Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

On taxes and third parties

Posted in:

Illinois
Polls

* My latest syndicated newspaper column is about last week’s Quinn/Brady dustup and some related polling crosstabs. Read on…

Gov. Pat Quinn was in rare form last week as he attacked state Sen. Bill Brady before his Republican opponent had a chance to get his own licks in.

Quinn was put in an extremely awkward position by his budget director, who indicated to an out-of-state reporter that the state’s income taxes would be increased to 5 percent from its current 3 percent come January. Democrats were predictably stunned by the political stupidity of such a thing, and Republicans were predictably foaming at the mouth with outrage. The virulently anti-tax Brady quickly scheduled a press conference, and we all knew what was coming: Unadulterated vitriol.

The governor explained to reporters that his budget guru had been “misconstrued.” Raising the income tax to 5 percent wasn’t his plan, Quinn declared, vowing to veto any tax increase above 1 percentage point.

But in between the defenses, the governor engaged in a full-throttled attack on Brady for proposing to cut education funding by 10 percent as part of Brady’s across-the-board budget reduction plan. Quinn claimed Brady’s proposed billion-dollar slash would force the layoffs of “thousands of teachers,” crowd classrooms to the breaking point and, most importantly, cause property taxes to “skyrocket.” You could barely count to three in between Quinn’s warnings about how Brady would force property taxes through the roof.

“I’m a person who wants to hold down property taxes,” Quinn said. “If we want a growing economy, we cannot have politicians from Bloomington running around Illinois telling people before an election nothing is going to happen as far as tax reform when it comes to supporting education, but then after the election presiding over the biggest property tax in Illinois history.”

“I don’t want to see these local property taxes go up,” Quinn said moments later. “You’ve got to be careful of these apostles of ‘no tax.’ When they talk, they have their fingers crossed because they know the local government is going to raise the property tax on people.”

And he wasn’t finished. “I know that there’s going to be false prophets running around Illinois saying, ‘We don’t have to do anything, just stand still, cut the budget of state government for education by 10 percent.’ Make sure that everybody knows what this fellow is talking about. He wants to cut the school budget in Illinois, the education budget, by 10 percent. How are you going to fund the schools?”

Yeah, he laid it on pretty darned thick.

And considering the position Quinn was in, the property tax angle might not have been a bad push-back. People are probably more upset about the property tax than any other tax in the state. If he has to divert attention from his own proposed income tax hike, that’s the way to go. There is also little doubt that large, permanent cuts to education and local government eventually will lead to property tax hikes.

Then again, the negative messages pushed by Quinn apparently haven’t worked all that well. The latest Rasmussen poll has Brady with a seven-point, 44-37 lead, despite Quinn already having spent $2 million or so on viciously anti-Brady TV advertising.

More ominously, the poll of 750 likely voters taken July 26 found that a big chunk of Quinn’s “must get” vote is now seriously considering voting for a third party candidate. And there may be plenty of those to choose from this year.

A staggering 23 percent of African-Americans, 19 percent of moderates, 14 percent of Democrats and women and 10 percent of liberals chose “Some other candidate” in the poll. Just one of those demographics - moderates - was in double digits in Rasmussen’s June 7 poll. Quinn’s advertising has been so crushingly negative (which tends to push people away) and his job performance has been so utterly abominable lately that people apparently are heading for the exit doors.

That isn’t happening to Brady. His natural base - Republicans, conservatives, men, whites and people making more than $100,000 a year - are all still in the single digits on the “Some other candidate” response. Just 3 percent of Republicans are thinking of straying, for instance.

And it also isn’t happening to Quinn’s fellow statewide Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. Not a single one of those “must get” Democratic constituencies is in double-digits on Rasmussen’s “Some other candidate” response for the U.S. Senate campaign.

Pat Quinn’s worst enemy has always been Pat Quinn, and it’s no different now.

* In fairness to Quinn, he’s only the third most unpopular governor facing reelection this year, according to Public Policy Polling. Iowa’s and Massachusetts’ Democratic guvs are polling worse.

