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Breaking an NRI paradigm

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* The Sun-Times makes a pretty strong case that a prevailing media paradigm is false…

Republicans repeatedly have called Gov. Pat Quinn’s Neighborhood Recovery Initiative anti-violence grant program from 2010 a “political slush fund” and a taxpayer-funded, get-out-the-vote effort.

But if the anti-violence program’s design truly was about investing public dollars to gin up enough votes for Quinn to win his election that year, a new, first-of-its-kind analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times found the alleged strategy may not have delivered as planned.

Yes, Quinn narrowly won in 2010. But the areas in Chicago and suburban Cook County that got anti-violence money under the program only helped pad the governor’s winning margin over Republican Bill Brady.

* The evidence…

In Chicago, the Quinn-Simon ticket registered a 2 percentage-point increase in city neighborhoods that got NRI funding compared with the 2006 Blagojevich-Quinn ticket.

By comparison, in city neighborhoods that didn’t receive Neighborhood Recovery Initiative funding, the Quinn-Simon ticket registered a 1.9 percentage point uptick over what Blagojevich and Quinn got in those same areas in 2006.

Go read the whole thing, including the charts. Kudos to the Sun-Times for digging so deeply into the numbers.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:10 am

Comments

This can just as easily be read that the attempt to drive turnout was so poorly done that it failed. To say that just because it didn’t succeed there is nothing there is similar to Blago’s defense that he never actually sold the Senate seat.

Comment by Madame Defarge Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:15 am
Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean they didn’t try. Heck, if something Gov. Quinn’s people were in charge of worked, I’d be even more surprised.

Comment by Ron Burgundy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:18 am
So “it didn’t work” is now a defense…

Comment by RonOglesby - Now in TX Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:18 am
The pure political of the Brady Staff Loss was not NRI, it was a complete lack of presence in Chicago and Cook.

Given 2010, and zero ground game, you can’t tell me there were not 4 votes a precinct, that the Brady Crew had no intention in finding, given how that Crew handled.

If anything, this is an indictment on the purely inept campaign apparatus that Senior Brady Staff put together, and the strategy of having nothing on the ground, even in Cook.

It was a Staff Loss, a strategy loss, and a Ground Game loss, where those who had a message to defeat Brady, or tout Quinn in Chicago and Cook, without Brady answering either in the precincts, or at the polling place.

Zero is Zero.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:22 am
Kudos? The NRI did not have an impact because there was no cash on the street before the election. No cash. No vote. Works in the City, Dupage heck even in Benton
BTW anyone else notice Majority Leader McCarthy comes to Peoria to help PizzaBobby and gets it stuck up when PizzaBobby says he handlers at CAT want the Export-Import Bank and McCarthy can pound sand.?

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:22 am
And Blago got nothing - but it didn’t matter. The Sun Times data does not rebut the intent paradigm.

Comment by Bogart Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:24 am
Somehow I don’t think Rauner & Co will stop beating the NRI drum after this report.

Call it a hunch

Comment by Sbarro McArby's Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:27 am
It repeat what others are saying more or less…

If we discounted political ideas that didn’t work and ignored them, well Rod never did actually sell the senate seat either.

Comment by OneMan Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:29 am
Not much of a defense here. A new, first of its kind analysis? Only a “small” uptick? No big deal? a “small” uptick in a very close election tends to loom pretty large. Doesn’t this study tend to prove the complaints? Now can anyone show a decline in violence in those targeted areas?

Comment by Louis G Atsaves Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:38 am
While the Sun Times is to be congratulated for doing the statistical work, as to the conclusion of the story? Yawn.

Brady’s loss was amply documented in this November 15, 2010 posting of Rich’s column. And it had nothing to do with NRI.
https://capitolfax.com/2010/11/15/why-and-where-pat-quinn-won/

Comment by Anyone Remember Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:39 am
“The NRI did not have an impact because there was no cash on the street before the election.”

Serious Q: Is this an accurate statement? Can someone link to something supporting its accuracy?

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM (@MisterJayEm) Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:41 am
===Q: Is this an accurate statement? ===

Yes.

Use the Google.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:44 am
It doesn’t matter if the Brady campaign staff went on a cycling tour of France for the last month of the campaign. It doesn’t matter if Quinn got zero votes from Don Frank Zuccarelli. It doesn’t matter if the Sun-Times analysis can turn lead into gold.

