you should always remember about polling in Cook County. The Democratic machine’s impact doesn’t really kick in until the last couple of weeks. Lots and lots of candidates have believed they were ahead a month or so before election day, only to get clobbered when voting actually began. An eight-point lead is still substantial (although we’re still only talking about a survey sample size of 400, which makes the margin of error quite high), but we’ll know more on e-day. This logic also applies to the Duckworth-Roskam race, by the way. A recent poll had Duckworth ahead by 5, but Roskam’s field organization and the DuPage Republican operation can probably make up that difference unless GOP voters are adamant about staying home. Some of Peraica’s crosstabs can be downloaded here [pdf file]. The executive summary is here [doc file]. A PowerPoint presentation is here [ppt file].
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Morning shorts
Tuesday, Oct 10, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller * Tribune: Many of the biggest donors to Democratic state treasurer candidate Alexi Giannoulias also received millions of dollars in loans from his family’s Broadway Bank–some making their campaign contributions within weeks or months of receiving the loans, a Tribune analysis shows * TIME.com: In a match-up where neither candidate’s policy agenda has found much traction, it’s hard to bet against the one whose budget for attack ads is virtually limitless. * KFVS: With just a month away from the November general election, many voters in Southern Illinois can’t make heads or tails out of the two candidates running for governor. Southern Illinois University Professor John Jackson says that’s because there’s been more finger pointing, than talking about the issues. * Where did all the people go? - 7 years later, are the raze-and-rebuild plans succeeding? * Denial of Duff appeal could be bad news for Sorich * Klau: Hastert Robo Call in the 14th * Tribune editorial: You’re the clerk. Uh, congrats
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Ameren drops bombshell
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller I’m at the House’s dog and pony show ovr whether to extend the electric rate freeze for 3 more years. An Ameren official just warned the committee that if the bill passes the company would reduce employee headcount by 25 percent. He also warned that activities such as tree trimming would stop, as would charitable contributions. More in tomorrow’s Capitol Fax.
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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Axley; Granberg; Special session; Geo; Roth/Noland; Halvorson/Gordon/Dugan; Municipal League; Target feed (Use all caps in password)
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
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Question of the day
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller The AP points out an interesting development from its latest national polling. After winning over moms in back-to-back elections, Republicans have lost their advantage among married women with children this year. […] Congressional Quarterly changes more of its ratings, although none of them are Illinois contests. All year, CQPolitics.com’s ratings of House and Senate races have been a virtual one-way street: Almost all rating changes show improved chances for the Democrats to capture seats — a reflection of the year’s toxic political environment for the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress and the White House. The Hotline moved the 6th CD race up a notch in its forecast and included this little tidbit:
Melissa Bean’s re-election was moved off the “hot” charts a couple of weeks ago and was downgraded again, to 35. Stu Rothenberg is pretty emphatic: After looking at the news for the past 10 days or so, I have to wonder how Democrats can possibly fail in their efforts to take both the House and the Senate. QUESTION: Is there or is there not a coming national Democratic tidal wave? Will it happen here in Illinois as well? Explain.
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Race to the bottom
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller The AP dishes out some campaign advice. Overwhelmed by a barrage of negative advertising, Judy Baar Topinka has been unable to translate voters’ doubts about Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich into a lead in the race for governor. […] And Jim Edgar is quoted as well. Former Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican and a Topinka backer, said the public has grown numb to corruption and mismanagement. […] This is a typical debate inside trailing campaigns one month out. Stay negative and make it a race to the bottom, or go back hard positive? Candidates often want to run positive campaigns, and former candidates and the usual talking head pundits advise reporters that reverting to positive is the best way to go. Watch as the pressure builds on Topinka to drop the negative ads, “for her own good,” even as Blagojevich continues his well-funded barrages. (It’s really spooky how close this race is to the George Ryan vs. Glenn Poshard contest.) But in a race like this where her positive ratings have been all but destroyed and she is being vastly outspent, spending money on positive ads might not do her a lot of good. In other words, the race to the bottom is what we’re probably gonna get. Take off your “concerned citizen” hat and put on a political adviser hat and tell us what you think.