* Related and a campaign roundup…

* ADDED: Poll watch: Dems find glimmers of hope: One of those is in Illinois, the 10th District seat currently held by Mark Kirk. And an internal poll from that race, obtained by the Swamp, showed Dan Seals (D) with a 46-38 lead over Robert Dold (R). The poll was conducted in late May; though there have been few major developments specific to the race, the national climate remains volatile. But we’ve seen Illinois races less prone to national trends, given President Obama’s consistently strong numbers in his home state.

* Introducing Partisan Propensity Index (PPI): It turns out that there’s one other factor which is fairly useful to look at, which is socioeconomic status. Relative to how they do for the Presidency, Democrats are somewhat more likely to win races for Congress in poorer districts, and somewhat more likely to lose them in wealthier ones. Another way to put this is that a split ticket of Republican for President, Democrat for Congress is more likely to occur in a poor district, whereas a split ticket of Democrat for President, Republican for Congress is more likely to occur in a wealthy one…. Most of the places where Democrats hold seats in the House in spite of a disadvantageous PVI — think TX-17 or MS-4 or TN-4 or OK-2 or the couple of Democrats in West Virginia — are poor, and most of the places where the reverse is true — think Mark Kirk in upscale IL-10 or Mike Castle in Delaware — are fairly well-off.

* Congressional Candidates: No Residency Required: Bobby Schilling acknowledged he doesn’t live in the district he’s seeking to represent, but noted that his Moline restaurant and his life history are tied to the 17th District.

* Democrats Maintain Advantage on Generic Ballot, 48% to 44%

* First thoughts: Are Democrats closing the gap?

* Cut minimum wage? Readers speak out

* Brady’s conservative roots go deep in Bloomington

* Nancy Brady provides steady dose of reality

* An alternative for Illinois: Adam Turl talks to Rich Whitney, the Green Party candidate for Illinois governor, about solutions to the economic crisis and the November election.

* Rich Whitney on WBBM Radio’s At Issue program [Fixed link]

* Independent governor candidate drops out, sells T-shirts: Frequent political candidate William “Dock” Walls is withdrawing from the Illinois governor’s race for the second time this year, but the latest announcement from the veteran African-American activist was a bit unusual. Last night, Walls sent out e-mails to reporters touting a T-shirt business that listed him as the contact. There was no word about his latest independent bid to run for governor, just a plug for customizable t-shirts. It wasn’t until today that a news release arrived from Green Party candidate Rich Whitney in which he claimed Walls’ endorsement. Whitney said in the statement that he was “thrilled that he has the support of such an important force for social change in Chicago.”

* Lex Green press release: Bill Brady found to be against voter choice in Illinois: The truth is out about who is behind the attack on voter choice. During petition challenges against the Constitution Party, one of the objectors stated that he is working for Bill Brady. In spite of Senator Brady’s silence about this disregard for ethical ballot choice, he is, in fact, a co-conspirator. And the lawyer who is the principle objector is John Fogarty, long time ally of Tom Cross. It looks like the Republican Party is calling out the big guns.

* GOP candidate for treasurer to launch iPhone app

* Why not terrify pols with voter clubs?

* Bernard Schoenburg: Franken to rally local Democrats

* Daley well-aware of Claypool danger

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:30 am

Comments

Do you want a guy who everyone knows is an anti-tax guy raising your taxes, or a guy everyone knows isn’t an anti-tax guy raising your taxes?

If you want to keep as much as your money as possible as you face your own fiscal uncertainty, you’d rather have the anti-tax guy in charge, and hope he doesn’t raise taxes too much, than the guy who isn’t anti-tax.

Then worse, you have the guy who isn’t anti-tax, telling us he is only going to raise our taxes 1%, while his senior fiscal guy is telling Bloomberg that he is going to raise taxes 5%, with or without political approval.

So, it seems that they guy who isn’t anti-tax also isn’t feeling politically reigned in by your own personal investment regarding the tax issue.