NRI was a patently political sham intended to bring electoral benefit to Quinn. Whether or not it swung the election has absolutely no bearing on the need to investigate exactly how this program was administered, by whom and for what purpose.

Comment by Adam Smith Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:45 am
Adam Smith
=Whether or not it swung the election has absolutely no bearing on the need to investigate exactly how this program was administered, by whom and for what purpose.=

True. However, some in the GOP are claiming it cost Brady the election, which isn’t true. And mistakes such as that need to be debunked.

Comment by Anyone Remember Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:49 am
===Whether or not it swung the election has absolutely no bearing on the need to investigate exactly how this program was administered, by whom and for what purpose.===

Tell that to those on the Commission consumed to its political impact to the 2010 Election, real or actual.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:51 am
What the ST said when they compared the results of the election was that while the positive effects were small, they existed. Furthermore they also admitted that there was no way to measure whether PQ would have suffered declines in votes in the areas where he achieved small gains.

The statewide margin of victory was small and could have gone the other way…..

Comment by Plutocrat03 Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:55 am
===intended to bring electoral benefit to Quinn===

As are most things a governor does. Governing involves politics, in case you haven’t noticed.

As far as it being a “patently political sham,” it was a sham in that it was so badly administered and ill-conceived.

But name me one governor in any state who hasn’t used his or her office for a patently political thing in the three months leading up to an election and I’ll buy you dinner.

Also, I find it interesting how quickly some of y’all can switch gears on this.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:55 am
Rich, you’re burying the lede:

The Sun-Times managed to publish an extensive analysis of the NRI without once mentioning Dorothy Brown

Comment by Sbarro McArby's Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:56 am
The fact that it didn’t have an effect is not a defense against an alleged “intent.”

The fact that the money wasn’t distributed until after the election, might be.

The fact that any smart politician would know that these precincts would go for Quinn regardless, at these same exact levels, was why I doubted this was simply dollars-for-votes political “slush fund” when I first heard the story in 2010. If you want a return on investment, you go to more competitive areas.

If it was part of some other political side deal, maybe. But it wasn’t about the 2010 election.

Comment by walker Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:56 am
===while the positive effects were small, they existed===

One tenth of a percentage point is statistically insignificant.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 9:59 am
I agree with folks who say it’s completely irrelevant whether it was successful. Attempted (fill in your crime) is still a crime whether you succeed or not. Still don’t know if there’s a there there, but this story, while interesting to political junkies, is meaningless.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:01 am
“Yeah, one tenth of a percentage point, which is statistically insignificant”

Tell that to Dillard.

Comment by Bogart Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:01 am
=== Attempted (fill in your crime) is still a crime===

And here we arrive at our very own Benghazi moment.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:02 am
My Party has overplayed this hand terribly.

We Republicans talk about personal accountability;

The Staff blew it. Own it.

Move on from trying to explain away that not doing what needs to be done to win elections was not the factor in the loss.

===And here we arrive at our very own Benghazi moment===

A press release on that Friday would have defused all perception of that, and defused all those pushing that optic.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:08 am
Somehow I don’t think this analysis is going to change the discussion.

As others have noted, I don’t see Rauner backing off, and I don’t see Brooke Anderson responding with “It couldn’t have been intended as GOTV. It completely failed in that regard.”

One more note — a functional anti-violence program may have moved votes. Team Q went with the politically motivated giveaway and didn’t get a benefit. There are a lot of things that could have been done, but instead they effectively threw away the cash.

Comment by Goooner Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:08 am
===And here we arrive at our very own Benghazi moment===

BTW, beyond fair. It was what I feared it rolled out to be, and that comparison is fair.

My Party now owns that too.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:11 am
I robbed the bank, but did not get away with the money….I did nothing wrong.

Comment by facts are stubborn things Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:12 am
Willy,

Check out this tweet by the Senate GOP and try not to bang your head against a wall

twitter.com/ILSRCC/status/491233241005686784

Comment by Sbarro McArby's Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:18 am
That’s a heavy lift by the Sun-Times. Well done.

The audit is out there. Grand juries are empaneled. There will be a day of reckoning on this, one way or the other.

