* As I mentioned last week, there is a longstanding gentleman’s agreement between the two major parties not to challenge each others’ presidential petitions. That’s usually the case within parties as well.

But if you look at the objection page at the State Board of Elections’ website, you’ll see a whole bunch of presidential petition challenges.

Republican consultant Jon Zahm is behind some of those challenges. Zahm said he filed challenges to Mitt Romney’s petitions after Romney’s people filed challenges to Santorum’s and to petitions filed for Santorum’s delegates. Zahm is working for Santorum’s campaign. According to the Daily Herald, Santorum’s delegate petitions are more than a bit iffy…

Delegates for GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum have filed the minimum legal number of petition signatures to appear on the ballot in just four of Illinois’ 18 available congressional districts.

In 10 others, delegates who filed signatures came far short of the 600 required to appear on the ballot, a review of the signatures found. They didn’t file any delegates in four districts.

* Zahm’s challenge of Romney’s petitions is based on the fact that the candidate apparently left out the name of the state that the Notary Public is authorized to work in used a Massachusetts notary…

Your Objector states that the Candidate has filed a Statement of Candidacy notarized by a Notary Public authorized to take acknowledgements of deeds and documents in the state of Massachusetts. It is a mandatory provision of the Illinois Election Code under 10 ILCS 5/10-5 that a candidate for office in the State of Illinois utilize a Notary Public commissioned in the State of Illinois. Not having a valid and legally sufficient Statement of Candidacy invalidates the entire candidacy of the office seeker.

…Adding… From Zahm…

Rich, the submitted copy of my challenge had Massachusetts written in. The issue is that it was an out of state notary. A granite city case invalidated a candidacy on that point alone due to a missouri notary on an illinois petition

Oops.

* From a Zahm e-mail…

I have reached agreement with the Gingrich camp that there will be a mutual release of challenges [today] at 3 pm. The Romney group is moving forward, at this point, with their delegate challenges so I am moving forward with my challenge to their statement of candidacy. I have attached it for you. I am still hoping for a mutual agreement with Treasurer Rutherford. I am continuing with my challenge against Paul as I have found some evidence of Paul activity against the Santorum petitions in concert behind the scenes with Romney.

Zahm’s challenge to Ron Paul’s petitions is based on the allegation that the petitions “list the purported home residence address of Ron Paul as 8000 Forbes Place, Suite 200, Springfield, VA 22151 By information and belief the actual home residence address for Ron Paul is in Lake Jackson, Texas.”

Oops again.

By the way, wouldn’t it be great if the Board of Elections put the text of these challenges online, along with all generated paperwork from the cases? I’d like to be able to go through the transcripts of some of these hearings. Just saying…

* Meanwhile, Congressman Jackson sent out a somewhat strange e-mail last Friday with a long list of endorsements, including from people who have not yet formally said they were endorsing the incumbent…

Last week, he published a list of re-election campaign endorsers including the president of the United States and the mayor of Chicago, but the nine-term incumbent congressman confidently conceded that the presidential and mayoral endorsements were of the word-of-mouth variety and not officially released by Barack Obama or Rahm Emanuel. The comments came during a brief interview at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Martin Luther King, Jr. breakfast Monday morning.

“I’ve called them specifically and spoke with them and asked them for their support, and they’ve said they’re with me absolutely,” Jackson said.

Former 11th District Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson is challenging Jackson in the newly-drawn 2nd District.

“Everything that comes out of his mouth is questionable and has been pretty questionable for about 17 years,” Halvorson said.

Despite Halvorson’s claims, Jackson’s list seems to hold up…

Jackson has released a list of top elected officials he says are backing his re-election bid, including President Barack Obama, Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. […]

Jackson acknowledged Obama and Emanuel have not publicly endorsed him, but he said they’ve pledged their support in private and he expects public endorsements soon. […]

Halvorson challenged Jackson’s list, but an Obama campaign official said the president told Jackson last fall that he would be endorsing him and Emanuel’s campaign spokesman, Tom Bowne, confirmed Emanuel told Jackson last fall in person that he has Emanuel’s support.

Usually, you want to have a big build up to endorsements from a president, a mayor and a governor. Instead, Jackson released them on a Friday before a holiday weekend. Weird.

*** UPDATE *** Halvorson has a new poll. From Anzalone-Liszt…

* Almost every likely primary voter (96%) can identify Jesse Jackson Junior, compared to only 56% who can identify Debbie Halvorson.

* Despite his 40-point advantage in name-identification, Jackson is polling under 50%, and only
leads by 13 points (48% Jackson / 35% Halvorson). […]

* A large segment of the African-American vote is in play; In spite of his 98% name ID with African-Americans, Jesse Jackson, Jr. only gets 63% of them in the current vote.

* Halvorson’s  profile  appeals  to  voters  across  racial  lines.    On  the  informed vote only 52% of her voters are white, while 40% are African-American, and 6% are Hispanic.

48 percent is awful close to 50 plus one. Just sayin…

[ *** End Of Update *** ]

* The Progressive Change Campaign Committee released a poll of likely 10th CD Democratic primary voters with this gushing statement…

Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly want a bold progressive candidate who will fight for Wall Street accountability and government investment in jobs — not a conservative Democrat like Brad Schneider.

But the actual poll showed no overwhelming sentiment either way…

Q1 If the Democratic primary for Congress were held today, and the choices were Ilya Sheyman, Brad Schneider, John Tree, and Vivek Bavda, for whom would you vote?

