* OK, maybe it’s time for the media to stop looking for every possible Daley retirement angle and tone it down a bit…
With Mayor Richard Daley set to leave office, it’s time to bring back Meigs Field, according to private pilots who still bemoan the shutdown of the lakefront airport seven years ago.
General aviation pilots from across the country suggest that the changing political climate in the Chicago will not only lead to a new mayor, but also possibly a new Meigs.
“From what we’re hearing and seeing, the aviation blogs and Twitter are alive with conversations about whether Mayor Daley’s departure may create an opportunity to rebuild Meigs Field,” said Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
There have been precisely two Tweets using the “reopenMeigs” hashtag in the past 24 hours, and five using the “Meigs” hashtag, and one of those was against reopening the airport. Most of the Twitter chatter yesterday was posted by one person who said he was working on a story about the topic, and who often Tweets about flight simulator programs. Meigs was the first airport on MS Flight before Daley carved those infamous X’s in its runway. Microsoft stopped including Meigs in the software and a few computer flight junkies were enraged.
The person quoted in the Tribune story gushing over all this newly invisible enthusiasm flaks for a group that published an article today about the possibility of reopening the field…
Although the airport was closed and turned into a park, AOPA President Craig Fuller has pledged to seek every opportunity to bring back Meigs Field.
“More than seven years have passed since Chicago’s Meigs Field was bulldozed under cover of darkness, but the airport has not been forgotten,” Fuller said. “Grassroots support for Meigs is still alive and many in the aviation community view Mayor Richard Daley’s decision not to run for re-election as a hopeful sign that the field could be restored.
Yeah. The field will be restored. They’re gonna kill off a lakefront park to rebuild an airport for state workers, millionaires and a handful of flight sim geeks when the city has no money. And people are clamoring for it because some pilots association flak says the Interwebtubes are just alive with activity, even though they’re not.
Millennium Park seems like the obvious choice. It hasn’t been around long enough for a name change to rile traditionalists and it certainly has Daley’s stamp. But let’s stretch our minds:
What about the Kennedy Expressway? It was re-named for the slain president in a fit of post-assassination sentimentality, but JFK’s connection to Chicago wasn’t so significant that it belongs forever on such a major thoroughfare?
Lake Shore Drive? Midway Airport? Your ideas, please.
* Statewide GOP candidates Judy Baar Topinka, Bill Brady and Dan Rutherford…
The person posting the funniest comment “wins” a cocktail hour with me in the Chicago or Springfield areas. I might even expand that geography if I know someone in your neck of the woods. I’m buying. You don’t have to drink to be eligible, but it helps.
Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said public opinion on sentencing convicts to death is changing, and the state’s continued moratorium on the punishment, originally placed by former Gov. George Ryan in 2000 after innocent men were found on death row, shows the system isn’t working.
“After 10 years of a moratorium, we just have to admit, we can’t fix it,” Schroeder said.
A poll taken by the coalition in the spring shows 60 percent of Illinois voters would accept alternative sentences for criminals other than death, Schroeder said. He noted the greatest support is in the Chicago area, but a significant number of voters downstate also agree. The poll was taken by Lake Research Partners in Washington, D.C., and based on a telephone survey of 400 registered voters, with a margin of error at 4.9 percent.
Twenty men have been exonerated from death row after they were found to be wrongfully convicted, but prosecutors statewide continue to seek the death penalty in some cases at a cost of roughly $20 million annually, Schroeder said.
* The Question: Should Illinois abolish the death penalty? Explain.
* 54 percent favoring and 37 percent opposed is not a “slim” majority, but here’s the Tribune’s new poll on whether Rod Blagojevich should be retried…
A slim majority statewide, 54 percent, agreed with Fitzgerald’s decision [to retry Blagojevich], while 37 percent disagreed. Another 10 percent had no opinion in the survey of 600 registered Illinois voters conducted Aug. 28-Sept. 1. The error margin was 4 percentage points.
More interesting numbers…
In Chicago, 35 percent of voters favored retrial and 51 percent opposed it. But 54 percent of those in the Cook County suburbs and 57 percent of those in the collar counties agreed with the notion that Blagojevich should be retried, the survey found. […]
By a slight margin, voters who identified themselves as Democrats were more inclined to disagree with the decision to retry Blagojevich, the survey found. On the other hand, more than 7 out of 10 Republican voters surveyed said they backed a retrial.
There was also a stark difference between white and black voters on the issue. White voters were for a retrial by a wide margin: 60 percent to 31 percent. The position of black voters was almost the reverse: 63 percent against a retrial and 25 percent in favor.
The takeaway: US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is gonna have to present a far better case next time if he wants to convict this clown with that jury pool.
The federal judge handling Rod Blagojevich’s case said [yesterday] afternoon that after the former governor’s retrial, he will not release jurors’ names immediately after the verdict.
Instead, he plans to wait 24 hours after a verdict is in to make the names public, he said.
“That’s based on the experience some jurors had with the prompt release,” U.S. District Judge James Zagel said.
He gave the media until Nov. 1 to file any objections (as they did the last time around) disputing his closure of the names. The new trial is expected to begin early next year.
This is the same judge that advised jurors to call 911 if they didn’t like reporters’ questions.
Also at Wednesday’s hearing, Zagel set several deadlines for attorneys. Prosecutors will have to notify him by Nov. 15 about any major expansion of the case - though the judge said that wouldn’t include notice about new witnesses the government many want to call.
Zagel also said he expected the retrial to take no longer than 2 1 / 2 months. The first trial initially was expected to last more than four months, but ended up running about 2 1 / 2 .
One reason a second trial could be expected to take less time is that Blagojevich now is the lone defendant. Last month, prosecutors dropped a bombshell by dismissing all charges against the ex-governor’s co-defendant, his brother Robert Blagojevich.
The states where the Democratic dropoff is 10 points or more- Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, and North Carolina- all have incredibly unpopular Democratic Governors who aren’t that strong even within their own parties. Obama’s still pretty solid in those states at least within his own party, but a sense that their party’s current leaders at the state level have not gotten the job done could be making Democrats less inclined to get out to the polls.
