Completely Unnecessary

Can I just take a moment to say how important it is for voters to turn out for this primary?

Turnout is expected to be very low - and with Fritchey, Feigenholtz and Quigley set to split the Democratic field, economist Charlie Wheelan or labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan could slip in with enough support.

While the fields are not as large in the Republican and Green Party primaries, every vote will definitely count, whichever ballot you choose.

(Speaking of which, there have been some problems in recent elections with Green Party ballots being ‘unavailable’ or placed out of sight/off the judges’ table. If you’re a Green, make sure to get your proper ballot; they should at all polling places.

And all fair-minded voters should have a check to make sure that their judges are providing equal opportunities to all parties. You can ask even if you’re not taking a Green ballot.)

For the record, I’m supporting Charlie Wheelan. He’s a economics and public policy prof down at U of C. As such, he’s a political outsider in Chicago (yay!), as well as one of the most progressive/lefty Democrats in the field.

If you’re still making up your mind, I suggest having a look at his website. If you’ve already made up your mind, great!

Voting info:

Check your registration, Chicago residents and suburban Cook County residents. If your status is ‘Inactive’ call 312.269.7936 to resolve the issue and be prepared to bring your driver’s license to the polling place.

Polls are open tomorrow, March 3rd, from 6am until 7pm. You must vote at your polling place, not at the early voting sites. Your polling place listed on your voter card or you can check online.

If you are in line at 7pm, you must be allowed to vote. Do not be turned away. If your workday spans the entirety of open polling times, your employer must give you two hours off to vote.

Various Chicago voting nonsense: If you have voted in your polling place before and are in the signature book (a white slip with your signature on the left side) - you are not required to show ID. It’s always a good thing to bring along in case of a canvas challenge, but - as a voter - you are allowed to speak to other voters and to question a judge who asks for ID from a voter in the book with a white slip.

During the 2008 election, my judge insisted on seeing ID and then yelled at me when I refused. We had to call the BoE, but the argument continued, with her loudly abusing me the entire time I voted. It was a miserable experience for me, but I know the law and was helped by good BoE employees.

It may sound like a minor issue, but many lower-income and older residents don’t have IDs (and may not return to vote if turned away by ignorant/poorly trained/corrupt election judges). It is illegal for election judges to require white-slip voters to produce ID. If you see abuse, please bring it (politely) to the attention of the judge. If they respond poorly, stick to your guns and call the BoE. It is your right as a voter. And it’s your vote.

While we’re talking about proper voting procedures - this is the proper order of things at the polling place.

1. Your give your name and your application should be located in the book.
2. You sign your application.
3. It is checked against your signature in the book (white slips).
4. Your application is then removed, exchanged for a ballot, and placed on the spindle.

You should NOT be given your application before your signature is checked. You should NOT have to ‘check in’ with a partisan pollwatcher beforehand. Partisan pollwatchers should NOT be sitting at the table with election judges.

Report any and all irregularities to the Board of Elections (312.269.7870/312-269-7900).

Happy voting!

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You go away for a couple of days and everyone’s all up in your fake-ish Senator demanding explanations about what he did or did not promise to do for your ex-governor.

Jeez, people are pushy! Let’s let the man tell it, shall we?

I mean, can you all imagine what’s going on now, when the secretary of state wouldn’t sign the petition? And we had to try to deal with all that…And (had) to hire all these lawyers. And they were looking at all the law and doing all this research. This is all going on and so we can be prepared to go to court in case they didn’t seat us…So we went out on Jan. 15, and we stayed in Washington because I was sworn in. And guess what? I had to vote that evening. At 4:30 or 5 o’clock, I had to cast my first vote in the Senate.

With all that going on, it would be easy to forget to mention that you’d met with a host of Blagojevich’s fundraisers and tried to raise money for him.

It would be equally easy to imply, under oath, that you’d done no such thing.

It’s clear that Burris’ appointment is a path of least resistance to 2010, when Alexi Giannoulias - currently getting some foreign policy chops with Dick Durbin in Greece - can take over. Madigan gets the statehouse… and scene.

So whilst Harry Reid ‘hope[s Burris] didn’t try to avoid or mislead anyone’, we have renewed sentiment that Burris is unfit for the job, now with editorials calling for his resignation.

God, it’s, like, what’s the point? Illinois can’t afford another special election. And who the hell would even want this albatross of a truncated term? Better to save your pennies and mount a co-Giannoulias challenge to the weakened Burris.

