(above: St. Charles County, Missouri voters line up a hundred deep as the polls open at 6:00)
After careening down unfamiliar roads in pre-dawn murk, surviving the lack of both an interior dome light and sufficient dosages of coffee, I made it to my polling place and, now halfway thru the day find myself with both some time to breathe and wireless Internet (the latter just installed this summer by the St. Charles library district), so will offer this quick report.
(Missouri will tease us, possibly for days, with a long wait before they "show us". - promoted by wegerje)
In contrast to the economic carnage so visible in the previous day's canvassing, my Sunday's sojourn took me through a neighborhood much more at peace with itself. I was assigned to a precinct again on the far north of St. Louis city, but in a quiet, stable residential area in the shadow of the Archer-Daniels-Midland milling plant (visible in the background above), as well as a large Catholic church.
This was the type of neighborhood of which too many white Americans are unaware: solid enclaves of middle-class African-American. The brick bungalows and modest but sturdy frame houses of this area generally had well-tended lawns, gardens featuring large canna plants, welcoming ornamentation and floral arrangements on the porches and doors, and an almost complete absence of the ripped-out doorbells and dangling light fixtures seen in my last diary. In appearance it was interchangeable with any number of neighborhoods in Chicago, of any ethnicity.
St. Louis, vis-a-vis Chicago, is both near and far. It's not hard to see why the two towns are such hot rivals, baseball-wise; they're like two cousins. Tho separated, as my last diary showed, by expanses of farm and field, that larger portion of Illinois sometimes forgotten in metro Chicago, once here you can see the kinship in the street layouts and names, in the brickwork, in the beer, the bowling alleys, the shuttered factories. And yes, in the racial patterns, altho in truth I've seen a lot more integrated socializing in my several trips to St. Louis than you usually encounter in the Windy City.
This is a quick blog entry, picture-heavy, on the Saturday before Election Day -- 2008 MINUS 3 -- here in this battleground state.
On Friday, McCain and Palin went to Sterling Heights Michigan, where among other pithy slogans, McCain garnered rousing applause for lines like this:
"Send a team of mavericks who aren't afraid to go to Washington and break some china," McCain implored.
And in typical Republican fashion, such a "Team of Mavericks™" would be led by a long time Washington Lobbyist like Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, who knows how to break stuff...
This has got to be one of the better headlines I've seen from ABC in a while (emphasis mine):
New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops
[...]
McCain's ad asserts that Obama "made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."
The McCain campaign provides no evidence for the assertion that being told he couldn't bring media had anything to do with the trip's cancellation.
Oddly, when discussing Obama's trip to the gym, the ad uses footage of Obama playing basketball with US troops in Kuwait over the weekend.
Seriously. Who is going to vote for this guy? He can't run a campaign, let alone the country. Obama gives a great speech to 200,000 adoring Germans, and McCain counters by whining to a handful of reporters at a photo-op held in a cheese isle in Germantown, PA? Then he knocks over the apple sauce moments later! You can't make this stuff up. I honestly think this tops the lime green jello background.
Sure the ad will be seen on all the cable news shows. But now it will have the caveat of how the McCain campaign can even screw up one of their own Rovian smear jobs.
Just based on his campaign alone, who would want McCain as the leader of the free world? He might make Bush look good.
Second quarter filing deadline is up, and below is a handy chart of fundraising courtesy of James at SSP:
Roskam is crushing Morgenthaler. Bean is sitting on a pile of cash. Kirk is outraising Seals and also sitting on a pile of cash. Ozinga had a really good quarter but Halvorson is still ahead in cash on hand. Harper and Biggert had similar quarters, but Biggert is winning the CoH race. Foster is kicking Oberweis to the curb. Abboud not so much. And Schock is pulling away.
I wasn't politically active in the 1960's. In fact, for much of the sixties, I wasn't potty trained. So I was generally wrapped up more in my Tonka toys and Lincoln Logs than I was in the struggle for civil rights or a war half way across the world that that was going on. Only of late have I had the privilege, thanks to the Internets, of hearing the speeches of Martin Luther King or reading the words of his contemporaries at this time. I was a child, and as such missed much of the historic nature of the times in which my boyhood took place.
