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Illinois

Rate the year’s biggest winners and losers. List as many as you want, but explain your reasoning, please.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 7:17 am

Comments

Biggest winner for Republicans has to be Aaron Schock. Wins with 59% of the vote against a popular city councilman Democrat in a Dem leaning area all while doing it in a big “Dem year”. Peter Roskam could be biggest winner for holding off Duckworth is a Democratic year, but winning DuPage county should not be as hard as it was for him.

To find a biggest loser for the Democrats, I’m going to have to go all the way back to Paul Mangieri. To lose with Madigan’s support behind you is pretty bad. To raise less money for a statewide race in ‘06 than for a state senate race in ‘04 is even worse.

Comment by Tweed Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 7:45 am
Biggest winner: corruption. See state & Cook races.
Biggest loser: honest government. See above.

2nd winner: nepotism. See above.

Biggest group loser: Repubs. Self-explanatory.

Biggest individual loser: Tony Peraica. With the changes in the cook board’s make up and voting blocks (and Peraica’s inability to play nice with others), and no more money to use to threaten those who won’t see things his way, he will be irrelevant to everyone but himself.

Comment by Snidely Whiplash Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 7:51 am
Biggest winner in Emil Jones, with 5 pickups. 2nd biggest is Alexi Giannoulias standing up to Madigan.

Biggest Loser(s)? Mr. Speakers, Hastert and Madigan. weak showings on both their parts.

Comment by Blue Boy Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 7:53 am
Biggest Winner? Obviously Rep. Kurt Granberg for defeating his high school gym teacher by 126 votes. Him and the rest of his district are WINNERS!

Biggest Loser? Brett Farve.

Comment by Clinton Co. Fan Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 8:44 am
CC fan, I have to agree….with the Granberg thing, I’m not up to date on Farve. It was a rough and ugly race, but the district won out over big GOP dollars and muck.

Comment by MMS Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 8:53 am
Biggest Winner: Democratic Commiteemen
Biggest Loser: The Public

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 8:55 am
Biggest Loser: Jim Edgar for his backing of Topinka. He found out that voters don’t listen to him anymore.

Biggest Winner: Republicans, if Edgar takes the hint and just goes away.

Comment by Peachy Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:07 am
Biggest winners - Pat Quinn. Blago’s situation could move him into the office. Lisa Madigan shined once again and becomes a power player.

Biggest losers - Illinois citizens. Instead of voting for change and reform after years of scandals and indictments, voters chose three Chicagoans; Blagojevich, Stroger and Giannoulais who clearly demonstrated an inability to do their jobs, use nepotism and family connections over merit, while Cook, Chicago and Illinois are on the verge of major disasters.

The Illinois GOP is gone. The last moderate was defeated. With corrupted leadership an extremist conservative message, and no stars, the GOP has gone from life support to comatose. Without new leadership capable of having a dialog with the majority of voters, the GOP collapsed at the perfectly worst time.

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:09 am
Biggest winner - Bill. He stuck by his man.

Biggest loser - the people of Illinois. We are known as the State which tolerates corruption. And that won’t change anytime soon.

Comment by Little Egypt Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:19 am
Biggest winner: Rahm. He’s the man. They said it couldn’t be done and he made it look easy.

Biggest loser: Tie, between Denny Hastert and JBT. Both looked like winners going in, and both found a way to lose.

Comment by Skeeter Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:27 am
Biggest winner: Peter Roskam, the new face of the Illinois Republican Party

Biggest loser: probably JBT, i think she’s done in Illinois politics.

Honorable metion goes to Barak (King of the World) Obama

Comment by pickles!! Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:27 am
Biggest winner: Upstate Illinois

Biggest loser: Downstate Illinois

Comment by Anonymous12 Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:33 am
Biggest Winner: Rod Blagojevich. After one of the dirtiest, most negative campaigns in state history, Blagojevich retains his post. This despite over a dozen ongoing federal investigations (after being initially elected to clean up government), and the majority of IL voters choosing NOT to reelect him.

Biggest Looser: The Blagojevich Family (and friends). With Blago knowingly choosing to run for re-election with a huge cloud over his head and indictments “near” his doorstep, his family will be dragged through years of front-page, intense scrutiny that they wouldn’t have otherwise if he had wisely chose not to run again.