This nonsense made the Kentucky papers today. I sort of thought when I came back to the US people would stop asking me, “Seriously, what is up with your [insert name of political office]?’

So wrong.

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So deep is my loathing of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger that I read this article thinking, ‘Yep, I’d vote for him. Vote for him. Never heard of him, but I’d vote for him.’

Former Chicago Public School CEO Paul Vallas is considering challenging Stroger as a Republican in 2010.

“I really believe that it’s almost impossible to run as an independent or as a reform candidate through the Democratic Party,” Vallas said. “At the end of the day, if you’re going to be a reform candidate, particularly in Cook County…it becomes more realistic and more practical to run as a Republican.”

Well, it seems as though Vallas could consider a third party or running as an independent, but his point about the Democratic Party in the county is well-taken. He does have the name recognition to run on an alternative ticket, though he may benefit from what little structure there is to the CC Republican Party.

It’ll be freaking (though unfathomably) difficult to beat Stroger in the primary because he’s got money and (unbelievable to the point of making me pull my hair out) support from sectors of the city (notably 8th Ward).

Claypool’s pondering another crack at Stroger in the primary, but he’d just about seal his fate as a guy who can’t win elections if he loses the primary a second time.

Here’s what Stroger (largely mediated through the Tribune) had to say about his potential challengers.

Stroger contended Vallas, whose family still lives in Palos Heights, has been working in New Orleans and “doesn’t know any of the things we have done.” He also accused Claypool of being an obstructionist.

Honey, everyone knows the ‘things [you] have done’; everyone hates them.

Ugh, every time I see/hear from him I just want to scream, ‘Exist somewhere else!’

Though, to be fair, since the Tribune is running a countdown until his primary on their Ed page, it’s hard to know if they’re choosing the cringe-worthiest of the quotes.

I went to a forum last night on reforming corruption in Illinois. It’s difficult to know where to start, I know, but getting some of the cash out of this race - in addition to some serious electoral reform - would be one of the top items on my list.

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Throughout the impeachment process, former governor Blagojevich kept hinting that he ‘knew things’ about his colleagues.

There’s no question that there’s plenty of blame (as well as lots of different kinds of blame) to go around in Chicago/Illinois politics.

But I wonder how much of governor Pat Quinn’s promise to ‘fumigate state government’ will be carried out by the state’s ex-governor.

Earlier this week, Blago casually dropped Machine boss (and father-in-law) Dick Mell’s name and the old garbage dump scandal into the same sentence.

And outside his house last night - despite saying he’d only make a statement, he couldn’t help grandstanding and taking some questions from the press - he asked the assembled reporters if they would come back if he had something to say.

Later, claiming that ‘the fix was in’, he casually worked these two sentences into his mixture of ramblings:

I’d like to tell you some of the inside stuff, some of the things they were trying to do, and I’ll talk about that later, if [you in the press are] interested.
…
And as for some of those friends of mine in the state Senate, Dr. King said, that in the end, you remember not the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends.

Given what Blagojevich has to know - and may possibly mention in a criminal trial/plea bargain - a goodly number of Illinois and Chicago politicians surely broke into a sweat hearing those words.

We’ll have to wait to see if the ex-governor will one up Quinn’s fumigation bomb with a nuclear one.

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Wow, US parliamentary procedure is insane. There are multiple senators now escorting the Chief Justice from the chamber. Looks like a pretty solid old man to me; I’m sure he had it.

WAIT - they were crapping on about how much they wanted to get back to work and now they’re on recess until 4pm next Wednesday?

Well, after the hard work of being in session for two weeks, I suppose they need a week off.

Anyway, Rod Blagojevich was just removed from office.

Everyone was all sort of ‘good riddance’, especially Meeks (D-Chgo) who responded “absolutely!” when asked if Blago should be prevented from holding office in IL ever again.

So that’s that. A friend of mine said ‘Congrats, Gov Quinn!”, but I say wait until he’s actually sworn in.

For all we know, Blago’s taken all the state monies and kittens and is absconding to Canada to buy low-cost prescription drugs for old people.

Update: Apparently to combat any shenanigans, they stealth swore in Pat Quinn. He is governor! And only Alexi Giannoulias saw, as Alexi Giannoulias is happy to tell you all over your tvs.

5:27: Jesus, ABC7 reporter Chuck Goudie freaking called Blago as they un-governored him. He switched over from the other line and said, ‘Hey.’

This fact was just reported on my tv.

I imagine the nail in the coffin for Blago was finding Chuck Goudie on his phone at that life-changing moment.