* Meanwhile,Rasmussen has a new poll out and the pollster finally added the Green Party nominee to the mix. That may have jumbled the results a bit. Ras still hasn’t added the Libertarian Party candidate, however, so we don’t yet have an accurate picture of the race. Numbers in brackets are from previous Rasmussen polls…
The Giannoulias campaign points out that the Republican Rasmussen may be “agenda setting” again. Their polls in recent days haven’t matched up well with others, including Barbara Boxer (where Rasmussen had the Republican up and the Democrat down, contradicting the CNN/TIME poll) and Jack Conway (where Rasmussen had the Republican way up and CNN/TIME had it tied).
If leaners are not included, Kirk has 37% support to Giannoulias’ 34% and Jones’ 12%, suggesting as is often the case that support moves away from third party candidates to one of the major party nominees as Election Day approaches. In the previous survey, Giannoulias captured 42% of the vote to Kirk’s 40% when voters were asked their initial preference.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Kirk voters say they are already certain how they will vote in November, as do 53% of Giannoulias’ supporters and 40% of those who are backing Jones. […]
Eighty-two percent (82%) of GOP voters favor Kirk, a fifth-term U.S. congressman, while just 69% of Democrats support Giannoulias, currently the state’s elected treasurer. Green draws single-digit support from voters in both major parties and 13% of those who are not affiliated with either the Democrats or the Republicans. Kirk leads Giannoulias by more than two-to-one among these unaffiliated voters.
Giannoulias is viewed favorably by 42% of Illinois voters and unfavorably by 44%.
For Kirk, favorables are 45%, and unfavorables are 39%.
Twenty-six percent (26%) have a favorable opinion of Jones, an African-American journalist, while 30% regard him unfavorably. But 44% don’t know enough about the Green Party candidate to venture any opinion of him.
Only eight percent (8%) of Illinois voters rate the U.S. economy as good, while 56% of voters in President Obama’s home state describe the economy as poor. Twenty-six percent (26%) say the economy is getting better, but 46% believe it is getting worse.
Fifty-three percent (53%) approve of the president’s job performance, while 45% disapprove. Obama’s job approval ratings in Illinois havenot unchanged for months and are higher than the numbers he earns nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
* Methodology…
The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Illinois was conducted on September 7, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
* Republican Congressman Mark Kirk told the media yesterday that he was up with a new positive ad. As I told you yesterday, Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign thought the positive spot was a “head fake,” and that Kirk would go negative. They appear to have been right. Watch the “real” Kirk ad…
* We Ask America polled Chicago last night and found Rahm Emanuel leading the pack, with Sheriff Tom Dart and Congressmen Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Luis Guitierrez bunched up in the race for second place. Click the pic for a larger image…
Now for the caveats. I used this robo-poll firm a couple of years ago and had some concerns about response rates among African-Americans and Latinos. They have been trying harder since then, but Latinos are underrepresented in this poll by more than half.
Some names are obviously missing, but this is still an interesting mix. We’re looking at name recognition here. That will change if other lesser known candidates can raise the bucks.
Also, if you want to see how poorly the Daley name is faring these days, just look at Bill Daley’s numbers. Not great.
As we pull the trigger on this poll, we’ve found 40+ possible candidates mentioned in published reports, with more queuing up for consideration. We wanted to narrow it down to ten (because there’s only ten digits on a phone for an automated poll), so we added up the articles and chose the ten who were mentioned in the most clippings–not exactly as precise our usual polls…but what the heck. This is for fun.
* Roeder: Daley exit tough for biz: Unable to write checks toward another Daley victory, business executives will take their time and survey the field. Many will sit out a probably contentious election, or get involved only if the field is narrowed to two for an April runoff. “There is no up side to jumping in this early,” said Guy Chipparoni, president of the public relations firm Res Publica Group, which counsels clients on business and public policy.
* Reardon: Mayor’s leaving us high and dry: I’m sorry, Mayor Richard Daley. You may be tired. You may want to spend more time with your wife. I’m sure you know a lot more than I do about how bruising a re-election race could be next year and about what federal investigators may have found in their prying into your City Hall. But walking away from your fifth floor office right now, saying, “It’s time,” is just wrong. You’re abandoning the people of Chicago to the reality of democracy — but without the skills of democracy.
One day after announcing his decision not to seek a seventh term, Daley lashed out at the code of silence that has prevented police from solving the July 18 murder of Chicago Police Officer Michael Bailey.
It happened during a City Council debate on a resolution honoring Bailey, the third Chicago Police officer killed during a two-month period.
The Bailey murder remains unsolved, despite reward money topping $130,000.
The city had five more homicides through the end of August than the year-earlier period, bringing the total number to 313. But that is still lower than the 338 homicides recorded through the end of August 2008. […]
Through August, robberies dropped by 14.1 percent, criminal sexual assaults dropped by 10.1 percent and aggravated batteries dropped by 6.1 percent.
“These numbers are unacceptable until they’re zero,” Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said at a news conference Friday.
Still, Chicago has remained a more violent place than New York or Los Angeles based on the ratio of crime to population. The mayor could never shake the image of Chicago as a haven for gangsters going back to the days of Al Capone. That image may have been one reason why Chicago lost its bid to host the Olympics in 2016 — even though winner Rio de Janeiro is far more harrowing in some areas.
“Since the circuit clerk has signed the taxpayers up to spend tax dollars on private attorneys for her on the premise that she’s suing the taxpayers, let’s get on with it so we can better understand how to resolve this year-end budget dilemma,” McConnaughay said.
The comment came after yet another county board committee rejected Seyller’s request for a midyear, $555,000 cash infusion for her budget. The need for more money stems from the hiring of 14 employees over the past two years. Some of those hires replace employees who left. Others were new staff positions.
* 6:44 pm - Sources say that Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle told several aldermen and others today that he’s running for mayor.
Besides the dynamic the former state Senator brings to the race, del Valle’s move also means the city clerk’s office is now up for grabs.