But today I feel that I was aware at a historic moment. Barack Obama gave a speech today that transcended political speeches. He gave a speech so eloquent and honest, so well crafted, so to the point, that I believe we all have witnessed one of the great moments in our political history. A speech he wrote himself. A speech that was more than just words, but the best attempt ever by a candidate for president to address what race in this country means to every American.
I became aware of politics back in the 1990's. I became active during Gore's run. I first identified with a politician running for office during Dean's run. I saw myself in Howard Dean. I saw a candidate who I believed in and who wanted change as badly as I did. But I also saw a man who had flaws and shortcomings just as I did.
Today I did not see myself in Barack Obama. I saw a man far my superior. I saw a man I want to see as my president. Certainly he is flawed as any individual is flawed. But unlike most, he is willing to address those flaws, and those of the United States, in a way that even if they do not remotely achieve their goals, will make us a more greater union.
No man can write words like this an not at least on some level mean them. No man can give a speech so honest and poignant on such a difficult topic without some ability to address the issue, if even only tangentially. No man can give just "a speech" like this and not inspire action.
If this man is nothing more than a cult of personality, then give me another double shot of the Kool-Aid because he's buying free drinks for the county.
And the country needs a shot of the stuff he's buying.
With all the talk of superdelegates deciding the race between Clinton and Obama, I thought I'd take a look and see which way our Illinois superdelegates are turning:
As many of you may know, John Laesch held a press conference this morning to discuss the unresolved election in IL-14. At this point Laesch still trails his primary opponent by 355 votes in the general primary, although all the absentee ballots are not counted (in fact, County Clerks must wait until February 19th for their return) and there is still an outstanding question as to whether all the provisional ballots have been counted in all nine counties.
John Laesch has conceded the special primary to his opponent, who will run against Republican nominee Jim Oberweis on March 8 to decide who will fill the remaining ten months of Hastert's term, but he has not conceded the general primary, which is still undecided until all votes are counted. This morning Laesch held a press conference to answer the many questions the campaign has been bombarded with regarding his intentions. I attended it. And since the campaign has made it clear they will make no further statements, I will share my observations and the text of his remarks below.
I've lived in DuPage the majority of my life, and honestly can't remember Democrats ever being a factor. For the first time in my life that's changed, as more Democrats pulled ballots than Republicans as noted by the Daily Herald:
Nearly 55 percent of all voters pulled Democratic ticket ballots Tuesday, according to the DuPage County Election Commission data. More than 132,000 residents voted Democrat to the GOP's 109,132 voters. In all, 242,917 primary ballots were cast.
The highest Democratic percentage of primary voters in the county before this year was in 2004 when they made up 42 percent of the vote. The low point came in 1990 when only 11.5 percent voted Democratic. Presidential primary years routinely draw more Democratic voters to the polls than off-years, according to the data.
Go ahead and read that first line again: 55% of all voters pulled Democratic ballots Tuesday. Sure there are lots of reasons why the presidential race may have driven this. But this is still a HUGE milestone sure to get the GOP's attention.
What happens in Podunk shouldn't stay there. Or at least if it does, the Democratic Party Establishment, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs among us, will have won one more unrecorded battle against those of us who want real change.
What's happening most immediately in the IL-14 corner of Podunk (a term I use here to describe anything not directly inside the DC Beltway) is a primary and a special primary on Tuesday, between the DC insider "pick" for our district, an attorney who is a relative newcomer to both politics and our area, and John Laesch, the nominee against Denny Hastert last time out, and the only progressive in the race.
At this point, I'd call it a significant bellwether for the upcoming Congressional elections that virtually no one outside of IL-14 is paying much attention to in the glare of the presidential race, as well as a bellwether event in the battle for control of the party. So while I don't expect this diary to get much attention, I want to leave a record of what has happened in this primary. Bellwethers, however unobserved at the time, sometimes have a way of becoming useful history for those who follow.
again, the most important news is that early voting has begun. for those who live in illinois' 10th congressional district, the ballot positions for the primary election are:
After a short 11-month campaign and a lot of hard work, Dan shocked the pundits and incumbent Mark Kirk by winning 47 percent in the election. Dan is vying for the seat again in 2008, and this time with even more support.