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[Ed. - this is a little ad hoc. I was just kind of jotting down notes as I watched, enthralled...]

Blagojevich takes the stage at 11:06.

11:07: Blago knows that the ladies of The View understand the intricacies of the impeachment process.

11:09: He calls the process, ‘an evisceration of the presumption of innocence.’

11:10: He doesn’t seem to be speaking with notes. He brought in a manila folder, but doesn’t seem to be using it or looking down at it.

He’s not under oath – because he’s acting as an attorney – so he can lie all he wants and it can’t be used against him in the criminal trial.

‘You can express things in a free country’

To the politicians, ‘You know what we have to do to go out and win elections.’

11:13: He’s pretty smart – he’s arguing that the impeachment case hangs on the presumption of guilt in the criminal case, but that no criminal allegations have been proven. Unfortunately, that’s only articles 1-8. There are five more just about abuse of power.

First up, healthcare for kids –

11:16: Um, now he’s just rambling about senators he’d met when he was a freshman congressman in Washington. He was super excited to meet senators, especially John Warner. He got John Warner coffee; he takes it black. Wtf?

I’ll put the rest after the jump, so it’s not taking over the page (I know, obviously, you want to read post after post after post)

(more…)

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If the Senate removes Blago from office, it’s really going to put a damper on my afternoon crazy schedule.

Blagojevich’s latest presser consisted largely of cowboy metaphors, the governor arguing that the Senate impeachment trial was similar to an Old West hanging. (If there’s video up later, I’ll try to post it because you actually need to hear how long and how hard he flogged his simile.)

The main thrust of his prepared (?) remarks was that he was prevented from calling witnesses and from challenging the charges. Blagojevich demanded his ‘constitutional right’ to a fair trial.

If they can do this to a governor, they can do this to any citizen in Illinois.

Except, of course, ‘they’ can’t because his impeachment trial is a political procedure, not a criminal procedure.

Insanely, he took questions and the first one pressed him on exactly that point. Blago ducked and weaved, but didn’t manage to have an answer, except to demand again a fair trial.

He hit his stride late in the question period, claiming that he is being targeted by lawmakers who view him as an impediment to their cynical tax rise on the people of Illinois. He argued that if the people if the state allow him to go down like this, it will have a chilling effect on future governors actions vs the legislature.

Rod is the only thing standing between us and our other elected officials (and their 66% tax hike).

Um.

Oh yeah, he also called upon Illinois newspapers to help his cause for a ‘fair’ trial. He urged the Chicago Tribune, in particular, to lead the charge, citing the Tribune’s Supreme Court case against ‘Minnesota mobsters’ and other crooks.

This man’s irony gauge needs a lot of adjusting.

Speaking of the Tribune, they have some good quotes I didn’t catch all of:

Ending his 43-minute interview, Blagojevich likened the current drama surrounding him “to a 21st Century Frank Capra movie… how the good guy was up against the establishment… But he stood firm for the people. That’s what this is about.”

Obviously.

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Today’s Tribune interview with Senate hopeful Roland Burris sketches out some of the candidate’s bold and nuanced policy positions:

Burris maintained it was unfair to seek substantive answers from him about his goals because he hadn’t taken the oath of office—even though he was interested in the Senate appointment since last summer.

“I want to get my Senate legs under me and make sure I get down all the rules and regulations,” Burris said in the interview…”In the meantime, I will begin to assess the various national issues that are out there in general and the Illinois issues in particular.”

To be fair, the Tribune’s editorial stance in the segment I just clipped seems fairly skeptical of Burris, so perhaps there were more thoughtful-sounding quotes in the interview.

But the fact that he let those words come out of his mouth is telling.

Politicians run for office - at least in theory - because they want to effect some kind of change. Accepting an appointment to an office without clear goals and policy positions is the height of  arrogance.

What is really galling, however, is how happy Burris is to express this sentiment to the media and, by extension, the people of Illinois. It’s an attitude that says, “Get stuffed; I’m going to the Senate.” This also pretty much sums up his appointment, and presumably his tenure in office.

At this point, we just need to seat or not seat this turkey. It would be nice if by Inauguration we could focus on the… horrible everything, rather than the absurdly inflated egos of a couple lame politicians that have proved ineffectual, at best. Let’s leave the limelight for those who actually have substantive contributions to make.

There comes a point in every story about Illinois’ corrupt politics where the citizens just give up fighting and try to make the latest electoral assault as brief and painless as possible.