But the fact of the matter is in a national GOP wave year, Bill Brady couldn’t beat Pat Quinn, not with the recession, not with the budget, not with Blago.

If Republicans are looking for someone to blame for that loss, they only need to look in the mirror.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:19 am
Many people have said all along Quinn is corrupt. Many other people have defended Quinn by claiming he is not corrupt he is just incompetent. This shows that both sides have been right all along. He is not even competent at being corrupt. Bless his heart.

Comment by SO IL M Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:20 am
This was obviously political but it was NOT illegal. If pandering to the electorate by handing out money for various things were a crime every Governor we’ve ever had would be in jail. Enough with the criminal mantra. We don’t have to like what the Governor did but it was not illegal. Period. End of story.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:21 am
Comparing NRI to non-NRI neighborhoods is hardly apples to apples. If this initiative was fueled by internal polls showing Quinn lagging far behind Blago’s performance in minority neighborhoods, then it might have succeeded in raising voter numbers that otherwise would have been much lower. (I mean, West Lawn saw a 16 point drop — almost 25 percent lower than the turnout for 2006.) Not saying that happened — just saying that there were many other factors besides NRI that affected turnout in different neighborhoods.

As far as “no money on the street” before the election, I am not sure that’s as good for the Governor as he seems to think. To me, that could be read as: “If you get your people out for me in November, there will be a check in the mail in December.”

I would also point out that the Sun-Times article relies on averages. If you look at individual neighborhoods, some of them saw serious upticks. In Rogers Park, for example, turnout increased almost 8.5 points - -which translates to about a 22 percent increase in turnout. There were wide ranges in turnout, which the use of overall averages obscures.

Comment by Interesting, but... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:28 am
I’m sorry, but I have no clue what “And here we arrive at our very own Benghazi moment” means.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:32 am
- Sbarro McArby’s -,

We just can’t get out of our own way.

I have respect for the idea that this issue may have a fatal impact to the Quinn Campaign, but pushing it, and making it political when it doesn’t have to be is a blunder that keeps Quinn fighting back, with “partisan witch hunt” as a weapon.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:34 am
‘I have no clue what “And here we arrive at our very own Benghazi moment” means.’

I believe it means that additional facts can only change the nature of the purported wrong-doing — e.g. from “vote buying” to “‘attempted’ vote buying” — but new facts can never call into question whether a wrong-doing actually took place. The presumption of wrong-doing is inviolate.

(I trust that Rich will correct me if I’m wrong.)

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM (@MisterJayEm) Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:46 am
I’m going to support my cousin Chicago Cynic here. If I offer an elected official a bribe, and he calls the feds and wires up, and then takes the money with no intention of doing what I asked — I have still committed a crime. I just didn’t get any benefit out of it.

It’s not “BENGHAZI!” to say that an action can be criminal even if it does not yield the intended results.

Comment by Darien Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:47 am
The townships in northern cook county shouldn’t be included in this study. There were different dynamics involved in the north part of the county which hurt Brady (his conservative stance on social issues), and some neighborhoods in chicago to the north also.

Comment by Modest proposal Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:49 am
Is the 0.1% difference in the city NRI vs non-NRI areas proof of innocence?

Or is the 2.0% difference in the suburban NRI vs non-NRI areas proof of guilt?

It’s neither. Dave, Art AND Scarlett put a lot of time into crunching those numbers. It is the sort of detailed journalism we need more of, which is why I will take no pleasure in being the one to point out a glaring flaw in their approach in a separate comment.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:50 am
== “but it wasn’t about the 2010 election” ==

Of course that’s wrong, and I wrote it. Everything the Quinn could do to improve his image in targeted communities around the state is about the election.

I meant it probably wasn’t specifically about funding a GOTV effort for the 2010 election in these precincts, as was initially alleged.

It might have been more about maintaining relationships with some local power brokers — which itself is a problem.

Comment by walker Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:51 am
- Modest proposal -,

Keep in mind while all that was going on against Brady, not one aspect of a ground game to counter it, or to find four more votes a precinct was being done anywhere in Cook by the Brady Campaign, or that there was even a campaign apparatus at all.

Gotta own that.