Stories that would have been second or third page stories at best (and not focusing on his family) become the lead story when its a sitting governor. If he truly cared about them he could have enjoyed his (remaining) free time with his family and not dragged them through what is certain to become an ugly & painful four years for his family and all of those close to them…

Comment by Animous Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:35 am
Winners: Blagojevich - He stretched a 7 point win four years ago into a 10 point win this time. In his two gubernatorial wins he faced and beat the Republican candidate that received the most votes of any Republican candidate the cycle before. The House and Senate Republicans tried to make Blagojevich the issue in many of the legislative races and I believe that in every instance the Blagojevich-aligned candidate won (someone correct me if I’m wrong here). The Senate Democrats chose to aggressively run on the record of a Democratically controlled General Assembly and a Blagojevich administration were rewarded with 5 seat pickups out of 39 races and a veto-proof majority. The House Democrats were fearful that a Blagojevich candidacy would hurt rather than help their candidates so they chose to only play defense and the result was that they still picked up 1 seat out of 118 races.

Rahm Emanuel - they put a tough-as-nails Chicago Democrat in charge and now Democrats have the House back. That’s not a coincidence.

Dick Durbin - our senior Senator is now the second most powerful person in the Senate.

Losers - the Cubs. But just wait til next year, I can’t wait to see Soriano pitch!

Comment by Snark Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:45 am
The biggest loser was/is Frank Watson. As much as I hate to say that, he put all of his eggs in two downstate baskets that were pretty much unwinnable. Frank’s strategy backfired and candidates such as Billie Roth, Terri Ann Wintermute and Sue Simpson lost because of money that Frank directed south of I-88.

The biggest winner was/is Rahm Emanuel. This guy is good at everything he does and what he touches turns to gold. He is angry and mean and demanding but he wins and he has a great campaign attitude.

Comment by Team Sleep Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 9:57 am
>The Illinois GOP is gone. The last moderate was defeated. With corrupted leadership an extremist conservative message, and no stars, the GOP has gone from life support to comatose. Without new leadership capable of having a dialog with the majority of voters, the GOP collapsed at the perfectly worst time.

Where are the conservative leaders? I don’t see any, and the GOP leadership has buried anyone who attempts to rise up.

Comment by Crimefighter Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 10:00 am
The only guy I can think of is Peter Fitzgerald and Al Salvi.

Peter is a winner with a great message capable of winning elections, and Al is a loser with a great message capable of winning elections - but not pulling if off once you get to his opportunistic history.

The GOP has some nice US Congresspeople from Illinois. Kirk, Weller, LaHood and Sweeney. However, there are no statewide office holders.

The need to grub for cash has wrecked leadership in both parties. The GOP can’t be in a position where it has tainted party leadership - and it is tough not to look tainted when you are making deals and securing cash. It is not an environment where new people come out smelling better than they did going in.

The situation reminds me of what happened to the GOP in Massachusetts and New York - single stars elected to statewide office without coat tails or movement away from Democratic nanny-state socialism.

There is just no one out there like Mitt Romney, showing the public it can have it’s cake and have it delivered via the market - not government. As long as we have generations of voters believing government’s job is to wipe their butts, it will be necessary for the GOP to show them how to be babied by nurturing a free market giving you more and better choices than a single care government bureaucracy.

I don’t see anyone making that case in Illinois.

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 10:14 am
Illinois State Tax Payers & Illinois State Employees……
You’ll See Very Soon!

Comment by Guy Fawkes Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 10:25 am
Big Winner- Alexi Giannoulias for winning key parts of DuPage county, to wit: Addison, Bloomingdale Twps and key parts of West Chicago.

Big Loser- Anyone who thinks Giannoulias is not a rising star in Democratic politics.

Comment by Charles Martel Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 10:33 am
Biggest winner - I’d say it has to be Giannolias. Both machines attacked him (I got a lot of anti-Giannoulias mailings from the Illinois Dem Party during primary season), and he still crushed.

Biggest loser - Forrest Claypool. Lost to a guy who is practically brain-dead, set up all the love that we’ve seen for Betty Loren Maltese’s buddy Tony Periaca.

