The Blog

And thus the recession ends for Chicagoland campaign workers.

they all got Obamas endorsement for helping him win the campaign of all campaigns, now many want part of the One Billion dollars he keeps raising. One paper reports that Mell endorsed State rep. Fritchey? Must be Rod Blagoyevich number 2! I wouldn't trust Mell's choice for dog catcher much less Congress.

The Wire rocks! Love your comment!

You need a real Congressman with a code that is willing to steal from bad people and give to the needy. Most of these candidates are weak punks and they use other people to do their dirty work. I come out in the street myself.

Cary Capparelli ? Thats right, he has allot of free time, after all he is a career consultant that collects taxpayers dollars to do absolutly nothing! Just ask Fox News Dane Placko.

There is not one good Congressman in Chicago. You need some effective and willing to bend the rules like Mario Biaggio or Traficante.

Burge harms Daley at the polls: 1 percent. Daley could torture a black suspect on WGN before a Cubs game and he wouldn't be harmed at the polls. 5th congressional seat slimed up by past office holders.

The Mell / Fritchey connection from Bens 2004 article. Very interesting. "Like Matlak, Fritchey has machine ties. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother married Sidney Swibel, whose older brother, Charles Swibel, was a legendary wheeler-dealer in the administrations of Richard J. Daley and Jane Byrne. Fritchey grew up in Marina City and went to the Latin School, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University's law school. In 1992 he married Karen Banks, who happens to be the daughter of Sam Banks, one of the city's top zoning lawyers, and the niece of 36th Ward alderman William Banks, chairman of the council's zoning committee. Most observers contend that Fritchey got his start in politics after his wife's uncle and father negotiated a deal with Alderman Richard Mell--who has his own prominent son-in-law, Governor Rod Blagojevich. "Here's how I heard it happened," says one north-side Mell ally. "In 1996 Rod Blagojevich was stepping down as state rep to run for Congress. So the Banks brothers and Mell cut a deal. The Bankses endorsed Mell's son-in-law for Congress, and Mell endorsed Sam's son-in-law for state rep. Hey, in Chicago we call that family values."

What an unispiring list to choose from.

Part of the problem in getting an insurgent candidacy going in this race is the fact that candidates will need the standard number of petition signatures to make the Democratic Primary ballot - in this case, about 927 valid signatures from registered voters within the district - in less than two weeks time, rather than the standard 90-day window (the filing period will be from January 12 thru Janauary 19). In reality, candidates will need to get at least 2,500 signatures to avoid petition challenges designed to either knock the candidate off the ballot or bog their campaign down in fending off the challenges right up to the March 3 Election Day. While one could run in the Republican or Green Party Primaries (Republicans only need 319 signatures, while Green Party candidates need just 30 signatures), the real election will take place in the Democratic Primary. With few exceptions, only candidates with solid organizations backing them can be expected to get the needed signatures on such short notice in the dead of winter.

New info sent out on the crazy committeeman race in 32. www.romanelli32.com

Found this about O'Connor Live From IL-5: What's With The O'Connor Buzz? by Josh Kalven on January 07, 2009 - 11:55am Thanks to a strange little article by the Sun-Times' Fran Spielman yesterday, there seems to be an impression out there that Ald. Patrick O'Connor (38th Ward) is the front-runner for the 5th Congressional District race. Case in point, Chicagoist ran with this headline: "Race to Replace Rahm: O'Connor Pulling Ahead." Pulling ahead? Huh? The guy has neither announced his candidacy nor raised any money (as far as we know). Spielman's suggestion that he would easily sweep up the support of the Cook County Democratic Party is also in question, as Crain's Greg Hinz points out today: Signs were increasing on Tuesday that the race to succeed Rahm Emanuel in Congress will be a wide-open affair, with party bosses not unified beyond any one contender. Hinz goes on to report that Mayor Daley has indicated he's staying out of the race. That would be a big blow to O'Connor, his "unofficial floor leader" in the city council. Meanwhile, there are a lot of other candidates (Mike Quigley, Sara Feigenholtz, John Fritchey, Eugene Schulter) who have been representing portions of the district for years and have significant political organizations in place -- a fact Spielman's article completely overlooked. Then there's the matter of that Tribune article last year highlighting how O'Connor helped one of his wife's longstanding clients secure city approval for a development deal. The question isn't whether O'Connor is "pulling ahead." It's whether he'll even get in the race without Daley there to clear the path for him.