Quinn is leaving us with only once choice - not voting for him.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:43 am
given the number of African Americans (23%) choosing other wonder if quinn is having second thoughts about Art Turner

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:43 am
The problem with our Pat’s “education tax” of one percent is that the monies will go right into the general fund along with those lottery funds that were supposed to be for education. And if there is anything we know about our Illinois politicians, it’s their mantra that money is fungible.

Comment by cassandra Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:45 am
…politicians from Bloomington…

Pat, would you be happier if “policians” were from Peoria, Champaign, Decatur, Effingam, Edwardsville or Fairfaield? Or do you only care about Chicago? You can go ahead and say it, we know the answer.

BTW - Who else is running on the statewide ticket from Bloomington? Careful with that anger, Pat. It may cause misstatements.

Comment by Joe from Joliet Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:45 am
I think you can discount most of the crosstabs in that poll with the exception of Independents. I doubt that as the election draws closer, most of the “traditional” Democrat base can be expected to return to the roost. Some tiny percentage of the traditional base may defect to the Greens or someone else, but a similar number or Republicans will do the same. Brady does risk losing some women who will base their vote on women’s issues alone, but I bet they pretty much wash out Quinn’s loss of support to the Greens.

So, I see this race as one among the Independents. If jobs and fiscal conservatism is their primary issue, which polls suggest is becoming more the case, they will vote for Brady. If the economic situation improves, voters will move to their secondary and tertiary issues, which I think favor Quinn.

If the election were held today, Brady would win as the polls indicate. But November is many days away.

Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:55 am
===I doubt that as the election draws closer, most of the “traditional” Democrat base can be expected to return to the roost. ===

Not necessarily so. And at the very least, shows serious problems with motivating the base.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 10:58 am
Rich,

I actually think we agree. I think that the voters traditionally in the Democrat camp will return home, or stay home.

Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 11:06 am
The problem for Pat to keep hacking on Brady for proposing a cut to education, is Pat and Blago have already cut education with no purpose or plan. The fact is, HE IS NOT SENDING THE MONEY. He put it in the budget and in 2 or 3 years you Might, and I stress Might get the money.

FACT 1: most school districts are already considering property tax increases because of what Pat Quinn has done, not what Bill Brady Might do.

Fact 2: Most schools have already cut for the year 2010-2011 and those cuts will be in full force on election day.

Pat Quinn and the IEA can prance around all they want touting no cuts to education, but in less than 30 days the rubber will meet the road, and the lie will be experienced for everyone who deals with our education system.

Maybe Pat will just raise taxes without the Legislature. Details like the Constitutionality of the budget process haven’t stopped him in 2 years, why start now?

Comment by the Patriot Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 11:08 am
The only one who has the power to cause Bill Brady to lose the gubernatorial election in the remaining 3 months will be “Bill Brady”. If he is smart, Brady will simply concentrate on the one theme that voters in Illinois are paying attention to: jobs and the economy. Evey other issue comes in a “distant” second. If you were the captain’s first mate on the Titanic and you “kept quiet” and watched as the ship hit the iceberg, can you honestly expect the Titanic passengers to trust you to take take command of their remaining lifeboat? Nope, I would rather have a stranger steering the life boat. At least, the odds are that the stranger probably isn’t going to be blind, deaf, and dumb. Quinn had “years” to speak out against what was happening in Illinois with Blagojevich, unbalanced budgets, self-perpetuation of the political species, etc.Instead, Pat Quinn chose to be “a team player” and “saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil” when it came to his own Democrat Party and his political colleagues. This is about “doing what is right” and having the guts to speak out to the media and the Illinois voters when you see a wrong being committed.Pat Quinn failed the test. Time for a new captain (and 1st mate) for our lifeboat.

