Well if Sen. Clinton wins Indiana and somehow ends up really close or winning NC does she have a case about momentum?

If she does have a case does it have an impact?

OneMan

Sometimes you can't make this stuff up...

Tony Rezko asked an official in Gov. Blagojevich’s administration to pay him $25,000 so Rezko could use the money to keep construction contractors from putting a lien on the governor’s home, federal prosecutors said in court today

You know there are friends and there are friends who help cover a lien.

OneMan

Sorry Matthew you just don't get it.


Using Stanley Fish to bolster your argument that the Ayers thing is no big deal is an interesting choice, I know there are lots of folks in government and academia in Illinois that haven't been within 10 feet of Ayers. Also they are not all Republicans by any stretch. But if you are going to use an academic to make your point you might as well use one who..

Camille Paglia, author of Sexual Personae, denounced Fish as a "totalitarian Tinkerbell," charging him with hypocrisy for lecturing about multiculturalism from the perspective of a tenured professor at the homogenous and sheltered ivory tower of Duke
but this takes the cake

Then again this idea kind of takes the cake.

But then again lots of folks with much more blood on their hands from that same period -- Henry Kissinger and his subordinates -- are even more respectable figures, key members of the national establishment.

FAIL.

Because trying and planning to kill people in the US is not the same as being secretary of state during a war, reguardless of the morality of the war. One is approved by the senate and subject to removal by the president and one is a rich kid with explosives and too much Marx. If you can't see the difference, then that is just sad.

OneMan

Well Rich has some more on the calls for Jim to step down in the 14th.  FYI, I no longer have a role in any campaign in the 14th so I kind of feel free to speak my mind now,

I guess the question I have with all of this is then who?

Well you can't really let the folks who didn't win in the primary run.  First we didn't do that when we replaced Jack Ryan secondly, since the folks who lost in the primary didn't come out and support Jim I think you send the wrong message.  Also the replacement candidate isn't going to get a ton of support from Republican leaders who feel he is in part responsible for the special election loss.

The same folks who took a pass at primary time are going to take a pass this time.  Run against a self funder who will have some incumbency behind him in an environment where Obama is the likely Democratic presidential nominee with limited time?  Good luck finding someone who is willing to do that.  As we have seen in general most elected Republican officials are not real eager to run in 'fools missions' races. 

Considering the experience in the 11th do we really want to candidates who did not win primaries running in this state for congress. I know the party is having some tough times but do we have to go out of our way to in fact prove it?

A Saturday special election is a different beast than a general election in the fall.  Who knows how things might turn out, swapping candidates at this point doesn't scream desperation it screams surrender.

OneMan

In light of Sen. Obama apparently turning down Sen. Clinton's offer of a Lincoln/Douglas style debate. (I understand why he said no, she is basically done and the debates would have done him no favors). I tried tracking down something I seem to recall from his senate campaign, how there was talk that he was going to Lincoln/Douglas with Jack Ryan up to six times around the state. I was able to find some blog posts I had done about it but the news stories that came up on google were almost all pay to read, so suffice to say I didn't read them

I know it's a lot of if's but if Ryan didn't have his issues and stayed in the race the Obama/Ryan debates would have been interesting and may have given a lot of insight into Senator Obama.

OneMan

Peggy Noonan's latest on the WSJ is worth a read. Go read the whole thing, here is a bit of it.

Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama's problem. America is Mr. Obama's problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men's Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There's gold in that history.

Go read the whole thing, I think she offers him some good campaign advice. Also keep in mind she is asking a question not making a statement about has he gotten misty-eyed over.

The Ayers stuff plays into the snooty left stuff and I think he needs to figure out how to get around that perception (again perception, you may not think it fair but it is out there)

OneMan

Some impeachment questions, please feel free to answer in comments. I will offer my thoughts..


If you are Mike Madigan to you cut a budget deal with the governor that is in part based off of keeping impeachment off of the floor?

-- No, it could hurt Lisa down the road

If you are the Governor and the hits keep coming do you go to total war over the budget to try to get people back into your court?

-- At this point what do you have to lose, why not?

If you are legislature do you just go there are only 2 years left of his term let the feds to what they are going to do and leave it at that.

-- Nope, if he gets charged and/or things start looking really bad for him he is going to do even more damage to the party and the only solution is to look like you did something.

If you are one of the other statewide elected officials do you start calling publicly for him to step down.

-- Yes, the further you get away from him the better it is for you.

OneMan

Thanks for the comments on the Ayers/Obama stuff. I guess I want to clarify a couple of my points.

