CARBONDALE - If he loses re-election over his "yes" vote to President Barack Obama's health care reform, U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello said it will have been worth it, simply because something had to be done, he said.
The Belleville Democrat, who has served as representative of the 12th Congressional District of Illinois since 1988, told members of The Southern Illinoisan editorial board Monday he changed his vote, from no to yes, back in March because the final bill addressed two areas of concern he had with the original - cost and federal funding for abortions.
Before the Sunday vote, Costello said he had viewed reports by the Congressional Budget Office the bill would not add to the deficit but reduce it by $140 billion over 10 years. And after meeting with the president - which Costello admitted was not a pleasant one - he and other House Democrats were able to convince Obama to sign an executive order assuring that no federal funding would go to pay for abortions.
Satisfied with the changes, Costello decided to change his vote, a move he knew would set him up for backlash among constituents in his home district opposed to the measure.
"When I cast the vote, I knew it was not a popular thing to do," Costello said. "The safe vote would have been a ‘no' vote."
Costello said Monday he realizes more backlash may yet come if people, who already have health insurance, see increases in their premiums for next year. Insurers, he added, will blame any increase on health reform.
However, Costello said he was driven by this overall conviction: "Something had to be done. The current system is unsustainable."
Obama's health reform is far from perfect, said Costello, who has long advocated for a single-payer health care system in the U.S., and the White House did a terrible job explaining the bill to the American people, he added.
Costello is running against Republican opponent Teri Newman for the Nov. 2 election. While he admits he's never run against a candidate quite like Newman, Costello said he is sticking to his record of being a moderate Democrat in Congress and a "free agent," devoid of loyalties to political parties or caucuses.
caleb.hale@thesouthern.com / 618-351-5090
http://thesouthern.com/news/local/article_cc0e5c36-e0b7-11df-85e3-001cc4c002e0.html
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tribune poll: Brady leads Quinn 43-39,
Republican challenger Bill Brady has grabbed a slim edge over Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn by solidifying support among independent and suburban voters as the nasty campaign draws to a close, a new Tribune/WGN poll shows.
Brady had 43 percent to Quinn's 39 percent, a tenuous advantage given the survey's error margin of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Still, the findings showed many trends breaking Brady's way as the candidates continue to campaign with only a week until Election Day.
The state senator from Bloomington gained while the governor showed little movement since the last Tribune poll about four weeks ago. The earlier survey found the two essentially deadlocked, with Quinn at 39 percent, Brady at 38 percent.
Brady did better in the Republican-leaning collar counties, his support rising by 11 percentage points from last time. Quinn's collar-county support fell 8 percentage points during the same time frame.
Among independent voters, Brady's backing improved 10 percentage points in the new survey while Quinn's support remained about the same.
Much of Brady's advance may be due to a heavy dose of negative TV advertising against Quinn, largely funded through donations by the Republican Governors Association. Quinn has also aired his share of attack ads at Brady, but is outmatched in the money game.
The poll indicates a sizable chunk of voters — nearly one in three — still have no opinion of Brady despite a year of campaigning for the state's highest office. That Brady now has a slight lead in the poll indicates a willingness among many voters to seek change during a time of economic uncertainty and go with an unfamiliar candidate rather than a better-known commodity like Quinn.
Fully 41 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of Quinn, the former lieutenant governor who took over the state's top job 21 months ago after the arrest, impeachment and removal of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Only 34 percent had a favorable impression of Quinn, long a mainstay in Illinois politics, though largely in an outsider role. Both figures are largely unchanged from a month ago.
At the same time, Brady is now viewed favorably by 34 percent of Illinois voters, up from 30 percent in the last poll. Thirty percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of the conservative veteran state lawmaker, about the same as a month ago.
The apparent desire for change is bolstered by the results of independent voters, whose support is crucial for a Republican candidate in a Democratic state like Illinois.
Brady led Quinn 47 percent to 28 percent among independents. Those crucial swing voters also viewed Brady as the better candidate to solve the state's financial problems, favoring the Republican 44 percent to 24 percent over Quinn.
Overall, 42 percent of voters statewide thought Brady's message of unspecified budget cuts, tax breaks for businesses and opposition to an income tax increase will better resolve the state's budget woes, including 81 percent of voters who consider themselves Republicans. Only one-third of voters support Quinn's plans, which include a state income tax increase geared toward education funding, including just 63 percent of voters who consider themselves Democrats.
Indeed, Brady now has the support of 85 percent of voters who call themselves Republican, up from 79 percent four weeks ago. Quinn's support among self-identified Democrats has increased from 71 percent to 75 percent during the same time period.
Geographically, Brady broke an earlier deadlock in the collar counties and led Quinn 50 percent to 33 percent. Downstate, Brady led Quinn by nearly 2-to-1. In heavily Democratic Chicago, Quinn's support remained stagnant since the last poll at 59 percent.
After the polling concluded Friday, the governor's contest took a twist over the weekend. Democratic state Sen. Rickey Hendon called Brady "idiotic, racist, sexist (and) homophobic" at a West Side rally while introducing Quinn. The governor hugged Hendon before taking the lectern, but later disavowed Hendon's remarks while hammering Brady on his conservative views on abortion, gay rights and the minimum wage.
The poll shows what may lie behind Quinn's strategy: For a Democrat, he's weak among African-American voters, and he's not very strong among female voters, including suburban women who tend to be socially moderate.
Slightly more than half of black voters viewed Quinn favorably, just two-thirds supported him and more than a quarter are undecided or backing a third-party candidate. Among women statewide, Quinn has a narrow 43 percent to 38 percent advantage over Brady. Among white suburban women, the two men are statistically even at about 40 percent support.
Overall, Brady and Quinn are viewed about equally when voters were asked which candidate was more honest and trustworthy. While 77 percent of Republicans trusted their nominee more than Quinn, only 66 percent of Democrats trusted their candidate more than Brady.
The poll, conducted Oct. 18 through Friday, found independent candidate Scott Lee Cohen at 5 percent support. Cohen, who won the Democratic lieutenant governor primary before dropping out amid damaging personal disclosures, has spent about $5.8 million of his own money since entering politics last year. That's a bit more than $1 million for every percentage point of support he's garnered in the governor's race.
Green Party candidate Rich Whitney had 4 percent, and Libertarian candidate Lex Green had 2 percent, the poll showed. Another 6 percent remained undecided.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-illinois-governor-race-1026-20101025,0,701182.story
Brady had 43 percent to Quinn's 39 percent, a tenuous advantage given the survey's error margin of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Still, the findings showed many trends breaking Brady's way as the candidates continue to campaign with only a week until Election Day.
The state senator from Bloomington gained while the governor showed little movement since the last Tribune poll about four weeks ago. The earlier survey found the two essentially deadlocked, with Quinn at 39 percent, Brady at 38 percent.
Brady did better in the Republican-leaning collar counties, his support rising by 11 percentage points from last time. Quinn's collar-county support fell 8 percentage points during the same time frame.
Among independent voters, Brady's backing improved 10 percentage points in the new survey while Quinn's support remained about the same.
Much of Brady's advance may be due to a heavy dose of negative TV advertising against Quinn, largely funded through donations by the Republican Governors Association. Quinn has also aired his share of attack ads at Brady, but is outmatched in the money game.
