Last fall, I wrote in a rather bothered tone that Chicago failed to even apply for federal congestion relief funds. Well, it looks like New York's plan fell through. And I don't really know how it happened but we just ended up with the potential of $153 million in federal money.
First off, let me advise anyone ever going to NW Indiana that if Mapquest tells you to get off at Exit 74B, ignore it unless you want to head toward Iowa/Wisconsin. If you have a 4 am departure and coffee hasn't kicked in you could, hypothetically speaking, get confused.
Fortunately the bonus of working Lake County is that you might think you will be 1/2 hour late, but due to the screwy split time zones of Indiana, a town like Dyer is on Chicago time, so even with a detour -- not saying I took one but just hypothetically -- you can still make your 5:45 phone-in.
My destination and station for today, Faith Reformed Church, is a small megachurch surrounded by a subdivision of spanking new homes on the western edge of Indiana, with Cook County visible just beyond a golf course sand trap. Obviously in dire need (heh heh) of a legal observer. By "small" I mean that the parking lot looks to hold about 700 cars, and the first Obama passer stationed here, who attends, says they have 4 services each Sunday morning, all 4 are packed to the gills, and so they are going to tear down the church (which is all of about 3 years old) and build a bigger one (a McCathedral?). The secret? He says their pastors are all "educated" and "we have lots of music."
Today marks the 47th and 48th primaries or caucuses for the Democratic presidential nomination. More than 90 percent of the delegates will have been chosen by tonight. By now, we all ought to know the drill.
The day begins with the Clinton campaign “leaking” something to the Drudge Report to set expectations for the day. That then gets repeated on political blogs and cable news, where Clinton surrogate Terry McAuliffe elaborates. Today’s “expectation”: That the Clinton campaign expects a “15 point” defeat in North Carolina. Clinton’s yapping puppies in the news media repeat the manufactured expectation all day long, in which the bar is supposedly now that if Clinton comes within 15 points in that state that she has somehow “won” with a 14 point (or 6 point) defeat.
Around 4 p.m. rumors of exit polls begin circulating on the Internet. Around 5:30 p.m. AP and other news organizations leak minor data from the exit polls that explains almost nothing of value. Sometime after 6 p.m. Drudge posts raw numbers from exit polls that - if past is prologue - show Obama doing an average of seven percentage points better than he actually does.
Obama supporters then get prematurely jubilant and after polls close (tonight at 7 p.m. ET in Indiana and 7:30 p.m. ET in North Carolina) the real results start to come in and reveal Clinton then doing “better than expected” (at least better than the new expectations promoted during the day).
The media talking heads then ask aloud why Obama can’t “close the deal” (in Clinton’s own words) and what is numerically a defeat for Clinton (because the results, even in her recent wins, bring her objectively farther from the nomination in the context of the smaller number of delegates then available) gets spun as a Clinton victory.
Clinton takes to the stage, claims “unexpected” victory, gives out her web site address and pleads for elder women on fixed incomes to send more money to the $109 millionaire. The following day they claim that $10 million rolled in, only to be disproved more than a month later when the actual FEC filing is due. Obama’s FEC filing simultaneously reveals that he raised much, much more, from more small donors, and the Clinton campaign plays the victim card over being outspent.
who said illinois' democrats can't get along? you couldn't tell from today's democratic party of illinois' delegate selection. things went swimmingly, as it were. speaker madigan ran a tight ship and not a single angry word was said.
who'da thunk it?
this was, after all, springfield, the site of ongoing hand-to-hand political combat between the speaker (and chair of the democratic party of illinois) and the governor and the selection of delegates in one of the tightest presidential (primary) races in history. since every delegate counts, it wasn't a stretch to expect hand-to-hand combat here, as well. i was especially interested to see how the standing committee members would be divided, given the increasing importance of the credentials and rules committees. yet not a single angry word...