-- Senator Obama's has a Bill Ayers problem and I think it will end up being a much bigger problem then Rev. Wright.

After reading some well reasoned arguments I have personally concluded: it is a problem. You may argue it isn't going to be fair, you may argue it isn't going to be correct. All that said it is going to be a problem for him.

A problem that will be tied into nice 60 second TV commercials that are going to hurt him with Blue-Collar men and women which if you believe the exit polls the group needs to make progress with.

Is it a problem for me, well yeah it is. Then again I am Republican and I was a McCain supporter even during the primary so Sen. Obama wasn't going to get my vote anyway. Is it a show-stopper issue for me? No it isn't.

Ayers was a founder for a group who thought it was ok to kill guys like my Dad, my Uncle and my cousin on American soil because they were in the armed forces and he seems unapologetic for that. In my heart of heart I think people who do that and actually conspire to do those things and/or do them should spend the rest of their lives in jail, we owe that to our folks in the armed forces then and now. They should not be professors on the state dime, they shouldn't get pardons from a president after they are caught with explosives.

If you are running for office you should have more sense than have them host a fundraiser for you. I suspect a large percentage of these folks who are defending Obama now would take a different tact if it was a Republican who had a fundraiser hosted years ago by someone who led a group that planned and acted on plans to blow up anti-war protesters, regardless of what they have done since.

You might be a bigger person than me and can look past that. Good for you.


As for the question
-- Is there no "redemption" through good works possible in Christian America?

In order for there to be redemption the needs to be repentance; sorry I haven't seen that from the man.

As for
-- Rising above it.

This is politics and it isn't going to happen. I know some people think that if Obama is the nominee it's going to be all puppy dogs and butterfly kisses from the Democrats. I am not holding my breath. It's going to get ugly all around, I don't expect that MoveOn.org is going to do nothing but positive message ads about Obama.


OneMan

Yes I feel safer now.
So you get suspended for 5 days for fighting but 7 days for running around in a banana suit.

Is it just me or does the idea that Hell's Kitchen had a kids night seem a little creepy.

It nothing else your kids would learn some new words with a British accent.

You know sometimes I have to admit I feel a bit left out of the fact that I am not part of the 'conservative blogroll' here in Illinois (and yes Illinois Review has linked to me a couple of times)

But if to be part of the club you have to come up with stuff like Comparing Rich Miller to the Unabomber.

Yes I realize I am the last person Rich needs defending him but again it brings up a bigger point.

If we spent a lot less time on this sort of stuff and more time on facts and logical arguments I think we would be in better shape. You don't save too many people preaching the same message to choir.

If you think his facts or analysis is wrong provide reasons not cute little things about 'secret locations'.

OneMan

I think the bigger message in the Ata plea is to Tony; and that message is....

We have more and we are not going to stop until you cooperate.

Last post tonight, in looking some stuff up I found a post from back in May of last year about the congressional race it is kind of interesting to see what I got right and wrong.

On the other hand if Hastert does not run for re-election. The Republican primary is likely a brutal affair that ends up going negative with some Republicans ending up seriously pissed off. Odds are these pissed off Republicans are going to sit on their hands at best and work against the nominee at worst.

Well turns out I was more right on that then I ever figured.

Yeah, that's the answer. Nor is the answer some attorney who hasn't run for anything in his life. Sorry don't get me wrong as a Republican I would love for the democrats to run someone like that because they would be easy pickings for any of our guys. Mr. Stein has only lived in the district for a couple of years, so he has no real base locally. The 14th is basically a conservative area you need a moderate Democrat to have a chance. Global warming isn't the big issue in the 14th and not the issue to build a campaign around for this neck of the woods.

Well I didn't see Foster coming, but I was right about Mr. Stein.

Senator Obama's has a Bill Ayers problem and I think it will end up being a much bigger problem then Rev. Wright.

Yes I have blogged about Bill Ayers before, way before it became trendy. As I have stated before as long as he is on the payroll of UIC they will never see a dime of alumni money from us (Mrs. OneMan got her masters at UIC).

Why?

Because I think Blue-Collar America regardless of color is willing to not get too uptight about an angry preacher.

However having a relationship that can be spun a lot of different ways with a guy who was a founder of a group that wanted to blow up a NCO dance at Fort Dix. Who has said recently that he has no regrets is going to be a problem for him. Blue-Collar America had Uncles, Sons, Brothers and Fathers who were in the military during roughly that time period. So you have a candidate who has a relationship with someone who wanted to kill those folks, here on American soil. That is going to be a problem....