Ilya Sheyman…………………………………………. 23%
Brad Schneider……………………………………….. 21%
John Tree……………………………………………….. 5%
Vivek Bavda…………………………………………….2%
Not sure………………………………………………….49%

The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percent, but using probability figuring, there’s a 67 percent probability that Sheyman is ahead. But that’s assuming this poll was conducted properly.

* A buddy of mine had an interesting take on the results, however. He believes the polling shows that the new Internet age means candidates are getting their message out before paid or even much earned media kicks in. Ten years ago, unknown candidates like these would barely register a blip on a polling radar screen. Now, half of the polling sample has made up its mind, even though none of the candidates have really spent a whole lot of money.

* And speaking of money…

Illinois Democratic House hopeful John Tree, who jumped in the 10th district primary late–in November–raised $101,000 in the past quarter and on Tuesday released a list of endorsements.

Tree, an Air Force Reservist and businessman, faces major competition from Brad Schneider and Ilya Sheyman for the nomination in the north suburban district. The battle is over who will face freshman Rep. Bob Dold (R-Ill.) in November.

Tree has about $80,000 cash-on-hand and pumped about $20,000 of his money into the race. Schneider and Sheyman have not released numbers yet for the quarter ending last Dec. 31.

Tree announced backing from David Wilhelm, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and Pete Couvall, Former Vice-Chairman of the Lake County Democrats and Treasurer of the Waukegan Democrats; David McArtin - Grant Township Democratic Committeeman; Rob Nesvacil - President of Wheeling Township Democrats; Kathleen Sances - Wheeling Township Democratic Committeewoman and Sue Walton - Palatine Township Democratic Committeewoman.

* In other news, this Progress Illinois story reminded me to say something about the circuit court clerk’s race…

With two months to go, the race for Cook County Circuit Clerk is an odd mix of wonky discussion on how to run a judicial bureaucracy — and hyberbolic charges and counter-charges by 12-year incumbent Dorothy Brown and challenger Rick Munoz, who has been Chicago’s 22nd Ward alderman since 1993. […]

Munoz’s campaign is fixated on Brown’s mini-scandals, like the incumbent paying her “Director of Investigations” to moonlight as her chauffeur. […]

Brown’s campaign, meanwhile is focused on the “fraud” committed by the Munoz campaign – that the challenger filed 28,000 phony signatures in his petition for clerk. But while Brown continues to publicly make the charge, the formal objection to Munoz’s signatures was actually withdrawn from the Illinois Board of Elections.

* But Chicago Magazine’s exposé on politicians and gangsters took a look at Ald. Munoz…

Indeed, crime in the heart of Little Village is higher than in much of the rest of the city. Statistics show that the police district that covers 26th Street and nearby parts of the 22nd Ward had the ninth-highest number of reported violent crimes and the fifth-highest number of homicides citywide in 2011.

But, as Montes points out, there are no surveillance cameras posted anywhere along 26th Street. He blames Ricardo Muñoz, the alderman for Little Village. Muñoz, an admitted ex–gang member, has served on the City Council since 1993. Critics cite the alderman’s well-established ties to the Latino gangs in Little Village and also note that Muñoz’s father and his nephew were, on separate occasions, arrested for trafficking fake IDs.

Montes, a gadfly who frequently holds protests to focus attention on the lack of police blue-light cameras in his ward, suspects that Muñoz has intentionally kept cameras out to help protect the gangs—a position shared by several law enforcement sources and Muñoz’s various political opponents. (The installation of surveillance cameras at high-crime corners, according to police figures, has cut drug-related crime by 76 percent and so-called quality-of-life crime by 46 percent. Aldermen can pay for the cameras out of the more than $1 million in discretionary funds they receive every year. Muñoz, however, hasn’t bought one.)

Over time, Montes has gathered more than 1,500 signatures of Little Village residents and business owners supporting the installation of cameras on 26th Street. “My question is: Why does [Muñoz] oppose cameras so much?” Montes says. “Why would you oppose these cameras when you have high crime in your area? You’re the alderman. You see crime going on. Why does he ignore it?”

Muñoz says 26th Street doesn’t need taxpayer-funded cameras: “The business strip should fend for themselves.” He adds that cameras should mostly go around schools and parks. As for the suspicions that he deliberately keeps cameras out to protect street gangs, he answers, “I grew up in the neighborhood, and these statements are coming from haters. They’re just rumors.”

That campaign will get a whole lot nastier if Brown wants it to.

* Other stuff…

* Kirk’s Trover to head to NRSC

* Rutherford: GOP attacks prep Romney for Obama

* Illinois congressman wants to slash members’ pay, cut sessions

* Perry endorses Tim Johnson legislative effort to make Congress part-time

* Kinzinger urges GOP presidentials to “stop attacks on free market”

* Kinzinger, Manzullo dispute over voting records: “What the real issue here is, when you look at the difference between Congressman Manzullo and I, he’s going for his 21st year in Congress and I’m going for my third.”

* Bustos gets Illinois AFL-CIO endorsement

* McSweeney raises over $143,000

* Recent withdrawals in Cook County subcircuit races

* Two more candidates survive challenges in 6th Subcircuit

* VIDEO: Joe Walsh - Public Affairs - 2012-01-03

* VIDEO: John Tree - Public Affairs - 2012-01-08

* VIDEO: Cliff Surges - Public Affairs - 2012-01-08