It is a political campaign maxim, particularly for non-incumbents, that campaigns must jealously focus on their own race to win - and that any 'distraction' from their campaign comes at great or even unbearable cost. While examples may exist, how often have you heard of an underdog congressional campaign taking their volunteers to canvass for a neighboring congressional candidate? Perhaps more uncommon, how often have you heard of a congressional candidate taking their volunteers out of state to canvass for a presidential candidate in a party primary? It may be unconventional strategy, but 13th Congressional District Democrat Scott Harper has taken campaign volunteers to support neighboring 14th District Congressman Bill Foster in his historic win, and just last weekend was canvassing for Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana with his volunteers.
Scott Harper's campaign (IL-13) organized and caravaned over 30 volunteers yesterday to Lafayette IN. We met at the McDonald's in Bolingbrook Il at 6am. Despite what the ignorant media says about Barack's supporters we were overwhelmingly white, at least two thirds female and except for Scott's staffers all but 2 or 3 of us were way over 40. Most were older than me and I'm 52.
Read on for a loooong diary of my even longer day banging on doors in Hoosierland.
WASHINGTON--When the Democratic Party of Illinois meet next week to finish filling out the delegate slate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will pick up three more superdelegates, according to Steve Brown, a spokesman for state party chair Michael Madigan, who is also the speaker of the Illinois House.
That's because the three appointments are all pledged to Obama: Mayor Daley --he shares strategist David Axelrod with Obama and brother Bill, the former Commerce Secetary is on the Obama team; Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), a Hyde Parker who lives near the Obamas'; and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.
Super Delegate and former DNC Chair appointed by Bill Clinton in 1999, Joe Andrew of Indianapolis, will announce today that he is switching from Clinton to Obama. From the AP:
I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it's now bad for the Democratic Party," Andrew said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Bill Clinton appointed Andrew chairman of the DNC near the end of his presidency, and Andrew endorsed the former first lady last year on the day she declared her candidacy for the White House.
Andrew said in his letter that he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."
According to the AP, the Obama campaign did not reach out to Andrew, who instead shifted his allegiance after having been impressed by Obama's handling of the Jeremiah Wright situation in recent days and Obama's "principled stand" (the AP's words, not mine) in opposition to a temporary curtailment of the federal gasoline tax.
But as much as the confidence Andrew shows in Obama's campaign is important -- and it is; the talking points he passes on to the AP are directly on mark for Obama's message -- the fact that Andrew is yet another key Democratic Party official (and a longtime ally of the Clintons at that) is calling for a beginning of the end to the process in the hopes of turning the focus of the party to fighting John McCain rather than within itself suggests that there may actually be something to the predictive but thus far illusory reports that closure may be nearing.
fifteen months ago, a few people journeyed down to springfield to get "fired up." next week, indiana can begin a whole new phase of barack obama's presidential campaign. you can be a part of that history. i'd even go so far as to strongly suggest that you should be a part of that history. if barack wins indiana -- something that isn't impossible -- this bitterly divisive primary is over. and you can make that happen.
from saturday through tuesday (6 pm) when the polls close, the obama campaign will be conducting their gotv canvasses and phone banks to drive their voters to the polls. this is a labor-intensive effort that requires a lot of manpower. but it is not just that. one of the primary advantages that republicans have in presidential elections is that their activists and supporters never allow an election day to go by without helping out. working on election day should be mandatory for democratic activists, but certainly participating in gotv efforts is something you should strongly consider. take election day off. hell, take off monday and tuesday! the experience you gain this weekend will hone your chops for november.
The GOP finally picked their replacement candidate in IL-11 by selecting wealthy businessman Martin Ozinga. In other words, the race is on.
The good news, of course, is that Ozinga starts off at a large organizational disadvantage by starting so late and not having to run a primary. Also, there have been some questions about Ozinga's business dealings.
However, I've been the wet blanket on the IL-11 subject this spring. To begin, even though Halvorson has $673,000 cash on hand right now, Ozinga himself has already raised over $400,000 and has pledged to use $350,000 of his own money on the race (its not clear whether that money is included in the money he has already raised, by I assume not). By keeping his own contributions at that $350,000 mark, the limit on individual contributions stays $2,300. So I do expect this to be a reasonably competitive race from a financial standpoint, and if Ozinga has enough money to pound Halvorson's biggest vulnerability (her ties to Blagojevich), this will be close. Still, I expect Halvorson to win and stand by the prediction I made about a month ago...