Imagine the 527 group ad pointing out John McCain was at the Hanoi Hilton when Bill Ayers was playing mad bomber and Communist. These were not just some kids marching in a protest, the Weathermen were not harmless.

Mark my words when the dust settles, some group(s) are going to make the 'Swiftboating' of Kerry look like a walk in the park with what they are going to do with this. It may not be fair, it may not be accurate, but it is going to happen.

OneMan

Some quick final thoughts on the Springfield trip....

Well besides the entertainment value of having my daughter used in part to keep the governor from answering questions I have a few other things to share and some thanks to share as well.

Thanks to Rep. Fritchey for talking to my daughter again same with Senator Rutherford.

Thanks to the staffers at the various offices that let my daughter and I look around.

It also turns out that later some other groups were able to talk to the governor later as well including at least one more group that was down for the IGEA Springfield day. It will be interesting to see if speaking to all of those folks including the governor will actually free up some gifted education money.


OneMan

My Daughter Gets Us In to See The Governor and Helps Him Evade the Press

We are walking down to the second floor when I see Speaker Hastert, the Governor and Glenn Poshard walking out of the Governor's office for a media scrum thingy...

So I said lets go see the Governor and the kids walked up to where the media is and then...

So we are listening to speaker Hastert a bit and I am thinking perhaps I can go say hi to Denny when he is done and perhaps introduce him to the group but then my daughter asks the Governor if she can see his office and he says sure. She then reminds him again in a minute so he lifts up the red barrier thing and says come on in...

So at this point I am in the outer office with my daughter and the folks from our group and some middle school kids and I thinking, "This is too funny, I am about to go into the Governor's office"

So we go back into his office and the middle school kids are acting as if he is in fact Elvis. I know he may be having some general popularity problems in Illinois but for at least the middle school kids that came in with us he was in fact Elvis. One described his as the most famous person in Illinois.

At this point since odds are someone from the Governors office may end up reading this, I want to point out I was not the one who asked this question.

One of the leaders from the middle school group asked her students something to the effect of.

If the Governor can not fulfill his duties who takes over...

I have to admit I had to stifle a bit of a laugh.

So the kids answer "the Lt. Governor" and the Governor says some like that's right Pat Quinn who is a nice guy but lets hope he doesn't have to do that (or something like that).

He then took pictures with a bunch of the kids including my daughter

So yes, I know what some of you are thinking. You had the Governor right next to you, in Springfield why didn't you ask him some questions?

Well to be frank at this point I was in dad mode, trying to take pictures with my cell phone and just being proud of my daughter because I was in the Governor's office basically in large part because of my daughter having the moxie to ask the Governor of Illinois if she could see his office ( I always try and tell her it never hurts to ask). I was also enjoying the irony considering the blog and everything.

So to the Governor and his staff thanks for making the day of some kids.

Well the blog posts this year on IGEA's Springfield day are going to be broken up into two posts, because to be honest one of them will not do it justice.

First, I just want to say in all honesty thanks to the folks who work in the capitol building reguardless of whom they work for. Be it the Lt. Governors office, Sec of State, etc. Everyone was really helpful and more than happy to talk with my daughter. If it was showing her the state seal and Jessie White's office or visting the Lt. Governors office (not much larger than my own office at work ironically). They were all very cool, thanks.

My daugther at Pat Quinn's Desk

So then we had the group meeting with the entire group and Tom Cross came and spoke (and using an example of a car trip and kids in the back seat gave a really good and funny explanation of the budget situation) he then spent a few minutes with the groups from his area.

So then I got to take a group over to the Capitol and we got a couple of legislators off of the floor. First Linda Chapa-LaVia talked to the kids and parents for a few minutes and was a big hit. I think it is safe to say that if 4th graders could vote my daughter would campaign for her. She did a really good job talking to the kids (and parents) and had a real understanding of our issues.


So after talking with Pat Linder, I led our little group (of our bigger group) around a little bit and we were headed down to the second floor when.....

(See Next Post)

In my previous post I couldn't seem to find how Sen. Holmes may have been connected to the the school property thing. I think I may have it now, according to the Daily Herald it turns out someone hired a lobbyist on the issue.

Being potentially locked into a price is what spurred Spangler to hire lobbyist Jay Keller of Capitol Consulting Group Illinois to fight against quick-take.

"I did not feel that the … additional 55 acres could be purchased for $14 million. I felt additional land was going to cost somewhere around $30 million that was going to leave a deficit to the district of ($16) million," Spangler said.