===It’s not “BENGHAZI!” to say that an action can be criminal even if it does not yield the intended results.===

It is “Behghazi” to make political what, on its own merits, is a problem not needing a partisan bend to make a point. It’s bad on its own, pushing the partisan political is making the optics change from obvious problems to political witch hunt.

I am still amazed at this.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:54 am
Criminal at the highest levels…

Unlikely…

Did some folks see this as a chance to take advantage and was the way it was implemented help that.

I suspect so…

Comment by OneMan Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:54 am
Bill Brady stayed so far away from Cook County you would have thought it was infected with the rage virus. That cost him the election. But like everyone else, the ploy may have failed, the intent was the same. Trying to buy votes.

Comment by OLK 73 Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:55 am
So a governor said to some communities severely affected by youth crime, “I’m going to make an investment in you to see if we can have an impact on reducing youth crime, and I’m going to invest thru community organizations and local non-profits who have an understanding of the local community” and he did that before an election. The money gets invested, virtually none of it before the election, and using dozens of community orgs some of it gets reasonably well spent, some of it doesn’t get spent at all, some of it poorly spent, and some of it totally scammed.

I guess I don’t see anything very shocking in that scenario, unless some of the cash actually and intentionally became walking around money for captains and people to the polls efforts. Most of those types don’t take IOUs, spread their own cash around, and wait to be reimbursed. As Rich says, governors try to look good, and they do that for political purposes, astounding as that may be to some of you.

There doesn’t appear to have been much effort to evaluate what was effective and what wasn’t: that’s bad. Until the crap hit the fan, no one appeared too agitated about going after the scamsters: that’s bad. The fact that the state didn’t have much ability to monitor the grants in real time is bad, but not Quinn’s fault: the state gave up most of its ability to really monitor community grants more than two decades ago in funding and staff cuts and the problem has only been exacerbated since by further cuts.

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:56 am
@Darien Cynic:

Bribe? C’mon. You’ve really gone off the deep end with that one.

It was political not criminal. Some of you are really grasping at straws here. That’s what makes it a Benghazi moment. There is not “there” there when it comes to a crime.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:59 am
Schnorf — clearly, if the issue is actual “walking around money,” then the question of whether money was made available before the election is a very big deal.

But if you are asking organizations and powerful individuals to mobilize their forces for GOTV, then it seems that it might be possible to say — if you deliver for us, we’ll deliver for you.

No?

Comment by Darien Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:00 am
?. That a pretty high standard you’re applying there. Have you heard the one about “if frogs had wings”?

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:06 am
I was merely making the simple LEGAL point that attempt is in and of itself a crime and that therefore success in a scheme is legally irrelevant. It’s not a Benghazi moment to point out a simple legal fact.

I’m not one of the crazy Republicans who made such asses of themselves last week. Geez people.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:10 am
OK, I took a look at the full story again.

Actually, there was a 2% increase in the suburbs. Rich and others have noted that suburban turnout is what carried the election for Quinn.

Adding 2% is a great day for any field operation.

So looking at the numbers again, I don’t accept at all that the “paradigm is false.” With the boost to suburban turnout, it looks like the exact opposite.

Comment by Goooner Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:11 am
===suburban turnout is what carried the election for Quinn.===

Remove your tinfoil hat and read that above-linked column I wrote in 2010.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:14 am
Suburban NRI areas, +3.8%.
Suburban Non-NRI areas: +1.8%.

Seems like compelling evidence.

Comment by Goooner Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:16 am
- Goooner -

===In Chicago, the Quinn-Simon ticket registered a 2 percentage-point increase in city neighborhoods that got NRI funding compared with the 2006 Blagojevich-Quinn ticket.===

Did ya forget this…?

===By comparison, in city neighborhoods that didn’t receive Neighborhood Recovery Initiative funding, the Quinn-Simon ticket registered a 1.9 percentage point uptick over what Blagojevich and Quinn got in those same areas in 2006.===

So, non-receivers were up 1.9, receivers were up 2.0.

That’s a .1% difference -Goooner -,

Yikes.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:16 am
===Seems like compelling evidence. ===

Only if you view everything out of context. PQ worked those township party chairmen like a man possessed.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:22 am
“I don’t accept at all that the ‘paradigm is false.’ With the boost to suburban turnout, it looks like the exact opposite.” vs. “The NRI did not have an impact because there was no cash on the street before the election.”