Halvorson 53%
Ozinga 47%
The black part of the poll, 12% of the total polled, listed it as Obama 73% - 21% Clinton.
Update: Indiana, CD-9's, Super-Delegate, Baron Hill endorses Obama. My guess is that Hill who has fought several back and forth battles for his seat, actually has something of a machine that he could bring to bear in that part of Indiana. It also should be strong Clinton territory being rural, southern Indiana and Cincinnati suburban so anything he can syphon away from Clinton might help.
I support a ConCon but will I do much to make it happen? Here's why I even bring the subject up. Today is the last day for the General Assembly to put constitutional amendments on the November ballot. Dan Johnson-Weinberger believes that if the believers of the conventional wisdom of the assembly that a con-con is dangerous to their own personal political health - not his words mind you - then they would get serious about amending the Constitution's most glaring flaws via the amendment process:
The main reason to hold a constitutional convention is because voters have not had an opportunity to amend the constitution in a substantive way for over a decade. We have not had the chance to vote on the recall power. We have not had the chance to vote on the flat tax mandate. We have not had the chance to vote on making school funding a right, rather than a goal, of the state. We have not had the chance to vote on reining in the extremely broad amendatory veto power. We have not had the chance to vote on our absolutely broken redistricting regime that essentially works to pick the leaders of the chamber at random.
Just the other day Dan was advocating for a recent attempt to put a graduated tax amendment on the November ballot:
This week the General Assembly will decide whether we hold a constitutional convention.
If they find a way to put at least one substantive amendment on the November ballot, the call for a constitutional convention will surely fail.
If they do not find a way to put any amendment on the ballot, then the call for a constitutional convention might pass.
Yesterday the Senate refused to place an amendment on the ballot for a graduated tax. SJRCA0092 went down in flames 19-35-1.
So I suppose that that does increase the likelihood of a con-con. But my guess is not by very much. It definitely pushed me off the fence. I am now officially a supporter of a con-con. But I don't consider it a very likely thing to happen and therefore I don't see myself putting very much effort into making it happen. Yes, I'm writing this post and will like write others. But I'm not yet convinced that there exists now or will exist in November sufficient wind behind the con-con supporters to make it happen. The last con-con came about because a number of powerful groups within the state decided it had to happen. I don't yet see enough powerful groups getting behind a con-con. Even if the netroots were to collectively decide to get behind it, I don't see us as being particularly powerful enough to count as even one of several powerful groups that it would take.
To answer my question, will I do much to make it happen, no, not likely much.
OK so the other day I posted a diary showing a potential ranking system for Illinois House Representatives based on five fairly random votes. The thing is in a way they were not so random. Mostly there are two kinds of votes in the house. The votes that never happen and unanimous votes. Naturally neither of those work for a ranking system. But there are a few contested votes. And again naturally I chose those votes. So not so random and probably actually very indicative for the kinds of ranking we might want to do.
Unfortunately I had some problems with Soapblox not wanting to put more than a 100 rows in a single table. I broke two diaries finding that out. The diaries are so broken that I can neither edit them any more nor even delete them.
Since I was creating a dedicated page for the table I went ahead and added the detail vote history for each representative for each of the five votes. In doing so I saw the bane of all vote rankers. Absences and not voting and voting present. These votes can throw an excused absent member quickly into the other side. Such is the case for Representative Eddie Washington of Waukegan's District 60. Because of excused abscences he only has a rank of 20%.
Anyway, peruse the complete project at the link above while I go back to the drawing board. If you have some ideas for me shoot them my way in the comments. I got some good information from the comments in the last diary and I intend to include it in the next go round of our ScoreCard ranking system for the Illinois House.
As I recall SurveyUSA in Pennsylvania started with numbers way down for Obama but rather quickly came to be closer to other pollsters. Refresh my memory if I have it wrong. Anyway here are their latest Indiana numbers. At Clinton 52% to 43% Obama they are showing no change from their last poll four weeks ago. Their internals show lots of movement amongst the sub-groups but no net change.