State Sen. Linda Holmes, an Aurora Democrat, was sponsoring the quick-take proposal in the legislature and said she made the decision not to call it for a vote out of the same concern, though no one lobbyist swayed her decision.

She also was concerned about the way some of the district's boundaries were drawn

I would be interesting if someone in the MSM asked her what her concerns were about the bounderies. Was it because some kids who had gone to NV would have had to to go WV? They may also want to look at some D-2 and lobbyist regisration information as well.



OneMan

I am surprised that Illinois hasn't tried this...



OneMan

So Richard isn't going to run for mayor. I would have to say that is a good move on his part, not that I didn't think he would have a good chance of winning I just think taking a pass this time around is a good move for him.

OneMan

Zorn has a blog post about todays ruling titled

Pesky rules thwart Generalissimo Blago

Eric, he is doing the will of the people, even if he is the only one who feels that way. Rules, much like FOIA requests are for other people.

OneMan

Looks like it is going to be an interesting week to be down in Springfield with OneDaughter and it's only Tuesday at this rate it may not be out of the of the question to run into this guy.

OneMan

Well there has been a bit blogged and written about the whole Metea Valley High School thing here in Aurora/ Naperville.

First here is a shot of what was the current proposed location.

View Larger Map

A general news summary can be found here. The web site of the group that is against the site is here.

I am not going to go into the motivation of the various parent groups, etc. I have my thoughts about that. But I am going to leave it at that.

What I want to look at is Midwest Generation decision to not sell it's land to the school district.

From a report in the Naperville Sun.

In that letter, Fred McCluskey, Midwest Generation’s vice president for technical services, says "it is now apparent that there is serious public opposition and a deep division within the community regarding the use of Midwest Generation’s property as the site of a new high school."

That opposition, McCluskey said, includes Neighborhood Children for Our School’s lawsuit against District 204, but also the lobbying of public officials, and a "grass roots effort that has disseminated incorrect, misleading, and potentially harmful information" about both District 204 and Midwest Generation.

"Consequently, it is our opinion that continued negotiations and the potential sale represent a threat to both the business interests and reputation of Midwest Generation.

So a power company backed off of the deal because of some local pressure. I suspect everyone who has ever tried to block a high tension line, power plant or any other action by a power company is going to come and try to figure out how in a little more than a month a power company changed it's mind.

The Daily Herald had some stuff about pressure and State Senator Linda Holmes the Herald also has a summary that includes a mention of her in regards to some quick take legislation that they tried to get passed last year.

So why? The OpenLine guys have some thoughts.

I am not buying their Weisner theory on it in the least, the part of town that is the most impacted in some ways by Eola site isn't really a factor in Aurora politics. Also I think the Eola site is better for Aurora than they other proposed locations and not building it at all doesn't do any favors for local unions a traditional base of support for Tom. So yes kids, I am in fact defending the mayor on this one.

As for Sen. Holmes she doesn't seem to have that kind of leverage. Trying to work it for the folks in the subdivision that seems to be in the center of the opposition doesn't seem to make a ton of raw political sense. it isn't that big. She doesn't seem to have ever raised much money from individuals who actually live in her senate district. Also I don't see how helping to at least delay if not outright kill a major construction project does you any favor with the union PACs (the painters are very active out here).

That being said, hers is the name that keeps coming up.

I hope the papers keep looking at this. Also there is now talk the church that owned the other parcel will consider selling all of their land, if so that can make things interesting again.

Regardless it looks like that students in that district are going to continue to attend school that quite frankly have too many students in them for a while longer, so it is them that may end up being the losers in all of this.

OneMan

A woman gets jail time for nearly hitting a helicopter with her car when it was participating in a rescue.

Ok, here is a question. Why? Not why did she get time I get that, but why did she do it.

OneMan

Rocker Ted Nugent will open Naperville's annual Ribfest on July 3 this year.

Not only will he perform but for one luck fan he will also slay their meal.

OneMan

The Beacon Blog has an item asking who has the best chance of beating Tom Weisner during the next election for mayor.  Well it is still early day in that race and we don't know who the candidates are (also the replies are mostly pro-Tom)  

So instead I am going to address the question  "How do you beat Tom"

I think it is in fact very possible to defeat Tom if you had the right approach, the key is going to be to treat Aurora as several different cities and deal with the issues in each area and point out stuff that would cause concern without sounding just negative.

So I am going to break town up into several different parts.

Far/Far East Side (most of these folks are not life long Aurora residents)

-- Traffic: Point out how bad Eola has gotten and how bad the timing is on the lights.