The poll indicates a sizable chunk of voters — nearly one in three — still have no opinion of Brady despite a year of campaigning for the state's highest office. That Brady now has a slight lead in the poll indicates a willingness among many voters to seek change during a time of economic uncertainty and go with an unfamiliar candidate rather than a better-known commodity like Quinn.
Fully 41 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of Quinn, the former lieutenant governor who took over the state's top job 21 months ago after the arrest, impeachment and removal of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Only 34 percent had a favorable impression of Quinn, long a mainstay in Illinois politics, though largely in an outsider role. Both figures are largely unchanged from a month ago.
At the same time, Brady is now viewed favorably by 34 percent of Illinois voters, up from 30 percent in the last poll. Thirty percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of the conservative veteran state lawmaker, about the same as a month ago.
The apparent desire for change is bolstered by the results of independent voters, whose support is crucial for a Republican candidate in a Democratic state like Illinois.
Brady led Quinn 47 percent to 28 percent among independents. Those crucial swing voters also viewed Brady as the better candidate to solve the state's financial problems, favoring the Republican 44 percent to 24 percent over Quinn.
Overall, 42 percent of voters statewide thought Brady's message of unspecified budget cuts, tax breaks for businesses and opposition to an income tax increase will better resolve the state's budget woes, including 81 percent of voters who consider themselves Republicans. Only one-third of voters support Quinn's plans, which include a state income tax increase geared toward education funding, including just 63 percent of voters who consider themselves Democrats.
Indeed, Brady now has the support of 85 percent of voters who call themselves Republican, up from 79 percent four weeks ago. Quinn's support among self-identified Democrats has increased from 71 percent to 75 percent during the same time period.
Geographically, Brady broke an earlier deadlock in the collar counties and led Quinn 50 percent to 33 percent. Downstate, Brady led Quinn by nearly 2-to-1. In heavily Democratic Chicago, Quinn's support remained stagnant since the last poll at 59 percent.
After the polling concluded Friday, the governor's contest took a twist over the weekend. Democratic state Sen. Rickey Hendon called Brady "idiotic, racist, sexist (and) homophobic" at a West Side rally while introducing Quinn. The governor hugged Hendon before taking the lectern, but later disavowed Hendon's remarks while hammering Brady on his conservative views on abortion, gay rights and the minimum wage.
The poll shows what may lie behind Quinn's strategy: For a Democrat, he's weak among African-American voters, and he's not very strong among female voters, including suburban women who tend to be socially moderate.
Slightly more than half of black voters viewed Quinn favorably, just two-thirds supported him and more than a quarter are undecided or backing a third-party candidate. Among women statewide, Quinn has a narrow 43 percent to 38 percent advantage over Brady. Among white suburban women, the two men are statistically even at about 40 percent support.
Overall, Brady and Quinn are viewed about equally when voters were asked which candidate was more honest and trustworthy. While 77 percent of Republicans trusted their nominee more than Quinn, only 66 percent of Democrats trusted their candidate more than Brady.
The poll, conducted Oct. 18 through Friday, found independent candidate Scott Lee Cohen at 5 percent support. Cohen, who won the Democratic lieutenant governor primary before dropping out amid damaging personal disclosures, has spent about $5.8 million of his own money since entering politics last year. That's a bit more than $1 million for every percentage point of support he's garnered in the governor's race.
Green Party candidate Rich Whitney had 4 percent, and Libertarian candidate Lex Green had 2 percent, the poll showed. Another 6 percent remained undecided.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-illinois-governor-race-1026-20101025,0,701182.story
HULTGREN CAMPAIGN URGES TELEVISION STATIONS TO STOP RUNNING DISHONEST AD
ST. CHARLES – The Randy Hultgren for Congress campaign today sent a letter to Chicago-area TV stations, informing them that they are not required to air dishonest television advertisements paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“Today’s letter to the four stations informs them that the DCCC’s advertisement intentionally and knowingly deceives viewers about Randy’s status as the only anti-tax candidate in this race, and reminds them that they are under no obligation to run the ad,” said campaign manager John Cooney. “The stations also have an obligation to their viewers, per the Federal Communications Commission, to protect the public from false, misleading deceptive advertising, and the ad in question is all three. Rather than touting Congressman Foster’s record of supporting Nancy Pelosi 93% of the time in Washington, the DCCC has instead chosen to knowingly distort Randy’s record and position on the issues that matter to constituents.”
“In addition, our request has recent precedent, as similar ads were pulled by TV stations in Michigan last week[1] and in Pittsburgh in May.[2] Further, ads similar to that the DCCC is using to smear Randy Hultgren have been criticized as ‘not true’ by the non-partisan website factcheck.org. We hope that the stations will remember their duty to their viewers and reject the DCCC’s desperate and misleading ad.”
“Today’s letter to the four stations informs them that the DCCC’s advertisement intentionally and knowingly deceives viewers about Randy’s status as the only anti-tax candidate in this race, and reminds them that they are under no obligation to run the ad,” said campaign manager John Cooney. “The stations also have an obligation to their viewers, per the Federal Communications Commission, to protect the public from false, misleading deceptive advertising, and the ad in question is all three. Rather than touting Congressman Foster’s record of supporting Nancy Pelosi 93% of the time in Washington, the DCCC has instead chosen to knowingly distort Randy’s record and position on the issues that matter to constituents.”
“In addition, our request has recent precedent, as similar ads were pulled by TV stations in Michigan last week[1] and in Pittsburgh in May.[2] Further, ads similar to that the DCCC is using to smear Randy Hultgren have been criticized as ‘not true’ by the non-partisan website factcheck.org. We hope that the stations will remember their duty to their viewers and reject the DCCC’s desperate and misleading ad.”
Preckwinkle prodding blacks to vote
25, 2010
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
The top of the Illinois ticket is hot. Polls show the statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate are separated by razor-thin margins. The election is just a week away, and some Chicago political operatives are betting that the electoral destinies of Democratic Gov. Quinn and U.S. Senate contender Alexi Giannoulias hinge on turnout in Cook County -- and the African-American vote.
The number of destiny is 800,000. In political lingo, it's the "dropoff" -- the difference between the number of people who voted in the November 2008 elections and the turnout in the February 2010 primary. Eight hundred thousand fewer people showed up at the polls in 2010 -- in Cook County alone.
It's a hefty number, but it fits voter patterns. Turnout is always lower in off-year elections and primaries. And in 2008, voters turned out in droves to elect the nation's first black president.
Still, for Cook County Democrats, it's a Halloween-scary number. And it got the attention of one leading Cook County Democrat.
Toni Preckwinkle, the Democratic nominee for County Board president, is determined not to let that happen Nov. 2. She and the Service Employees International Union have teamed up for a grass-roots get-out-the-vote campaign. They are going after black voters -- and going for broke. They're hoping to shake them out of their midterm doldrums with two magic words: Barack Obama.
National polls show that black voters are the biggest supporters of the embattled president. They want to see Obama get out of the house and fight back.
