I posted a long diary on Daily Kos regarding the primary race in IL 03.
It's all in the extended text of this diary.
The bottom line is that district-wide Lipinski lost a mere 0.64 points from '06 to '08.
Pera gained 5.55 points over Sullivan, and the two diversions this time lost 4.88 points from Kelly's figure. (This should add up, and doesn't quite.)
The results were varied from one section of the district to another. Lipinski lost 2.24 points in the suburbs, gained 2.72 points in the city outside the 11th ward, and lost 4.98 points in the 11th ward. The reformer (comparing Pera to Sullivan) gained 6.41 points in the suburbs, 6.61 points in the 11th ward, and lost 3.08 points in the rest of the city.
This will need to be a group process. I surely hope it is going on in private as well as what will/should appear here.
I think we all knew that taking down the machine was a big job. I think we all knew that the odds were against us. I think we all know that in order to win you have to believe that you can win, and that that sometimes means not looking the reality full in the face.
But still I think we all thought we would have done better than we did. The resounding silence here about Pera is a testament to our disappointment at not even being close.
Now moving on, lets discuss what happened and what did not happen and what we can realistically expect to be able to do in the future. Not what we can do better, but what can we expect to accomplish having only what we have now. I'm hesitant at discussing what we can do better "next" time. Such discussions can devolve into wishful thinking. Lets keep it real for the moment.
I'm putting this out there on the back page to begin collecting some thoughts. No hurry. It does behoove us to do this though, because as many of us as possible need to learn the lessons of this effort.
The left-wing extremist groups trying to defeat Congressman Lipinski are political punks who snicker and sneer at Southwest Siders like us. They laugh at traditional values. They mock people who go to church. They dismiss senior citizens as irrelevant relics of a bygone era. They look down their educated noses at blue-collar men and women who work for a living. They bad-mouth police and other public safety employees - except when they need a cop, of course. And they give the finger (figuratively and literally) to the men and women of the American military.
From Down With Tyranny comes this report on the Pera campaign (donate here or here, or volunteer here ) in IL-03 and immigrant support. I'm used to the hard numbers out of NDFA rather than the "expects to" numbers listed below. Still it's a very impressive effort:
And immigrant activism has gone much further. The Mexican and Muslim communities have collaborated on fundraising for the Pera Campaign, bringing in thousands of dollars locally and using the money to open a second campaign office and to hire two experienced immigrant organizers to mobilize Mexican and Muslim voters.
In addition the immigrants in the campaign have recruited Immigrants List to make this campaign a national target. An e-mail fundraising request went to over 18,000 people nationally and raised an additional $14,000 for the immigrant organizing in the Pera campaign. Finally, the national Campaign for Community Change (the 501c4 sister organization to the Center for Community Change) decided to send a first in the nation series of bi-lingual educational mail pieces, informing Latino voters in the district of Lipinski's vote for the Sensenbrenner legislation.
Over the course of the campaign this volunteer driven immigrant field operation expects to have:
• lit dropped 2,300 Arab households and sent an additional 2,300 a "dear neighbor" letter
• lit dropped 7,300 latino households
• mailed 23,000 Latinos with an immigration specific piece
• mailed 23,000 Latino households 5 times with regular Pera literature
• called 3,000 immigrant voters through a phone bank
• doorknocked 5,000 immigrant voters through a canvas
• Involved over 300 Mexican and Muslim volunteers in the Pera campaign
I was canvassing in Chciago's 11th Ward (Northern-most edge of IL-3 Congressional District) as part of Northside DFA's work on behalf of grassroots/netroots candidate Mark Pera today (Saturday). According to my "walk sheet" the house I was approaching had an elderly Democratic voter. As is often the case, this voter no longer lived there. I began to deliver my pitch to the new occupant, but the woman who answered the door stopped me when I talked about electing a Congressman with REAL Democratic values.
She told me she was a Republican because "I want the niggers to have to get up for work every morning just like I do."
the most important news at this point is that early voting has begun. for those who live in illinois' 3rd congressional district, the ballot positions are:
all the democrats in this race have filed their voter guide questions. lipinski's response states "I have also been a leader in the battle to responsibly bring our troops home from Iraq." pera's response argues that "More than anything else, voters are tired of politicians in Washington D.C. who are beholden to special interests and they are fed up with the nepotism and corruption that we see from the Lipinskis and the Strogers of Cook County." bennett's response observes:
During those 27 years [as mayor], I've worked with my fellow mayors and other public officials to transform the town and our region. We've come up with innovative solutions for building infrastructure, improving law enforcement and securing a safer environment.
Just a quick reminder that if you haven't contributed that the 5,000 new donations for Mark Pera national campaign, it is still on and going strong! (Or donate here.)
Update: Oh and if you will be voting for Dan Lipinski be sure to follow the advice on his website to take advantage of early voting:
Can't make it to your polling place on election day? You can
now vote between Feb 27 and March 16 by visiting one of about
100 early voting sites throughout Cook County.
Emphasis mine!