But if NRI did somehow violate the postulate of causality by having consequences precede their cause, further study is certainly in order.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM (@MisterJayEm) Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:22 am
Oswego,

That’s city turnout.

You are right. It appears that it made no noticeable difference in the City.

Oswego, based on your posts, it seems like you have more than a passing familiarity with field operations.

What do you think — is a 2% increase significant? That’s what happened in the suburbs, when you compare NRI to non-NRI.

And Rich, I never said that it won the race for Quinn. Heck, I’m convinced that, as you wrote back then, abortion and social issues were the primary cause of Brady’s defeat.

However, the 2%, in any area where Quinn needed help, seems like a factor.

Comment by Goooner Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:25 am
Demoralized —

I wasn’t saying that this was a bribery situation. Not at all.
(And given that I said “If I”, it’s pretty clear that it was a hypothetical.) All I was trying to do was to expand Cousin Chicago’s point that an attempt does not have to succeed to be criminal.

Comment by Darien Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:28 am
=== In Chicago, the Quinn-Simon ticket registered a 2 percentage-point increase in city neighborhoods that got NRI funding compared with the 2006 Blagojevich-Quinn ticket. ===

To use a phrase often seen in comments, “Correlation is not causation”.

– Simply comparing results in such a diverse city means nothing here. —

Combining every non-NRI area and comparing to all combined NRI areas tells us nothing about what turnout was expected to be like pre-and-post election in the NRI areas.

– The non-NRI areas tend to overwhelmingly be wealthier, healthier, safer and have better-performing schools than the NRI areas. –

Comparing a 2% turnout increase in the NRI areas to a 1.9% turnout increase in the non-NRI areas tells us nothing about what turnout was expected to be like in the NRI areas before that money was promised and after that money was promised.

Governor Quinn saw his weakness in polling and in certain areas well before election day. Access to internal pre-election polling in each of these detailed areas, polling data that is so narrowly NRI-specific it may not even exist, could possibly tell us something about the impact it had.

But telling us that the NRI areas and non-NRI areas turned out basically “the same” in the city tells us nothing about how far turnout in the NRI areas may have moved to “catch up” to the non-NRI areas pre- and post- election day.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:29 am
Rich, are you claiming that he ignored the non-NRI areas?

Again, 2% difference.

Also, when you say he worked them “hard”, that doesn’t exactly help Quinn’s cause. You’d then have to believe that it was mere coincidence that the areas he “worked hard” also just happened to benefit from NRI.

It is possible that he worked those areas hard, and, in odd coincidence, those areas just happened to benefit from the program. We will have to wait and see when the investigations are complete.

Comment by Goooner Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:30 am
Only in Illinois could incompetence be used as a defense against corruption.

Comment by tberry Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:32 am
- Goooner -

===Only if you view everything out of context. PQ worked those township party chairmen like a man possessed.===

So Terry Cosgrove, Teachers, Unions, and the Township Committeemen are not a factor?

How in the city it’s .1% and in the County it’s 2%, so it wasn’t effective except in places it was effective?

This is why discussing this is a fail for My Party as a political partisan discussion of 2010, given also Brady’s lack of Field Ops to counter…Cosgrove, Teachers, Unions,…

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:33 am
===Rich, are you claiming that he ignored the non-NRI areas?===

Not at all. But those townships you speak of are the strongest in the state for Dems. Of course he’d push them hard to gin up turnout.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:34 am
== If Republicans are looking for someone to blame for that loss, they only need to look in the mirror. ==

This. One million times over.

Even if it turns out this was some sort of brazen scheme worse than anything from the darkest recesses of Blago’s mind, the GOP still has no one to blame but themselves. The election was there for the taking and Brady still blew it.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:37 am
Thanks for your support Darien. In trying to make a simple legal point, people claimed we were stating something very different. As I said from the get go, it’s irrelevant whether NRI worked or didn’t work in terms of the election.

And since my point seems to be missed, I’ll let this little bit of Black’s Law Dictionary do it:

“What is ATTEMPT?

In criminal law. An effort or endeavor to accomplish a crime, amounting to more than mere preparation or planning for it, and which, if not prevented, would have resulted in the full consummation of the act attempted, but which, in fact, does not bring to pass the party’s ultimate design. People v. Moran, 123 N. Y. 254, 25 N. E. 412, 10 L. R. A. 109, 20 Am. St. Rep. 732; Gandy v. State, 13 Neb. 445, 14 N. W. 143; Scott v. People, 141 111. 195, 30 N. E. 329; Brown v. State, 27 Tex. App. 330, 11 S. W. 412; U. S. v. Ford (D. C.) 34 Fed. 26; Com. v. Eagan, 190 Pa. 10, 42 Atl. 374. An intent to do a particular criminal thing combined with an act which falls short of the thing intended. 1 Bish. Crim. Law,”

Comment by Chicago Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:39 am
===the GOP still has no one to blame but themselves===

Exactly. For crying out loud, Brady’s campaign went “dark” for a day or three (can’t remember, too busy to look it up now) during the week before the election. No TV ads. Zero.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:40 am
Rep. Rita: What is the end game (of the LAC)?

More likely than not, the US Attorney will make a case, IF there is a case to be made, wether the aspect debated is criminal, not a legislative AUDIT commission, especially when the Auditor General, on his own, sent his report to the US Attorney.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:45 am
excuse me, tberry, exactly what was the “corruption”, and by whom?

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:51 am
To clarify my 11:29 post - This does not prove Gov. Quinn guilty or innocent of anything.

Without seeing months of consistent and detailed pre-election polling in each specific area, we cannot know exactly what Mr Quinn was looking at in each of these areas and how it compares pre-and-post NRI.

What would his performance have been like without establishing this “outreach” shortly before the election? Would he have performed even worse without the NRI? 200 votes worse? A few hundred? A few thousand?

We can not know for certain, any more than we can point to Quinn’s NRI performance in the suburbs as “evidence” one way or another. Too many variables and too much conjecture. All we know with certainty is he won a close election and deserves credit for doing so.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 12:02 pm
The use of averages in this article reminds me of an old science joke:

A physicist, a biologist and a statistician go hunting. They are hiding together in the bushes and they see a deer 70ft ahead of them. The physicist makes some calculations, aims and fires at the deer. His shot ends up 5ft to the left of the deer. The biologist analyzes the deer’s movement, aims and fires. His shot ends up 5ft to the right of the deer. The statistician drops his rifle and happily shouts, “WE GOT IT!!”

Comment by Darien Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 12:10 pm
== Exactly. For crying out loud, Brady’s campaign went “dark” for a day or three ==

When your campaign and your party spends more time measuring curtains than “closing” during the final weeks, you might have a problem.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 12:18 pm
What Schnorf said…

I basically said this last week on a previous post…

And the GOP would never do something like this right before an election to gin up votes, and remind their constituencies why they should remain in office…

Comment by LCP45 Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 12:19 pm
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 11:40 am:

===the GOP still has no one to blame but themselves===

Exactly. For crying out loud, Brady’s campaign went “dark” for a day or three (can’t remember, too busy to look it up now) during the week before the election. No TV ads. Zero.

Maybe they were in Florida?

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 12:46 pm
“Maybe they were in Florida?” Given the stereotypical demographic (angry aging white male) more likely their computer crashed and they couldn’t get a hold of their kids to help getting it going again.

Comment by Skeptic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 2:32 pm
(That’s a joke people, I know that R’s aren’t like that.)

Comment by Skeptic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 2:34 pm
===the GOP still has no one to blame but themselves===

Exactly. For crying out loud, Brady’s campaign went “dark” for a day or three (can’t remember, too busy to look it up now) during the week before the election. No TV ads. Zero.

I completly agree with this. However that does not excuse Pinnochio Quinn from using taxpayer money to get out the vote before an election. Just because statistically it didnt work doesnt mean it was legal.

Quinn was trailing badly in the polls, so badly that one political commentator wrote “He’d better do something quick before he pulls a Netsch and tanks his entire party” Anyone remeber who wrote that?

Comment by fed up Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:01 pm
===does not excuse Pinnochio Quinn from using taxpayer money to get out the vote before an election===

You act like the anti violence cash, which didn’t get distributed until after the election, was somehow used to bring voters to the polls.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:10 pm
fed up, I wrote that before I realized what a horrible job the pollsters were doing in that race. As I’ve said many, many times before, they didn’t include Scott Lee Cohen’s name. Doing so made the race much closer.