Preckwinkle, a probable shoo-in in her own race, is plowing $400,000 from her campaign kitty into a tough, last-ditch assignment: motivating African American voters in an off-year election. The campaign message: "Hate vs. Hope." The strategy: Convince black voters that Obama's credibility and success depend on winning Illinois.
If voters in Obama's home state reject the top Democratic candidates, Preckwinkle told me last week, "Republicans around the country are going to use this as a bat to beat the president up with for the next two years.
"Furthermore, from my perspective," she added, "if we don't have a Democratic governor, I am not going to get any help as president of the County Board."
Preckwinkle's campaign and the SEIU are splitting the costs of what she hopes will be "a really effective ground game" to exhort black voters to turn out.
The union is matching Preckwinkle's contribution with a mix of cash and in-kind support, including a $128,000 radio ad buy.
On Election Day they will dispatch 4,000 workers -- 2,000 paid operatives and 2,000 volunteers -- to juice up turnout on Chicago's South and West sides and in the south suburbs. The effort mirrors a sweeping national Democratic push to energize black voters.
Why do the Democrats' last hopes hinge on the black vote?
For better or worse, African Americans remain staunch Obama defenders. The SEIU funded polling research showing that, given the anti-Democratic mood, other voting blocs were not "persuadable."
For instance, the research showed that Latino voters are "mad," Preckwinkle said.
"They're mad at the Democrats for not producing on immigration reform. They're not going to vote for Republicans, but they're not going to come out," she said.
In desperate times, Democrats always turn to black voters.
African Americans are suffering mightily in this jobless economy. I wouldn't count on them this time around.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/2831574,CST-EDT-laura25.article
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
The top of the Illinois ticket is hot. Polls show the statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate are separated by razor-thin margins. The election is just a week away, and some Chicago political operatives are betting that the electoral destinies of Democratic Gov. Quinn and U.S. Senate contender Alexi Giannoulias hinge on turnout in Cook County -- and the African-American vote.
The number of destiny is 800,000. In political lingo, it's the "dropoff" -- the difference between the number of people who voted in the November 2008 elections and the turnout in the February 2010 primary. Eight hundred thousand fewer people showed up at the polls in 2010 -- in Cook County alone.
It's a hefty number, but it fits voter patterns. Turnout is always lower in off-year elections and primaries. And in 2008, voters turned out in droves to elect the nation's first black president.
Still, for Cook County Democrats, it's a Halloween-scary number. And it got the attention of one leading Cook County Democrat.
Toni Preckwinkle, the Democratic nominee for County Board president, is determined not to let that happen Nov. 2. She and the Service Employees International Union have teamed up for a grass-roots get-out-the-vote campaign. They are going after black voters -- and going for broke. They're hoping to shake them out of their midterm doldrums with two magic words: Barack Obama.
National polls show that black voters are the biggest supporters of the embattled president. They want to see Obama get out of the house and fight back.
Preckwinkle, a probable shoo-in in her own race, is plowing $400,000 from her campaign kitty into a tough, last-ditch assignment: motivating African American voters in an off-year election. The campaign message: "Hate vs. Hope." The strategy: Convince black voters that Obama's credibility and success depend on winning Illinois.
If voters in Obama's home state reject the top Democratic candidates, Preckwinkle told me last week, "Republicans around the country are going to use this as a bat to beat the president up with for the next two years.
"Furthermore, from my perspective," she added, "if we don't have a Democratic governor, I am not going to get any help as president of the County Board."
Preckwinkle's campaign and the SEIU are splitting the costs of what she hopes will be "a really effective ground game" to exhort black voters to turn out.
The union is matching Preckwinkle's contribution with a mix of cash and in-kind support, including a $128,000 radio ad buy.
On Election Day they will dispatch 4,000 workers -- 2,000 paid operatives and 2,000 volunteers -- to juice up turnout on Chicago's South and West sides and in the south suburbs. The effort mirrors a sweeping national Democratic push to energize black voters.
Why do the Democrats' last hopes hinge on the black vote?
For better or worse, African Americans remain staunch Obama defenders. The SEIU funded polling research showing that, given the anti-Democratic mood, other voting blocs were not "persuadable."
For instance, the research showed that Latino voters are "mad," Preckwinkle said.
"They're mad at the Democrats for not producing on immigration reform. They're not going to vote for Republicans, but they're not going to come out," she said.
In desperate times, Democrats always turn to black voters.
African Americans are suffering mightily in this jobless economy. I wouldn't count on them this time around.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/2831574,CST-EDT-laura25.article
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ANDREW W. LEHREN
Published: October 22, 2010
On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage.
What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had been trained by the Middle East’s masters of the dark arts of paramilitary operations: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
“Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hizballah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,” the report noted, using alternative spellings of the principals involved.
Five months later, Mr. Dulaimi was tracked down and killed in an American raid in the sprawling Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad — but not before four American soldiers had been abducted from an Iraqi headquarters in Karbala and executed in an operation that American military officials say literally bore Mr. Dulaimi’s fingerprints.
Scores of documents made public by WikiLeaks, which has disclosed classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide a ground-level look — at least as seen by American units in the field and the United States’ military intelligence — at the shadow war between the United States and Iraqi militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
But the field reports disclosed by WikiLeaks, which were never intended to be made public, underscore the seriousness with which Iran’s role has been seen by the American military. The political struggle between the United States and Iran to influence events in Iraq still continues as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to assemble a coalition — that would include the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr — that will allow him to remain in power. But much of the American’s military concern has revolved around Iran’s role in arming and assisting Shiite militias.
Citing the testimony of detainees, a captured militant’s diary and numerous uncovered weapons caches, among other intelligence, the field reports recount Iran’s role in providing Iraqi militia fighters with rockets, magnetic bombs that can be attached to the underside of cars, “explosively formed penetrators,” or E.F.P.’s, which are the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, and other weapons. Those include powerful .50-caliber rifles and the Misagh-1, an Iranian replica of a portable Chinese surface-to-air missile, which, according to the reports, was fired at American helicopters and downed one in east Baghdad in July 2007.
Iraqi militants went to Iran to be trained as snipers and in the use of explosives, the field reports assert, and Iran’s Quds Force collaborated with Iraqi extremists to encourage the assassination of Iraqi officials.
The reports make it clear that the lethal contest between Iranian-backed militias and American forces continued after President Obama sought to open a diplomatic dialogue with Iran’s leaders and reaffirmed the agreement between the United States and Iraq to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
A Revolutionary Force
Established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has expanded its influence at home under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member of the corps, and it plays an important role in Iran’s economy, politics and internal security. The corps’s Quds Force, under the command of Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has responsibility for foreign operations and has often sought to work though surrogates, like Hezbollah.
While the American government has long believed that the Quds Force has been providing lethal assistance and training to Shiite militants in Iraq, the field reports provide new details about Iran’s support for Iraqi militias and the American military’s operations to counter them.
The reports are written entirely from the perspective of the American-led coalition. No similar Iraqi or Iranian reports have been made available. Nor do the American reports include the more comprehensive assessments that are typically prepared by American intelligence agencies after incidents in the field.
While some of the raw information cannot be verified, it is nonetheless broadly consistent with other classified American intelligence and public accounts by American military officials. As seen by current and former American officials, the Quds Force has two main objectives: to weaken and shape Iraq’s nascent government and to diminish the United States’ role and influence in Iraq.
