Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

I’m at the House’s dog and pony show ovr whether to extend the electric rate freeze for 3 more years.

An Ameren official just warned the committee that if the bill passes the company would reduce employee headcount by 25 percent.

He also warned that activities such as tree trimming would stop, as would charitable contributions.

More in tomorrow’s Capitol Fax.

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Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Question of the day

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The AP points out an interesting development from its latest national polling.

After winning over moms in back-to-back elections, Republicans have lost their advantage among married women with children this year. […]

Poll results and interviews with political analysts indicate the GOP has lost ground with a voting group that helped the party keep hold of Congress and the White House in 2002 and 2004. Married moms have become a volatile swing group just as Democrats need to gain 15 GOP- held House seats and six in the Senate to win control of Capitol Hill.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found that support is now evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans among married women with children in the house. Republicans won this voting group by 18 percentage points in 2002 and Bush won it by 14 percentage points in 2004.

Congressional Quarterly changes more of its ratings, although none of them are Illinois contests.

All year, CQPolitics.comâ€™s ratings of House and Senate races have been a virtual one-way street: Almost all rating changes show improved chances for the Democrats to capture seats â€” a reflection of the yearâ€™s toxic political environment for the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

And the traffic on that one-way street is getting heavier by the day. Last week, CQPolitics.com changed it ratings on one Senate race and 10 House races. In every case, the ratings indicate strengthening Democratic prospects.

The Hotline moved the 6th CD race up a notch in its forecast and included this little tidbit:

All women Dem candidates will probably see a boost, particularly with the so-called security/soccer mom vote

Melissa Bean’s re-election was moved off the “hot” charts a couple of weeks ago and was downgraded again, to 35.

Stu Rothenberg is pretty emphatic:

After looking at the news for the past 10 days or so, I have to wonder how Democrats can possibly fail in their efforts to take both the House and the Senate.

The national atmospherics donâ€™t merely favor Democrats; they set the stage for a blowout of cosmic proportions next month.

No, thatâ€™s not a prediction, since Republicans still have a month to â€œlocalizeâ€ enough races to hold onto one or both chambers of Congress. But you donâ€™t have to be Teddy White or V.O. Key to know that the GOP is now flirting with disaster.

QUESTION: Is there or is there not a coming national Democratic tidal wave? Will it happen here in Illinois as well? Explain.

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Race to the bottom

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The AP dishes out some campaign advice.

Overwhelmed by a barrage of negative advertising, Judy Baar Topinka has been unable to translate voters’ doubts about Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich into a lead in the race for governor. […]

She can blanket the airwaves with a late round of advertising. She could offer voters a more positive vision of what she would do as governor. She might try toning down her brash image to come across as more substantive.

And Jim Edgar is quoted as well.

Former Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican and a Topinka backer, said the public has grown numb to corruption and mismanagement. […]

One way to do it may be to offer a more positive outlook - to go beyond saying Blagojevich is a bad governor and spend more time on how she would be a good one.

Her emphasis in the last month, Edgar said, should be: “We can improve. We can make it better.”

This is a typical debate inside trailing campaigns one month out. Stay negative and make it a race to the bottom, or go back hard positive? Candidates often want to run positive campaigns, and former candidates and the usual talking head pundits advise reporters that reverting to positive is the best way to go.

Watch as the pressure builds on Topinka to drop the negative ads, “for her own good,” even as Blagojevich continues his well-funded barrages. (It’s really spooky how close this race is to the George Ryan vs. Glenn Poshard contest.)

But in a race like this where her positive ratings have been all but destroyed and she is being vastly outspent, spending money on positive ads might not do her a lot of good. In other words, the race to the bottom is what we’re probably gonna get.

Take off your “concerned citizen” hat and put on a political adviser hat and tell us what you think.

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The debate debate

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The chances for more debates aren’t all that great.

Debates have been few in this year’s race for Illinois governor — and despite rhetoric from each side blaming the other, there appears to be little chance of reaching agreement foe debates beyond the two that have already taken place. […]

Republican candidate Judy Baar Topinka Saturday accused incumbent Gov. Rod Blagojevich of trying to win the election by running “fancy'’ television ads instead of debating the issues, but Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign staff contends the opposite is true.

“The governor, I think, is just running the clock,” Topinka told WBBM. “He hides from me. He won’t debate me. He won’t talk to the public.” […]

Told of Topinka’s accusations, Nix told WBBM, “That’s simply not the case. We’ve been going back and forth with them for probably the last six weeks…we’ve heard from people out there who have said she would debate us any time, anywhere and any place.”

Late last week, Gov. Blagojevich issued an ultimatum: accept a Chicago radio debate and a televised downstate debate or there will be no debates. Topinka responded by blaming everything on the governor and held out hope for several more debates. From a press release:

“Treasurer Topinka is ready to debate,” added [spokesman John] McGovern. “With the Chicago Tribune and the Springfield sponsors offering specific dates for their debates, it is easier to simply accept their invitations rather than waiting for more disingenuous back-and-forth from Rod Blagojevich. We also remain committed to the WTTW debate, and I’m sorry to see that, once again, Rod Blagojevich won’t keep his word.”

The Topinka campaign also expressed hope that a debate could be scheduled on WVON radio and in southern Illinois, despite Blagojevich’s rejection of agreed-upon working dates. The campaign lamented the cancelling of debates in Rockford and with the Associated Press editors, because of Blagojevich’s stalling tactics.