Patrick O'Connor? "Pulling ahead?" "38th Ward?" "Huh?" Maybe Abe could check his facts before he posts (after he reads Spielman and "Hinz", of course).

Voters should take a close look at the people running here and ask what they really have done as representatives of the people, and on their side jobs. Can you reporters do something more than just soundbites? You must have some good info on each of these that would make voters really informed.

Illinois's 5th Congressional District The Past is Prologue? The 5th Congressional District of Illinois was created as part of the 28th United State Congress... March 4, 1843: it was initially represented by Stephen A. Douglas, [Democrat]..." Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_5th_congressional_district Will we have 2009 Lincoln-Douglas type debates? We don't want nobody sent! Joe Lake, Bucktown

The problem is that professional politicians are professional only when it comes to getting elected/reelected. They know well the following truth: You don't have to fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people, some of the time, or all of the people, all of the time, you only have to fool just the right number of people at just the right time, that right number being just enough to get you elected/reelected and that right time being election day. Until there are enough citizens focussed on ousting the incumbents who are responsible for wasting our tax dollars, via bloated salaries, over staffed agencies, payroll shenanigans, sweetheart contracts, deliberate and unnecessary expenditures, and blatantly self aggrandizing manipulations of our city's assets, all that 'creative financing' bullshit that daley and his cronies are so adept at, we will continue to be burdened with the consequences of, as an electorate, being the idiots those who make their fortunes by exploiting idiocy. The only thing to be thinking about, come election day, is: HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT Also, joe, the quote is: 'We don't want nobody, nobody sent.'

"We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent" ...I guess the above can't figure it out. I don't want nobody sent, period. The power of 121 votes at32ndNLA: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/32ndNLA Joe Lake, Bucktown

So raise the banner high: HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT

My catchy slogan never works. *wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Replacing tweedle dee with tweedle dum of the same party produces more of the same. Why aren't you advocating new political parties? Why aren't you advocating split party voting? Why aren't you advocating term limits? You spent the last few years saying "vote incumbents out", only to have it fall on deaf ears.

On the one hand, you seem to claim that you've been following my posts, ie., "You spent the last few years saying....", yet you don't appear to have understood much of what you claim to have read. If you truly are interested in thinking about how to solve the problems caused by what is essentially a one political party dictatorship, that one political party being what has been often referred to as the 'combine', ie., the incestuously cooperative relationship between democrats and republicans, thus resulting in an effectively single political party better referred to as the party of payola, then I suggest that you review those of my posting which you claim to have been reading. The fact that you are still stuck in thinking of elections as being solely owned and operated by political parties is an example of why I choose to emphasis a few basic strategies designed to disrupt the domination factors that the combine has enjoyed for decades. The HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT slogan is meant to remind people that the incumbents are the primary source of dysfunctional governing. The candidate ballot order system of casting one's votes is designed to either deny the party nomination to the incumbent, in that party's Primary Election or, failing that, deny the incumbent reelection in the General Election. In fact, the only reason for a voter to vote in a party Primary Election is to deny that party's incumbent nomination in the General Election. In the General Election, if there are only two candidates to choose from, one a republican and one a democrat, the best one can do, to disrupt the combine, is to vote for the candidate who is not the incumbent. If there are three candidates, a republican, a democrat and anyone else, with the incumbent being either the republican or the democrat, vote for the candidate who is neither the incumbent nor the democrat or republican. Before there can be any real chance of breaking the stranglehold that the professional politicians of both the democratic and republican parties have established, the citizens have to alter their mindset of slavishly adhering to those concepts that the combine manipulates so effectively. This means changing one's thinking that challenger candidates have to prove their worth before getting one's vote, to consistently thinking that the incumbents must prove their worth to be reelected. And the incumbents have a track record for the voters to judge that worthiness by. Yes, there are several factors that complicate things a bit, not the least of which are the 'shill challengers' factor, the 'election board challenges to nominating petition signatures' factor, the 'patently fabricated advertising mudslinging' factor, the 'financial incentives of deep pockets' factor and several more. If you have been reading my posts, keep alive in this blog's archives, (thank you Reader), you'll have already seen that my suggestions attempt to address and neuter as many of these factors, that heavily favor the established political combine's interests, as possible. Authentic and effective Term Limits require legislators who will support them. And even term limits won't prevent those in politics from finding ways to continue their effective dictatorships. They'll just adapt to having to play their political version of 'musical chairs'. And, if you think about it, term limits is just a way of further enabling the citizens to think that their active, aggressive, enthusiastic, thoughtful and consistent participation in their own governance is not necessary to ensuring the nature of that governance. Term Limits, in effect, continues to treat the voters as if they are ignorant, stupid and gullible little children, as it gives the impression that a system, any system, can replace the citizen's responsibilities within an elected democracy. We are responsible for the shit we elect, or allow to be elected. We are responsible for the shit we reelect, or allow to be reelected. We are responsible for the results of our actions or inactions. Once you, and others, rethink the assumptions that are common amongst the electorate, and accept the fact that we are, indeed, responsible for the mess that our governments have become, then there will be a chance of restoring the democracy we have, in our continuing generational neglect, so negligently ignored. Every election we have the opportunity to return to the basics of democracy, and, so far, every election we fail to do what is needed, namely: HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT Before you talk about 'deaf ears', ask yourself why it seems that few are interested in listening.