Del Valle had only $948.08 in his campaign account as of the end of June, but he has reportedly told friends that he will quickly ramp up. He reportedly wants to get petitions out on the street this weekend.
* For a bit of comparison, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart had $191,855.67 in his account as of June 30. Sandi Jackson had $66,966.37 in her aldermanic account and $15,716.47 in her ward account. Rahm Emanuel has $1.2 million.
A voter can sign as many mayoral nominating petitions as he or she wishes, but only the first one counts, as Chicago Board of Elections Commission spokesman Jim Allen reminds us. The second, third and all subsequent signatures are technically invalid and will be erased if challenged.
This means the first mayoral candidate to knock on the doors on your block not only stands the best chance of getting valid signatures, but it also means that any signatures he gathers above the minimum are signatures that other hopefuls can’t get.
“I got a call from [someone close to Emanuel] telling me to expect a call from Rahm,” said one prominent Chicago Democrat, who had yet to hear from him as of Wednesday night.
“My sense is he’s got to do an assessment as to what his support would be and what his campaign would look like. . .He’s not in Chicago, so that makes it tough for him to know what people here are thinking,” added the person, who agreed to lobby others on Emanuel’s behalf, if he decides to run.
Emanuel himself, according to administration sources, knows he must make a decision relatively soon to be a viable player back home. But he doesn’t feel that waiting a while will compromise his chances.
Something that I’m not sure anyone has really talked about is the longer this talk lasts about a mayoral bid, the less influence he’s gonna have in the White House and DC in general. He’s gonna become a lame duck pretty darned fast, if he hasn’t already.
* 8:06 pm - OK, this has to be the goofiest write-up about the pending Chicago mayoral race I’ve seen so far. The Washington Times quotes a DC/Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant and a San Francisco-based Democratic consultant about Chicago politics. Sheesh.
* 4:39 pm - An organizer of the Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson fundraiser this Sunday in Chicago featuring Rahm Emanuel has just sent out a notice saying that the event has been postponed “due to circumstances which are probably obvious to most.”
So, no Rahmapalooza this Sunday, I’m afraid. They’re looking at September 26th instead.
* Meanwhile, this could give you something to chew on tonight. From Greg Hinz…
Gov. Pat Quinn, his election effort already reeling, appears to have suffered a staggering blow with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s stunning decision to retire.
There only is so much political energy in any town, even Chicago, and now all the energy here is going into the wide-open race for mayor.
That leaves little if anything for Mr. Quinn, who badly needs to rally Chicago’s Democratic base if he’s to get back into the contest with GOP nominee Bill Brardy.
It ain’t over yet, not with two months of campaigning left. But Mr. Daley’s oxygen-sucking move is the last thing Illinois’ rookie governor needed.
Republican Mark Kirk’s newest ad, which is set to go up on the air this week, according to a campaign spokesman, is positive and doesn’t mention his Democratic opponent.
“In a country where too many just vote the party line, there are only a few thoughtful, independent leaders who do what’s right for us,” the female announcer says in the ad.
The 30-second spot, which paints Kirk as “independent and effective,” was produced by Larry McCarthy of McCarthy Marcus Hennings.
*** UPDATE - 6:54 pm *** Just about every person I’ve talked to close to the Giannoulias campaign believes this ad will not run more than a few times. Even some Republicans say they don’t expect this to be up long. We’ll see.
Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., who has run for nearly every major office in the state, says he is not interested in replacing Richard M. Daley as mayor of Chicago.
“No, I’m not interested in running for mayor of Chicago,” Burris told reporters before he toured Southwind Park in Springfield this morning.
“Certainly there’ll be talk. Fortunately, my name has not been mentioned, so that’s on the good side.
Asked why he won’t run, Burris said, “How much money do you got? Get $5 million and then talk to me.”
Chicago State University business professor Jonathan Jackson is also interested.
“I had not seriously considered it before but now I am,” Jonathan Jackson told the Defender. “I will take a strong look at it and make a decision fairly soon.”
“I am not running for mayor. It’s just something I have not thought about,” she said. “But I do think a Black candidate has just as good of a chance of winning as any other candidate if they are qualified.”
* Greg Hinz looks at CTA Chairman Terry Peterson and state Sen. James Meeks…
Mr. Peterson — who’s held a half-dozen city gigs and clearly knows the game — could be formidable. If, that is, he’s willing to put aside his comfy private sector gig and really go for the gold. I have my doubts.
Mr. Meeks has feinted before for higher office, but he’s putting on a good show this time. Best-known as a leading advocate for better funding of schools, he comes out of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s organization. And he has one other interesting credential: He’s built, from scratch, a huge church and congregation in his day job as a minister, something that ironically could help him with the business community.
Peterson was uncommittal yesterday when asked about a possible race.
A Chicago pawnbroker said he will spend between $5 million and $6 million to get out his message - that he’s a successful small businessman and not a politician - in an unlikely race for Illinois governor.
Cohen said he would spend $3 million in the primary, but ended up spending about $2 million (and another half mil or so through the end of June). Pretty much everybody ignored Cohen’s spending plan announcement before the primary and we saw how that ended. But even if he spends $3 to $4 million on the general, that’s a whole lot of cash and completely unprecedented for an independent candidate here. The media is gonna blow it again if reporters don’t start covering this man.
* Gov. Pat Quinn is trying to attack Cohen, but most reporters aren’t paying much attention. The other day, Quinn demanded that Cohen release his tax returns, and it was buried in an AP roundup…
Quinn called on the wealthy businessman to make his income taxes public, as other candidates have. He also suggested Cohen and his family have taken advantage of the poor.
“I don’t know why anybody would ever vote for him. He has run a pawnbroking business. His family’s been involved in currency exchanges,” Quinn said.
* The reason Quinn is pushing the tax returns angle is because he is in possession of an opposition research report that heavily stresses Cohen’s extensive use of cash and lack of personal checking accounts. You can read that Cohen OR report by clicking here. I gave Cohen’s media advisor a chance to respond to what was in the report, but he declined. The report was prepared soon after the primary. I obtained it through a second-hand source and then verified where it came from.