For people like General Soleimani, “who went through all eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, this is certainly about poking a stick at us, but it is also about achieving strategic advantage in Iraq,” Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 until early 2009, said in an interview.
“I think the Iranians understand that they are not going to dominate Iraq,” Mr. Crocker added, “ but I think they are going to do their level best to weaken it — to have a weak central government that is constantly off balance, that is going to have to be beseeching Iran to stop doing bad things without having the capability to compel them to stop doing bad things. And that is an Iraq that will never again threaten Iran.”
Politics and Militias
According to the reports, Iran’s role has been political as well as military. A Nov. 27, 2005, report, issued before Iraq’s December 2005 parliamentary elections, cautioned that Iranian-backed militia members in the Iraqi government were gaining power and giving Iran influence over Iraqi politics.
“Iran is gaining control of Iraq at many levels of the Iraqi government,” the report warned.
The reports also recount an array of border incidents, including a Sept. 7, 2006, episode in which an Iranian soldier who aimed a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at an American platoon trying to leave the border area was shot and killed by an American soldier with a .50-caliber machine gun. The members of the American platoon, who had gone to the border area with Iraqi troops to look for “infiltration routes” used to smuggle bombs and other weapons into Iraq, were concerned that Iranian border forces were trying to surround and detain them. After this incident, the platoon returned to its base in Iraq under fire from the Iranians even when the American soldiers were “well inside Iraqi territory,” a report noted.
But the reports assert that Iran’s Quds Force and intelligence service has turned to many violent and shadowy tactics as well.
The reports contain numerous references to Iranian agents, but the documents generally describe a pattern in which the Quds Force has sought to maintain a low profile in Iraq by arranging for fighters from Hezbollah in Lebanon to train Iraqi militants in Iran or by giving guidance to Iraqi militias who do the fighting with Iranian financing and weapons.
The reports suggest that Iranian-sponsored assassinations of Iraqi officials became a serious worry.
A case in point is a report that was issued on March 27, 2007. Iranian intelligence agents within the Badr Corps and Jaish al-Mahdi, two Shiite militias, “have recently been influencing attacks on ministry officials in Iraq,” the report said.
According to the March report, officials at the Ministry of Industry were high on the target list. “The desired effect of these attacks is not to simply kill the Ministry of Industry Officials,” the report noted, but also “to show the world, and especially the Arab world, that the Baghdad Security Plan has failed to bring stability,” referring to the troop increase that Gen. David H. Petraeus was overseeing to reduce violence in Iraq.
News reports in early 2007 indicated that a consultant to the ministry and his daughter were shot and killed on the way to his office. The March report does not mention the attack, but it asserts that one gunman was carrying out a systematic assassination campaign, which included killing three bodyguards and plotting to attack ministry officials while wearing a stolen Iraqi Army uniform.
The provision of Iranian rockets, mortars and bombs to Shiite militants has also been a major concern. A Nov. 22, 2005, report recounted an effort by the Iraqi border police to stop the smuggling of weapons from Iran, which “recovered a quantity of bomb-making equipment, including explosively formed projectiles,” which are capable of blasting a metal projectile through the door of an armored Humvee.
A Shiite militant from the Jaish al-Mahdi militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, was planning to carry out a mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, using rockets and mortar shells shipped by the Quds Force, according to a report on Dec. 1, 2006. On Nov. 28, the report noted, the Mahdi Army commander, Ali al-Sa’idi, “met Iranian officials reported to be IRGC officers at the border to pick up three shipments of rockets.”
A Dec. 27, 2008, report noted one instance when American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division captured several suspected members of the Jaish al-Mahdi militia and seized a weapons cache, which also included several diaries, including one that explained “why detainee joined JAM and how they traffic materials from Iran.”
The attacks continued during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, with no indication in the reports that the new administration’s policies led the Quds Force to end its support for Iraqi militants. The pending American troop withdrawals, the reports asserted, may even have encouraged some militant attacks.
A June 25, 2009, report about an especially bloody E.F.P. attack that wounded 10 American soldiers noted that the militants used tactics “being employed by trained violent extremist members that have returned from Iran.” The purpose of the attack, the report speculated, was to increase American casualties so militants could claim that they had “fought the occupiers and forced them to withdraw.”
An intelligence analysis of a Dec. 31, 2009, attack on the Green Zone using 107-millimeter rockets concluded that it was carried out by the Baghdad branch of Kataib Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group that American intelligence has long believed is supported by Iran. According to the December report, a technical expert from Kataib Hezbollah met before the attack with a “weapons facilitator” who “reportedly traveled to Iran, possibility to facilitate the attacks on 31 Dec.”
That same month, American Special Operations forces and a specially trained Iraqi police unit mounted a raid that snared an Iraqi militant near Basra who had been trained in Iran. A Dec. 19, 2009, report stated that the detainee was involved in smuggling “sticky bombs”— explosives that are attached magnetically to the underside of vehicles — into Iraq and was “suspected of collecting information on CF [coalition forces] and passing them to Iranian intelligence agents.”
A Bold Operation
One of the most striking episodes detailed in the trove of documents made public by WikiLeaks describes a plot to kidnap American soldiers from their Humvees. According to the Dec. 22, 2006, report, a militia commander, Hasan Salim, devised a plan to capture American soldiers in Baghdad and hold them hostage in Sadr City to deter American raids there.
To carry out the plan, Mr. Salim turned to Mr. Dulaimi, a Sunni who converted to the Shiite branch of the faith while studying in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in 1995. Mr. Dulaimi, the report noted, was picked for the operation because he “allegedly trained in Iran on how to conduct precision, military style kidnappings.” Read the Document »
Those kidnappings were never carried out. But the next month, militants conducted a raid to kidnap American soldiers working at the Iraqi security headquarters in Karbala, known as the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks do not include an intelligence assessment as to who carried out the Karbala operation. But American military officials said after the attack that Mr. Dulaimi was the tactical commander of the operation and that his fingerprints were found on the getaway car. American officials have said he collaborated with Qais and Laith Khazali, two Shiite militant leaders who were captured after the raid along with a Hezbollah operative. The Khazali brothers were released after the raid as part of an effort at political reconciliation and are now believed to be in Iran.
The documents, however, do provide a vivid account of the Karbala attack as it unfolded.
At 7:10 p.m., several sport utility vehicles of the type typically used by the American-led coalition blocked the entrance to the headquarters compound. Twenty minutes later, an “unknown number of personnel, wearing American uniforms and carrying American weapons attacked the PJCC,” the report said.
The attackers managed to kidnap four American soldiers, dragging them into an S.U.V., which was pursued by police officers from an Iraqi SWAT unit. Calculating that they were trapped, the militants shot the handcuffed hostages and fled. Three of the American soldiers who had been abducted died at the scene. The fourth later died of his wounds, the report said, and a fifth American soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.
Summing up the episode, the American commander of a police training team noted in the report that that the adversary appeared to be particularly well trained. “PTT leader on ground stated insurgents were professionals and appeared to have a well planned operation,” the report said.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 23, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23iran.html?_r=1
Published: October 22, 2010
On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage.
