* From the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners…
Chicago led the state again in Saturday’s daily total and overall total for Early Voting. On Saturday, Chicago voters cast 30,600 ballots on the final day of Early Voting, moving the total to more than 243,000 Early Voting for the 13 days of the program.
This set a new record for percentage of registered voters using Early Voting (18% this year compared to 17% in 2008). […]
This set a new record for daily average of ballots in Early Voting (18,700 per day this year compared to 14,500 per day in 2008).
Although we didn’t surpass the 2008 total of 260,000, we had nearly the same total in spite of having five fewer days of Early Voting this year compared to 2008.
* But the Illinois Republican Party makes the case that the city is fudging the early voting numbers…
According to the numbers, at this point in 2008, there were 260,376 early voters and 304,290 absentee voters. Now, the party maintains, there are 195,064 early voters and 46,232 absentee voters. That’s a loss of 57 percent of voters, since the last election. […]
“We believe the Chicago Board of Elections is misrepresenting their numbers in making comparisons to 2008,” a spokesman for the Illinois Republican party explains. “According to the numbers we see in the State Board of Elections database, there is a significant fall off in reported absentee voting in city of Chicago. The Chicago Board of Elections is reporting 240k in early voting and claiming it’s on track to surpass 2008 - but they’re actually combining 2012 Early Voting and absentee voting, and then comparing that sum to 2008’s early voting numbers (excluding absentee). There is a significant 57% drop in voter participation in the City of Chicago from 2008 - in the President’s hometown. I’d also point out that despite the Chicago Board’s point that early voting is four days shorter this year than in 2008, Illinois recently instituted “vote-by-mail” without an excuse needed, i.e. early voting by mail. This did not exist in 2008 and should have vastly expanded the numbers.”
I asked the board for a response hours ago and haven’t heard back. I’ll let you know if I do.
*** UPDATE *** I figured a post might smoke out the city board. Here’s the response…
There were never 300,000 absentee ballots cast in Chicago. In fact, there were never, ever that many absentee ballots cast in the entire state of Illinois! The election when we get that many absentee ballots is the one where we have to move our mail room to the warehouse.
The attached shows where we are - 2008 vs 2012 - as of Saturday night.
We’re up in absentee (with 16 more days for those to arrive), and we doubled Grace Period registration, and we came close to matching our Early Voting numbers from 2008, in spite of having five fewer days and 130,000 fewer registered voters.
We’re slightly under 2008 in raw numbers, slightly higher if measured as a percentage of registered voters. Either way, turnout has been and will be strong.
* In other numbers news, the Senate Democrats say the person reporting a huge contribution received by Sen. Mike Jacobs mistakenly entered the check number into the State Board of Election’s program instead of the amount, which was actually $3,000. I’m assuming the $11 million contribution from Bobby Rush’s chief of staff was also an error…
* Meanwhile, Illinois Reviewnotes that 36 of 64 House Democratic races are unopposed in 2012, and 29 of 54 House Republicans face no opponents Tuesday.
Not mentioned, though, is that a whole lot of those legislators faced opposition in the March primary.
Look, some of this state is solidly Democratic. Some of it is solidly Republican. There is no way - barring a return to 3-member districts - that people challenging incumbents in those areas have a snowball’s chance in heck of winning.
Yes, there is plenty of gerrymandering. No doubt. A large handful of Democrats (and Republicans) are safe because of that simple fact. But the fight is and has always been about the middle-ground. And there are lots of high-intensity legislative races this year.
* Also, a friend looked at a 1999 House roll call and made note of those who still remain. Click the pick for a larger view…
Could Bubba make the difference in the deadlocked west-suburban congressional race between Democrat Bill Foster and U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, the GOP incumbent?
Foster’s campaign Sunday announced that ex-President Bill Clinton, the Democratic icon who starred at September’s Democratic National Convention, has recorded a phone message on Foster’s behalf that will urge voters beginning Monday to side with him over Biggert. […]
“At the end of the recording he made for us, I have to stand up there and say, ‘I’m Bill Foster, and I approve this message.’ I was thinking I should just record it and say, ‘I’m Bill Foster and I’d be crazy not to approve this,’ ” Foster joked to reporters outside a Joliet church.
