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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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