Honorable Mentions - Lisa Madigan. Seems like everybody loves her now. Dan Seals - did a heckuva lot better than anyone would have guessed with very little support from Rahm, pulling nearly as much of the vote as Tammy did. I hope he runs again. Rahm - everybody thinks he’s god now, and he doesn’t do anything to dissuade them. Obama - From semi-obscure State Senator to the theoretical number 1 challenger to Hillary in 2 years. Illinois Dems - in general. The surviving prominent Illinois Republicans - Kirk, Weller, Roskam, primarily. The Cook Dem Machine. The DuPage Republican Machine.

Dishonorable Mentions - Periaca. Roskam (I heard something like $11 million, plus a bag of dirty tricks, to win IL-6 - sheez). Judy Barr Topinka. Dennis Hastert. George Ryan. The Illinois Republican Party in general.

Comment by jerry Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 11:11 am
Biggest Winner: Miguel del Valle, genious move on RMD’s part to bring him to City Hall. Silenced two critics at once: Miguel himself, and Luis Gutierrez.

Biggest Loser: The Latino Caucus. They lose their wisest, sagest member. del Valle’s statesmanship will be sorely misssed.

Comment by Woe is us Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 11:54 am
Biggest winner, Bill Brady - as the GOP crumbles and Blago faces at coming indictments, Brady scores style points and moves in as a substantive future for the party.

Biggest loser, Frank Watson - his hind-end was sufficiently handed to him on a platter. Ouch! That HAD to hurt.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 12:43 pm
Losers, voters in IL
Winners, Business as usual, croneyism, corruption, Rich Miller and the Wumpus. He gets more attn to his Blog and I am a winner, regardless. Oh yeah, Ohio State Football and Youngstown State Football…Mount Union Football.

Comment by Wumpus Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:12 pm
Winners:
1) Rich Miller: No explanation needed. Blog on!
2) Pat Quinn: Gov in 2008?
3) Lisa Madigan: Gov in 2010?
4) Suburban Democratic voters: A beautiful growing bunch of grassroots hope.

Losers:
1) Topinka: Bad timing. Bad campaign. Finished.
2) The GOP: Hit the wall hard. Roskam even looked bad by winning dirty.
3) Duckworth? No, wait, she’s up for an executive job. Wow, it was a Dem year, even in defeat. (She will do great.)
4) Suburban Republican voters: Not only are your neighbors voting Democratic, your wife is too!

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:12 pm
I become ill everytime Bill Beavers opens that trap of his. That being said, even though I think he’s the biggest loser, him and his family are the biggest winners. He gets a city and county pension now, and his daughter gets to take over his city council seat. Well played Beavers. Well played.

Comment by Bilbo Baggins Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:23 pm
Winners: Big Unions
Losers: Union Members

Comment by Nisok Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:25 pm
Winner: Obama. He went from temporary phenom to Presidential candidate, with new national influence in the Democratic Party, and made millions to boot.

Loser: George Bush. He bet his Presidency, and his historical legacy, that he could create a functioning Iraqi government before the American people’s patience ran out. He lost the bet on Nov. 7. Now he has a Democratic Congress; no Donald Rumsfeld, and no John Bolton; respective messes in Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and North Korea. His neo-Con Administration is dead in the water, waiting for the next salvo to hit with effect . . . with two years of lame duck status ahead.

Comment by Bubs Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:26 pm
Winner: Lisa Madigan. Came into office questionable. Took on the Gov. Tough on sex offenders and consumer fraud and is totally respectable. Now, she everyone’s favorite.

Losers: Cook County Dem Party. They’ll have to justify their support of Stroger who is already a disaster.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:28 pm
Biggest winner: Bobbie Steele, who doubled her pension in four months and passes her commissioner seat to her son — a double-steele!

Comment by respectful Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:36 pm
Biggest winner: Mayor Daley. With Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. dropping out, he won’t have to explain the corruption scandals in a heated campaign against a tough foe.

Biggest loser: Rod Blagojevich. He’s a much bigger target for the Feds as a sitting governor than a former one.

Comment by North by Northwest Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 1:52 pm
losers suburban voters. They left the screwed up democratic heck holes and now plan to move out here and screw our areas up. Thanks!