I don’t know if laying back and thinking of 2010 is the most proactive answer, but it might present the least chance of permanent damage.

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Roland Burris?

I’m as confused by Blagojevich’s (obviously not going to be seated) Senate pick as I am by the commercial I just saw for a digital pregnancy test.

Both seem patently unnecessary and, I don’t know about the pregnancy test, but one of them has a good deal of trouble winning elected office. Hell, the digital preggo test is a more likely choice.

For serious, Roland Burris has tried and failed to win about a million primaries. At 71, two years leaves him with a Senate pension. I’d take it!

Here we go.

2:01: ABC news has learned that he’s going to choose Burris. Um - yeah guys. We all know.

2:01: Oh Jesus, Blago just spoke in Spanish. Bish, please.

2:02: Blago just stuck his tongue out in this really weird way when talking about Burris as an opponent. He looks impressed with his own cajones today.

2:02: Speaking of cajones, here’s the man himself! Also looking pleased.

2:03: ‘As a nation we face a convergence of unparalleled crisis…’

2:04: Burris is talking about things that have nothing to do with anything. Yep, the world is difficult. He’s talking like this is the most natural thing ever, as though nothing has affected this process in any way.

2:05: President-elect Obama has ’strapped it up’. Dude, he’s going to dress you down if you get seated in the Senate.

2:06: Jessie White isn’t going to seat Blago’s pick, so this is kind of a redundant process, but whatevs.

2:07: Burris is looking forward to the process of not being appointed by Jessie White (Sec of State).

2:07: Someone just asked about the $14, 000 he’s contributed to Blago. Burris’ actual reaction, “Is it that much?!?!’ Jesus.

2:09: Whoops, someone is trying to ask Burris a question, but the governor must have moved or something because the gaggle just went crazy trying to ask him questions.

2:09: Whoa that was some awkward not answering of whatever was asked. Dead silence, awkward glances and then Blago saying, “You’re the senator!”

2:10: Burris is just looking blithely at the crowd whilst Blago talks. This is surreal.

2:10: And now we’ve said hi to Bobby Rush from the podium. I’m sure he’s thrilled.

2:11: This is seriously amongst the most awkward things I’ve ever seen. Burris looks thrilled any time he gets to move away from the podium, and Blago looks… Oh my god, they’ve brought Bobby Rush up on stage!

2:12: Bobby just said his prayers have been answered.

2:13: And Bobby Rush is happily filibustering until these guys can run the hell out of this room.

2:15: After talking about the importance of having an African American in the Senate, he asked that we not ‘hang or lynch the appointee’. That’s called setting the narrative - he’s trying to shame the press out of questioning Burris for fear of seeming racist.

2:16: This is Illinois politics at its most… I can’t even say absurd. Unbelievable.

2:17: And Rush closes by noting that he’s ’sure’ that his good friend Durbin will support the choice.

2:19: Apparently Blago repeated the lynching line to the gaggle. To his credit, ABC’s Ben Bradley just called him on it.

2:20: Danny Davis turned Blago down around Christmas.

2:20: Bradley just said that Burris was one of the few politicians left standing with Blago. And then zinged him with, I think you see both of them up there. And looked pretty pleased with his zing. And the black/white pun he just made.

2:21: Whoops, Rush might have been a little forward by swearing Durbin’s support; Durbin co-signed the Reid letter saying they wouldn’t seat him.

2:23: That was insane.

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It’s being streamed live and is surprisingly good watching. The canvassing board going through each of the around 3000 challenged ballots one by one.

The video is interesting because they’re doing a good job of showing each ballot as it’s being voted on, so you - the powerless citizen - can watch the process at work (read: vocalize your agreement or dissent at your computer).

Plus you get to watch the occasional ‘Minnesota nice’/passive aggressive comment about how they need more coffee and wouldn’t this have all been easier if there weren’t so many challenges.

For those of you with, you know, more interesting things to do or actual responsibilities, you can simply refresh the Strib’s count.

Keep in mind that Franken’s challenges are being assessed today, so the discrepancy between the number of votes allocated to Coleman versus Franken will likely change.

By the way, idiots who have complicated this process by writing things like “Chuck Norris” randomly on their ballots are amongst our truly dumb. Voting for Coleman and then writing in “GOD” below is sort of weirdly funny, but is costing MN lots of money.

Update: Another Chuck Norris. Why? And also this:

There’s also a vote for Barkley where someone wrote “<— NOT HIM” next to his name and also bubbled in Coleman. Voter intent determined!

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