Otherwise if you will be early voting for Mark then take David Orr's advice:
Prior to the Tuesday, February 05, 2008 Presidential Primary Election, early voting will take place
Monday, January 14, 2008, through Thursday, January 31, 2008.
Note: crossposted from daily kos. Please recommend if you feel so inclined.
On November 17, 2007, just two months ago today, Rahm Emanual's "Our Common Values" PAC made a $2,500 contribution to Congressman Dan Lipinski's reelection campaign.
AFTER Lipinski challenger Mark Pera's endorsement by Daily Kos, Open Left and Swing State Project
AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, and Down with Tyranny
AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by DFA
AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by NARAL Pro-Choice America
and AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by my local DFA group, Northside DFA.
Which means when my DFA friends and I were out there freezing our toenails off knocking on doors trying to get rid of Lipinski and elect Mark Pera, when Kossacks and FDLers and the rest of the netroots were scrounging for couch change to try to get rid of Lipinski and elect Mark Pera, Rahm was writing a check to help Lipinski's re-election campaign.
I've been campaigning for Mark Pera in the 11th Ward. It's a nearly-isolated island of the 3d Congressional District. As Yoda wrote earlier, we have seen nobody else out for this race. (I mean nobody out for the other three candidates. We have seen non-members of NDFA help us. Most Pera volunteers who aren't involved in our group campaign elsewhere.)
I've seen one states-attorney candidate's flyers and something for a guy who'w running for Republican committeeman. I've seen a mailing from a state-senate candidate in an open mailbox. I've seen nothing from Bennet or Caparelli.
A national push is on to raise $5,000 collect 5,000 new donations for Mark Pera's bid (Or donate here.) to unseat Dan Lipinski in Illinois Cd 03. DailyKos, OpenLeft and and other national blogs are joining local blogs, like PSB and ArchPundit in a co-ordinated effort to quickly raise last minute funds.
The national blogs are keenly aware of Lipinski's Republican lite leanings and his Bush enabling ways that have caused Openleft to place him in the Bush Dog club. These are the anti-progressive members of Congress whose inability to take the fight to the Bush regime have so hobbled the the Democratic leadership, who themselves need all the encouragement they can get in order to have Congress begin to meet the expectations of the national electorate. As long as we have Lipinski's we're going to get foot dragging on issues like the Iraq occupation and war.
But what the national blogs are less aware of is another insidious aspect of the Lipinski nepotism. That is the issue of inherited political office here in Illinois and the danger that it presents for a return to Republican governance. If we progressives are not able to successfully challenge the manifestations of the Chicago machine, there is a strong chance that Republicans will ride the reform desire of the electorate back into power. We saw it once already with the too close race against Todd Stroger by Republicans in Cook County. Indeed many readers here at this very blog voted Republican in that race.
But if we and Mark Pera can defeat machine heir Lipinski in IL-03 we can demonstrate an ability for progressives to remove machine politicians without the need to resort voting with Republicans. Indeed we can begin to attract the moderate and liberal Republicans to our cause.
That, for me, is what makes this race so important.
Yesterday I was out going door-to-door for Mark Pera, who is running for Congress in IL-03, a seat currently held by pro-war, anti-choice, machine "Democrat" Dan Lipinski. Our Northside DFA group has been canvassing precincts for Mark in Chicago's 11th Ward for a while now, but yesterday was my first time going out in the new year. Below are a few random stories/observations.
One of the first things we did when we got there was deliver window signs. At the first address the owner of the house was standing out on the front steps with her young child chatting with a neighbor. When we handed her the sign the child asked, "Mom, who's Mark Pera?" and she replied, "He's the one that's going to get rid of that lisping fool."
The Doings, the Sun-Times News Group local paper, has a lot of dedicated readers in Hinsdale and Western Springs. Seems they like Pera, a Western Springs resident:
If change is the theme of this election year, voters in the 3rd Congressional District have a rare opportunity to move away from a political system where positions -- be they government workers or elected representatives -- are bequeathed rather than earned. Of the qualified Democrats seeking the nomination, Western Springs resident Mark Pera is the best choice to unseat incumbent Daniel Lipinski.
Read the whole thing here. Congratulations to the Pera campaign!
it's a brand new year. the primaries are less than a month away and the campaigns in illinois' 3rd congressional district are in full gear. at least they should be. the biggest piece of news in this race is that the endorsement session for the chicago tribune is available:
the surprising thing is that dan lipinski wasn't there. perhaps one cannot be too surprised, given the ongoing scandal that surrounds the incumbent congressman. the introductory segment of the session gives a great summary of what the different campaigns think are driving this campaign. the video starts jim capparelli, then goes to jerry bennett while mark pera is the last to give his introduction.
For most Chicagoans, the 11th Ward is what Chicago is for the rest of the country, the home of the Daleys and the epitome of machine politics.
The 11th Ward is almost entirely in the 3rd Congressional district. It's attached to the rest of the district by a thin "umbilical cord" snaking through several other wards.