This morning, Billy Dennis, a.k.a. The Peoria Pundit breaks the story of the first Democrat to show interest in contesting the Republican nominee for the open Congressional seat being vacated by retiring Congressman Ray LaHood.
I don't take kindly to partisan attacks, least of all partisan attacks on people's faith (or even their atheism should that be their choice in our free society). I've written a number of times about crass, hypocritical smears coming from the ill-informed editor of the conservative blog Illinois Review, Fran Eaton, a long-time and well-documented Obama hater and former Alan Keyes campaigner.
Ms. Eaton is hardly alone in her partisan, anti-Christian zeal.
I havewrittenseveraltimesbefore, as have others (here and here by ArchPundit plus here by Pastor Dan), about the anti-Christianism emanating from conservative Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton when it comes to her perverse discussions of the church where her apparent nemesis Sen. Barack Obama worships, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
Trinity United is hardly different from any other Christian church around the world. It is community-focused and reflects its congregation, to be sure, but that is no different than any other house of worship. In fact, in recent weeks, there was a great outpouring of sympathy throughout Chicagoland for Trinity United as their energetic and joy-filled choir director was found murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Ms. Eaton herself is both a self-proclaimed "Christian" (which is odd given how staunchly she opposes this one church) and is also rabidly anti-Obama. She was an Alan Keyes campaigner in 2004 when he packed his Maryland bags and ran for Senate against Obama here in Illinois. She also opposed then-State Sen. Obama for many years before his US Senate run on issue after issue in Springfield.
A few days ago I wrote about the news from OTDB that PC recruitment in DuPage was up over 100% from 2006. Mark followed up with GOP numbers noting that although Democratic numbers increased and GOP numbers flat lined, Democratic PCs were still being outnumbered by nearly 2:1.
Now there are many rhetorically good explanations for this. Most notably the strong Republican organization that has been in place for decades in DuPage is a major factor. But the flip side of this picture is also important. The past leadership of the DuPage Democrats and their public disdain (like this or this) for local activists while filling only 16% of PCs is just as strong a reason for this disparity in the trenches.
Hence it was good for me as a Democrat living in the Sixth to see more of an emphasis this cycle placed on recruiting those on the front lines - Precinct Committeemen. Whether activists forced the DuPage Democratic Party into action out of fear of being voted out of leadership or whether they acted out of necessity to challenge Republicans at all levels is wide open to debate, and both the "insiders" and "outsiders" have strong opinions on the reality of this.
Regardless of who's right, one thing is clear: working with your local activists matters. Duckworth didn't attempt to do this until it was too late. Whether Morgenthaler will is still questionable. But as displayed by Gary at OTDB, when crunching PC recruitment numbers, it was pretty clear that when Township organizations worked actively with OTDB, recruitment was up significantly over Townships in which there was no such cooperation.
Al Gore will speak at the Economic Club of Chicago dinner at the Hyatt at 151 E. Wacker Drive tonight (Wed.). The Chicago Draft Gore Meetup will have a rally outside from 5-8PM. If you want Gore to enter the Presidential race, this will probably be the last chance those of us in Chicago get to influence his decision. Details are here:
State filing deadlines are fast approaching (ours is Nov. 5), so if Gore doesn't decide soon, his "Shermanesque statement" may be made for him (even Gore can't win if he's not on the ballot). Over 200,000 people have signed the petition at DraftGore.com. A new Gallop poll shows a plurality in favor of Gore entering the race. Recent polls in NH, MI, and AZ show Gore overtaking Hillary (who wins the nomination by a landslide in those same polls when only the declared candidates are included). Let's show Gore he has support here in the heartland.
While most of our sitting reps and senators don't have much to say about "Small Price" Boehner's comments Scott does.
This is the first of what I plan on being many diaries here from the Scott Harper campaign. After the jump is an open letter we just sent to all the local papers in the IL-13th. We'll see if any print it.
In the coming days I'll be writing a bio piece about Scott whom I met at Yearly Kos and helped recruit to run against House non entity Judy Biggert. Scott will also be posting again in the near future himself.
Read on for more info and if you'd like to learn more about him or send some cash his way (we're gonna need a lot) here's the webpage:
