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GOP: “McKenna compounded one ethical misstep with another” - And “Adam A” says he’s “surging”

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* NBC5 took a look at the complete internal ethics committee report by the Illinois Republican Party and found some interesting nuggets…

“Andrew McKenna compounded one ethical misstep with another,” the report said.

But what McKenna didn’t specifically address in that statement is that when he presented the poll to his party’s central committee in June 2009, he failed to mention to them that his name had been included at all. […]

The report also seems to back up candidate Jim Ryan’s assertion last week that McKenna failed, to some extent, to cooperate with the ethics committee’s investigation. In the report, the committee chairman noted that on Dec. 22, 2009, McKenna’s campaign manager was twice asked to clarify some questions that had come up, or even just to let them know he wanted more time to respond. He was given until 4 p.m. on Dec. 24. But when the report was printed on Dec. 28, he had done neither.

The full report is here.

* He doesn’t say who did the poll, when the poll was done, or how it was done, but Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft claims that Adam Andrzejewski is surging…

In the final days of this primary campaign Adam Andrzejewski is surging in the polls. He has closed the gap from 9 points down to 2 points in the last 5 days with two days to go before the primary election.

Take it for what it’s worth. I’ve sent an e-mail to Hoft asking for an explanation. Andrzejewski also had this to say to the American Spectator…

“We feel we’re either within the margin of error or leading the race right now,” said the Tea Party candidate, adding that he senses “panic” among his rivals in the crowded primary field. “We think 22 percent wins the race. Anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 votes — in a state of 13 million — will win the nomination. The bar is that low.”

I think he may do better than expected. He raised $752K during the last half of 2009, mostly in loans to himself. He’s reported raising $61K since January 1st, but he’s also claiming to be taking in lots of smaller contributions which wouldn’t show up on A-1 reports. In a normal year, that’s not enough to win. Jim Ryan has raised less than that, but Jim Ryan is far better known than AA. Still, in a year like this, who the heck knows.

That, by the way, was a classic pre-election “cover your behind” story.

* Something to ponder…

[Sen. Kirk Dillard] owes three campaign supporters a total of $634,814.

That’s a very large debt. Dillard has said he won’t raise money after he takes office, so when will he raise the cash to pay off those loans? Before the fall campaign? Probably not. He’ll need every dime he can get. After the campaign and before he’s sworn in? More likely, but that’s when an administration is put together - not a great time to be raising money if you’re supposed to be Mr. Ethics.

* Related…

* Small primary turnout expected: “I’m predicting a 16 percent or so turnout,” said Winnebago County Clerk Margie Mullins. “That’s what we had four years ago.”

* Early line sees light turnout for Tuesday’s primary: [Lake County’s] Helander said she is hoping for a 30 percent turnout in her county compared to a 22 percent turnout in 2006, but the current totals are not overly encouraging.

* Illinois Primary on Tuesday: Is Obama’s State up for Grabs?

* Could Illinois give Obama another setback?

* PJ Star View: Be careful about drawing conclusions from Massachusetts: From where we sit, Republicans who want to duplicate this result and Democrats who want to prevent it need to rally behind candidates who can prove their ability to work together. In a nation facing enormous challenges, many Americans are sick of watching those they elect do nothing about them.

* Ill. candidates look to make good last impression

* Tired of dirty politics? Cast your vote

* Angry? Go make history

* Be sure to head to the polls for Tuesday’s election

* A vote for Illinois’ future

* Voice of The Southern: Your state, your decisions - vote on Tuesday

* Problems don’t deter gubernatorial candidates

* Republican candidates for gov. stump for votes

* Illinois gubernatorial candidate Dillard says ‘we must clean up our state’ during visit to Quincy

* Dillard stops in region to make his pitch for office

* Brady says McKenna should come clean on ethics violation

* Lots of interest in lieutenant governor post

* A look at GOP lt. gov. candidates

* Comptroller candidates vow fiscal responsibility

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 10:49 am

Comments

For what it’s worth, Glenn Beck just plugged Adam Andrzejewski on his radio show this morning too.

Comment by John Bambenek Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 10:57 am
That sounds about right.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:02 am
So, this little state party has three guys fighting for the conservative votes, and two guys fighting over the remaining moderate votes.

The most money is being spent by their former party chair, who as chair, won no statewide elections and hides behinds his multi-million dollar ad campaign of toupees and pledges.

What an utter mess!

If the GOP ends up with a decent candidate, it will be a miracle.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:14 am
I think the tea party movement is being set up in Illinois. Not purposefully or anything, but set up nonetheless. The expectations that AA or Pat Hughes is a test for the movement is wrong.

Illinois isn’t the kind of culture where these things happen. Illinois is small c conservative. We’re not big on change. Sure, we’ll throw the bums out every once in awhile but look at what the state tolerates. Hell, we take a certain sick pride in our corruption.

If these insurgent candidates such as AA — a man I very much like and respect — do well that’s great. More likely, there will be few surprises tomorrow on the GOP side, tomorrow.

To me what will be interesting is whether or not national players try to spin this as some kind of momentum stopper after MA. That’s the set up. Use this false test of voter anger to tamp down enthusiasm among tea party activists nationwide or as an excuse to ignore voter discontent.

It will be interesting to see.

Comment by Greg B. Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:22 am
In the spirit of the AA for Governor campaign, if AA really believes in “Sunshine and Transparency” then he should let the sunshine on that poll.

Comment by Big Policy Nerd Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:22 am
It isn’t our poll, we don’t have it and never had.

If you want it, talk to Gateway Pundit, he’s the one that reported it, not us.

Comment by John Bambenek Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:24 am
Adam Andrzejewski is surging because Lech Walensa says to vote for him. However, he is surging at the expense of other Polish Americans whom are running in the Democratic Primary.

Some day the Polish community will get their act back together and start electing some reps. It is impossible when they split their own vote and don’t go after voters outside their community. There is lots to say about this issue but no time to say it today-getting out the vote and all.

Comment by Phineas J. Whoopee Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:24 am
I’m sorry to hear about Dillard losing his father, but since his ad hitting McKenna on this ethics thing is still running on tv, I’ll weigh in.

I can’t stand McKenna, but Dillard helped create this monster. He was one of the 19 on the central committee at the time who made McKenna party chairman in the first place back in early 2005. A lot of people had concerns then, but Dillard didn’t listen.

No one cared what McKenna did until he started beating them all for the big prize that they all want.

Comment by just sayin' Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:26 am
If Adam A sticks to his position of cutting state money to local taxing bodies, he will be lucky to get 38% of the vote.

It’s one of those positions that weds bad policy and bad politics.

Adam seems to be chasing after votes from the Tea Party crowd and Glenn Beck watchers. Those people are disconnected from reality. Obama cuts their taxes and they whine about their taxes going up.

To people who don’t pay attention to reality, cutting state money to local government might seem like a great idea. But to gov’t employees, it’s going to seem really dumb.

I do think Andrzejewski’s surge may be hurting Victor Forys’ chance at winning the Dem primary for Cook County Commissioner.

Forys is a smart guy on policy. It would be too bad if he lost.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:34 am
=if the GOP ends up with a decent candidate, it will be a miracle=

Fair enough, but the Dems’ likelihood of fielding a decent candidate for governor is no better and possibly even worse.

Want to make it clear I am not supporting Adam in the primary but unless I missed it there was very little coverage by the city media about Lech Walesa’s appearance and endorsement of Adam A’s candidacy. Considering the large number of Poles and Eastern European immigrants who live in, work in, and vote in this state, and who revere Walesa, I found that omission or oversight to be rather curious. From what I heard, Adam recently targeted an Adam/Lech mailer to every household in the state that has a Polish-ish name. Who knows. Could be interesting to see what a block of a couple hundred thousand motivated voters could do tomorrow in an election with many candidates among which the vote will be split.

Comment by Responsa Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:46 am
Back to civics class.

Q: Is a “tax credit” a “tax cut”?
A: No.

Comment by Brennan Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 11:55 am
I suspect Adam’s poll is nothing but hype. He’s been in 5th place in two recent polls, and I predict that is where he will finish. No need to cover yourself, Rich.

Comment by Voice of Reason Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:20 pm
VoR, he’s the only one who is showing any real upwards movement lately.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:21 pm
just saying makes a good point.. Rich, you don’t think McKenna’s numbers are moving up??

Comment by The Court Jester Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:23 pm
What Adam doesn’t realize because he has very little in the way of field troops is that tea partiers began breaking to Brady over the weekend.

He can’t win, and they know it. It’s not a bad strategy on his part, but it’s not working. Ironically, it’s the same thing Oberweis successfully did to Brady that Brady appears to be doing to Adam in these final hours.

Adam will do better than any expect, but nowhere near winning. That’s a pipe dream. Even if he won EVERY tea partier in the state, which he won’t, it wouldn’t be enough to win the primary.

Comment by In The Know GOPer Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:26 pm
Adam A. is a candidate who would be better served running for Congress than for Governor. He obviously has put serious thought into his policy initiatives and implementations, but most of his anger would be better served making a charge for a U.S. House seat. As governor, how much could he accomplish with a GA dominated by Democrats - especially if he never wants to cooperate?

I hope Dillard doesn’t dig himself a hole like Brady did in 2006. If Brady is running for a reason other than a means to retire his past debt, I would like to hear that reason.

Comment by Team Sleep Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:29 pm
there was very little coverage by the city media about Lech Walesa’s appearance and endorsement of Adam A’s candidacy.
=====

No disrespect to Mr. Walesa, but that move could have cost Adam A some votes, too.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:37 pm
I would amend that statement on AA to say it applies to the last two polls I’ve seen. Overall, all candidates except JRyan are moving up.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 12:50 pm
I think Greg B’s analysis is right on target.

Adam and Proft are competing for last place, and most of their supporters seem to be in complete denial. Adam is too, although I’m sure Proft is savvy enough to know the score (he just doesn’t want to finish behind Adam at this point and so is still ginning up false hope for his supporters). It’s not that they are bad candidates, it’s just that Illinois primary voters are small “c” conservative as Greg B says. They just won’t elect a newcomer to a top job like governor.

The real test for the tea partiers will be to see if they stay engaged after their guys Proft and Adam finish 5th and 6th. And the only uncertainty there is which of the two gets which of the bottom spots.

I hear about some of the Machiavellian tea partiers now planning to vote for McKenna (something they will forever deny). The logic being McKenna is so bad, he loses to Hynes or Quinn, and the revolution can continue.

Comment by just sayin' Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 1:01 pm
InTheKnow, exactly what evidence do you have that the teabaggers are moving to Brady? This was Brady’s race to lose in many ways and I think tomorrow may show that he’s done just that.

He showed his intelligence by saying that he’d balance the budget in a year and he’d do it by cutting alone. That’s laughable and smart voters know that, tea party or not.

Comment by YNM Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 1:56 pm
I don’t agree with you Just sayin…

One reason is yard signs. I have seen a decent amount of Proft and Adam signs (more Adam) in both traditional sign locations (folks who always put up signs) and homes who normally don’t put up signs (I have not checked the house that puts up Keyes for president yard signs yet).

So I think they have some mainstream support also some non-mainstream support.

Comment by OneMan Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 2:01 pm
I find it interesting that in a number of comments posted here Proft is described as a “Tea Party” candidate. With all due respect to Tea Partiers, as well as to anti-tea partiers, it is not my impression that Proft’s supporters are necessarily populist tea party advocates or that Proft considers himself a tea party candidate. He is a rather traditional Conservative and has been for quite some time. Period.

Comment by Responsa Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 2:09 pm
I doubt that Tea Parties in Illinois are all that useful in a GOP Primary.

First, Tea Parties are essentially an “anti” phenomenon, and work best when given a legitimate target at which to express rage. A broad spectrum of GOP primary candidates, however, agree (more or less) with the anti-Big Government theme of these groups, so the support diffuses.

A second element is that the leadership of the Parties is much further Right than the attendees. Based on the leaders’ actions, the movement is wrongly viewed as hard Conservative, when the baseline is more “true libertarian.” For example, while several Tea Party leaders have been very active in attacking Mark Kirk and supporting Conservative Pat Hughes, a recent poll said that only 10% of Tea Party attendees are voting for Hughes.

But this changes in the General Election, where all can focus on opposing a Democrat. In that scenario, the pieces at last fall into place for the Tea Parties. If they can overcome the internal squabbling caused by unwise forays into GOP intra-party politics, which should be easily accomplished, they will be back later this year, in force.

Comment by Bubs Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 2:51 pm
My only other comment is that while PPP is considered a Democratic pollster (with good reason) they have been dead-on in 2009 in other races, and they have AA at 11% and rising. I do think he is out of time, however.

Comment by Bubs Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 3:32 pm
Its great to hear all of the experts calling an election where nobody is over 20% Nobody! The undecideds are enough for any of the candidates to win.
In my experience the undecideds do not break for the better known camps or they would have done that already. They are waiting to see if the new guy can be trusted and keep his head in a high profile race.

These tea party people haven’t lost one once of passion from the summer. They are chomping at the bit to vote , they show up at events in the multiple hundreds if not thousands. The tea party people are not regular republicans for the most part; and allot of them I have met didn’t care one bit about politics before the last year and didn’t bother voting. I was told Adam has put out over 30,000 yard signs since January 10th and had to order more for the last push.

How do you poll people who have not voted before? Primary polling is mostly done by previous participation; hard R soft R likely voters etc… There very well could be a tsunami coming tomorrow, we will see. Funny Dillard went back on the trail today when he said he would suspend his campaign for the death of his father, (sorry about your loss Senator) He claimed he was in the lead.

Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh mentioned Adam on their shows today, something is happening here.

Comment by votecounter Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 5:31 pm
===ndecideds do not break for the better known camps or they would have done that already===

Historically not true. Illinois voters break late, particularly senior females and African-Americans.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 5:34 pm
So Dillard is going to raise taxes to bailout the democrats who have ran this state into the ground and republicans are supporting him? If he doesn’t lose all the base of the party during his run for the General election and cause all the Down Ticket race’s to go lose with him and somehow wins the general. If Dillard then wins the general he is going to raise taxes so the Illinois Republican Party can take the blame and not win another race for the next 10 or fifteen years? I know this is supposed to be good for Dillard and his friend Obama but how does that help the republicans or the people of this state?

Of course Dillard will fight the re-election of Obama how, when he runs for President in 2012? Will Dillard do a Commercial for both Obama and the republican candidate?

So Adam is surging; but still behind Brady we have a chance for a Conservative to win if you want those principles that Adam speaks so eloquently about Brady can win we can work on Adam later.

Comment by Dnstateanon Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 7:01 pm
senior fwemale and african americans do not vote in the GOP primary

Comment by votecounter Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 7:22 pm
== Illinois voters break late, particularly senior females and African-Americans. ==

Hope for Cheryle Jackson?

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Monday, Feb 1, 10 @ 7:50 pm