* Biggert followed the GOP’s 2012 formula by praising Clinton while attacking Foster…
“I think President Clinton did a great job, but I don’t know how that’s going to make any difference with what’s going on now,” said Biggert in between having bar patrons approach her to have their pictures taken with her.
The strike against Foster, she said, is that the one-term congressman lost his re-election bid in 2010.
Voters regard him as a poor communicator and have stayed away from his campaign events, she said.
Except for 1994, Bill Clinton was a very popular guy in this state.
But there are so many robocalls being made right now that this one will have a very tough time breaking through the clutter. Voters aren’t even answering their phones these days.
Also, you gotta wonder why Clinton wasn’t brought in earlier for Foster, or Cheri Bustos, or Bill Enyart, or any other Democrat, for that matter. An early visit, or some direct mail, or TV ads or even robocalls done weeks ago might’ve made a real difference in those races. Now? Not so much.
With days to go in the 2012 Election, President Barack Obama on Friday endorsed congressional candidates Tammy Duckworth, Brad Schneider and Bill Foster.
“America’s middle class needs these great leaders like Tammy Duckworth, Brad Schneider, and Bill Foster in Congress to stand up and fight for them,” the president said in a statement backing his move. “They will create jobs here at home by building from the middle out, not the top down. They will protect Medicare for our seniors and education for our next generation.”
Those three couldn’t get a photo op when Obama was in town to early vote last month? Why not? This endorsement basically means almost nothing now.
* According to the Sunlight Foundation, that’s how much money has been spent on Illinois congressional races via independent expenditures in this campaign.
To put that into perspective, that’s about what Rod Blagojevich - the biggest campaign spender in Illinois history - spent on both of his statewide races combined.
It’s also just shy of the cut the General Assembly made to the Department of Children and Family Services’ proposed appropriation.
Gripping a handrail and wearing a brace on his left leg, Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk climbed 37 floors inside Chicago’s Willis Tower on Sunday in his first public appearance since suffering a major stroke.
Kirk, taking part in a popular charity fundraiser called “SkyRise Chicago,” started walking from the 66th floor and climbed up to the finish line at the 103rd floor.
He was met with hugs and cheers from family and friends at the end. The senator paced slowly through the crowd with the help of a cane, smiling but saying little to the media.
There’s nothing quite like the spectacle of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan when he’s out to get somebody.
Just ask state Rep. Skip Saviano (R-Elmwood Park).
The two men used to be allies, even friends. Saviano supported Madigan’s daughter when Lisa ran for state attorney general. But then Lisa turned against Saviano’s political mentor, the late Rosemont Mayor Don Stephens, blocking his dream of building a local casino because, she claimed, he was tied to the Mob. Saviano vowed revenge.
Even so, things eventually died down. Saviano kept the powerful committee chairmanship given to him by Madigan - one of only two Republicans bestowed with that privilege in the Illinois House, the other being one of Skip’s best friends.
But when Madigan cranked up his total war against then Gov. Rod Blagojevich, he eventually came to believe that Saviano, an old Blagojevich pal, had sided with the governor against him. That was the last straw. Before long, Saviano had lost his chairmanship. Then the Republican Saviano was given a new House district in the remap which was solidly Democratic. And then Madigan moved Heaven and Earth to find an opponent for the locally popular Saviano, finally convincing an almost totally unknown local Republican to switch parties and challenge the incumbent.
Madigan dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign, forcing Saviano to work harder on his reelection than he ever has.
Saviano is a clever tactician himself, however. When Madigan lieutenant state Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago) crashed and disrupted a Latino candidates’ forum in Saviano’s district, Saviano finally got the Chicago media to pay some attention to his battle. Sen. Sandoval stood on a chair and then sat on the floor, all the while shouting that Latinos should never vote Republican. Sandoval was eventually escorted out of the church building by local police and, instead of apologizing the next day, called Saviano a racist. The Chicago media generally disdains covering local state legislative races, but that story was just too good to pass up.
Saviano ginned up the attention further by claiming that Sandoval’s actions had prompted the state’s lone Latino congressman Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat, to endorse the Republican Saviano. Never mind that Saviano had already ordered that the Gutierrez endorsement direct mail pieces be printed before Sen. Sandoval crashed the forum. But, hey, it made for a good story.
Not to be outdone, Madigan ordered up the printing of a flier featuring photos of his candidate, Kathleen Willis, and Congressman Gutierrez. “Luis Gutierrez and Kathleen Willis, Fighting for our families and our concerns!” the text underneath the photo read.
But the wildest move of the entire campaign came when a political action committee with obvious ties to Madigan popped up out of nowhere and sent direct mailers to Republicans blasting Saviano for being Speaker Madigan’s puppet.
“A vote for Skip Saviano is a vote for Mike Madigan!” blared one of the PAC’s mailers. The piece informed voters that Madigan had appointed Saviano to a committee chairmanship, claimed Saviano had contributed money to Madigan’s campaign committee and “voted 6 times to make Madigan Speaker of the House!”
“Democrat Speaker Mike Madigan calls the shots for Skip Saviano,” screamed the other mailer, which featured a photo of the two men with their arms around each other.
The political action committee was formed October 15th. Its treasurer appears to work at a law firm run by the Melrose Park Village Attorney, who was once recommended for the Justice Village Attorney position by none other than Speaker Madigan. One of the PAC’s top contributors gave $5,000 to the new group on October 19th - less than two weeks after the company contributed $10,000 to Speaker Madigan. Another company gave three contributions to Madigan’s committees totaling over $6,000 just ten days before it gave the new PAC $1,500.
I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my day, but this one pretty much took the cake.
Madigan’s people have insisted for years that Republican attempts to sully his name have not worked. But then they got behind what appeared to be a pro-Madigan group that attacked Madigan in order to help defeat a Republican state Representative. To put it another way, the Democrats took the Republican Party’s ubiquitous “Fire Madigan” mantra and turned it against a Republican legislator.
This was either a brilliant payback to the GOP or a foolish confirmation that Madigan’s name truly is toxic. Heck, it could turn out to be both.
* Buried in this piece about Gov. Pat Quinn’s absence from the campaign trail the past several weeks was this nugget…
“Over the past two weeks, the governor sent bus loads of Quinn volunteers to Wisconsin…” [Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson] said.
With all the competitive races here at home, the governor sent “bus loads” of people to Wisconsin?
He’s not the only one, of course. A bunch of city Democrats have platooned to Iowa and Wisconsin and other parts unknown for the president. But maybe Quinn could’ve sent “bus loads” of volunteers to help Lance Tyson defeat former Rep. Derrick Smith. Quinn lives on the city’s West Side, so it’s not that far of a drive.
Whether you would like to believe it or not, the next several days will be very perilous ones for our Constitution and our very way of life. Never in recent history have we been faced with the choice of either re-electing or firing a president who holds such contempt for what this nation is all about. Sure, during our lifetimes we have seen liberal presidents elected and re-elected. However, those men had a vision for American greatness – just a different path to that greatness. The current president has a vision of American mediocrity, and his efforts the past four years have put us on the path to that end. Sadly, Obama’s vision of a second-class America is shared by half the population. The only way for us to preserve at least some remnants of the nation we came to love is to ensure that the nation’s patriots come out to vote. At the same time, we will be forced to rely on the hallmark laziness of the left – and hope Obama’s socialist constituency chooses the easy chair over the voting booth on November 6th.
Barack Obama and his cabinet are a pack of very dangerous animals and, no matter what the outcome is November 6th, you can rest assured that Obama and his pals will attempt to exact swift and severe retaliation against those who have opposed them. Of course, gun owners are at the top of the list of people that Obama hates most. Thus, it would come as no surprise to see Eric Holder employ the “sporting arms” test to ban every handgun and rifle you own. It would also come as no surprise if Holder took such action the first thing next Wednesday morning.
Even if the electorate fires Barack Obama on Tuesday, his administration can do a lot of damage to the American way of life in the final months of his regime. That is why it is so important for gun owners, and other patriots to vote real Americans into office at every level of government – not only to prevent Obama’s pals from destroying the country, but to undo the damage he has done already.
Monday, Nov 5, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Cooperatives can be formed to support producers such as farmers, purchasers such as independent business owners, and consumers such as electric coops and credit unions. Their primary purpose is to meet members’ needs through affordable goods and services of high quality.
