Elections

2007 In Review for Chicago and Illinois

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2007 ended up with the happiest note for Illinois politics in years. On November 7, 2007 disgraced former “Republican” governor George Ryan reported to Federal prison to begin serving his 6 1/2 year sentence. I put the word “Republican” in quotes because the most prominent events in his tenure include waiving the death penalty in Illinois and continued deterioration of our states’ precarious finances.

When the last governor’s race occurred in Illinois between the Democrat Blagojevich and equally uninspiring Judy Barr Topinka I actually hoped for a Democratic victory (normally anathema on this blog) because I figured that the oozing “snail trail” of corruption could be followed to its logical destination if Blogo remained in power. And, sure enough, on December 21, 2007 the Federal prosecutors formally linked Blogo to the Rezco corruption case with more to come.

As always, the FBI are the only people who fight corruption in Illinois, despite our myriad local police and judicial armies dutifully punching the clock, as I noted in this post (it is from 2006, but some things never change, and likely you could utilize it in 2076). The Chicago Police kicked out their superintendent after a series of shocking events, caught on videotape, including the beating of a tiny female bartender by off-duty cops and the inevitable attempts to cover it up. His name is Weis and he is from the FBI; while I admire his guts for taking on this job (where the locals are already disgruntled that the new top cop comes from outside) I think that his odds of success are about the same as the lone survivor in that new “Justice” movie where he attempts to battle 1 billion zombies.

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Chavez Surprised

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Was anyone else pleasantly surprised at the results from Venezuela? The Devil’s Excrement, Gateway Pundit, Drudge.   Russia, of course, was less surprising.

Catatonic or Mellow?

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Do we just not want to talk about tomorrow?

Okay, so here are Crosby & Astaire in a dated but mellow moment.

Mellow may require some medication in the next couple of days. Except, of course, being reality based we aren’t all that surprised. Tradespots has had the same message for months.

I’d take more heart in the late-breaking polls if Bush hadn’t felt obliged to campaign for Tom Osborne. Not many miles from the village where I grew up is the Osborne highway. One of the first things I noticed in my brother’s living room was a collection of books by Osborne (for instance). If he’s weak something somewhere must be happening – and it probably isn’t good.

Killing Free Speech in Illinois

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“Good Government” groups seem to have it in for free speech. On the federal level, this has led to the passage of the execrable BCRA nee McCain Feingold law limiting various forms of political expression and especially expending money to distribute your opinions.

Illinois seems to have local forces bent on the same evil ends. Of course it’s all dressed up in nice, nonpartisan language claiming to be a good government initiative. Most of these infringements on free speech sport the language of the little guy standing up to moneyed interests but the reality is that the big guys always do know how to get around any restrictions (see the emergence of once obscure 527 committees into 2004 election powerhouses for a real world example).

Who, in reality gets hit? The small guys who are scared to even open their mouths are the biggest losers. Their more courageous compatriots who can’t afford competent legal help are also unduly burdened in their free speech distribution rights. It’s just a mess for everybody but the guys who can buy exceptions in the law and can hire very good lawyers to work around any restrictions. 

We can already see the mess that is being made at the national level with BCRA/McCain Feingold. We don’t need to replicate it in Illinois. But people will try, yes they will try. For them BCRA’s free speech suppression isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

von Drehle’s Trek through the Great Red Plains

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I’ve spent most of my life along the north/south axis that David von Drehle describes as “The Red Sea” in The Washington Post. (Thanks to Instapundit & before him, Tim Blair.) Not surprisingly, his take on life lived across that swath of America roughly from Waco, Nebraska to Waco, Texas is a bit condescending. He implies that, knowing little of Kerry because he didn’t campaign there, these people were timid. He sums up his impressions rather early:

The decision to vote for Bush instead seemed wrapped up in the age-old city vs. rural dichotomy, change vs. tradition, theory vs. horse sense, new vs. familiar.

Open-minded vs. closed-minded, offered Pam Sackschewsky from behind the bar at Hunters. She’s a Kerry voter.

This ignores the fact that, as Tim Blair points out, the author comes from an area that voted 10 to 1 for Kerry, while the “red sea” went pro-Bush 4 to 1, implying more independent thinking. (Anyone who has spent much time among those aggressively independent entrepreneurs of the plains knows they don’t hold conformity in high regard – certainly not as in the news rooms of the east.)

I was struck both by von Drehle’s rather narrow perspective and by the tone of the people he met.

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