What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had been trained by the Middle East’s masters of the dark arts of paramilitary operations: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
“Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hizballah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,” the report noted, using alternative spellings of the principals involved.
Five months later, Mr. Dulaimi was tracked down and killed in an American raid in the sprawling Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad — but not before four American soldiers had been abducted from an Iraqi headquarters in Karbala and executed in an operation that American military officials say literally bore Mr. Dulaimi’s fingerprints.
Scores of documents made public by WikiLeaks, which has disclosed classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide a ground-level look — at least as seen by American units in the field and the United States’ military intelligence — at the shadow war between the United States and Iraqi militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
But the field reports disclosed by WikiLeaks, which were never intended to be made public, underscore the seriousness with which Iran’s role has been seen by the American military. The political struggle between the United States and Iran to influence events in Iraq still continues as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to assemble a coalition — that would include the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr — that will allow him to remain in power. But much of the American’s military concern has revolved around Iran’s role in arming and assisting Shiite militias.
Citing the testimony of detainees, a captured militant’s diary and numerous uncovered weapons caches, among other intelligence, the field reports recount Iran’s role in providing Iraqi militia fighters with rockets, magnetic bombs that can be attached to the underside of cars, “explosively formed penetrators,” or E.F.P.’s, which are the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, and other weapons. Those include powerful .50-caliber rifles and the Misagh-1, an Iranian replica of a portable Chinese surface-to-air missile, which, according to the reports, was fired at American helicopters and downed one in east Baghdad in July 2007.
Iraqi militants went to Iran to be trained as snipers and in the use of explosives, the field reports assert, and Iran’s Quds Force collaborated with Iraqi extremists to encourage the assassination of Iraqi officials.
The reports make it clear that the lethal contest between Iranian-backed militias and American forces continued after President Obama sought to open a diplomatic dialogue with Iran’s leaders and reaffirmed the agreement between the United States and Iraq to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
A Revolutionary Force
Established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has expanded its influence at home under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member of the corps, and it plays an important role in Iran’s economy, politics and internal security. The corps’s Quds Force, under the command of Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has responsibility for foreign operations and has often sought to work though surrogates, like Hezbollah.
While the American government has long believed that the Quds Force has been providing lethal assistance and training to Shiite militants in Iraq, the field reports provide new details about Iran’s support for Iraqi militias and the American military’s operations to counter them.
The reports are written entirely from the perspective of the American-led coalition. No similar Iraqi or Iranian reports have been made available. Nor do the American reports include the more comprehensive assessments that are typically prepared by American intelligence agencies after incidents in the field.
While some of the raw information cannot be verified, it is nonetheless broadly consistent with other classified American intelligence and public accounts by American military officials. As seen by current and former American officials, the Quds Force has two main objectives: to weaken and shape Iraq’s nascent government and to diminish the United States’ role and influence in Iraq.
For people like General Soleimani, “who went through all eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, this is certainly about poking a stick at us, but it is also about achieving strategic advantage in Iraq,” Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 until early 2009, said in an interview.
“I think the Iranians understand that they are not going to dominate Iraq,” Mr. Crocker added, “ but I think they are going to do their level best to weaken it — to have a weak central government that is constantly off balance, that is going to have to be beseeching Iran to stop doing bad things without having the capability to compel them to stop doing bad things. And that is an Iraq that will never again threaten Iran.”
Politics and Militias
According to the reports, Iran’s role has been political as well as military. A Nov. 27, 2005, report, issued before Iraq’s December 2005 parliamentary elections, cautioned that Iranian-backed militia members in the Iraqi government were gaining power and giving Iran influence over Iraqi politics.
“Iran is gaining control of Iraq at many levels of the Iraqi government,” the report warned.
The reports also recount an array of border incidents, including a Sept. 7, 2006, episode in which an Iranian soldier who aimed a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at an American platoon trying to leave the border area was shot and killed by an American soldier with a .50-caliber machine gun. The members of the American platoon, who had gone to the border area with Iraqi troops to look for “infiltration routes” used to smuggle bombs and other weapons into Iraq, were concerned that Iranian border forces were trying to surround and detain them. After this incident, the platoon returned to its base in Iraq under fire from the Iranians even when the American soldiers were “well inside Iraqi territory,” a report noted.
But the reports assert that Iran’s Quds Force and intelligence service has turned to many violent and shadowy tactics as well.
The reports contain numerous references to Iranian agents, but the documents generally describe a pattern in which the Quds Force has sought to maintain a low profile in Iraq by arranging for fighters from Hezbollah in Lebanon to train Iraqi militants in Iran or by giving guidance to Iraqi militias who do the fighting with Iranian financing and weapons.
The reports suggest that Iranian-sponsored assassinations of Iraqi officials became a serious worry.
A case in point is a report that was issued on March 27, 2007. Iranian intelligence agents within the Badr Corps and Jaish al-Mahdi, two Shiite militias, “have recently been influencing attacks on ministry officials in Iraq,” the report said.
According to the March report, officials at the Ministry of Industry were high on the target list. “The desired effect of these attacks is not to simply kill the Ministry of Industry Officials,” the report noted, but also “to show the world, and especially the Arab world, that the Baghdad Security Plan has failed to bring stability,” referring to the troop increase that Gen. David H. Petraeus was overseeing to reduce violence in Iraq.
News reports in early 2007 indicated that a consultant to the ministry and his daughter were shot and killed on the way to his office. The March report does not mention the attack, but it asserts that one gunman was carrying out a systematic assassination campaign, which included killing three bodyguards and plotting to attack ministry officials while wearing a stolen Iraqi Army uniform.
The provision of Iranian rockets, mortars and bombs to Shiite militants has also been a major concern. A Nov. 22, 2005, report recounted an effort by the Iraqi border police to stop the smuggling of weapons from Iran, which “recovered a quantity of bomb-making equipment, including explosively formed projectiles,” which are capable of blasting a metal projectile through the door of an armored Humvee.
A Shiite militant from the Jaish al-Mahdi militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, was planning to carry out a mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, using rockets and mortar shells shipped by the Quds Force, according to a report on Dec. 1, 2006. On Nov. 28, the report noted, the Mahdi Army commander, Ali al-Sa’idi, “met Iranian officials reported to be IRGC officers at the border to pick up three shipments of rockets.”
A Dec. 27, 2008, report noted one instance when American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division captured several suspected members of the Jaish al-Mahdi militia and seized a weapons cache, which also included several diaries, including one that explained “why detainee joined JAM and how they traffic materials from Iran.”
The attacks continued during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, with no indication in the reports that the new administration’s policies led the Quds Force to end its support for Iraqi militants. The pending American troop withdrawals, the reports asserted, may even have encouraged some militant attacks.
A June 25, 2009, report about an especially bloody E.F.P. attack that wounded 10 American soldiers noted that the militants used tactics “being employed by trained violent extremist members that have returned from Iran.” The purpose of the attack, the report speculated, was to increase American casualties so militants could claim that they had “fought the occupiers and forced them to withdraw.”
An intelligence analysis of a Dec. 31, 2009, attack on the Green Zone using 107-millimeter rockets concluded that it was carried out by the Baghdad branch of Kataib Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group that American intelligence has long believed is supported by Iran. According to the December report, a technical expert from Kataib Hezbollah met before the attack with a “weapons facilitator” who “reportedly traveled to Iran, possibility to facilitate the attacks on 31 Dec.”
