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* Quote of the Week: Yes, our governorâ€™s name really is Rod Blagojevich. Yes, he really likes to quote Elvis songs. And, yes, given current headlines, â€œJailhouse Rockâ€ might be on his iPodâ€™s recently played list.

* Brown: Illegal immigrants used as pawns in heated campaign rhetoric

* Stroger would oust hundreds of workers - Says he’d request resignations of 500 county appointees

* Health care key governor race issu

* St. Louis-Chicago rail service improves

* Gartel: Green gubernatorial candidate offers refreshing change for Illinois politics

* Congressional race a hot topic in DuPage County

* Only One Governor Earns Top Score on Cato’s Governors Report Card [Blagojevich got a D]

* Stroger workers took signs: GOP

* Bankruptcy fraud charges highlight ‘mortgage bailout’ scams

* Quinn seeking hearing on ComEd exec compensation

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 8:23 am

Comments

How long has “Charles Fox” been Chairman of the ICC?

Comment by Pingu Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:17 am
Regarding Stroger people picking up Peraica signs, they are doing the county a service, if you aks me. Most, if not all, of Tony’s signs are placed illegally in the public right-of-way. His campaign never picks them up. They leave them there until the next time Tony picks an office to run for in the hope it boosts him name recognition. Next up, Tony runs for Recorder of Deeds against the lame duck Gene Moore. This time as a Democrat!

Comment by Anon Starter Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:21 am
Stroger can ask for resignations but do the identified employees have to resign?

What’s missing here is an understanding of Cook County personnel regs. How many employees are truly at will? If they are not at will, under what conditions can they be “let go” if they don’t wanna be let go. That will be most of them
as Cook County jobs, like state of Illinois jobs, are notorious for high pay for little actual work, great benefits, and lifetime job security.

Current Cook County government is a John Stroger creation which means most jobs likely have huge protections which make it very difficult to fire people. So this could be a little Stroger in-joke, with Toddler claiming he’ll fire people he knows he can’t fire. Or they’ll be “fired” into other equally lucrative jobs like Gerald Nichols
was when Steele wanted to get him out of the limelight. We’ll end up paying for the fired employees’ new make work jobs plus the new
incumbents’.

I predict, under Stoger, a few high-profile folks will be dumped, and replaced by other loyalists. Peraica will make more of an effort to trim the bureaucracy but he may well be symied by personnel and civil service regulations.

Plus ca change, in other words.

Comment by Cassandra Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:25 am
It is always funny to me when posters feign shock at things that go on and now it’s my turn. I hope I do it well. I am shocked, SHOCKED! that anyone involved with the Stroger campaign would do ANYTHING that shows disrespect to the electoral process or the voters of Cook County.

This sign garbage is a joke. On both sides.

Comment by Matt Leinart Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:38 am
You have it almost right - what Stroger will do [similar to what Blago did] will be to (1) eliminate empty positions, no matter how vital they are to county services; (2) offer early retirement, which often takes out the most experienced and self-sufficient employees; (3) use pay freezes and other tactics to get middle-management to resign, then finally (4) replace only 30%-50% of the people who have left, all with incompetent yet politically-connected hacks.

God knows, there’s bloat at the county and the state - I just wish *ONE* freaking politican had the testicular fortitude to do a real asessment of the workforce, get rid of the dead wood [even those related to the politically connected] and let the rest of the workers, who in general just want to feel some satisfaction in a job well done, get on with the buisness of the county and the state.

Comment by to Cassandra Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:50 am
Nice to see a Rockford reporter writing about DuPage…kinda pointless.

Comment by Ryan Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 9:56 am
You don’t need x-ray glasses to see the suddenly announced All-Kids Days “festival” is an all-Votes last minute campaigning ploy to do voter outreach on the state’s dime. Shamelessly transparent, Rod. You must think we all fell off the soybean truck yesterday.

Comment by Gregor Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 12:58 pm
Anyone notice this interesting little tidbit in the Gartel piece?

“…the Illinois Green Party has 650,000 dues-paying members, with the numbers growing every day, as well as countless other supporters.”

I’m fairly sure that this is an error; but considering that state election law considers anyone who signs a party’s nominating petition to be a member of that political party, we do know that the Green Party “technically” has at least 39,000+ members in Illinois.

Comment by Squideshi Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 12:59 pm
I think Sweeney has done a pretty good job covering the whole state so far, asking people about the upcoming elections. He’s been making the rounds, not leaving people out. I also think it’s good that he’s showing the people of Rockford the different points of view that others in Illinois have. Something you don’t expect from your local paper. Like Rich, I read him faithfully, don’t always agree, but I do read him faithfully.

Comment by Tessa Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 1:15 pm
The CATO Institute gave Rod Blagojevich a D instead of an F? What are they waiting for? The actual indictment to come down?

Comment by Angie Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 3:30 pm
the 650,000 is what Rich Whitney told me during our interview; I tried to fact-check that, but I assumed he would tell a writer for a paper the correct number, perhaps not. It sounds about right though, considering recent polls.

Comment by Lally Gartel Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 5:23 pm
could be US Greens, but that numbers seems low for US Greens. The context was certainly Illinois, but I apologize for my misinterpretation.

Comment by Lally Gartel Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 5:28 pm
It’s probably US, but it’s still a good piece.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 5:32 pm
It is US. On their website, it says something around 310,000 for mid-2004. So, at best it’s US. Sorry again.

Comment by Lally Gartel Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 5:54 pm
perhaps Rockford hasn’t heard of this little thing called AP that, in addition to reporting news, compiles news from elsewhere and sends it out to its members so they dont’ have to send their own reporters.

Then again, it’s Rockford, so maybe they really haven’t heard of AP.

Comment by Michelle Flaherty Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 10:15 pm
Mr. and Mrs. Little Egypt have had an interesting day. We went over to Hannibal for a day trip on a bus of senior citizens (actually 2 buses). Blago was the talk of both buses. And neither of us heard one single person who will vote for this guy. Of course we heard lots of funny untruths and we certainly didn’t try to clear them up. It’s funny how seniors don’t forget rumors that abounded a couple of years ago and I won’t bring them up here but we’ve all heard them. Plain and simple, Blago is a crook in the eyes of over 100 senior citizens. I’d be worried because I believe this is a very strong belief among this age group. So my poll for the day is Blago 0%, JBT well over 60% and they’re still trying to figure out why there is even a third party candidate when all they know is Dems and Repubs. The other 40% won’t even bother going to the polls. They’ve been there, done that and don’t see where their vote has made a difference throughout their long years.

Comment by Little Egypt Thursday, Oct 19, 06 @ 11:11 pm
Lally, it’s tough to actually calculate how many members a political party has in Illinois, because there is no registration by political party; so depending on what method you use to calculate, you will always come up with different numbers.

Comment by Squideshi Friday, Oct 20, 06 @ 9:40 am