Comment by Wumpus Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 2:09 pm
Hey, it’s FAVRE not FARVE. We clear on that?

Biggest losers - anybody still glued to Blago’s sinking ship.

Comment by Buck Flagojevich Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 2:49 pm
Biggest Winner: The Illinois Green Party.

Collected 39,000 signatures from Illinois voters in 90 days, even though only 25,000 were required. Defeated a drawn-out and costly legal challenge by the Democrat machine and got onto the ballot. Rich Whitney earned about 10% of the total vote, making the Green Party a legally established, statewide, major political party in Illinois.

Biggest Loser: The Democratic Party of Illinois.

Thanks to the Green Party’s establishment, Democrats are going to be facing Green candidates at all levels in Illinois. They’re going to be even bigger losers, if they don’t get to work on Instant Runoff Voting right away.

Comment by Squideshi Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 3:06 pm
Winner: ComEd/Exelon

Comment by doubtful Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 4:09 pm
Biggest winner (in Illinois) has got to be Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who got elected again for reasons having more to do with her having done a great job so far than the fact that no one knew who the heck Stu Umholtz was (she would’ve still won easily, I’m sure, had she been up against some other name).

Also a winner–Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is not to be confused with football coach Pat Fitzgerald (no comments about the Wildcats being biggest losers, please, because that’s obvious–chuckle).

Biggest loser statewide has got to be Rod Blagojevich, his 2nd term victory aside. This guy is going to be watched like a hawk from here on out, because there’s just too much noise coming from his close pals/fundraisers. Also, he wouldn’t answer the serious questions: Have you retained criminal defense counsel, explain the $1500 check, and so forth. And on top of it all, he apparently blew off his own undergraduate institution when they called all of the candidates about organizing some type of debate or interview! Nice job, Rod. It is only one of the top schools in the entire nation. Glad you gave them so much thought that you dissed them when the calls came and you were more than some lowly undergrad now that you’re hooked up with bigwigs like Tony Rezko (snark snark snark).

Comment by Angie Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 4:43 pm
winner…dems
loser….the Chicago Tribune/Forrest Claypool loving
columnists. the whining hurts the ears. and,
please just confess that you are a libertarian
and not a progressive, Forrest.

Comment by bench coach Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 5:44 pm
Winners: Those who support rude, crude, illegal and stupid behavior to win at any costs - both in life and politics.

Losers: Those who try, despite the above, to remained kind and civilized.

Comment by Disgusted Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 5:59 pm
Biggest winners: Blagojevich–for now. Remember, the year started with most thinking he could not survive a primary, much less a general.
Obama–how can he not be? Bucked Madigan with Giannoulis and won and now is presidential timber.
Todd Stroger–from flunky son unheard of outside of the South Side to President of the Cook Co. Board

Biggest losers: Steve Rauschenberger–from respected State Senator with unlimited future prospects to unemployed (in politics anyway) has-been within months.
Denny Hastert–from third in presidential succession to back-bencher with the Foley mess and corruption suspicions nipping at his heels.

Comment by Conservative Republican Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 6:54 pm
Biggest loser, Attorney Tom Durkin. As the lawyer for Sorich who kept telling everyone how what Sorich did was not a crime, then losing the trial. Now an innocent guy who paid him goes to prison, we should look for the “L” on his forehead. P.S. Tom, Don’t show up in Bridgeport for a shot and beer.

Comment by SouthsideBud Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 7:01 pm
Biggest Winner: Pat Quinn

Biggest Loser: Tony Rezko

Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 8:43 pm
Angie,

Are you trying to educate the Guv? Rod has been thinking that since P. Fitz was coaching football he wouldn’t have the time to look into Rod’s dealings.

Comment by Buck Flagojevich Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 8:53 pm
Winners:

Lisa Madigan — She got to fly under the radar and has a great reputation and sense of inevitability about her coronation as governor in 2010.
Todd Stroger — His glaring weaknesses didn’t prevent his ascension to a post in which he will be almost invincible.
Patrick Fitzgerald — Several big wins in ‘06. Prosecutors hate to lose.
Mike Madigan — I’m not sure why yet (other than Lisa’s steady ascension), but my bet is that the cards are in his favor.