NDFA, the Northside Democracy for America, has adopted the Pera campaign in the 11th Ward as our battle ground in the primary. We have been there two Saturdays and two Sundays in December, and we'll go back as soon as voters are willing to listen in January. (The primary is February 5.)
there's been a slew of news in this race, for everybody running. rep. lipinski got the afl-cio endorsement [PDF] and the afscme endorsement. this isn't a surprise given the association of speaker madigan with lipinski, and madigan's closeness with the unions. lipinski also got the endorsement of pipefitters local 597.
mark pera got the endorsement of NARAL/Pro-Choice America as well as the endorsement of forrest claypool, who won almost 70 percent of the vote in four il-03 townships during the 2006 primary. pera was also endorsed by reformers ald. manny flores, ald. brendan reilly, ald. scott waguespack, st. sen. dan kotowski, st. rep. john fritchey, and mwrd commissioner debra shore.
Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool has endorsed Mark Pera in IL-03 the the race to unseat machine heir Dan Lipinski. Claypool worked to unseat the Stroger wing of the machine. This endorsement constitutes a natural alliance. As important as a candidate's positions on various issues is their community of support. Candidates can make all the statements they want as to what their beliefs are and we can scan their history of actions and votes all we want. But just as important if not more so are the associations they bring and form. When new issues arise, issues which have to be fit into a value system, often we validate our thoughts through our associations. When Mark Pera garners a Claypool endorsement or speaks highly of a Jan Schakowsky, then the patterns of his associative circle gain clarity.
Forrest Claypool is a member of the disestablishmentarian camp. The camp that seeks to discontinue the hereditary political practices of the Chicago machine.
Fox News Chicago has a story that's been posted on YouTube detailing how Lipinski's petitions were passed in large part by city workers connected to Lipinski's dad, Bill Lipinski, and his political machine. From the report (my transcript):
They also found that all 41 of those city workers are also identified in the so-called "clout list" made public at the corruption trial of former "patronage chief" Robert Sorich. Sorich was convicted for running a scheme that traded city jobs and promotions for political work. Among those passing petitions for Lipinski is John Warrity, who we reported on two weeks ago. Warity was fired from his job in the Water Department for ghost pay rolling, a decision reversed on appeal by a city personnel board days after Warity made a $1,000 donation to the 11th Ward Democratic Organization - the Daley family's political base.
Best line by Better Government Association President Jay Stewart:
In a normal sane world, you would assume that when Gov. George Ryan got in trouble everyone would stop. But we're not talking about a sane world. We're talking about Illinois politics and government. They don't know how to do it the right way.
Watch the whole report. It's pretty damning for Lipinski.
For me before the internet and blogs there was "In These Times" magazine. It was probably sometime in 1977 that I was coming out of a food coop and a headline in the paper caught my eye. I was instantly hooked and became an avid reader. I would await eagerly its arrival bi-weekly or maybe even weekly at its start. It was refreshing to read intelligent "radical left" analysis that knew how to speak in terms that did not diminish that analysis yet did not depend upon shopworn political jargon.
It was published here in Chicago by James Weinstein an historian with broad associations in progressive circles. In These Times essentially kept me on top of what was really going on politically throughout the 80s and 90s. It imformed me immediately that my support for Barry Commoners third party run in 1980 was sweet, but doomed and it kept me abreast on race and labor issues as well. I owe a lot of my political breadth to that magazine.
Those same traditions continue into today's In These Times. So it was with great pleasure that I read Hounding the Bush Dogs about IL-03 and Mark Pera. As always the article covers a broader swath of territory, but that's our local interest. Much of the information is well known to us bloggers. Yet it's always nice to get a fresh perspective.
Despite the concerns about Republican takeovers, primary-race challenges could improve party discipline. Incumbents would benefit from local races that force them to regularly reconnect with constituents. In the long run, ousting incumbents who are out-of-touch could save cash and time for activists who now spend limited resources lobbying conservative Democrats. More energy could be devoted to open races. Most importantly, internal challenges can give voice to voters and activists who are shunted aside when no mechanism for accountability exists.
if media was all that mattered, the race against rep. lipinski would be lopsided. lipinski has generated a lot of negative publicity in his run-up to re-election, and you'd expect someone to take advantage of it. the incumbent faces a mini-scandal, one that doesn't particularly help his image as he tries to separate himself from his father (who handed him the seat in 2004). kristen mcqueary lays out the reasons for the lipinski scandal, and rich miller, of the capitol fax blog, summarizes:
Bill Lipinski games the system to get his kid elected to Congress. The son keeps his dad's cronies on the payroll, and two of them (includng one who remains on the payroll) are getting payments from his father's childrens' charity fund, which doesn't appear to be doing a lot of charitable work except for Dan Lipinski's benefit. Dan shares an office with his daddy's lobbying firm and even pays that firm for advice, but he insists he never talked with daddy about a project that the elder Lipinski is working on.
mark pera has emerged as the early netroots favorite. he's demonstrated that he's serious about this race, lining up pat botterman as his campaign manager and julie sweet as his deputy. pera has gotten the dfa endorsement and convinced the local dfa groups (all outside the 3rd) to send in the troops. pera just announced the endorsement of citizen action, which has been a bellweather endorsement in the past.