Congratulations "re more of" on your optimistic assessment of human nature. However, HAVE NO DOUBT incumbents have nothing to be wooried about.

You still haven't said anything, nor am I following your posts. I understand your posts, but don't believe you believe them. Instead, I laugh at your posts! We are a republic, not a democracy!

"We are a republic, not a democracy!" Main Entry: re·pub·lic Pronunciation: \ri-ˈpə-blik\ Function: noun Etymology: French république, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public — more at real, public Date: 1604 1 a (1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c: a usually specified republican government of a political unit 2: a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity 3: a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Yugoslavia and Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy Pronunciation: \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\ Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural de·moc·ra·cies Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos + -kratia -cracy Date: 1576 1 a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections 2: a political unit that has a democratic government 3capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States 4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority 5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges So, since you don't even understand the difference between a republic and a democracy and, since you don't consider our country to be a democracy and, since this opinion of yours demonstrates that you either haven't read our Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights, or, if you have read them, you have failed to understand their meaning, it comes as no surprise that, even if you have read my posts, you have failed to understand them just as you have failed to understand our Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our country is, in fact a Democracy. Might the source of your confusion lie in your memories of the country of your origin, ie., "a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Yugoslavia"? Comrade?

Are you sure you're not really Calvin pretending to be Hobbes?

In their own words Anyone have some comments about the special election in Illinois's 5th Congressional District? See IL5thCD at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IL5thCD Joe Lake, Bucktown

Take a civics' course. We are a republic, not a democracy! Back to the drawing board, comrade!

