* About the only thing that national conventions are good for these days are stories about people who are floating their names for office, or people who are taking themselves out of contention…
Quinn’s low approval ratings and his ugly rift with organized labor have some Democrats buzzing about a primary challenge. But, Hynes said Wednesday you can count him out.
“I’ve not given thought to that at all. Right now, my thoughts are on re-electing the President,” Hynes said before the Il. delegation’s breakfast.
“I’ve got a young family and a new job with Ariel Investments. So, that’s pretty much my focus.”
Asked if he has ruled out a race completely, Hynes said, “Yeah. I’m not really thinking about that….I don’t have any political plans right now.”
But, that doesn’t mean that Quinn will get a pass. Hynes warned the govenor to make amends with labor or risk a damaging backlash.
“We have to recognize that organized labor is a critical ally of the Democratic party. We have some opportunities to, not only strengthen that alliance, but create jobs for our people. And he would be advised to listen” to them.
“Oh, I think clearly that Rahm Emanuel has the potential to be the president of the United States,” said Rep. Mike Madigan (D) Ill. Democratic chairman.
Madigan points to the Emanuel resume: prolific fundraiser, senior adviser to President Clinton, U.S. Congressman, Democratic Congressional campaign committee chairman, White House chief of staff and mayor of the nation’s third largest city.
“If he chooses to run for president of the United States, that clearly is a possibility for him,” Madigan said. […]
The 51-year-old father of three children insists he has no interest in returning to Washington. And many Chicago Democrats take him at his word:
“He loves the job. I don’t believe he has national ambitions. I hope not. I hope he stays in Chicago as the mayor,” said John Cullerton (D) Illinois Senate president.
* I’m sure people will be talking up Duckworth as well…
But it was Iraq war veteran and Illinois congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth who brought down the house, when she said crewmates had her back when her Blackhawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq.
“Even though they were wounded themselves, and insurgents were nearby, they simply refused to leave a fallen comrade behind. Their heroism is why I’m alive today. And, ultimately, that is what this election is about,” Duckworth said.
Afterward, Duckworth said her speech was “electric, it was energizing, and it was great that we had a moment tonight to talk about veterans, and supporting our military men and women.”
As Republicans make her last name a dirty word, Attorney General Lisa Madigan played coy Tuesday about whether she might challenge a politically weakened Gov. Pat Quinn in the 2014 governor’s race.
“You know what? I am here at the Democratic convention focused on one race, and that’s the race for the White House,” Madigan told reporters Tuesday when asked if she intended to run for governor. “We have to make sure that Barack Obama is re-elected, and we move forward on the path to recovery.” […]
“Pat Quinn, like President Obama, has been in a situation when things are very difficult in our state and in our nation. And so you’re going to have difficulties. You’re going to have tough decisions, and you’re going to have disgruntled people. I think that’s what you see at the state and the national level,” Madigan said.
Madigan and her husband, Pat Byrnes, have two young children, ages 7 and 4. She was asked whether she could serve as governor and still raise her kids the way she wants to.
“Wow. Does anybody ever ask that question?” she said. “I’m very lucky to have the support of my family. My husband helps take care of our kids. But, I think more people should ask that of men running for office as well.”
Pressed further on whether she could simultaneously hold both jobs — governor and mom — she said, “I can be the attorney general and do that. There are plenty of women who juggle.”
Reminded that being governor is a lot more demanding than attorney general, she said, “All of these jobs are very demanding. And people who, unfortunately, have to work three jobs and don’t necessarily have health-care coverage — they’re even in a worse situation. So nobody needs to give any pity on what elected officials have to endure.”
First Lady Michelle Obama delivered such a powerful and poignant testimonial on behalf of her husband, it just might be enough to launch her political career, an Illinois Congressman said Wednesday.
On the morning after the native Chicagoan’s speech, Illinois delegates were still buzzing about, what they hope might be a Hillary Clinton in the making–a First Lady who follows her husband, the President, into politics.
