Bill Daley out of Senate race
Friday, Apr 24, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller
* No surprise at all…
Former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley is opting off a political fast track.
• • To wit: Daley, the brother of Mayor Daley, told Sneed in February he planned to enter the U.S. Senate sweepstakes for the seat once held by President Obama, now held by the embattled Roland Burris.
• • It’s over: “I was gung-ho, and hired pollsters and talked to fund-raisers and planned to make an announcement in mid-April,” Daley told Sneed yesterday. “But I’m getting remarried in June and decided I want to take a new tack in my life. I just don’t want to live a commuter life back and forth from Washington.”
• • The China connection: Sneed also tipped March 25 that Daley may be getting his chopsticks ready — becoming the next U.S. ambassador to China, but has nixed that idea. “It’s true, there were serious discussions about China, but I recently decided, ‘No.’”
* Meanwhile, the Post-Dispatch looks at the Bright Start loss which might possibly haunt Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ race for US Senate…
Imagine your shock when, on opening your statement, you learn that your conservative, state-sponsored fund lost 38 percent of its value last year. If you’re astute enough to dig deeper, you learn the fund was using derivatives to increase its exposure to mortgage-backed securities.
Yes, even as the housing market was tanking, someone thought it was a good idea to make a risky, leveraged bet on mortgage bonds. And they did it with your kid’s college fund. […]
Illinois was the first state to react to the problems. On Dec. 4, it began directing new money into other investments instead of Oppenheimer Core Bond.
However, Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced that existing balances would remain in the Oppenheimer fund “to avoid locking in past performance declines.” That looks like a mistake: Core Bond has lost 3.2 percent since early December, compared with a positive return of 4.7 percent for a Bloomberg bond-fund index.
The piece concludes with a generally positive view of the Bright Start program, however.
* Incumbent US Sen. Roland Burris was recently endorsed by, um, this guy…
Scott Baier, a 28-year-old former Mercer County [New Jersey] Republican Committeeman who was a Socialist Party candidate for State Assembly in 2005. His platform includes putting George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on trial for war crimes, abolishing the U.S. Department of Defense, the nationalization of the media, legalization of all drugs, a constitutional amendment banning all guns, and a “total ban” on pornography.
* More campaign stuff…
* Democrats getting ready for 10th District run
* Dems looking at alternatives to Sen. Burris
* Burris Grills Hearing on Funds for Minority Businesses