That same month, American Special Operations forces and a specially trained Iraqi police unit mounted a raid that snared an Iraqi militant near Basra who had been trained in Iran. A Dec. 19, 2009, report stated that the detainee was involved in smuggling “sticky bombs”— explosives that are attached magnetically to the underside of vehicles — into Iraq and was “suspected of collecting information on CF [coalition forces] and passing them to Iranian intelligence agents.”
A Bold Operation
One of the most striking episodes detailed in the trove of documents made public by WikiLeaks describes a plot to kidnap American soldiers from their Humvees. According to the Dec. 22, 2006, report, a militia commander, Hasan Salim, devised a plan to capture American soldiers in Baghdad and hold them hostage in Sadr City to deter American raids there.
To carry out the plan, Mr. Salim turned to Mr. Dulaimi, a Sunni who converted to the Shiite branch of the faith while studying in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in 1995. Mr. Dulaimi, the report noted, was picked for the operation because he “allegedly trained in Iran on how to conduct precision, military style kidnappings.” Read the Document »
Those kidnappings were never carried out. But the next month, militants conducted a raid to kidnap American soldiers working at the Iraqi security headquarters in Karbala, known as the Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks do not include an intelligence assessment as to who carried out the Karbala operation. But American military officials said after the attack that Mr. Dulaimi was the tactical commander of the operation and that his fingerprints were found on the getaway car. American officials have said he collaborated with Qais and Laith Khazali, two Shiite militant leaders who were captured after the raid along with a Hezbollah operative. The Khazali brothers were released after the raid as part of an effort at political reconciliation and are now believed to be in Iran.
The documents, however, do provide a vivid account of the Karbala attack as it unfolded.
At 7:10 p.m., several sport utility vehicles of the type typically used by the American-led coalition blocked the entrance to the headquarters compound. Twenty minutes later, an “unknown number of personnel, wearing American uniforms and carrying American weapons attacked the PJCC,” the report said.
The attackers managed to kidnap four American soldiers, dragging them into an S.U.V., which was pursued by police officers from an Iraqi SWAT unit. Calculating that they were trapped, the militants shot the handcuffed hostages and fled. Three of the American soldiers who had been abducted died at the scene. The fourth later died of his wounds, the report said, and a fifth American soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.
Summing up the episode, the American commander of a police training team noted in the report that that the adversary appeared to be particularly well trained. “PTT leader on ground stated insurgents were professionals and appeared to have a well planned operation,” the report said.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 23, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23iran.html?_r=1
Friday, October 22, 2010
Crain's endorses Brady for Governor, Kirk for Senate
BRADY A WORTHY CHECK ON DEM'S PROFLIGATE WAYS
In the race for governor, we endorse state Sen. Bill Brady as the candidate most likely to steer Illinois away from fiscal collapse.
The state needs dramatic action to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, pay $6 billion in overdue bills and deal with a $70-billion pension-funding shortfall.
Mr. Brady's opponent, Gov. Pat Quinn, is unwilling to take such action. He won't push any further than Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state employee unions want to go.
Mr. Quinn deserves credit for reducing the pension benefits of newly hired state workers. But that's only a start, and Mr. Quinn considers the job done. He won't press for concessions that would affect the pensions of current employees, whose rapidly accruing benefits will bury the state if left unchecked.
Mr. Quinn's answer on the budget deficit is to raise taxes. But he waffles when asked how much of the revenue raised would go toward deficit reduction and how much would go to new spending.
The governor is a smart, decent man who believes the first priority of government is to help people in need. He doesn't seem to realize a bankrupt government can't help anybody.
Mr. Brady approaches Illinois' problems from the other end of the spectrum. He owes nothing to the Democratic interest groups Mr. Quinn dares not defy.
His proposals for closing the deficit start with spending cuts, not tax hikes. That's where the discussion should begin, even if we eventually conclude cuts alone won't balance the budget without crippling state government. Like children, elected officials won't eat their peas if they get their ice cream first.
Electing a Republican governor would bring balance to Springfield, weakening the iron grip of Democrats led by Mr. Madigan. With less power, Mr. Madigan will have reason to compromise.
We have no illusions about Mr. Brady. He has logged few big accomplishments in 17 years as a legislator. His social views put him at odds with many Illinoisans.
We take him at his word when he says fiscal matters would be his top priority as governor. We're also trusting that he's tough and shrewd enough to impose fiscal discipline on Springfield before it's too late.
KIRK STANDS OUT FOR EXPERIENCE, INDEPENDENCE
We endorse Mark Kirk in the race for Illinois' open seat in the U.S. Senate, based on his experience as a legislator and his views on economic policy.
A member of Congress since 2001 and a congressional aide for many years before that, Mr. Kirk knows how to get things done on Capitol Hill. His Democratic opponent, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, has no such experience. A firm grasp of lawmaking processes and an ability to forge working relationships are the keys to effectiveness in the consensus-driven Senate.
As a business publication, we also give great weight to candidates' positions on issues affecting the local business community. Mr. Kirk is the clear choice here.
He supports international trade deals that help Illinois companies tap overseas markets. Mr. Giannoulias would hold up trade deals, such as a pending agreement with South Korea, over issues important to core Democratic constituencies.
Mr. Kirk would extend the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, while Mr. Giannoulias would let them expire for top earners.
Mr. Kirk also has been a strong supporter of expanding O'Hare International Airport, since the days when much of the Illinois Republican establishment opposed it. No single project is more important to Chicago's economic future.
The North Shore congressman's support for O'Hare expansion underscores another reason we support him: a record of bucking party authority when it's in the best interests of his constituents. Mr. Giannoulias, on the other hand, rarely deviates from the talking points of the Democratic National Committee.
We're counting on Mr. Kirk to be as independent-minded as he claims to be and has been at times in the past.
Illinois needs a senator whose first and only priority will be to serve his constituents and the best interests of the country. We expect Mr. Kirk to work across party lines and with the Obama administration to find workable solutions to the problems facing our country. If he joins the ranks of “just say no” Republicans whose overriding goal is to wreck the Obama presidency, the country and Mr. Kirk's legacy will suffer.
Mr. Kirk speaks admiringly of the late Paul Simon, and he could become a Republican version of Illinois' most respected senator in modern times. But if he caves to party bosses or cleaves to rigid ideology, he'll join the ranks of Carol Moseley Braun and Peter Fitzgerald.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20101022/NEWS02/101029954/crains-endorses-brady-for-governor-kirk-for-senate
In the race for governor, we endorse state Sen. Bill Brady as the candidate most likely to steer Illinois away from fiscal collapse.
The state needs dramatic action to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, pay $6 billion in overdue bills and deal with a $70-billion pension-funding shortfall.
Mr. Brady's opponent, Gov. Pat Quinn, is unwilling to take such action. He won't push any further than Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state employee unions want to go.
Mr. Quinn deserves credit for reducing the pension benefits of newly hired state workers. But that's only a start, and Mr. Quinn considers the job done. He won't press for concessions that would affect the pensions of current employees, whose rapidly accruing benefits will bury the state if left unchecked.