Losers:

Rich Daley — The bloom has come a bit off the rose and people are to taking bullets (prison) for him. It’s hard to imagine that the feds won’t find a Fredo in this extended family.
Blago — He was reelected, but his popularity is on a steep downslope.
The Republican Party of Illinois — The Peraica putsch put a bad cap on a bad year. Parties tend to regenerate fairly readily, but there is a lot of rotting vegetation (Oberweiss, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Birkett, Hastert, Peraica, Topinka, Daniels, Kjellender, Levine, Cellini, Edgar etc.) for the new shoots to overgrow.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 11:12 pm
Lisa Madigan for the dems and Aaron Schock for the repubs.

Both have demonstrated strong crossover appeal in the other party and both run particularly well with independents.

Both are uniqely able to pick up the pieces of their shattered parties.

The repubs are shattered now. The dems will be once the feds get done with Blago, Daley and Cook Co. Lisa had the foresight and fortitude not to endorse Rod. She has earned gravitas on policy and is widely believed to have done a really good job. She is not tied to corruption like Giannoulias is, (the $25,000 she got from Rezko is nothing compared to being the mob’s ATM). Lisa leaves a good impression with people she meets, Giannoulias comes across as dripping with arrogance and possessing an IQ a mere one point higher than Todd Stroger. With Obama’s continued backing, Alexi will challenge Lisa in the primary but the Madigans will win that one.

Schock is THE ONLY Illinois repub who is able to excite republicans and win over dem votes. He is a conservative who just won over African-Americans in Peoria and did well with labor too. He won big in a district more dem leaning than Illinois is. He’s won 3 of 3 longshot races. Looking over his D-2s and A-1s is the only way to appreciate his world class ability to fundraise.

Illinois’ future is not with the Pat Quinns or Bill Bradys. Both have lost badly in past races. Both are ideological extremists. And both are dull. Dan Hynes, who also lost a big race, is even duller, a zero on the inspiration meter.

For the repubs, Schock has the brightest future and the 2006 elections validated that fact.

Lisa will be our next Gov and that’s why she is the biggest winner of 2006, even though Emil Jones had the best results for the 2006 elections.

Comment by IL observer Tuesday, Dec 5, 06 @ 11:44 pm
Why is Lisa Madigan considered a winner, winning against a no-name? I don’t get that. She’s not a winner in the big sense.

Big Winners …
Rep. Mike Boland, for suckering another half million out of the speaker’s pockets to bail him out. It’s time for change in the 71st.

Sen. Barack Obama for floating into the political stratosphere of popularity

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart … He outsmarted Speaker Madigan and others who wanted his career to end abruptly.

Comptroller Dan Hynes, for a smashing success in the past campaign (his third successive statewide win). He’s positioned for Governor in 2010.

Losers… taxpayers of Cook County for not elected Claypool and electing more of the same sesspool that will suck tax dollars

Comment by values matter Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 12:08 am
Bob Flider for getting through another horrilbe campaign. One wonders how this guy sleeps at night with the negative ads he I mean Madigan ran to win this contest. Yes, Bob you are a big winner. At the same time you a bigger loser in a lot of people’s minds who feel Madigan has taken a nice loveable guy who stood for the right things and turned him into just another Chicago controlled politican who will do anything to get elected.

Comment by decaturboy Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 8:54 am
re: Why is Lisa Madigan a winner? She received almost 800,000 more votes than Blago. She may have beaten a nobody, but people remember who they voted for last time and are likely to vote for her the next time she is on the ballot, whatever the office. This is part of the reason the Repubs are in trouble- fielding bad candidates has an impact on future elections.

Comment by Max Maxwell Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 8:32 pm
Biggest Losers: The voters of Cook County with the Stroger corrupt dynasty continuing, Cook County government is a high taxing corrupt nightmare and joke
Democracy lost also, I don’t trust those machines, I don’t trust how they got there
they don’t work right, the elections are not fair or accurate

Biggest winners: the Irish, there will be a white backlash against African Americans but the Irish still control the African Americans
They will win on both accounts

Comment by Hagia Sophia Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:21 pm