Cooperatives such as credit unions may look like other businesses in their operations and, like other businesses, can range in size. However, the cooperative structure is distinctively different regardless of size. As not-for-profit financial cooperatives, credit unions serve individuals with a common goal or interest.
They are owned and democratically controlled by the people who use their services. Their board of directors consists of unpaid volunteers, elected by and from the membership. Members are owners who pool funds to help other members. After expenses and reserve requirements are met, net revenue is returned to members via lower loan and higher savings rates, lower costs and fees for services.
It is the structure of credit unions, not their size or range of services that is the reason for their tax exempt status - and the reason why almost three million Illinois residents are among 95 million Americans who count on their local credit union everyday to reach their financial goals.
* Didn’t Congressman Schock say people should wait until after the election before making plans for the next election? Well, most of us figured he probably wasn’t serious about those words of caution, and now we can be certain…
When he first won election to Congress in 2008, Rep. Aaron Schock became the youngest member of the House of Representatives. Now, Schock has his eye on becoming the youngest governor in Illinois history.
On Wednesday, less than a week before he’s favored to win a third term in Congress, Schock met with top officials at the Republican Governors Association in Washington, to discuss the possibility of running for Illinois’s top job in 2014. Four sources in Illinois and Washington with knowledge of Schock’s meeting with the RGA said his interest in the race is an open secret, and that he’s told donors he is seriously considering the contest.
“He’s made it pretty clear to a lot of donors,” one well-connected Illinois Republican told us. “That’s common knowledge around here.”
A super PAC is again pumping in money to support tea party-backed U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh a week after saying it would re-direct its resources to other races.
The Republican from Chicago’s northern suburbs has struggled against his well-financed Democratic opponent, Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth. It’s one of the most closely watched and volatile U.S. House campaigns in Illinois.
The Now or Never super PAC said last week that it believed Walsh was well on his way to victory, allowing it to put its money elsewhere.
The PAC is pumping another million dollars into the race on Walsh’s behalf…
“Duckworth wants the voters to ignore her own legal problems and mismanagement while she attempts to paint Congressman Walsh as a man he is not,” said Tyler Harber, spokesman for Now or Never PAC.
“This is a resource and opportunity-based reversal,” Now or Never spokesman Tyler Harber emailed me. Recent negative reports about Ms. Duckworth “presented us with an opportunity to deliver an effective closing message.”
But Mr. Harber didn’t respond when I asked him who paid for the late blitz. That’s pertinent because earlier this year, Now or Never had been getting the vast bulk of its funding from another group, Americans for Limited Government, which does not disclose its funding. And the Duckworth campaign says ALG Chairman Howard Rich and his wife both have donated to Mr. Walsh’s personal campaign committee in the last year, raising questions of whether the ALG/Now or Never spending truly is uncoordinated, as the law requires.
Mr. Walsh’s spokesman replies that ALG and Mr. Rich may just agree with Mr. Walsh on term limits, and that, in any event, there has been no coordination. The same question could be posed about the House Majority PAC, which has bought anti-Walsh ads yet received large donations from Illinois folks who are backers of Ms. Duckworth, like Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner, the spokesman said.
I really missed the boat this year. I should’ve reached out to these super PACs and had them spend some of their largesse on advertising for my website.
The attached video, taken Thursday, shows State Rep. Lou Lang electioneering at the early voting polling place at Skokie Village Hall.
The law requires that no contact is made within 100 feet of the entrance door to a polling location. The Election Judges typically mark the 100 foot mark with tape. In this video Lang aggressively contacts the elderly woman in the video within the 100 foot mark.
Will Attorney General Lisa Madigan enforce this law? Her father, Mike Madigan, has appointed Lang as his right hand man/ Deputy Majority Leader and Floor Manager for much of the Democrat agenda in Springfield.
Lang “aggressively contacts the elderly woman”? This, I had to see. Wow! What a story!
I immediately downloaded the video and had a look…
Sheesh.
So disappointing.
I mean, Lang calls the woman “ma’am,” introduces himself politely, and the lady appears to say “thank you” after he hands her his lit.