Mr. Quinn's answer on the budget deficit is to raise taxes. But he waffles when asked how much of the revenue raised would go toward deficit reduction and how much would go to new spending.
The governor is a smart, decent man who believes the first priority of government is to help people in need. He doesn't seem to realize a bankrupt government can't help anybody.
Mr. Brady approaches Illinois' problems from the other end of the spectrum. He owes nothing to the Democratic interest groups Mr. Quinn dares not defy.
His proposals for closing the deficit start with spending cuts, not tax hikes. That's where the discussion should begin, even if we eventually conclude cuts alone won't balance the budget without crippling state government. Like children, elected officials won't eat their peas if they get their ice cream first.
Electing a Republican governor would bring balance to Springfield, weakening the iron grip of Democrats led by Mr. Madigan. With less power, Mr. Madigan will have reason to compromise.
We have no illusions about Mr. Brady. He has logged few big accomplishments in 17 years as a legislator. His social views put him at odds with many Illinoisans.
We take him at his word when he says fiscal matters would be his top priority as governor. We're also trusting that he's tough and shrewd enough to impose fiscal discipline on Springfield before it's too late.
KIRK STANDS OUT FOR EXPERIENCE, INDEPENDENCE
We endorse Mark Kirk in the race for Illinois' open seat in the U.S. Senate, based on his experience as a legislator and his views on economic policy.
A member of Congress since 2001 and a congressional aide for many years before that, Mr. Kirk knows how to get things done on Capitol Hill. His Democratic opponent, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, has no such experience. A firm grasp of lawmaking processes and an ability to forge working relationships are the keys to effectiveness in the consensus-driven Senate.
As a business publication, we also give great weight to candidates' positions on issues affecting the local business community. Mr. Kirk is the clear choice here.
He supports international trade deals that help Illinois companies tap overseas markets. Mr. Giannoulias would hold up trade deals, such as a pending agreement with South Korea, over issues important to core Democratic constituencies.
Mr. Kirk would extend the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, while Mr. Giannoulias would let them expire for top earners.
Mr. Kirk also has been a strong supporter of expanding O'Hare International Airport, since the days when much of the Illinois Republican establishment opposed it. No single project is more important to Chicago's economic future.
The North Shore congressman's support for O'Hare expansion underscores another reason we support him: a record of bucking party authority when it's in the best interests of his constituents. Mr. Giannoulias, on the other hand, rarely deviates from the talking points of the Democratic National Committee.
We're counting on Mr. Kirk to be as independent-minded as he claims to be and has been at times in the past.
Illinois needs a senator whose first and only priority will be to serve his constituents and the best interests of the country. We expect Mr. Kirk to work across party lines and with the Obama administration to find workable solutions to the problems facing our country. If he joins the ranks of “just say no” Republicans whose overriding goal is to wreck the Obama presidency, the country and Mr. Kirk's legacy will suffer.
Mr. Kirk speaks admiringly of the late Paul Simon, and he could become a Republican version of Illinois' most respected senator in modern times. But if he caves to party bosses or cleaves to rigid ideology, he'll join the ranks of Carol Moseley Braun and Peter Fitzgerald.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20101022/NEWS02/101029954/crains-endorses-brady-for-governor-kirk-for-senate
Tea Party to the Rescue -Peggy Noonan
How the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.
Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.
The first: the tea party is not a "threat" to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP's highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?)
Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph.
The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: "We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!" They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.
And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50- to 75-year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on, as they say, not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems. (This accounts in part for the esteem in which former Bush budget chief and current Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is held. He went home.)
The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know—learned all too well!—the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn't lived there in a long time.
I know and respect some of the establishmentarians, but after dinner, on the third glass of wine, when they get misty-eyed about Reagan and the old days, they are not, I think, weeping for him and what he did but for themselves and who they were. Back when they were new and believed in something.
Finally, the tea party stiffened the GOP's spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP.
Actually, Maureen "Moe" Tucker, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, has done the best job ever of explaining where the tea party stands and why it stands there. She also suggests the breadth and variety of the movement. In an interview this week in St. Louis's Riverfront Times, Ms. Tucker said she'd never been particularly political but grew alarmed by the direction the country was taking. In the summer of 2009, she went to a tea-party rally in southern Georgia. A chance man-on-the-street interview became a YouTube sensation. No one on the left could believe this intelligent rally-goer was the former drummer of the 1960s breakthrough band; no one on the left understood that an artist could be a tea partier. Because that's so not cool, and the Velvet Underground was cool.
Ms. Tucker, in the interview, ran through the misconceptions people have about tea partiers: "that they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever." These stereotypes, she observed, are encouraged by Democrats to keep their base "on their side." But she is not a stereotype: "Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?"
There is also this week a striking essay by Fareed Zakaria, no tea partier he, in Time magazine. He unknowingly touched on part of the reason for the tea party. Mr. Zakaria, born and raised in India, got his first sense of America's vitality, outsized ways, glamour and crazy high-spiritedness as a young boy in the late 1970s watching bootlegged videotapes of "Dallas." What a country! His own land, in comparison, seemed sleepy, hidebound. Now when he travels to India, "it's as if the world has been turned upside down. Indians are brimming with hope and faith in the future. After centuries of stagnation, their economy is on the move, fueling animal spirits and ambition. The whole country feels as if it has been unlocked." Meanwhile the mood in the U.S. seems glum, dispirited. "The middle class, in particular, feels under assault." Sixty-three percent of Americans say they do not think they will be able to maintain their current standard of living. "The can-do country is convinced that it can't."
All true. And yet. We may be witnessing a new political dynamism. The Tea Party's rise reflects anything but fatalism, and maybe even a new high-spiritedness. After all, they're only two years old and they just saved a political party and woke up an elephant.
The second fact of 2010 is understood by Republicans but not admitted by Democrats. It is that this is a fully nationalized election, and at its center it is about one thing: Barack Obama
It is not, broadly, about the strengths or weaknesses of various local candidates, about constituent services or seniority, although these elements will be at play in some outcomes, Barney Frank's race likely being one. But it is significant that this year Mr. Frank is in the race of his life, and this week on TV he did not portray the finger-drumming smugness and impatience with your foolishness he usually displays on talk shows. He looked pale and mildly concussed, like someone who just found out that liberals die, too.
This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.
Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566503565327356.html
Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats.
The first: the tea party is not a "threat" to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP's highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?)
Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph.
The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: "We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!" They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.
And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50- to 75-year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on, as they say, not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems. (This accounts in part for the esteem in which former Bush budget chief and current Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is held. He went home.)
The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know—learned all too well!—the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn't lived there in a long time.
I know and respect some of the establishmentarians, but after dinner, on the third glass of wine, when they get misty-eyed about Reagan and the old days, they are not, I think, weeping for him and what he did but for themselves and who they were. Back when they were new and believed in something.
Finally, the tea party stiffened the GOP's spine by forcing it to recognize what it had not actually noticed, that we are a nation in crisis. The tea party famously has no party chiefs and no conventions but it does have a theme—stop the spending, stop the sloth, incompetence and unneeded regulation—and has lent it to the GOP.