Comment by Festus Hagen Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 11:38 am
I love the continuing invocation of the Lottery money for education. The lottery money DOES go to education, but it’s not enough!! Somehow there’s a myth that that the Lottery income is some huge nut of money–the lottery profit last year was approx $625 million. The 2010 pre-K to 12 approp was $7.2 billion. Saying the Lottery will “cover” education funding is and never has been true; it was a scam used to get the Lottery adopted.

Comment by D.P. Gumby Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:02 pm
Well, if I’m anything to go by I don’t think the pollsters are making anything up. I decided the moment Hoffman conceded defeat in the primary to vote for Giannoulias. I am having a lot of difficulty in justifying a vote for Quinn. On technical points, the Republican policies right now in the state house are worse even than the Democrats. But the Democrats have consistently failed to actually enact any of their policies, preferring to do . . . well, the worst thing of all, nothing, other than the state senate which at least still seems to be semi-responsible but can’t do much in isolation. I find it very difficult to go Democrat for either governor or state house right now. As extreme as Brady is on social issues, and as much as he has failed to even begin to address the budget crisis, the conduct of Governor Quinn and Speaker Madigan has been completely unacceptable.

Comment by Angry Chicagoan Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:38 pm
I might add that I think Brady is a more trustworthy politician than Mark Kirk, although granted, that isn’t setting the bar very high.

Comment by Angry Chicagoan Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:40 pm
You mean Rich Whitney is polling higher than Jesse Ventura was at this point even under an “other” label? Rich Whitney is going to get in the debates for a change and has a real shot to win. 10.5% last time without any media coverage and without debates. Another 18% on top of the 10.5% and he has a real shot at winning. Voters are hungry for a real candidate and Whitney stands out.

Comment by JeffTrigg Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:44 pm
===You mean Rich Whitney is polling higher than Jesse Ventura was===

That would be true if Whitney was the only “other.” He ain’t.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:46 pm
The Dem union payrollers will certainly “come back” to Quinn. The African American voters I know are pretty disinterested in this election. There are really no African American candidates out there to make it worth their while.

Oh, the folks who get the calls to be “paid” protesters on a moments notice and those who can be fired from government or government related jobs will show up for Quinn.

He’ll have plenty of out of work construcition union guys paid by the union knocking in doors for him.

Quinn’s main problem is that the well educated “producers” will be showing up and voting for Brady while the entitlement and other “takers” have been protected so that they don’t NEED to vote to keep their jobs and freebies anymore.

Quinn can’t buy any more votes with giveaways, because he doesn’t have money to give away.

Tenured, unionized public school teachers and municipal workers will get their fat pensions and pay even if the state goes broke.

There’s no public money left to bribe the electorate, as De Toqueville warned against.

Maybe republican democracy does have a chance in Illinois afterall!

Comment by PalosParkBob Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:48 pm
The link to whittney on at At Issue just takes me toTDC mobile page. Is there audio of the interview somewhere? I would like to hear it, but cannot find it. WBBM site does not have audio up yet, any help…

Comment by McGrupp Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:51 pm
McGrupp, refresh and try again. I had the wrong link. Sorry.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 12:55 pm
Whitney needs to be included in the polls to truly measure his support vs. “Other”. And, as much as I hate it, SLC is a ballot-qualified candidate, and should be included too (and let’s pray he’s at -1%). I haven’t heard much news about it recently, but I think the Libertarians and Constitution Party are still dealing with challenges. If they survive them, then they also need to be included in polls.

I’ve heard that all the statewide debates are now using a 10% polling threshold, which would be complete BS if true. They excluded Whitney in 2006 because of a 5% threshhold, which he then surpassed after the debates. You’d think they would just include him considering he took over 10% in the election without being included in the debates.

Comment by Sacks Romana Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:01 pm
Rich (or someone), can you give me some sense, please, of why Quinn polls so poorly among African Americans? Is that likely a residual effect of Dan Hynes’ Harold Washington ad from this winter? (Seems like a long time ago.) Or is there some other obvious cause? Thanks for any insight you can offer.