That was aggressive?
I don’t get it.
Also, the person with the camera is obviously holding a piece of campaign lit and standing pretty much the same distance from the entrance. And I don’t see any 100-foot markers, either.
Again, I don’t get it.
Maybe y’all can enlighten me about what I missed here?
* The Daily Herald appeared to have been the first media outlet to see the new Bob Dold campaign video. Its take was decidedly polite…
U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, for the first time since his stroke in late January, has hit the campaign trail.
The Highland Park Republican — clad in a bomber jacket, his gray hair blowing in the wind — is shown in his North Shore neighborhood with his 10th Congressional District successor, Republican Rep. Bob Dold, of Kenilworth. The video, put to music, is depicted as one stop in Dold’s “working together” John McCain-style bus tour.
Kirk and Dold are pictured talking and laughing throughout the minute-long spot, though just what they’re saying is unclear.
The sentence “Though just what they’re saying is unclear” isn’t explained in the article. The Sun-Times explains…
There’s music playing over the video, so you can’t hear what the two men are discussing.
* Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, has written a new book called “State and Local Pensions: What Now?” Peter Orszag at Bloomberg takes a look…
Illinois, Kentucky and Pennsylvania face enormous gaps, while Delaware, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee have managed their pension plans relatively well.
Why were some [pension] plans so badly underfunded and others not? Munnell’s answer is the biggest surprise in her analysis. She argues that neither the artificially high discount rate nor unions can explain the variation. As she concludes, “The poorly funded plans did not come close to surmounting the lower hurdle associated with a high discount rate; raising the hurdle is unlikely to have improved their behavior. And union strength simply did not show up as a statistically significant factor in any of the empirical analysis.”
The worst-funded plans were not especially generous in their benefits, Munnell found, which is consistent with her argument that union strength isn’t what matters. These plans, though, did tend to share two characteristics: They were disproportionately teachers’ plans, and they used a funding method (called the projected unit credit cost method) that is less stringent than those used by other plans.
The states with huge funding gaps have “behaved badly,” Munnell concludes. “They have either not made the required contributions or used inaccurate assumptions so that their contribution requirements are not meaningful.” She added, “Fiscal discipline simply appeared not to be part of the state’s culture.” [Emphasis added]
* That’s most certainly the case in Illinois, where adequate funding was never a serious concept.
Yet, you’d never know this by reading wannabe governor Bruce Rauner’s latest Tribune op-ed…
The most powerful political force in Illinois today, by far, is the government employee labor unions. They have contributed mightily to our state’s budgetary and economic chaos.
The bosses of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Service Employees International Union; and the Illinois Federation of Teachers/Illinois Education Association are in virtually every legislative meeting, every budget meeting, every policy meeting in Springfield. They take their taxpayer-funded, government-collected union dues and funnel them by the tens of millions to politicians in both political parties. They use their vast membership to supply patronage workers by the thousands for political campaigns throughout the state.
This has created a powerful closed-loop system, with these unions and politicians on the inside, and taxpayers and schoolchildren on the outside. It is a system that allows union bosses to bribe politicians with massive political support in exchange for salaries that are 23 percent higher than in our neighboring states, and even higher still than in the private sector, with stunningly generous pension benefits that allow government employees to retire with higher pay for the rest of their lives than they got while working.
Pensions aside, government salaries may be higher than neighboring states, but the cost of living here is also higher.
* Related…
* Lawsuit filed by Chicago Teachers Union, others seeks to overturn pension law: Pension reform in Illinois got a rare legislative victory when the General Assembly moved to close loopholes that allowed labor leaders to land six-figure public pensions based on their much higher union salaries. The measure, which deals with abuses exposed by the Tribune and WGN-TV, affects a small number of city workers on leaves of absence to work for their unions, and it passed with little dissent.
* Henry Bayer: Unions stand up for the middle class
In the TV ad, a narrator says Gill was fired for pushing “dangerous ideas, advocating unlawful medical practices and methods a hospital said would put lives in danger.”