So mea culpa again by me, but it was garbage in, garbage out.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:20 pm
@fed up:

What exactly was illegal about it? The answer is absolutely nothing in case you were wondering.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:22 pm
Rich,

You and everyone else made a mistake including Quinn. Which may have made him nervous enough to spend 50 million in taxmoney to help out on the south side.

Comment by fed up Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:38 pm
===You and everyone else made a mistake including Quinn===

Nope. His internal polling was right all along.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:40 pm
Statistically irrelevant. There is no way to judge what Quinn’s vote total would have looked like without this program.

The promises were made in advance of the election. Contracts were signed. They tried to get money out before the election, but because they were inept, they failed. So this whole argument about “there was no money out before the election” is ridiculous. It’s probably a stronger incentive to say, you’ll get this money if I’m re-elected, and if I’m not you may not.

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:40 pm
By the way, more on this will come out as these Quinn emails are reviewed by the Audit Commission and the feds. Stories will continue be written by the media, and the story will continue.

This issue is not being overplayed by Republicans. It’s been handled beautifully. We’re still talking about it today - months after the audit came out. The papers are full of stories on this program. Editorial boards are saying the program is a major problem. They’ll be talking about it all summer.

Much to the dislike of professional commenter Oswego Willy (R-Oswego).

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:46 pm
===This issue is not being overplayed by Republicans. It’s been handled beautifully. We’re still talking about it today - months after the audit came out. The papers are full of stories on this program. Editorial boards are saying the program is a major problem. They’ll be talking about it all summer.===

If you think the two days were handled beautifully, then you are a bigger Dope than those who nearly blew it.

We are talking about it, no one else is, and further, Rauner either Big Footed this beautifully handled Dopiness , or rolled out his plan on day 2 of the Dopiness so both the hearing abc the plan cancel each other out.

It ended as many suggested it should have, and it could have without Sen. Barickman trading on his credibility, but Dopiness needs to be seen, lol

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:54 pm
==This issue is not being overplayed by Republicans. It’s been handled beautifully. ==

What planet are you living on?

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 3:54 pm
== What exactly was illegal about it? ==

It sounds as though the Feds will be answering that question for everyone when their investigation concludes. When that question is likely answered with “He did nothing illegal”, the new question becomes “Why do you think the Governor suddenly decided to use your tax dollars to pay for yoga lessons, gift cards, gang members passing out flyers etc so close to the election?”

Meanwhile, when your best hope is that the public will conclude you were “just” incompetent but not trying to “buy” votes, things are not going well.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 4:06 pm
@FKA:

It’s called politics. EVERY Governor since the beginning of time in this state and every other state has done this sort of thing. Look at the schedule of a Governor running for re-election, especially during an election year, and see how many places he goes handing out money for things. It’s the benefit of being in office. Does it make it right? Nope. But that’s how the game’s played.

And I don’t for one minute by into the argument that this had anything at all to do with the Governor winning the election.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 4:48 pm
@Demoralized - I was not saying you were wrong in that last comment, only that the damaging effects of this are far from over for the gov.

What the Governor did may have largely been about politics instead of children being shot, just as public hearings may be largely about politics instead of improving oversight. Those are routine plays of the game. It’s just rare that you have an independent report and public details as ridiculous as the ones dribbling out. Those details make for a lot of commercials and a lot of unhappy voters. There are no “good” options here for the gov.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 5:22 pm
Living on Earth and watching the media. This issue was all over the media last week, and if you think the voters took away from that media coverage that Republicans are political - I believe you are wrong.

The more time NRI can show up on TV or in the newspaper, the worse it is for Quinn. In my mind, there is no question about that.

This is all good for Rauner, which is killing Willy. He’s going to comment another 3,000 times between now and election day and it won’t have one bit of influence on this election. Barickman’s work, however, will.

Keep lobbing it in from the peanut gallery, Willy, or your basement…wherever you are. Dope.

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 5:34 pm
===. This issue was all over the media last week===

Really? Examples? I saw 2 half stories and a t
Trib headline more concerned about the farce, lol

Why did Rauner “big foot” day two?