Comment by Steve Downstate Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:01 pm
Vm would you rather vote for the anti-tax guy wo wants to take money from education and helping the poor; pass tax policy to elp wealthy owners like himself avoid paying taxes while the midle class carry the financial burden; who wants to reduce donw the minimium wage; prevent people from being absent from work for pregancies or ill family memebrs; support gas chambers for dogs and cats; is opposed to stem cell research; will put creationism rebranded as intellgianet desing back in schools etc?

Quinn’s biggest problem is he neds to make this moe thne a race about taxes and run some ad’s coverin all of brady’s extreme social policy’s. Right now he is letting Brady frame this as a tax v no tax debate when ther is a lot more meat out their to go around.

Comment by Ghost Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:08 pm
Quinn’s main problem is that the well educated “producers” will be showing up and voting for Brady
————

Palos Park Bob…based on my income, education and profession, I am a “well educated producer” and I plan to vote for Quinn. Brady is just way too far to the right for me to swallow.I am not alone and this crowd will be growing as we get closer to November.

Comment by Niles Township Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:14 pm
steve downstate art turner

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:53 pm
If you set aside the viability issue for a minute and look at each candidate’s fiscal plan for the state, Rich Whitney has the only coherent plan to address the state’s fiscal crisis. Quinn has no plan and Brady wants to cut his way out which we all know can’t be done.
Whitney sounds gubenatorial, Quinn sounds like Bozo the Clown, and Brady tries to sound like Rush Limbaugh.
Maybe there are enough voters paying attention to bolster Whitney’s chances. At the very least he will be a spoiler which might not be that bad either.
The two best candidates for the major parties lost in the primaries. I hope there are enough concerned voters to send them a message in November.

Comment by Bill Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 1:58 pm
I can only speak for myself here, and this is just my 2 cents for what they are worth:

I am so disappointed in Pat’s lack of abilities. I voted for him in February, but I wasn’t thrilled about it and I am still not. I have struggled to be optimistic about him, but I can no longer do it. Friday was the last straw for me.

After watching the Vaught- Sinsenheimer video, I was reminded of the fallout surrounding Mike Randle, head of the Illinois prisons. I was reminded how Pat publicly took Randle to the woodshed over Randle’s supposed unauthorized early releasing of prisoners. Similarly Pat last week took Vaught to woodshed for “speaking-out-of-turn” about how much Quinn really wants and plans to raise the state income tax. It seems that when the tough gets going for Pat, he blames an underling. I would rather that he just own up to his poor decisions. Truthfully I would rather that he not make poor decisions in the first place! Too late for that, though. I don’t want to vote democrat just for the sake of voting democrat. I did that in 2006 and got burned— I got Rod Blagojevich a second time, and we all know that he should not have and how that turned out for Illinois. I have resigned myself to the fact that what I have seen of Pat is what I get, there is no use in trying to pretend otherwise. He’s not all of sudden going to become great when he’s been terrible and a big disappointment for the past 19 months. His throwing his staffers under the bus every time he has to confront a mess of his own doing is a very disturbing tendency, and doesn’t exactly instill confidence in his abilities or credibility for that matter.

I certainly hope voters wise-up this time because I know that I have.

Comment by Your Run-of-the-Mill-Democrat here Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 2:00 pm
Didn’t an earlier poll with Whitney’s name specifically in it show support higher than 3%? In any event, it is safe to assume that Whitney has higher poll support than the 3% Ventura was showing at this point. To discount that is rather illogical.

Comment by JeffTrigg Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 2:06 pm
Here’s a very interesting article that shows how the pundits and Illinois Democrats view the Illinois taxpayer:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-31/illinois-sends-contrasting-messages-to-bond-buyers-voters-on-deficit-plan.html

Perhaps most disturbing is this quote:
“When everything is over, it’s not difficult for the Legislators to say the situation is worse than they thought and then increase revenue,” said Robert Rich, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in Champaign.

Considering this man’s position, it’s astonishing that he’d so cavalierly dismiss the importance of anything that the Illinois Dems say during the campaign. If he has so little regard for the political process, what are the rest of us supposed to think?
The quote also nicely encapsulates the sense of entitlement among those whose incomes come from the taxpayer: Just tell them anything, get elected, then give us our money.