“Now we know why Democratic legislators require Rod Blagojevich to sign Memoranda of Understanding (”MOUs”). He refuses to negotiate in ‘good faith’,” said McGovern.

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Morning shorts

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Lee Newspapers: Republicans running for every statewide office except for governor have more than party affiliation in common. Each one of them, from the candidate for attorney general to the candidate for state comptroller, will still have a taxpayer-supported job if they lose on Nov. 7

* Sun-Times: Lincoln Park Zoo’s polar bear exhibit features a couple of very powerful, 800-pound creatures — and the name of a man who allegedly won illegal kickbacks by muscling hospitals into using his pals for construction projects.

* Tribune: Trying to clear the air about air - Governor candidates tackle the environment

* Sun-Times editorial: If we must have a city clerk, del Valle is wise choice

* Shimkus: This week was a learning experience

* Washington Post: A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley’s inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications.

* Tribune: House page scandal puts Hastert’s foe in spotlight

* Sweet: A casualty of the Mark Foley cyberspace sex scandal is the once-close relationship between Illinois Republicans Rep. John Shimkus and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

* NBC5: In a new Newsweek poll, 52 percent of those surveyed said they believed Hastert was aware of Foley’s inappropriate messages to teenage house pages and tried to cover them up. Forty-two percent said they trust Democrats to do a better job of handling moral values, while 36 percent said they trust Republicans more.

* Novak: The survival of J. Dennis Hastert as speaker of the House of Representatives will produce an uncomfortable scene Thursday at the Hilton Chicago. President Bush is the principal attraction at a reception to fund congressional candidates in two suburban Chicago districts — once thought safely Republican but where Democrats now lead. In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, Hastert’s presence at the reception will be an embarrassing distraction.

* Sun-Times: Did alderman’s friend help feather her nest? - Pal billed $5,000, invoice from decorator shows

* Daily Herald: The name Stewart Umholtz may not be familiar to most Illinois voters. Ironically, the Republican candidate for state attorney general said, that might not be such a bad thing.

* Tribune: A top Chicago Transit Authority official who has been responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of the Brown Line during the last three years is resigning as the rail project continues to face major pressures to contain costs, CTA officials said Sunday.

* AP: Open meetings debate rekindled - Recent amendment to Open Meetings Act brings protests from some public officials

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Hiring “investigation” hit by Madigan, union

Monday, Oct 9, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Both the Sun-Times and the Tribune have articles about the governor’s hiring of high-priced Loop law firms to “investigate” corruption within his administration.

The Sun-Times reports that Attorney General Lisa Madigan is not pleased.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan accused Gov. Blagojevich of possibly “impeding” a federal hiring probe by paying two outside law firms more than $1.3 million to conduct a parallel investigation of past hiring practices.

The governor’s office has retained the Chicago law firms of Schiff Hardin, and Meckler, Bulger and Tilson to determine whether the administration broke hiring rules and to oversee “retraining” of top hiring officials on how to fill state jobs legally.

“The large fees paid to these firms raise many concerns about whether the governor’s administration is engaged in an investigation that could impede the United States attorney’s investigation,” Madigan spokeswoman Cara Smith said. […]

“This review was announced back in April, and we’ve never heard concerns from any investigative bodies about our efforts to make sure laws are being followed.” [Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said.]

Um, Abby, you just did.

Next up, the Tribune, which didn’t talk to Madigan, but did talk to Gov. Blagojevich.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed Sunday to continue an internal review of state hiring and said he wouldn’t be intimidated by the state’s largest employees union, which contends the administration may be violating its labor contract and hindering a federal criminal inquiry.

“The public employees union is upset about it because in the old days no one bothered to look into the wrongdoing of state employees. Their job is to represent the state employees,” Blagojevich said.

“Our job is to make sure that government works as efficiently and as responsibly [as possible] and that the men and women who work in state government follow the rules. And when we hear there’s something wrong, we don’t look the other way, we don’t pretend like it didn’t happen and we’re not going to be intimidated by a public employees union because they have their job to do. We have our job to do.”

A spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 said the comments stunned union leadership.

“It’s important to remember the allegations of corruption in the Blagojevich administration center on illegal hiring. Neither our union nor the front-line workers in the state have anything to do with hiring in this state,” the union’s spokesman Anders Lindall said. “By contrast … every single hire in the state required approval of the governor’s office.”

Discuss.

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READER COMMENTS CLOSED FOR THE WEEKEND - but here’s something to chew on for now

Saturday, Oct 7, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

While Congressman John Shimkus has finally admitted to having seen “excerpts” of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley’s e-mails to a young page, we don’t yet know exactly what he knew.

If we can assume (and that’s a pretty safe bet) that the e-mail exchanges posted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are what Shimkus saw, then Shimkus has some more explaining to do.

The former page forwarded the e-mails to a friend, and as most of you are already aware, in his introduction he calls Foley “sick, sick, sick, sick, sick…”

But there’s something else in that intro as well.

I talked to another page that was here during the school year and first part of the summer. Kerianna (her name) said that there was a congressman that did hit on the pages. She didn’t know his name.

If Shimkus saw that, then as chairman of the page board is it really all that unreasonable to suggest that he should have made more inquiries? You would think he would have at least contacted “Kerianna” to see what she knew, and maybe asked around a little, instead of just giving Foley a verbal warning to stay away from the page.

The e-mail exchange can be downloaded here [pdf file].

As always, you can comment all you want, but they won’t be visibile to everyone else until Monday morning.

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