Month: January 2010

Schillerstrom drops out, endorses Jim Ryan

Posted by dwilson – January 22, 2010

DuPage County Chairman Bob Schillerstrom has withdrawn from the Republican campaign for governor, and he is throwing his support to Jim Ryan. The entire text of his announcement can be read here.

Schillerstrom said he lacked the funds to end the primary campaign with a flurry of media buys and doubted he could win the race. In his announcement Friday, Schillerstrom said Ryan has the best chance to win the governor’s race in November. Ryan, is the former Illinois attorney general and was the unsuccessful candidate against Rod Blagojevich in 2002.

Schillerstrom’s endorsement did not play well with other candidates in this crowded race.

“Bob Schillerstrom’s endorsement of Jim Ryan today is as predictable as the dead voting in Chicago. It was inevitable he would throw his support behind either Jim Ryan or Kirk Dillard. Anything to stop real reform,” said Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington.

Adam Andrzejewski said Schillerstrom “raised issues that made the race for governor a better contest,” but did not think the endorsement of Jim Ryan is the best choice for Illinois.

Dan Proft said Ryan is “a fine man” but said Schillerstrom’s choice won’t change state government. “If you want policy revolution in Illinois, Don Proft is your candidate for governor,” Proft said in a release.

Negative ads released by Quinn and Hynes causing a stir

Posted by dwilson – January 22, 2010

Click on the image to view the Dan Hynes advertisement.

Click on the image to view the Dan Hynes advertisement.

The venomous gubernatorial campaign battle between Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes in the Illinois Democratic primary can be seen in all its fury this week.

Quinn has launched a TV ad that puts all the blame for the Burr Oak cemetery scandal on Hynes. “It was Dan Hynes’ job to regulate our cemeteries,” the announcer intones after reminding listeners how hundreds of bodies were dug up and graves were resold in the cemetery near Chicago.

Hynes already has an advertisement of his own, rebutting the cemetery ad.

Hynes’ campaign has done a particularly scathing ad of its own. The late Harold Washington, former mayor of Chicago, is shown telling why he fired Pat Quinn years ago.

“Pat Quinn is a totally and completely undisciplined individual who thinks this government is nothing but a large easel by which he can do his PR work,” Washington said.

Note that both Quinn’s and Hynes’ ads seem to target black voters, who represent a potent voting block in the Chicago area. Quinn’s attack focuses on Burr Oak, which is a predominantly African American cemetery. Hynes’ ad features Chicago’s first black mayor.

It should be noted that Quinn’s double-digit lead in this race has become much smaller. Some polls now show the governor with a 6 or 7 percent lead. That’s still a sizable advantage with only a little more than a week to go before the primary, but since neither candidate has broken the 50 percent barrier, it is still a horse race.

Hynes has made Quinn’s handling of the secret prison release program an issue. It did not gain traction immediately, but the cumulative effect has caused the numbers to move somewhat.

Whoever wins this one will know they’ve been in a slugfest.

Predictions in midterm election favor Republicans

Posted by dwilson – January 18, 2010

Politicians, academics and just about anyone who has an opinion about the current Congress has been looking ahead to this year’s midterm elections.

Thomas Del Beccaro, vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, wrote an essay for RealClearPolitics.com that can be read here. Beccaro said the sour economy and disillusionment with everything from health care reform to the costs of cap and trade and federal bailouts could lead to Republicans regaining 40 House seats in November. That would be enough for Republicans to regain majority status in the House.

Even liberal commentator E.J. Dionne talks about the likelihood that Republicans will make big gains. His commentary, which can be read here, lays most of the blame on the economic crisis.

Dionne also strategizes that Democrats can only reach their own “Morning in America” by taking a lesson from Ronald Reagan. Dionne suggests that Reagan gave Republicans great momentum by clearly communicating about the conservative movement and critiquing the liberal movement.

I’m not certain many people believe “clear communication” alone will ever be a substitute for matching a movement’s goals with the core beliefs of the majority of Americans.

Story behind water scare shows DNR’s dilemma

Posted by dwilson – January 12, 2010

The story behind the hexavalent chromium discovery in the Hannibal and Louisiana water systems is instructive to those who observe government.

BASF Corp. officials did what was required of them last May and alerted state regulators when hexavalent chromium was detected after a chemical incinerator was cleaned. Missouri Department of Natural Resources analysts found that the leak was small enough it would not threaten public health.

That might have been the end of the episode had it not been for the DNR’s public relations boo-boo last summer. The DNR failed to notify people at the Lake of the Ozarks that dangerous levels of E. coli were detected in the water. This was a hot topic for weeks in the news media. It also led to a Missouri Senate hearing on Wednesday — the first day of the 2010 legislative session.

During the hearing, Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savanna, asked DNR Director Mark Templeton what he knew about the release of chromium in a waterway. Templeton said he did not know about any such release, but after the hearing was alerted by staff members about the BASF release. Lager was contacted with Templeton’s updated information. Lager then spoke with reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who came out with a story on Thursday.

Long before last week’s hearing, someone at the DNR apparently got concerned about the chromium release. After all, a failure to see the E. coli results as a serious health threat led to a virtual train wreck for the DNR. Scientists in May had done mathematical models that showed the chromium entering the Mississippi River near Palmyra would be so diluted that it was benign. But after the E. coli scandal, it seemed prudent to do actual water tests.

Water samples were collected in the cities of Louisiana and Hannibal in the days before Christmas. A laboratory in Washington state had to do the testing because it is one of the few that can find extremely small quantities of hexavalent chromium.

The highest level detected so far, after a second sample was collected in January, was 0.6 parts per billion in the Hannibal system. Missouri’s water standards set 100 parts per billion as the maximum amount of chromium allowed in drinking water. That is 166 times higher than what has been found in Hannibal’s water.

Is the water safe to drink? All the health officials say it is.

Is there a need for more testing? DNR officials seem to think so, and have pledged to keep looking for the source of the pollution. They’re also considering whether some of the hexavalent chromium is the result of water treatment procedures, which are approved by the state.

DNR Communications Director Judd Slivka said it is puzzling that “hexavalent chromium levels were higher in the treated water than they were in the raw water supplies.”

So this won’t be the end of the story. Continuing tests and a reassessment of water treatment procedures will keep this issue alive for some time to come.

If the DNR had reported a problem last May, it might have raised fears needlessly. But by failing to report the problem, the agency opened itself up to criticism for failing to take the threat seriously … or failing to trust that most people could handle the news.

Sometimes government agencies are going to lose, no matter what they do.

Sarah Palin to headline Tea Party convention

Posted by dwilson – January 6, 2010

Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor writes a solid analysis of the intersection of two political phenomena — Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement.

In the story, linked here, Ellie Velinska at RightPundits notes that “both grand parties will have to court the Tea Party supporters because many of them are independents from the purple states.”

Others opine about whether the Tea Party movement will coalesce into a third party or be absorbed by the Republican party.

Both of those things could happen to some extent. The key to which thing happens most may lie in which candidates energize the Tea Party.

Too often the party liners don’t hear the complaints from voters that they don’t like any of their choices. Nothing can replace a dynamic and popular candidate — not money, timing or party platform.

Finding the right candidates will either save or sink all of the political parties.