-- Make working to move the EJ&E commuter line project forward an issue (it will help property values)

-- The fact that you can go to several places in Aurora to get ink done but no place to see a first run movie (not family friendly)

-- Finally how as the clinic showed they do not have the same zoning protections as the rest of town, make changing that a priority

Will/Kendall county portions of the city.  Most of these folks are not remotely engaged in local issues so...

-- Traffic: Making Eola 4 lanes all the way from Wolf's Crossing to I-88 and improving the timing of the lights on Eola.

-- The commuter line issue above

-- Pointing out how the park system in the area seems to neglect the edges of the city

-- Work better with Will/Kendall county

Near East Side:

--  Very aggressive building code enforcement

--  Crime, more cops on the beat. Deal with the idiots so everyone has a better life

--  Smart development on Farnsworth

Near West Side

-- See Near East Side

Far West Side

-- Crime, traffic

Overall:

Quality of life, how the city was surprised by the clinic, how the city either ran out of salt or decided to stop salting the roads.

In General:

If I were running for mayor (help us all) one of the first things I would do is start doing coffees all over the place and start doing them now.  

This election to some degree is still going to be word of mouth.  You would see me at every homeowners and community group just saying hi, asking what's up and following up with people.

If you establish who you are before someones mailer does you will be set.  I would set a goal of hitting 4 meetings a week and following up with 20 people a week. I would be come the living version of "How to win friends and influence people".  This will be real effective in the Kendall, DuPage and Will county portions of town.

You have to start now, but that kids will work. Aurora hates negative campaigning, being the positive candidate who has been to their meetings and following up with them is the key.

Some other possible candidates:

Linda Chapa-LaVia : I think she would be the one to beat if she ran. The longer she stays in Springfield the less that is going to be a positive for her.

Chris Lauzen:  His name has come up before, it would be interesting to see. He did win Aurora in the primary for the 14th.  Don't think he would do it but it would be interesting if he did.

Mike McCoy:  Former Kane County Board Chairman, his name came up last time and he took a pass.  I don't know how much of a base he has in Aurora anymore.

Alderman Scheketa Hart-Burns: Don't think she would run against Tom, but would be a great candidate if she did. 

Eric Zorn has some more on how some folks pardon/clemency requests get addressed much quicker than others.

I still think a good FOIA request may reveal all sorts of things.

Also it will make a heck of a TV commercial if he runs for a third term.

OneMan

Read this book today over lunch (have to admit I am a Daniel Pink fan)

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

It's an interesting read about the world of work and offers some intelligent advice. Well worth a read.

For more about Johnny Bunko follow the link

Here is a question, is all of this mocking of Liberals that is done by various Illinois conservative blogs really doing anything helpful.

That is, is it moving the conservative movement forward?

Just asking.

OneMan

Yet again reading OpenLine in the Beacon so you don't have to..

A recent program on the History Channel had a segment on making fertilizer, and one way was using ordinary garbage. After a few heat treatings and chemicals, it was bagged and sold to homeowners, golf courses and other users. Instead of a huge landfill nobody wants in their back yard, why can't someone take the initiative and operate one and gain from the profits? Our Kane County Board of Directors could do this or supplement someone who will, and put that money to good use for the benefit of all of us taxpayers in the Kane County.

I also saw something once on the History channel about alchemy but I am not recommending the county board start buying lead.

As for in general we have the following themes lately.

-- Kids today, so disrespectful why should we increase school funding.
-- Man do we have high taxes why can't they reduce them
-- Lots of 'I have heard from people'...

OneMan

The Trib has a story about attorney pay and it has this little quote.

Most law schools, Loyola included, grade on a mandatory curve, so half the students finish in the bottom half of their class, typically for the first time in their high-achieving lives

FYI, half of all high school graduates, graduated in the bottom half of their class.

I think the conclusion you walk away from the article is that there is a big difference in pay within the field, just like every profession and MD who is a dermatologist on the North Shore is going to make much more than a GP in Peoria. It is a host of factors, some skill and intelligence based, some market based and some just chance.

The article does provide some insight however into why so many attorneys want to be judges (better pay).


OneMan

I think I have a solution to the budget issue in the state.

The ultimate tax to add my famous TOP (Tax Other People Plan)

• A $5 a head tax for people going into adult entertainment facilities (call it a pole dance tax)

They tried it in Texas but the courts struck it down.

Some other ideas..

• A 1$ tax on any drink that has an umbrella in it.
• A $.01 tax on each gallon of premium gas, it's not like I put it in my minivan or the Taurus
  

More to come.

OneMan