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The debate debate
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller The chances for more debates aren’t all that great. Debates have been few in this year’s race for Illinois governor — and despite rhetoric from each side blaming the other, there appears to be little chance of reaching agreement foe debates beyond the two that have already taken place. […] Late last week, Gov. Blagojevich issued an ultimatum: accept a Chicago radio debate and a televised downstate debate or there will be no debates. Topinka responded by blaming everything on the governor and held out hope for several more debates. From a press release: “Treasurer Topinka is ready to debate,” added [spokesman John] McGovern. “With the Chicago Tribune and the Springfield sponsors offering specific dates for their debates, it is easier to simply accept their invitations rather than waiting for more disingenuous back-and-forth from Rod Blagojevich. We also remain committed to the WTTW debate, and I’m sorry to see that, once again, Rod Blagojevich won’t keep his word.”
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Morning shorts
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller * Lee Newspapers: Republicans running for every statewide office except for governor have more than party affiliation in common. Each one of them, from the candidate for attorney general to the candidate for state comptroller, will still have a taxpayer-supported job if they lose on Nov. 7 * Sun-Times: Lincoln Park Zoo’s polar bear exhibit features a couple of very powerful, 800-pound creatures — and the name of a man who allegedly won illegal kickbacks by muscling hospitals into using his pals for construction projects. * Tribune: Trying to clear the air about air - Governor candidates tackle the environment * Sun-Times editorial: If we must have a city clerk, del Valle is wise choice * Shimkus: This week was a learning experience * Washington Post: A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley’s inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications. * Tribune: House page scandal puts Hastert’s foe in spotlight * Sweet: A casualty of the Mark Foley cyberspace sex scandal is the once-close relationship between Illinois Republicans Rep. John Shimkus and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. * NBC5: In a new Newsweek poll, 52 percent of those surveyed said they believed Hastert was aware of Foley’s inappropriate messages to teenage house pages and tried to cover them up. Forty-two percent said they trust Democrats to do a better job of handling moral values, while 36 percent said they trust Republicans more. * Novak: The survival of J. Dennis Hastert as speaker of the House of Representatives will produce an uncomfortable scene Thursday at the Hilton Chicago. President Bush is the principal attraction at a reception to fund congressional candidates in two suburban Chicago districts — once thought safely Republican but where Democrats now lead. In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, Hastert’s presence at the reception will be an embarrassing distraction. * Sun-Times: Did alderman’s friend help feather her nest? - Pal billed $5,000, invoice from decorator shows * Daily Herald: The name Stewart Umholtz may not be familiar to most Illinois voters. Ironically, the Republican candidate for state attorney general said, that might not be such a bad thing. * Tribune: A top Chicago Transit Authority official who has been responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of the Brown Line during the last three years is resigning as the rail project continues to face major pressures to contain costs, CTA officials said Sunday. * AP: Open meetings debate rekindled - Recent amendment to Open Meetings Act brings protests from some public officials
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Hiring “investigation” hit by Madigan, union
Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller Both the Sun-Times and the Tribune have articles about the governor’s hiring of high-priced Loop law firms to “investigate” corruption within his administration. The Sun-Times reports that Attorney General Lisa Madigan is not pleased. Attorney General Lisa Madigan accused Gov. Blagojevich of possibly “impeding” a federal hiring probe by paying two outside law firms more than $1.3 million to conduct a parallel investigation of past hiring practices. Um, Abby, you just did. Next up, the Tribune, which didn’t talk to Madigan, but did talk to Gov. Blagojevich. Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed Sunday to continue an internal review of state hiring and said he wouldn’t be intimidated by the state’s largest employees union, which contends the administration may be violating its labor contract and hindering a federal criminal inquiry. Discuss.
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READER COMMENTS CLOSED FOR THE WEEKEND - but here’s something to chew on for now
Saturday, Oct 7, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller While Congressman John Shimkus has finally admitted to having seen “excerpts” of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley’s e-mails to a young page, we don’t yet know exactly what he knew. If we can assume (and that’s a pretty safe bet) that the e-mail exchanges posted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are what Shimkus saw, then Shimkus has some more explaining to do. The former page forwarded the e-mails to a friend, and as most of you are already aware, in his introduction he calls Foley “sick, sick, sick, sick, sick…” But there’s something else in that intro as well.
If Shimkus saw that, then as chairman of the page board is it really all that unreasonable to suggest that he should have made more inquiries? You would think he would have at least contacted “Kerianna” to see what she knew, and maybe asked around a little, instead of just giving Foley a verbal warning to stay away from the page. The e-mail exchange can be downloaded here [pdf file]. As always, you can comment all you want, but they won’t be visibile to everyone else until Monday morning.
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