“Ann [Romney’s] was a good speech. But, Michelle Obama’s was a memorable–almost a Barack Obama 2004 speech,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Il.)
“Honestly, I got the feeling. People in the hall were talking afterwards about Michelle Obama in 2016. That’s how moved I think people were by that speech. I have no idea if she would actually be interested. But, she showed the capacity to move people, inspire people in a way that certainly was reminiscent to that [2004] Barack Obama speech. “People were saying, `That’s as good as Barack Obama as an orator.’ It was amazingly moving and eloquent and poignant,”
* I was on the road last night, so I listened to the First Lady’s speech on the radio. I thought she did well, although her mimicking of her husband’s famous stutter did grate on me a bit.
During her speech, I also thought about Michelle 2016, but not for president. I was thinking maybe she might take a page out of Hillary Clinton’s playbook and run for US Senate against Mark Kirk. It’s not a prediction, by any means. She doesn’t seem to be all that interested in running for office herself and Kirk won’t be easy to defeat. But she would probably be courted heavily by at least some Democratic bigwigs.
Delegates and fellow Americans, it is an honor to be with you this evening. And it’s an honor to represent the great state of Illinois, the home of President Barack Obama.
I want to talk to you about a scary subject for many, many Republicans. I want to talk about facts. You know, I watched the Republican National Convention last week, and I heard a lot of things that are simply not true.
One of our founding fathers, President John Adams of Massachusetts, once said that “facts are stubborn things.” But last week, as they nominated a very different man from Massachusetts, Republicans stubbornly smeared President Obama’s excellent record of reforming welfare. They went on and on, pretending that he weakened its work requirement. Everyone knows that is a ridiculous charge. Even the Republican author of “Welfare Reform” says Romney is wrong. Fact-checkers have called this talking point “blatantly false, a drastic distortion and widely debunked,” and “a mind-boggling act of untruth telling.”
In Illinois, we know President Barack Obama. We know his record. And we know that President Obama has made sure that work is always part of welfare. As an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama spearheaded welfare reform in the Land of Lincoln. And the fact is, under President Obama, states can get flexibility only if they move 20 percent more people to work.
Let me repeat that for our Republican friends: more people working, not less. Then there’s Medicare. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to take away the promise that makes Medicare, Medicare. They want to give seniors a voucher that caps what Medicare will cover and then tell seniors they’re on their own for what’s left. That would cost seniors thousands of dollars a year. And if they don’t have the money, it could cost them their lives. But that didn’t stop Romney and Ryan from telling the American people that their plan won’t hurt seniors. The fact is, it will. President Obama’s plan will protect Medicare and protect our seniors.
Facts are stubborn things. Now, when Paul Ryan got his turn, he blamed President Obama for a plant that closed under President George W. Bush. Here’s a fact: when President Obama took office in January 2009, the Chrysler plant in Belvidere, Illinois employed just 200 people. Today, because President Obama saved the auto industry, that same Chrysler plant is employing more than 4,000 American workers.
There’s something else the Republicans left out of their convention: any explanation of why they call Mitt Romney “Governor Romney.” We already knew this extremely conservative man takes some pretty liberal deductions. Evidently that includes writing off all four years he served as Governor of Massachusetts.
And if you want to know how someone’s going to govern the country, look at how he governed his state.
Mitt Romney promised Massachusetts three things: more jobs, less debt and smaller government. Then he left his state 47th out of 50 in job growth, added $2.6 billion in debt and on his watch, government jobs grew six times faster than private-sector jobs. What does Romney promise today? More jobs, less debt and smaller government. But he didn’t do it then, and he won’t do it now.
From day one, President Obama has told you where he stands, what he believes and what he is doing to make our middle class strong again. America is moving forward under President Obama’s leadership—and that’s a fact. Now it’s our job in the next nine weeks to make sure that the American people know the facts.
