2/3/10
A friend asked me what I thought of the Illinois primary results. I thought I’d put up an edited copy of my response as a post:
The only thing that really surprised me about the primary was the amount by which Toni Preckwinkle buried Terry O'Brien in the Cook County Board Presidency race; I thought she'd win, and I guess I'm happy she did, but I didn't think she'd bury the guy. Apparently, and thankfully, race isn't that big an issue in Cook County any more.
I guess I'm sort of surprised that it's between Brady and Dillard in the GOP race for governor. Brady was supposed to be a rather distant fourth place finisher and now he is ahead, albeit by about 500 votes. But when it was reported that the turnout was heavier (a very relative term) downstate than around here, it seemed logical that Brady would do better than expected. I'm not surprised Ryan folded. He's a nice guy (who seemed to come off as uncharacteristically bitter in his concession speech) whose time has come and gone. I'd like to see Brady win the primary; I could never support Dillard but could vote for Brady in the general.
I would have liked to have seen Hoffman win the Democratic senatorial nomination, but expected Giannoulias to win it. Besides his “You’d better do what we say or else” approach to government, Giannoulias comes off like a punk who bought his way into the big leagues with his father's money, displaying all the malodorous traits of that particular archetype. The GOP is going to make a HUGE issue, and rightly so, of Broadway Bank and Giannoulias’s close (though perhaps only in Giannoulias’s own mind) association with Obama. Hoffman would have been a stronger candidate for the Dems. I obviously can't vote for Alexi (Besides the above, it's just hard for me to vote for a Democrat for anything, unless it's alderman in, or mayor of, Chicago, and, technically, those races are non-partisan. Besides, since I don’t live there any more, that’s a moot point.) and would NEVER vote for Kirk. Kirk spent most of his time in Washington licking George Bush’s boots, and, suffering from a horrible case of Irish amnesia in any case, I vow never to forget those who so ardently supported the disastrous and despicable Mr. Bush. Looks like I'll cast my usual Libertarian vote in the general.
It was interesting to have seen Dan Burke (Ed’s brother) win his state rep seat, beating back his first challenge in the 19 years he has held the seat. The district is on the southwest side and includes the 14th Ward, the Burke family’s historic bailiwick, the borders of which have been shifting west, like some sort of political tectonic plate, for twenty or so years. The challenge came from Rudy Lozano, whose dad was murdered after an unsuccessful run for 22nd ward alderman in 1983. Lozano was the sentimental favorite in that race and had help from Alderman Ricardo Munoz in the 22nd. But Lozano and Munoz couldn’t overcome the Burke Machine, and Dan Burke’s admirable record of service to his Hispanic constituents, even in this heavily Hispanic (65%-85%) district. Very interesting.
It looks like we’re in for an interesting few weeks, at least on the GOP side. It’s hard to see how Hynes overcomes a 7,000 vote deficit, though stranger things have happened. Things will become more clear (and interesting) when I can see the ward by ward results, which I haven’t seen yet.
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2 comments:
Mark:
I'm not surprised as well that Toni won just the margin. If you think of her not as an African-American, but as a Hyde Park Progressive like our President I assumed she would do very well along the lakefront and in the north shore suburbs. It would be interesting to see how many votes she got on the West side or the southwest black townships compared to Evanston or Barrington township.
On the Republican side it was truly a perfect storm that led to my man Brady's victory (full disclosure: I was Sen. Brady's Township Coordinator in my part of DuPage County). Brady failed to meet his goals in both downstate and Chicagoland results yet still won. Why? The key was that there were four candidates who split the vote pretty evenly in the six county area and that the only one with any downstate presence (Dillard) could only finish third in Chicagoland.
It will be interesting how Brady moves forward up here. He didn't run any broadcast ads in Chicago and finished sixth out of six in all six Chicagoland Counties.
He is not a known commodity yet. So while he doesn't start with any negatives it creates a race to craft his image in the mind of our voters. If Quinn goes up early on TV with a replay of Blago's What Was She Thinking Ads with no response Brady is in trouble. I think the key person may be his fundraising chair.
I'm excited about Brady and hope that he wins.
Jay Fisher
2/5/10
Great job on the Brady campaign, Jay. As you said, it seemed like his strategy worked out pretty much like he was hoping…the other guys split the six county area, Brady did well downstate (albeit not as well as he had hoped), and he got the nomination. I suspect, and you could confirm, that the relatively higher (and I stress “relatively”) turnout downstate helped as well; even though he didn’t rack up the margins he would have liked downstate, the higher turnout led to higher absolute numbers downstate that helped him overcome his rivals’ leads in the six county area. What astounded me in your report was that Brady finished sixth in all six Chicagoland counties.
I suspect being a relative unknown will help Brady in the general (should Dillard do the right thing at this stage and Brady end up with the nomination); a sufficiently generic candidate will be the perfect prescription in an election that may end up being dominated by the weaknesses on the Democratic ticket.
While I can’t use the term “excited” about any candidate for public office any more (I am far too jaded and cynical to get excited about anyone in public life.), I, too, am enthusiastic about Brady, not only because he is a conservative but also because he is a businessmen besides being a state legislator; he has some experience in the private sector. If Ryan or Dillard were to have gotten the nomination (I realize the latter is still possible.), I would vote my usual Libertarian. I would have said the same thing about McKenna a few weeks ago, but, in that period, two of my friends report that they are close to McKenna and have a great deal of respect for the guy, so I may have voted for McKenna had he gotten the nomination. (Hey, I’m from the 19th Ward; all politics is not only local, it’s personal!) But I will definitely vote for Brady in the general, and I haven’t been able to say that about any Republican (or Democrat, of course) in a long time.
Thanks, Jay, and congratulations on a job well done. And thanks for reading and commenting.
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