Gill, an emergency-room physician in Bloomington, publicly supported physician-assisted suicide more than a decade ago. In one letter to the editor of The Pantagraph of Bloomington-Normal in February 1998, he said surveys at the time showed that 60 percent to 70 percent of Americans felt physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. He also said a law proposed in Illinois at the time had safeguards against “using physician-assisted suicide as anything other than merciful relief of the otherwise unavoidable agony that dying is for some patients.” […]
According to Pantagraph stories, Gill was scheduled to begin work at the OSF Medical Group in Clinton in January 1999 after leaving a family practice job in Morton. He was terminated before he began, and a spokeswoman for OSF Medical System said at the time it was because his December 1998 letter brought to light that Gill “embraces and advocates medical treatment methods that are unlawful in this state and that are not acceptable by community medical standards.”
OSF Healthcare also said that Gill damaged OSF’s reputation by publicizing viewpoints that contradicted the system’s Roman Catholic principles.
Gill sued and reached a settlement. He calls the ad “slanderous.” But I’m not sure why. Watch it yourself [Better version uploaded]…
Thursday, Nov 1, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Cooperatives can be formed to support producers such as farmers, purchasers such as independent business owners, and consumers such as electric coops and credit unions. Their primary purpose is to meet members’ needs through affordable goods and services of high quality.
Cooperatives such as credit unions may look like other businesses in their operations and, like other businesses, can range in size. However, the cooperative structure is distinctively different regardless of size. As not-for-profit financial cooperatives, credit unions serve individuals with a common goal or interest.
They are owned and democratically controlled by the people who use their services. Their board of directors consists of unpaid volunteers, elected by and from the membership. Members are owners who pool funds to help other members. After expenses and reserve requirements are met, net revenue is returned to members via lower loan and higher savings rates, lower costs and fees for services.
It is the structure of credit unions, not their size or range of services that is the reason for their tax exempt status - and the reason why almost three million Illinois residents are among 95 million Americans who count on their local credit union everyday to reach their financial goals.
* I told subscribers weeks ago that Sports Facilities Authority board member Manny Sanchez was the problem behind the governor’s inability to name his own CEO. So, in classic old-school hardball style, Sanchez was just wacked…
In a stunning political maneuver, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority elected former TV reporter and gubernatorial aide Kelly Kraft as its new CEO.
The vote came Thursday morning after board member Manny Sanchez, 64, was told he was being replaced because his term was up. Mr. Sanchez, a Chicago attorney, had indicated he was leaning toward voting for the candidate pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lead the entity that runs U.S. Cellular Field.
Gov. Pat Quinn named Dr. Quentin Young, an 89-year-old physician and Civil Rights activist who once chaired the department of medicine at Cook County Hospital to the board.
Mr. Sanchez declined to comment. According to the board, the vote was 4-3 in favor of Ms. Kraft. The other candidate was Diana Ferguson, a former CFO for Chicago Public Schools who had previously worked at Sara Lee Corp.
The vote followed a contentious exchange between board chairman Emil Jones and appointees of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said Kraft was not as qualified as a candidate the board had interviewed earlier in the day. That candidate, Diana Ferguson, is a former CFO for Chicago Public Schools and Sara Lee Corp.
As we all well remember, Jones has lots of experience with this sort of thing. But I hope he doesn’t need anything out of the mayor any time soon.
Bill Enyart, the Democratic nominee for the 12th Congressional District seat, on Wednesday continued to criticize GOP nominee Jason Plummer for claiming that Enyart and his wife, retired St. Clair County Circuit Judge Annette Eckert, were unethically taking advantage of state-funded pensions.
During a press conference outside his campaign headquarters in downtown Belleville, Enyart said it was “outrageous” that Plummer, in statements Tuesday, misidentified as a “pension” the $3,000 lump sum that Eckert had received upon the death of her mother, a retired public school teacher.
“And to call the death benefit that she received when her mother died a pension and an insider perk is outrageous,” Enyart said. “I find my opponent’s attacks against my wife particularly despicable because Mr. Plummer didn’t tell the truth and he made up facts to suit his agenda. He attacked my wife and my family for his own personal gain.”
In a teleconference for media members, Plummer had accused the couple of exploiting the taxpayer-funded pensions that Eckert paid into through her work as a Cook County assistant public defender in the late 1970s, as a part-time instructor at Southwestern Illinois College and as a judge who spent nearly 20 years on the St. Clair County bench.
* I wasn’t invited to join in on Plummer’s original teleconference where he made the allegations, but others were. Check out this nugget…
Plummer leveled his allegations during a conference call he ended after taking two questions from reporters.
Courage.
* Plummer has said that Mrs. Enyart’s pensions are an an example of “connected” people “gaming” the system. Hmm. Well, I’m sure he must be clean if he’s accusing others of such things. Let’s go back a couple of years…
Plummer, at 23, became Madison County Republican chairman in 2006 and served one two-year term, during which he opened an office for the organization in a strip mall owned by one of his family’s businesses. State records show the county GOP during his tenure paid more than $13,000 in rent to the family business and also had the party pay almost $500 for phone service to a firm in which Plummer was an investor. The headquarters was closed when he left the job.
* The Republicans threaten a lawsuit over the use of a logo…
In a sign that Election Day can’t come too soon now, the Republican National Committee has demanded that a local Democratic candidate for Congress stop breaking the law — by running a picture of its elephant logo.
Yes, folks, in a Beltway-made tempest in a teapot, the RNC wrote to Democrat Brad Schneider’s campaign and told him to “cease and desist” picturing the logo next to a shot of Robert Dold, Mr. Schneider’s opponent, in a new TV ad (below). Mr. Dold is, um, a Republican.
The latter, from RNC Associate Counsel Jon Waclawski, says it has come to his attention that the ad “displays (RNC’s) Official Elephant Logo without RNC permission.”
* Bob Dold sent out a franked mailer just under the limit, which causes Brad Schneider to freak out…
A taxpayer-funded mailer from U.S. Rep. Robert Dold touting job fairs he has hosted is hitting homes in the 10th Congressional District this week while striking a nerve with Dold’s Democratic rival.
Members of Congress are prohibited from sending out public mailings with 500 or more pieces during a 90-day window leading up to an election.
But Dold’s piece, which cost less than $250, falls under an exemption in congressional franking rules because it went out to 499 or fewer homes in his north suburban district.
“This doesn’t raise any red flags on our end,” said Steve Dutton, a spokesman for the House Franking Commission, whose members include Dutton’s boss, U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.).
Still, Democrat Brad Schneider’s congressional campaign is crying foul, saying it’s improper for the Kenilworth Republican to send out the taxpayer-funded mailing alongside campaign mailers so close to the election.
* An outside group gets a big contribution from oil company, does an independent expenditure ad whacking Schneider, and Schneider complains about Dold, who had no involvement…
All of the big super PAC money that’s suddenly sloshing around this election cycle certainly poses some real questions about why certain interests are providing so much help to certain politicians.
But are things as bad as they appear, or more innocent? A political foul, or guilt by association?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Which leads to a real-life story about U.S. Rep. Dold, R-Winnetka, who frequently presents himself to voters as a pro-environment kind of guy, but who is being aided this week by a nearly $1 million “independent” TV ad buy funded by a group that has received a possibly record contribution from a big oil company.
Allies of [Rep. Skip Saviano] organized a phony “community forum” in the west suburbs last week. [Democratic challenger Kathleen Willis] went to defend her record. When she got there, she was ridiculed and attacked personally. But she had one key ally, Southwest Side Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-12th).
As soon as Sandoval got up to speak to defend Willis, the organizers tried to shout him down. Sandoval’s message was clear.
“The Republicans have never cared about the concerns of the Latino community. It’s the Democrats who have supported Hispanics,” Sandoval said over and over again.
The meeting erupted into confusion. Saviano’s activists tried to push Sandoval to stop talking. But he refused to budge. Sandoval is not called “El Cabello” for nothing.
* Best comment gets an invite to my election night party, co-hosted by Google and NBC5. Yesterday’s winner was Small Town Liberal, for his funny spoof of a famous “Goodfella’s” scene…
Now the guy’s got Luis as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Luis. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Luis. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Madigan, he can call Luis. But now the guy’s gotta come up with Luis’ votes every election, no matter what. Business bad? “#@%! you, deliver them.” Oh, you had a fire? “#@%! you, deliver them.” Place got hit by lightning, huh? “#@%! you, deliver them.”