Comment by Rambler Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 2:53 pm
Bill you mean the Whitney who filed all those lawsuits against Blago alleging corruption and mistreatment of State employees is your pick?

Comment by Ghost Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 3:12 pm
Rich Whitney is a nice guy, but not a viable candidate. He is not even running a campaign. He is running like a token candidate and does not even take himself seriously, no one else should either.

A vote for Whitney is a throw away vote to send a message to the two party system, but if you think it is more then that, you are sadly mistaken. All you will get out of Voting for Whitney is that you will be able to say for the next 4 years, “I did not vote for this governor.”

No matter which side you are on, if you don’t care enough to take a look at the two viable candidates and choose one that represents your views best, then don’t vote and don’t talk about it like you really care.

If the Green Party wants to be taken seriously, they need to choose a candidate who can actually campaign and raise money for the election. You can’t keep putting people on the ballot who really do nothing to even get your issues noticed.

Comment by the Patriot Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 3:23 pm
The Greens need to win ONE—any office will do, and that will put them over the hump in the eyes of the public.

Comment by Way Way Down Here Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 3:34 pm
Niles, what it will come down to in most thinking peoples’ minds in November is who has the better chance of getting us out of the financial disaster Madigan, Quinn, Blago, Cullerton and Emil the Senior got us into.

I believe most people won’t really have a good feeling about what Brady can accomplish, but we’ll know at that point that Quinn is too impotent and clueless to address the crisis.

I believe that the choice people will be to choose someone who COULD get us out of this mess and someone who we know is incapable of doing it.

It’ll be a case of “possible success” against “certain failure”.

The entitlement class will give lukewarm support to Quinn.

Anyone understanding the nature of the disastrously dysfunctional culture of Springfield leadership will vote for “hope and change” out of desperation.

Just my guess.

Comment by PalosParkBob Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 3:46 pm
Ghost,
That was then, this is now.

Comment by Bill Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 4:19 pm
Vm would you rather vote for the anti-tax guy wo wants to take money from education and helping the poor; pass tax policy to elp wealthy owners like himself avoid paying taxes while the midle class carry the financial burden; who wants to reduce donw the minimium wage; prevent people from being absent from work for pregancies or ill family memebrs; support gas chambers for dogs and cats; is opposed to stem cell research; will put creationism rebranded as intellgianet desing back in schools etc?

So you are confirming that Brady is the anti-tax guy?

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 4:35 pm
VM, Brady is a shifty tax guy…whatever taxes he claims to cut will simply be shifted elsewhere, property taxes, whatever. He certainly is disingenuous when he claims that he can do a 10% across the board–that’s the type of BS that only the Growthers and Grovers talk to themselves about in their fiscal fairy tales.

Comment by D.P. Gumby Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 4:54 pm
=== Do you want a guy who everyone knows is an anti-tax guy raising your taxes? ===

LOL.

Everyone KNOWS its much easier to raise taxes with a Republican in the Governor’s mansion.

George Ryan ran as a conservative and then raised license plates immeasurably.

Jim Edgar…Jim Thompson…all the way back to Ogilvie.

Everyone knows its easier for Republicans to “get away with” raising taxes, just as its easier for Democrats to “get away with” cutting entitlements.

Look, there’s no doubt that the next Governor is going to raise taxes…the only question is by how much.

If Brady goes to the Tribune editorial board and says he needs 2%, they’ll back him. Quinn will be lucky to get 1%, and only then if he agrees to massive cuts.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Monday, Aug 2, 10 @ 5:02 pm
So you are saying that Brady has a better chance of repairing our budget than Quinn.

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 8:57 am
- So you are saying that Brady has a better chance of repairing our budget than Quinn. -

I think they’re saying Brady is a liar. Are you acknowledging that a tax increase is required to repair the budget?

Comment by Small Town Liberal Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 9:22 am