You can’t spin that a 30 minute brake turned into a 3 hour “about face”, no witnesses taking the 5th, Barickman interrupting Mautino like a petulant child, and the only people yapping about this today, is us.

Personal attacks on me shows your frustration at the “Benghazi” style hearing that put partisanship front and center, for a commission not designed for criminal investigations.

It was an epic fail. The GOP almost used verbatim what others here said they should have said Friday, and without the partisan stain. Pretty embarrassing.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 5:41 pm
–Barickman’s work, however, will. –

I’ll have what Befuddled’s having. Because dude, you are on some heavy drugs if you saw anything positive out of that train wreck.

Want to post a link to any positive coverage of that mess? Here’s from Mark Brown, a guy who’s been around.:

“After sitting through what was singularly one of the most excruciating and frustrating public meetings I can remember, I began to wonder: Is this what it’s like in Washington?”

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 6:00 pm
Willy,
Personal attacks begin when you start name calling, which you almost invariably end up doing. “Dope” is your way of dismissing people. Talk about a petulant child.

You and I disagree on the Audit Commission’s handling of the NRI investigation. I think it’s making more people aware of the failed program. Because there was a hearing, there was news. if you missed it, you aren’t watching.

If you think silence on this issue is better than more stories, then we disagree again. If Democrats are to be removed from the Governor’s Office, this issue will play a part. I often wonder whether you, as a Republican (wink, wink), want that.

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 6:01 pm
===If you think silence on this issue is better than more stories, then we disagree again. If Democrats are to be removed from the Governor’s Office, this issue will play a part. I often wonder whether you, as a Republican (wink, wink), want that.===

I gave my idea how it should go, and after a 3 hour break, magically, the GOP agreed with me and many others.

It was farce, it was comedy, there was not s headline to make an Ad from, and the “big footing” of Day 2 wasn’t an accident.

I call myself “Dope” too. When errors that are quite avoidable are pursued to seem smart, that’s pretty dopey. To be a lemming to think that it was a good move, especially when halfway though they shift gears, yikes, lol

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 6:09 pm
Well, I think you’re nitpicking the heck out of the Audit Commission Republicans, and I think they have done a good job of keeping this very important issue alive.

I think it’s hurtful to Quinn, if not fatal, and I think any effort to keep the program in the limelight is a smart strategy to help highlight Quinn’s abject failure for the people of this state. This is part of his record of governing, which I think we would agree, is terrible.

Somebody has to come to the defense of these people in “your party” who you are always slamming.

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 6:21 pm
- Befuddled -,

If they need cheerleaders, or to feel good about messing up, then My Party is worse off than even I think.

I am the Daily Southtown Motto.

The strategy is usually decided by 4-6 people around a table agreeing to agree, no dissection. No contrarian. Then you get dopey ideas, and shooting ourselves in the foot time and time again.

===Somebody has to come to the defense of these people in “your party” who you are always slamming.===

I like to win. These “people” are veto-proofed, both chambers.

You wanna give them an “atta boy” for stoping the train from hitting a wall on a track they shouldn’t have been on? Yikes.

We need less “Yes” people, and need more and more “Why” and “End Game” people.

You - Befuddled - want participatory trophies, I want championships.

Go ahead.

“Yeah them!” lol

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 6:36 pm
Having the hearing was good politics. The way Barickman and the GOPers conducted themselves during that hearing was horrifically, comically, bad - truly epic. That is what Willy is talking about. Befuddled, if you think their performance was great, then I suggest you may be the only one.

Comment by Chicago Cynic Monday, Jul 21, 14 @ 10:28 pm
Cynics:

By your definition, Bruce Rauner is a criminal.

He promised to lower Ken Griffin’s taxes by millions if he is elected.

Griffin gave him millions in return.

Quid pro quo, Clarice, quid pro quo.

You guys are grasping at straws. Read what Schnorf wrote and let it sink in. What we already know without any allegations of criminality is pretty damning. Especially when you remember this wasn’t just any program, but a special initiative of the Governor’s Office, a point Team Rauner has foolishly let slip from the narrative.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Tuesday, Jul 22, 14 @ 8:58 am