* In other third party news, Libertarian Party US Senate candidate Mike Labno recently went off on Republican Mark Kirk. Click here for the audio. Transcript…
“I want to talk about many of the issues, Mark Kirk and one of the things you asked me to talk about was where our differences are. Our differences, between Mark Kirk and I, are great. The guy is practically a Democrat. I’m not even sure how he got on the Republican ticket in the first place. But when it comes to economics he’s just another big spender, cap and trade is where his interest lies.”
Historically, Libertarian candidates have received an average of just over 1 percent of the vote in Illinois Senate races, most recently in 2004 and 2008.
The Giannoulias folks are hoping Labno pulls away votes in a close race. We’ll see. So far, polls are showing that Kirk is doing pretty well with conservatives.
During an appearance at a Springfield coffeehouse last month, Whitney had an audience of fewer than a dozen people.
* And Forrest Claypool’s independent campaign has been sued…
A former Cook County Board of Review employee filed a libel and defamation suit Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against assessor candidate Commissioner Forrest Claypool and his campaign.
Victor Santana filed the chancery suit against Claypool, Citizens for Claypool and campaign manager Tom Bowen charging that a post on the campaign’s joeberrios.com website was “factually inaccurate.”
The Claypool campaign has used the site to embarrass Board of Review Commissioner Joseph Berrios, the Democratic nominee for assessor, and to bolster Claypool’s independent candidacy. Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall and Robert Grota of the Green Party are also seeking the office.
Santana took issue with a post implicating him in an investigation into charges that state Rep. Paul Froelich, an Arlington Heights Democrat, used his influence to get assessment appeals lowered before the Board of Review.
* In your opinion, who would be the single best and the single worst candidate for mayor of Chicago? Try to stick to those whose names have already been floated, please. Rod Blagojevich, Scott Lee Cohen, etc. aren’t exactly helpful here.
Unless Quinn can get his act together soon, he will definitely hamper Giannoulias, no matter what Alexi is telling the media. I find myself agreeing with Silver here.
* Nate apparently hasn’t gotten around to handicapping our congressional races yet, but here’s a link for future reference.
“I must admonish the media to end its coordinated commentary on who will be the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said in a statement, alluding to his African American constituents’ ability to influence the race. “Whoever that person will be will have to come through my community….before anyone is deemed an imaginary front-runner in this particular race, they should pause and take that into consideration.”
Make no mistake about it, race will play a huge role in this campaign. Period. There’s no getting around this, no matter how distasteful Rush’s tactics can be. The question becomes whether black politicos can rally around one person. I don’t see that yet, partly because there’s a growing old/young split in the African-American leadership. But there’s a lot of time left. Pretty much the same thing goes for Latinos.
“The mayoralty in Chicago is an unbelievealy attractive opportunity,” Axelord said in a West Wing interview. “And I’m sure if Rahm decides to do that, the President will support that decision.”
But staffers at the White House expect that Emanuel will run, one administration official said, recalling what the chief of staff said several weeks ago: “If and when Rich doesn’t run, I’ll do it.”
One analyst said he doesn’t think Chicago voters would blame Emanuel for failures in Obama’s political strategy, or for Democrats’ poor performance in the midterms.
“If there’s one place that wouldn’t matter, it’d be Chicago,” said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, adding that city voters would view his Washington relationships as assets. “’This guy has connections that could do us a lot of good.’ That’s how they think.”
We don’t know what the situation will look like on November 3rd, and if it’s really bad and Emanuel is still in the White House then the mayor’s spot will look like a consolation prize for a horrible loser. That could definitely hurt him. Plus, the Chicago media is not going to give this guy a free ride just because the DC media is all focused on him. It’s just about the toughest town in the news biz, and Rahm ain’t gonna coast through by any means. For example, here’s Lynn Sweet’s lede…
While White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is lionized in Washington, he would not start a mayoral race in Chicago automatically first in line to replace Mayor Daley.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as frontrunner,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. Midwest Chairman William Daley, the mayor’s brother, a former U.S. commerce secretary and an Emanuel friend.
Other political experts agree that the opening is likely to attract a large number of candidates and that Emanuel, who still owns a home in the city, wouldn’t have the field to himself.
“He’s an opportunist, but he’s got his work cut out for him,” said John McCarron, an urban affairs writer and adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Emanuel has a million dollars in his campaign fund and formidable fund-raising ability, giving him a running start against rivals — if he jumps in the contest. Emanuel, a former House member from a district anchored on the North Side, is without a solid political base in Chicago. The unions and other progressives are mad at him over national issues that would seep into a mayoral contest.
Emanuel would have to do a lot of work to get Democratic committeemen to unite around his candidacy — but he knows a thing or two about coalition building.
* The Tribune has a comprehensive list of most of the candidates who are being talked about. More from CBS2…
Right now, there are more names being floated than ABC’s in a vat of alphabet soup. We’re hearing boomlets for City Council powerhouse Ed Burke, Chief Judge Tim Evans and even County Assessor Jim Houlihan… If elected, Huberman would be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor. But back in April, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) said he would be interested in holding that distinction. He said he would be interested in “exploring the possibility” of running for mayor if Daley retired.
Gery Chico, 54, who lost a race for Senate to Barack Obama, was appointed by Daley recently to head up the City Colleges of Chicago. Chico says he’s seriously considering a run, even though he just recently gave away the last of his campaign funds to charity.
“My phone’s been ringing all day with people urging me to run — it’s something I’m very seriously considering,” Chico said.
Freshman Rep. Mike Quigley isn’t ruling out a run. About the only one who flat-out said no was former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas, who has another year left on his contract running the New Orleans schools.
If Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart becomes a candidate as expected, he quickly becomes the favorite and shuts the door on a number of hopefuls. He’s riding a wave of good press, appeals to both Machine types and Independents and hasn’t burned his bridges in the African-American community.
But he won’t scare everyone off.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won’t be backed down by a Dart candidacy — and vice versa. Just the same, Emanuel doesn’t seem well-positioned at this moment to make a run, and while he’d be the best-funded candidate, it’s not entirely clear where he finds his niche.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan could throw everything up for grabs if she were interested, though she has never indicated she would be.
If African-American voters were to unite around a candidate as they did with Washington, they could put that individual in the runoff. But if they could agree on a candidate, Daley probably wouldn’t have been mayor for 21 years.
With Daley’s announcement, Burke will gain power, as the aldermen seek to reassert themselves after spending decades stamping Daley’s writs with their rubber foreheads.
Uncertainty and anarchy scares the business community more than just about anything else. It’s bad enough that the state can’t get its act together. If the city’s politics fall apart, then biz leaders are gonna freak.
* Roundup…
* Daley might retire with extra $1.5M: As of June 30, the mayor had $1,479,823 left in his campaign fund. And under state law, he can claim that as income as long as he pays taxes on it.
* Democratic US Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias is up with a new statewide ad buy featuring President Obama. Rate it…
ADDING: The video should be working now.
*** UPDATE *** Response from National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Press Secretary Amber Marchand…
Is this the ‘change’ that President Obama believes in? After telling Americans that our country doesn’t need another banker in Washington, he wants Illinois voters to elect a failed mob banker who loaned millions of dollars to known criminals? How are Illinois voters supposed to ‘trust’ Giannoulias with their pocketbooks after he squandered millions of taxpayer dollars set aside for the state’s college fund? How does the President propose that Illinois voters ‘count on’ Giannoulias after he drove his own family’s business into the ground, forcing the government to pay for his risky loans and reckless behavior? Shooting hoops and calling his buddy from Chicago a ‘friend’ is one thing, but President Obama should know that Illinois voters deserve more than a reckless mob banker with a thin resume of experience in the U.S. Senate.”
* 7:36 pm - A group of way overboard NIMBYs lost a big one, thankfully…
Officials from Navistar International Corp. are expected to announce the engine manufacturing company’s plan to move its headquarters to Lisle at a Wednesday morning press conference, DuPage County Board president Bob Schillerstrom said Tuesday. […]
Navistar President Dan Ustian, Gov. Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as other state and local leaders, are expected to be at the 10 a.m. press conference at the Alcatel-Lucent site, 2701 Lucent Lane, in Lisle.
Navistar officials previously said they were exploring locations in Alabama, Texas and South Carolina because of local opposition to the proposed headquarters site in Lisle. The company is currently located in Warrenville.
In one November hearing before the village’s planning and zoning commission, about 100 people spoke out against Navistar’s proposal, including nearby residents and representatives of a school for autistic children that had just opened next door to the building. They were concerned in part about air pollution, noise, traffic and safety issues.
“While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago,” said Emanuel
A senior Obama Administration official said Emanuel is likely to run for the post. “I’d be shocked if he doesn’t run,” the official said.
I’m not sure who feeds Chris Cillizza, so I can’t tell you how high up that really goes. One thing’s for sure, Emanuel could raise millions of dollars right out of the gate. But he’ll have some big trouble with some major elements within organized labor.
A source close to Emanuel tells CNN that it’s complicated. He takes his job seriously and feels a responsibility to see out his duties serving the President during difficult times. That said he’s made no secret of the fact that he’s always wanted to be Mayor of Chicago, a city he served in the House of Representatives.
The source close to Emanuel says he will probably look at the open seat as an option but has some time to make the decision.
* A kabillion names are floating around right now. Lisa Madigan, Tom Dart, Terry Peterson, Danny Davis, Mike Quigley, Jim Houlihan, Miguel Del Valle, James Meeks, John Fritchey and all the other usual suspects are being discussed.
One of the least mentioned - but whose name was floated by somebody this afternoon who could back her to the hilt - is Valerie Jarrett. Interesting.
Continue guessing in comments if you feel like it.
But here’s a question to ponder: As of right now, for what one thing will Daley be remembered most?
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which sought to drag the White House toward a public option during the health care fight, blamed Rahm Emanuel then for the failure, and co-founder Adam Green is out with a scorching statement on his possible mayoral campaign:
“Rahm is unfit to represent Democrats in office. He’s a cancer on the Democratic Party. Democrats’ current 2010 situation is due to a weak Rahm Emanuel mentality that says water down real reform at the urging of Republicans and corporations, thus making Democratic reform less popular with voters than the real deal would have been. If Democrats had passed the overwhelmingly-popular public option and broken up the big banks when they had the chance, they’d be cruising for a landslide victory right now.”
* 3:59 pm - Ald. Walter Burnett says the city council’s Black Caucus will meet tomorrow to discuss the mayoral vacancy.
* From SEIU President Tom Balanoff…
Mayor Richard M. Daley has provided Chicago with a lifetime of public service. The Service Employees International Union’s Illinois State Council wants to thank him for his work. This economic recession has made clear that Chicago needs a strong advocate for working families. SEIU represents 100,000 members in Chicago–a strong voice for workers and working families.
Davis said Emanuel wouldn’t be able to waltz away with the mayorship, describing that as a “Beltway notion.”
“All politics is local,” he said. “In Chicago, if you are out of sight, then you are pretty much out of mind,” Davis said, noting that Members of Congress go home every weekend. “When the bell rings, all of the Chicago representatives are on the airplane coming home, because they know they need to be in direct contact with their constituents, or somebody else is going to be on the plane.”
If Emanuel runs, “he’ll need to come and put his feet on the ground like any other candidate” and see if he can put together a coalition to win, Davis said.
“There’s nobody who’s got a corner on this,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a frontrunner.”
* 4:55 pm -Attorney General Lisa Madigan…
“I am focused on winning my race for attorney general so that I can continue to fight for the people of Illinois. I would like to thank Mayor Daley and Maggie Daley for their service and dedication to the people of Chicago.”
Fritchey said in an interview today that his recent talk of running for mayor was “never predicated” on having another candidate in the race. “I’ve stated that the public is interested in having choices. It’s clear now they’ll have a choice,” he said.
Would he be among those choices? Fritchey told Progress Illinois, “It would be an honor and privilege to serve as mayor of this city.” A decision will come “sooner rather than later.”
A public official has to know when it’s time to move on, Daley said during a press conference. “For me that time is now.”
Daley said he’s thought about the decision for weeks.
“I’ve done my all,” Daley said. “I’ve done my best. Now, I’m ready with my family to begin the new phase of our lives.”
“In the end, this was a personal decision, no more, no less,” Daley said, declining to answer questions. “I’ve been thinking about this for the last several months . . . . It just feels right.”
Katy bar the door.
* My first thought is I never figured he’d go out while he’s held in such low regard. His lousy poll numbers, the failed Olympics bid, the parking meter fiasco, etc., etc., etc. may have individually felled a mere political mortal, but I figured he wanted to restore his reputation before departing. Maybe he figured he couldn’t. More likely it’s a cumulative thing. He broke his father’s record. His wife is ill. It’s time to give somebody else a chance.
* My second thought is just a quick wonder whom the Daley/Bridgeport remnants will back now. They’ve had a horse in every race going back a century or so.
* 2:16 pm - State Sen. James Meeks has been mentioned for weeks as a possible Daley challenger. I just talked to him and here’s his on the record statement…
“The mayor has served the city for 20-plus years, and now it’s time for him to enjoy the rest of his life. The new mayor who will take over has nowhere to go but up. Public schools are in need of overhaul. City colleges are in need of overhaul. The city’s finances are in need of overhaul. The city’s rapport with police officers is at an all-time low. For the new mayor, the sky’s the limit.”
* I’m hearing two reactions so far. One is serious worry about the city’s future, the other is relief that this long, never-ending rule is finally over.
“He’s a great guy and a great mayor,” Quinn said, adding praise for Maggie Daley’s involvement in After School Matters. “Rich Daley and Maggie Daley are the heart of Chicago and they’re special people. I think like everybody else I’m shocked to hear this but I wish both Mayor Daley and Maggie Daley nothing but the best. They love Chicago.”
“They are two special people, they care about other people. They’ve got servants’ hearts, each of them have served us over and over again in many different ways. So we have a permanent debt of gratitude to Mayor Richard M. Daley and his dad, Richard J. Daley, we have a permanent debt of gratitude to Maggie Daley and the whole Daley family. They understand that being on Earth is not here to just serve yourself but to really serve others, and they have done that over and over again.”
“Mayor is an office he’s always been interested in,” said Steve Patterson, Dart’s spokesman. “He’s been upfront about that. He does have a re-election campaign for sheriff I November that he’s focused on. . . . He always said he would make a move only if he could have a greater impact than sheriff, and mayor certainly fits that.”
* 2:38 pm - Forrest Claypool is staying mum. I asked his campaign for a react and here’s what I got…
Bill Daley said the decision, finalized over the Labor Day weekend, stemmed from a variety of factors: economic woes besetting the city, his wife Maggie Daley’s long battle with cancer, the looming — and growing — chorus of political critics.
“It would have been more difficult than past races,” Bill Daley said, referring not only to the local situation but a national climate that has endangered incumbent officials from around America. “But he would have won.”
* Emanuel is probably the only person who could really limit the field - white and black. The Obama White House owns enough problems without owning Chicago politics as well, however. It’ll be a trickier move in DC than it will in the city, but that would still be fraught with danger. What if he loses?
* As far as I can tell, Rahm Emanuel’s next publicly scheduled event in Chicago is this Sunday at a fundraiser for Congresscritter Debbie Halvorson. Click here for details. That place is gonna be mobbed.
* 3:07 pm - Speaker Madigan’s react…
“I commend the Mayor on his long service and respect this very personal decision. His record is one of remarkable accomplishments. One only has to look around the city center to know he was a major force in keeping this city and the region vibrant, alive and on the national stage.
“I am sure he will continue to work with all of us to make Chicago the best place to live work and raise families.”
* The last day to file nominating petitions for mayor is Monday, November 22nd. Petitions can be circulated immediately.
* Congressman Mark Kirk react…
“For 10 years, I worked with Mayor Daley to expand O’Hare, defend Lake Michigan and improve the quality of life for Chicago-area families. My thoughts are with him and Maggie in what must have been a deeply personal decision.”
* Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr…
“Mayor Daley loves Chicago and clearly loved being mayor. He built or rebuilt many iconic structures and turned Chicago into an international center for business and tourism. But he also leaves the city in extremely poor fiscal shape. And, after 21 years, we still need a third airport; we need to redevelop the old USX site; and we must guarantee that all Chicagoans have access to high-quality jobs, health care, transportation and education. I was never close to the mayor, but he certainly left a major imprint on America’s greatest city.
“Regarding potential successors, I expect there will be numerous candidates, but only a few can mount a serious bid for mayor.”
* The “embellishment” scandal has undoubtedly hurt Republican Congressman Mark Kirk, but to keep working through November it has to be tied to something bigger. This latest effort appears to be the beginning of that…
At the same time, the Giannoulias campaign is pushing on a new front: raising questions about Kirk using his military credentials to push the Iraq war.
The Giannoulias campaign plans to use several quotes from Kirk — found by the campaign in newspaper stories and a House speech — to construct a narrative that “when Congressman Kirk has a political objective, he will say anything to reach it,” Giangreco said.
An Oct. 27, 2002, Daily Herald story said that “Kirk said he has seen classified information that convinced him the resolution was needed.”
Two years later, in 2004, the Herald reported that Kirk “said he had seen ‘direct’ evidence that Hussein presented a threat.”
Kirk made his “moral certitude” speech as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 2003 — chaired at the time by a Republican — began a review of the “quantity and quality” of what the U.S. intelligence community knew about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Even when members of his own party called for an investigation, Giangreco said, “Congressman Kirk went back to the House floor to repeat the lie. He dug in his heels and repeated what was not true.”
The Giannoulias campaign has posted several videos in the past few days to bolster their case. Here’s the list…
* Congressman Kirk falsely claimed he commands the war room in the Pentagon
* Kirk “misremembered” receiving the Navy’s Officer of the Year award
* Kirk falsely claimed he was the Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year
* Congressman Kirk falsely claimed that he was shot at while flying over Iraq
* Congressman Kirk ridiculously claimed he could have stopped the war in Kosovo
* Congressman Kirk falsely claimed he was a nursery school and middle school teacher
* Congressman Kirk ridiculously claimed he is the reason every GOP vote against the stimulus
* As a US Senator, Congressman Kirk said he would lead the effort repeal the health care bill
Kirk is responding by touting his veteran’s record. The NRSC’s press release is far more blunt…
As failed mob banker Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL) fails to capture momentum in the race for the U.S. Senate this November, he’s attempting to buoy his flawed candidacy by desperately questioning U.S. Representative Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) military expertise after Kirk honorably served in our nation’s military.
George Ryan, the ex-Illinois governor sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison for corruption, asked the judge who presided at his trial to throw out parts of his conviction on the basis of a Supreme Court decision this year.
Attorneys for the governor, a Republican, cited the court’s June decision in the case of former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey K. Skilling, which narrowed a fraud statute involving so-called deprivation of honest services because it was unconstitutionally vague.
“Under the standard established by Skilling, Ryan’s conviction and sentence are unlawful,” defense attorneys Dan Webb and James Thompson, also a former Republican governor, wrote.
Ryan, 76, was convicted in April 2006 of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and mail fraud. The verdict was based on conduct that the Supreme Court found not to be criminal in the Skilling case, his lawyers told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer. Prosecutors relied on the same law in the federal criminal cases against Ryan and former Hollinger International Inc. Chairman Conrad Black.
* The Question: If Ryan is released, do you think he’ll have served enough time to pay for his crimes? Explain.
* Ever since the Daily Herald lost its political reporter (Eric Krol and then Joe Ryan) and its Statehouse bureau chief (John Patterson), its campaign stories have really gone downhill.
A great case in point is the paper’s latest piece on Republican 10th Congressional District candidate Bob Dold and Social Security reform.
The issue first heated up when Dold posted this on his Facebook page and then deleted it…
Congressman Paul Ryan has taken a lot of heat for his Social Security plan, which would allow people under the age of 55 to invest a portion of their FICA tax…
Offers workers under 55 the option of investing over one third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan available to Federal employees.
That’s pretty much the same idea that got President George W. Bush is such hot water after the 2006 campaign. And it’s very much like Dold’s own plan which he wrote about before the GOP primary in his Tribune questionnaire…
Additionally, I would propose allowing a portion of Social security payments (not more that 25%) to be put into Government authorized individual retirement accounts that would be able to be passed to heirs if not used
Dold now says on his website only that he would allow people under 55 to invest a “small portion” of their FICA taxes.
Ryan says his plan isn’t privatization, and that’s the only source the Daily Herald used in its alleged fact check…
THE FACTS: The official website for Ryan’s proposal, roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov, details its concepts for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs. It also includes a section called “Setting the Record Straight” that seeks to debunk accusations about the plan, as well as another section with answers to frequently asked questions.
According to the website, the Roadmap would not privatize Social Security. The personal accounts it proposes would be managed by a public board.
It’s not difficult to find other sources which claim that Ryan wants to privatize Social Security. But Ryan’s statement is presented as the one and only “fact.”
And instead of quoting Dold’s very own Chicago Tribune questionnaire which cited the 25 percent figure, the Daily Herald instead delved into the semantics of Dold’s original Facebook post and the he said/she said which followed.
I know I’m repeating myself this morning, but this is yet another reason why blogs can often be far better vehicles for reading about politics (or anything else) because they are much more willing to use material from different sources than newspapers are. It’s just stupid that the DH didn’t quote Dold’s Tribune response. It makes zero sense. Their fact check is rendered completely meaningless. I’m not sure why they even bothered.
* To make matters worse, the DH completely botched the admittedly stale deleted Facebook post controversy. This is the explanation the Dold campaign gave me for removing that Paul Ryan post…
It’s Facebook. We put things up and take things down all the time. We’re not announcing policy on Facebook.
And this is what the Dold campaign just told the Daily Herald…
As for the disappearing Facebook post, a Dold spokeswoman said the comment simply was replaced by one about a different issue, the proposed Metra STAR line. Dold stands by the original posting’s message, she said.
Democrat Dan Seals’ campaign watches that Dold Facebook page pretty closely and they say they’ve never seen the Republican delete a post except for that Ryan post. And you don’t “replace” Facebook posts. You can delete them and add a new post, but there’s no such thing as replacing them. It’s a goofy explanation and the Daily Herald “fact check” completely let them skip away clean. Also, if they don’t post about policy on Facebook, why did they post about Metra?
* Meanwhile, the Dan Seals campaign claims its latest poll has the Democrat with a large lead. From a press release…
– WINNING INDEPENDENTS: Seals leads by 5 points among self-identified independent voters, 39% to 34%.
– STRONGER NAME ID: Seals’ name identification remains strong at 74% compared to his opponent, who was recognized by just 47% of respondents. Seals leads in both Cook and Lake Counties and leads with almost every demographic subgroup.
– LARGE CROSSOVER VOTE: In addition to his strong base of Democratic and independent support, Seals is also winning 16% of voters who say they plan to support Mark Kirk in the 2010 U.S. Senate race, pointing to a diverse coalition of bi-partisan support.
The campaign’s polling memo is here. A We Ask America poll taken in early August had this race much closer, with Seals leading Dold by just 3 points. But there have been some problems with that poll’s accuracy.
* The problem with just about all media polls is that the write-ups almost never mention other surveys taken by different pollsters. That means you don’t get any context, and it can lead to outliers being touted as the only definitive results seen by hundreds of thousands of readers/viewers.
The Chicago Tribune is one of the worst offenders. Their numbers, by policy, are all you’ll ever see in their polling stories. And though they’ve improved somewhat over the years, their refusal to release all of their crosstabs means they are still operating in a 20th Century dead tree world. (This is not a knock on the paper’s reporters, mind you, but on corporate policy.)
Take, for instance, the governor’s race. The Tribune has this as a five-point race with Bill Brady leading Gov. Pat Quinn 37-32, with Scott Lee Cohen scoring 4 percent and Green Party nominee Rich Whitney and Libertarian Party candidate Lex Green at 2 each.