Your vote is a valuable thing. Entrust it to someone who respects you enough to tell you the truth. Join me in voting for President Obama and together let’s make the will of the people the law of the land.
* The chairman of the Illinois GOP issued a statement afterward entitled “Fact Check: Pat Quinn Lecturing Us?” Here’s part of it…
“With a failed record of higher taxes, spiraling debt and high unemployment, Pat Quinn is the wrong politician to lecture Americans on who should lead our nation over the next four years. Governor Quinn says Americans should look at how Mitt Romney governed his state. Maybe Americans should look at how Pat Quinn has governed Illinois – pushing forward a 67% tax increase, forcing businesses to leave our state and failing to address the worst credit rating in the nation.”
GWEN IFILL: And we go back to Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
You seemed to be — you were chuckling at different points during that, Mark.
MARK SHIELDS: Well, Pat Quinn has escaped the curse of Illinois governors up to now, Otto Kerner, Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, so many of his predecessors.
GWEN IFILL: He likes to point out that two of his predecessors are in jail.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes. Well, and others even before that.
No, I thought it was — the writing-off of this four years as governor of Massachusetts was the first attempt at humor I have heard of the convention. We have been really spared any humor in this entire campaign. And it was just welcome. It wasn’t a thigh-slapper, but I thought it was a pretty cute line.
DAVID BROOKS: Funny.
One thing I noticed is the stage is gigantic and the speakers are very far away.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: And so they have a tendency to shout to the hall, rather than talk to the camera.
GWEN IFILL: How is that different than from Tampa?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, in Tampa, first of all, the stage was in the middle of the arena. Here, it is at one end. And they were closer. And so it was natural to take a more conversational tone. I think it’s fine for these short speeches.
But if you get out there and start shouting for 40 minutes or 25 minutes, it will begin to wear I think on TV audiences. As for Pat Quinn’s facts, I would say he’s absolutely right about welfare reform. The Republicans were inaccurate about that.
I think he’s slightly inaccurate about the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan, where you would have the option to stay in Medicare. And the government — for the people who decide to go away from the premium support, the government sets the Medicare standard there. So I think he’s fudging a little there. He’s right on Medicare — on…
JUDY WOODRUFF: How much of a liability, Mark, is it for the Republicans that they have gotten so much attention about facts that they didn’t quite get right?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, when Paul Ryan is still answering questions on a very tough forum like “The Today Show,” when Matt Lauer is confronting him about what he said in his acceptance speech, and he finally today acknowledged that, in fact, President Obama wasn’t responsible in any way and he didn’t mean to suggest that and it was an erroneous reading of his speech to suggest that — President Obama isn’t responsible for the closing of the Janesville General Motors plant, but it was an impression left in his speech.
So, no, I think it is a problem. But let’s be very frank about it. We have got people going through stop signs on facts on both sides of this campaign. And I just think that the campaigns must have concluded, Judy, that there isn’t a big price to pay, that people’s level of expectation about the candor and integrity of the political debate is pretty low.
JUDY WOODRUFF: On either side.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes. I think that’s exactly right.
They clearly — one of the things the parties do really well is fact-checking. There are people in this building for Democrats, there are people for the Republicans that do meticulous fact-checking. And every speech is run through very carefully. When they lie, they do it intentionally. And they’re doing it because they think there’s absolutely no price to pay.
Those two guys don’t know Illinois, so maybe you can fill them in on what the speech meant to you.
* VIDEO: Platform politics and religion - Sen. Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn join The Daily Rundown to talk about the 2012 Democratic platform language concerning faith, Jerusalem, and God verse the language used on these topics in years past.
* Aurora’s Chapa LaVia chosen again as whip at DNC
* Whip it good: Chapa LaVia arrived at breakfast wearing a Cubs jersey with her name and the number 83 - the number of her House district. “I think the only reason I wear this is because (House Speaker Michael Madigan) is a Sox fan,” she said.