1st there was the following post: "More Of The Same January 9th - 12:34 a.m. Replacing tweedle dee with tweedle dum of the same party produces more of the same. Why aren't you advocating new political parties? Why aren't you advocating split party voting? Why aren't you advocating term limits? You spent the last few years saying "vote incumbents out", only to have it fall on deaf ears." I responded by posting a comment addressing the essential flaws assumed by the questions you chose to pose. Perhaps a more direct response was closer to what you were capable of understanding. First, you're false assumption: "Replacing tweedle dee with tweedle dum of the same party produces more of the same." You presume that my suggested strategy to oust incumbents, of whichever of the two 'major' parties the incumbent happens to belong to, will, in every instance, be it in a Party Primary or a General Election, result in 'more of the same'. Now why would you make that presumption? Why would you not, instead, understand that not every member of either the democratic party, or the republican party, is an entrenched political hack? And that, within each of these two dominant political parties, there are individuals, admittedly likely to be few, who are not necessarily 'more of the same'? And, further, that these few are the very individuals whom the party's hacks don't want to see gain any significant influence over the activities of their respective party's, since these few individuals don't share the same, corrupted perspectives on politics, economics, societal issues, personal freedoms, fairness, justice and our Rights and Responsibilities enumerated within our Federal and State Constitutions, as those 'more of the same' hacks you have chosen to assume are all that either the democrats or the republicans have amongst their memberships. Furthermore, your quoted comment, having not been proceeded by any comment referencing my previously posted strategies for denying incumbents their own party's nomination, via ousting said incumbents in their respective party's primaries, puts the lie to you subsequent comment's assertion that you have not been following my posts here. In addition, you conveniently, in this introductory sentence, presume that the same political party's challenger candidate will, should the incumbent of that party fail to win their primary, win the office up for election in the General Election. Now to address your posted questions. Q: Why aren't you advocating new political parties? A: Are you? And, if so, what political party or parties are you advocating? Also, what do you think has been the cause of the electorate's generational decline in political consciousness and political intelligence, if not the domination of political party style slavish compliance? Comrade? If anything, the politics of political parties has promoted and enabled the electorate's effective abandonment of the principles of individual accountability and individual qualifications, of those seeking to be our elected officials, with the result being that most of the electorate has been conditioned to accept the default condition of substituting their individual assessments of each candidate's qualifications and character with their political party's declared opinions. And you want to tout the creation of even more political parties? For what purpose? And to what end? Q: Why aren't you advocating split party voting? A: Why does your question presume that I'm not? Could it be because you are still stuck in that political party candidates only rut? And that you, in your desire to promote your own chosen political party, will avoid addressing, in any way, the flaws inherent in political party based politics? With the one glaring flaw being that political party politics provide the attractive possibility to the electorate to avoid actually thinking before casting their votes, to avoid the, apparently, mentally painful activity of having to seek out information about those seeking to be elected/reelected to public office, and to actually make an informed and thoughtful decision prior to determining who to cast their votes for? Hell, split party voting, in the Party Primaries, would be a helpful step towards providing the voters with the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, but, the voters already have that opportunity in the General Election. It's the problem of entrenched and well financed incumbent party hacks, of either 'major' party, being the only choices on that General Election ballot, that requires the HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT strategies to be implemented in a given political party's primary. Which brings us back to the source of this problem, namely, political party politics. Shit, we've been so conditioned to think in terms of political party affiliation that even those candidates who don't 'belong' to a political party are labeled on the ballot as 'Independent', as if 'Independent' is yet another party affiliation. If you think about my suggestions, contained within those many posted comments you say you haven't followed, yet you've formed an opinion on, were they to be implemented, they would split the political party system of thinking into a thousand, impotent particles. Q: Why aren't you advocating term limits? A: The only, long term and lasting term limits are the ones that can be imposed upon the incumbents, by the electorate, using the HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT strategies, whenever, and to whomever, the electorate chooses. As I addressed in a subsequent comment, even term limits would, under our electorate's presently flawed conceptions of their responsibilities relevant to their own governments, only compel the two, dominant political parties to engage in an electoral version of 'musical chairs'. In fact, term limits alone will result in your "Replacing tweedle dee with tweedle dum of the same party produces more of the same." initial complaint. Your final statement: "You spent the last few years saying 'vote incumbents out', only to have it fall on deaf ears." So far. Time will tell if the electorate continues to embrace their individual refusal to listen. As to your 2 'follow up' comments: "re more of January 9th - 2:55 a.m. You still haven't said anything, nor am I following your posts. I understand your posts, but don't believe you believe them. Instead, I laugh at your posts! We are a republic, not a democracy!" and "re re more of (the same) January 9th - 4:21 p.m. Take a civics' course. We are a republic, not a democracy! Back to the drawing board, comrade!" Well, thanks for revealing yourself to be just another political hack blogger. It's too bad that the only value you place on this blog is to indulge your propensity for mental masturbation.

I'm the mental masturbationist, because I same the same things over and over again. I must realize vote incumbents out will never work in Chicago. *wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Repetition is the key to learning. It's also the key to brain-washing. My efforts constitute the former. Your efforts constitute the latter. The success of my efforts depend upon the thinking abilities of the electorate. The success of your efforts depend upon the lack of thinking abilities of the electorate. Big difference.

Your efforts don't require thinking, because those voters don't think to begin with. *wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Thanks for taking the bait.

Thanks for your failed political/sociological experiment. :P

Time will tell. And I guarantee I have more time than you do.

When you become Adam of the Bible and live to be 930 years old, maybe then you will have more time. LOL

I don't have to live for 930 years to outlive you. I don't even have to live 930 days.

Ah ha, you can't talk, because you took the bait! It's not about outliving me, instead it's about outliving stupid voting.

Did you really think that the 'you' referred only to you?

VOTE INCUMBENTS IN

Sure, what Illinois gov needs is another crooked politician.... Capparelli's business "Omni Communique" doesn't even pay taxes ! He knows he doesn't have a prayer but will get to pocket all those donations anyway ...just like his old man just did !

Iwould like to find a group that is working to restructure the aldermen power on the south and westside of chicago. I think most of our aldermen are tired. we need new blood with new ideas to revitalize our communities.They don't even have the power or business since to draw a decent store in our areas. If there is a group please post so I can join in