This suggests that Quinn’s recent TV ad buy touting Brady’s pro-gun views might have moved some numbers. But that could also just be a function of different polling techniques, considering that Brady’s unfavorable rating was only 19 percent in the Trib poll. The Tribune obviously does not push voters very hard to make up their minds, and not including “leaners” at this advanced stage is a big mistake.
* You also won’t see the Tribune mention stuff like the TPM PollTracker…
More telling, barely half of Democrats say they support Quinn’s call for higher taxes, while a quarter of them side with Republican Brady, who has said he won’t detail his proposed budget cuts until after the Nov. 2 election.
At the same time, more voters back Brady’s call for more widespread business tax cuts to spur job creation than get behind Quinn’s reliance on passage of the state’s first public works construction program in more than a decade.
But a telling sign for Quinn may be voter reaction to one of his most recurring themes — that he worked to restore trust in state government following the Blagojevich scandal. Under Quinn, lawmakers enacted the first-ever campaign-donation limits, though some criticized them for having loopholes. The General Assembly also agreed to put on the November ballot a proposed constitutional amendment allowing a limited form of recall of a governor.
Yet 70 percent of the state’s voters said they don’t believe Quinn has done enough to curb corruption in Illinois government, including nearly six of 10 Democratic voters and about three-quarters of those who classify themselves as independents.
It would be nice to see the wording of the questions at hand and some crosstabs, but no dice.
Currently, 37 percent of voters identify themselves as Democrats and 27 percent say they’re Republicans — a 10-percentage-point differential that is about half the advantage Democrats had entering the 2008 election. Another 31 percent call themselves political independents.
This is real trouble as well…
Despite national polls forecasting a potential wave for Republicans that could let them recapture the House, 45 percent of Illinois voters said Democrats should maintain control of Congress, compared with 37 percent who back the GOP.
As we’ve discussed before, so many Illinois congressional districts are so heavily gerrymandered to favor the Democrats that this 8-point margin signifies serious problems ahead.
And this ain’t good either…
More than 6 in 10 lack confidence in Democratic-run Springfield, though the angst isn’t limited to Illinois borders. Fully 55 percent of the voters say they don’t have much or any confidence that the federal government will make the right decisions affecting them, according to the poll of 600 registered Illinois voters conducted Aug. 28-Wednesday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
But this is kinda meaningless, depending on how the question was worded…
A total of 83 percent of the voters said Blagojevich’s conviction will make no difference in whether they oppose or support Democratic candidates on the ballot.
A majority of the 600 Illinois registered voters surveyed still gave a positive review to Obama’s performance as president — but it is barely a majority. In all, 51 percent said they approved of the job he has done as president while 39 percent disapproved.
I didn’t see any regional breakdowns online, but we can probably infer that he ain’t doing well in the suburbs and Downstate. PPP’s latest poll had Obama’s approval at 49 percent and disapproval at 46 percent. Rasmussen’s survey had Obama’s approval at 53 and disapproval at 47. An NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll had the president’s approval at 45 percent.
* Politicians Turn Out for Labor Day Rally: QUINN: This election on Nov. 2, it’s all about the economy, it’s all about jobs, it’s all about a governor, who believes, as I do, in the minimum wage.
The latest Labor Department report shows there are nearly 9 million people like Linehan who want full-time jobs but can’t find them. In some cases, their formerly full-time employers have reduced their hours because of a lack of business.
What some economists now project — and policymakers are loath to admit — is that the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 9.6% in August, could remain elevated for years to come.
The nation’s job deficit is so deep that even a powerful recovery would leave large numbers of Americans out of work for years, experts say. And with growth now weakening, analysts are doubtful that companies will boost payrolls significantly any time soon. Unemployment, long considered a temporary, transitional condition in the United States, appears to be settling in for a lengthy run.
* Steinberg: Chicagoans still make stuff in a tough economy
But I’ve read one too many Labor Day joblessness stories, and I feel obligated to point out that gloom itself won’t revive the economy. At some point, it might help to lift our heads and realize that the news isn’t grim everywhere. People still have jobs. Nine out of 10 Chicagoans are working — 40 employees just at Chicago Mailing Tube, manufacturer of cardboard tubes of all sorts, from Parmesan cheese containers to concrete forms.
Like a poker player who has gone all in on a bet that’s too big to lose, the Daley administration is expected to explain to aldermen on Tuesday why it needs to quickly issue $1 billion in new bonds to prevent the expansion of O’Hare International Airport from folding. […]
Ultimately, the city will need to raise at least $3.3 billion to finish the job — and that’s without new terminals, a People Mover extension and other infrastructure that Chicago officials once deemed integral to building the first runways at O’Hare in almost 40 years.
Reynolds’ most important job will be to help CHA complete its Plan for Transformation, the ambitious effort launched in 2000 to replace or rehab 25,000 apartments and — most importantly — improve residents’ lives.
Ten years into that plan, the CHA has rehabbed nearly all its senior citizen buildings and about 63 percent of a promised 5,000 units in traditional public housing projects.
But it’s woefully behind in building its promised 7,700 apartments in mixed-income communities. The CHA and its private development partners have delivered only 3,000 units, just 38 percent of its goal.
Under the agreement, Pitassi could collect his pension of $8,125 a month plus his consultant’s salary of $65,000 a year, for more than $162,000 a year.
At the time, Melrose Park Mayor Ronald Serpico called the arrangement “a good-government thing.”
Unfortunately for Pitassi, the state didn’t agree, and despite efforts by village officials to make the deal work for Pitassi, he wound up giving the pension money back.
With the deal dead, village officials promptly rehired Pitassi back as police chief in July this year — at $130,000 a year.
Misconceptions have flourished since the meeting. It was not secret. The approach does not rely on “gang leaders.” It was not a negotiation. Nobody is or will be framed for anything. It was not even that unusual, even for Chicago, where Project Safe Neighborhoods, launched here by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald some years ago, has been routinely meeting with parolees in very similar settings.