Actually, Maureen "Moe" Tucker, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, has done the best job ever of explaining where the tea party stands and why it stands there. She also suggests the breadth and variety of the movement. In an interview this week in St. Louis's Riverfront Times, Ms. Tucker said she'd never been particularly political but grew alarmed by the direction the country was taking. In the summer of 2009, she went to a tea-party rally in southern Georgia. A chance man-on-the-street interview became a YouTube sensation. No one on the left could believe this intelligent rally-goer was the former drummer of the 1960s breakthrough band; no one on the left understood that an artist could be a tea partier. Because that's so not cool, and the Velvet Underground was cool.
Ms. Tucker, in the interview, ran through the misconceptions people have about tea partiers: "that they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever." These stereotypes, she observed, are encouraged by Democrats to keep their base "on their side." But she is not a stereotype: "Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?"
There is also this week a striking essay by Fareed Zakaria, no tea partier he, in Time magazine. He unknowingly touched on part of the reason for the tea party. Mr. Zakaria, born and raised in India, got his first sense of America's vitality, outsized ways, glamour and crazy high-spiritedness as a young boy in the late 1970s watching bootlegged videotapes of "Dallas." What a country! His own land, in comparison, seemed sleepy, hidebound. Now when he travels to India, "it's as if the world has been turned upside down. Indians are brimming with hope and faith in the future. After centuries of stagnation, their economy is on the move, fueling animal spirits and ambition. The whole country feels as if it has been unlocked." Meanwhile the mood in the U.S. seems glum, dispirited. "The middle class, in particular, feels under assault." Sixty-three percent of Americans say they do not think they will be able to maintain their current standard of living. "The can-do country is convinced that it can't."
All true. And yet. We may be witnessing a new political dynamism. The Tea Party's rise reflects anything but fatalism, and maybe even a new high-spiritedness. After all, they're only two years old and they just saved a political party and woke up an elephant.
The second fact of 2010 is understood by Republicans but not admitted by Democrats. It is that this is a fully nationalized election, and at its center it is about one thing: Barack Obama
It is not, broadly, about the strengths or weaknesses of various local candidates, about constituent services or seniority, although these elements will be at play in some outcomes, Barney Frank's race likely being one. But it is significant that this year Mr. Frank is in the race of his life, and this week on TV he did not portray the finger-drumming smugness and impatience with your foolishness he usually displays on talk shows. He looked pale and mildly concussed, like someone who just found out that liberals die, too.
This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.
Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566503565327356.html
Fixing Illinois schools
A couple of months ago, Illinois failed to score the $400 million jackpot in the federal Race to the Top sweepstakes. That wasn't about politics or, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, because there were really so many great entries.
Illinois failed to push enough dramatic changes to convince the feds that the state was serious enough about swift, top-to-bottom reform.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia outmatched us and got the money. Some were more aggressive on efforts to recruit and reward high-performing teachers, to weed out failing teachers, to eradicate caps on charter schools. Some persuaded more of their teachers unions and school boards to endorse vital changes, including tougher standards for teacher tenure.
Those states won. Illinois lost.
Think about that when you vote on Nov. 2. Think about pols who parry school reforms with a nervous glance at the powerful teachers unions. Think about leaders who adopt a yikes!-that's-too-fast approach to ambitious changes. Or those who elevate the entrenched interests of the adults in schools ahead of the kids.
Illinois ranks 18th in the nation in per-pupil spending for elementary and secondary schools. But the performance of our schools recently earned a dismal grade of D from the advocacy group Advance Illinois. Judging from the state's nearly flat-lined test scores and other measures, that D is generous.
Too many schools fail to meet children's needs and prepare them to compete for good-paying jobs. Too many kids and their parents are told: You have to wait. It takes time to make schools better.
Kids don't have time.
The agenda for fixing Illinois schools can be summed up in two words: Choice and accountability. That means:
•More quality charter schools. Lawmakers last year doubled to 120 the state's cap on the number of charter schools. But there is no valid reason to have any cap. There are 15,000 children on waiting lists to attend charter schools in Illinois. 15,000! Their parents want a better education for their kids. They want charter schools, which often offer longer school days, fewer creativity-deadening rules and more dedicated teachers.
Sen. Bill Brady, the Republican candidate for governor, favors eliminating the cap on charter schools right now; Gov. Pat Quinn doesn't.
One more thing on charters: The state doesn't attract as many top-notch charter school operators as it should. The reason: money. State law allows local school districts to shortchange funding for charters. Springfield needs to fix that. Charters have to scramble for private donations. The charters shouldn't be placed at a financial disadvantage because local officials want to choke off the competition for their traditional schools.
•More options for schooling. We enthusiastically supported a bid to provide private-school tuition to as many as 30,000 kids in Chicago's worst schools. The bill passed the Senate last spring with the strong backing of Sen. James Meeks, but failed in the House. State Rep. Karen Yarbrough says she'll bring it up again in November.
Brady voted for this program. Quinn — a product of the finest private schools, Georgetown University and Fenwick High School — would deny Chicago's children the opportunity.
•Compensation based on performance.
Illinois is revamping teacher evaluations and building a data system that should help track students' progress from kindergarten through high school. The state needs a robust "value-added" system that identifies those teachers who help students advance and those teachers whose students lose ground. The best educators should be paid more. The worst should find new jobs. Teacher ratings should be available to parents.
• Consolidation of school districts. Illinois has 869 districts, more than any other state. That's makes for expensive bureaucracy, not for better schools. A lot of small districts can't afford specialized courses in areas such as science and languages. Quinn says combining school districts is "a great place to start" reducing the size of government in Illinois. Brady says he would slash the State Board of Education's "bloated" bureaucracy. It's all music to our ears.
School reform routinely runs into protection of the status quo — a status quo that serves adults well but miserably fails children. "The temptation at every turn is to water down, to seek less controversy and preserve the illusion of success and harmony," Tim Daly of The New Teacher Project told us.
Voters: You have to break that nasty habit in education. Illinois faces a steep climb to the top. The path is clear: Expand choice. Enhance accountability. Lure the best people into teaching. Put every dollar available on the kids.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-schoolagenda-20101021,0,3496551.story
Illinois failed to push enough dramatic changes to convince the feds that the state was serious enough about swift, top-to-bottom reform.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia outmatched us and got the money. Some were more aggressive on efforts to recruit and reward high-performing teachers, to weed out failing teachers, to eradicate caps on charter schools. Some persuaded more of their teachers unions and school boards to endorse vital changes, including tougher standards for teacher tenure.
Those states won. Illinois lost.
Think about that when you vote on Nov. 2. Think about pols who parry school reforms with a nervous glance at the powerful teachers unions. Think about leaders who adopt a yikes!-that's-too-fast approach to ambitious changes. Or those who elevate the entrenched interests of the adults in schools ahead of the kids.
Illinois ranks 18th in the nation in per-pupil spending for elementary and secondary schools. But the performance of our schools recently earned a dismal grade of D from the advocacy group Advance Illinois. Judging from the state's nearly flat-lined test scores and other measures, that D is generous.
Too many schools fail to meet children's needs and prepare them to compete for good-paying jobs. Too many kids and their parents are told: You have to wait. It takes time to make schools better.
Kids don't have time.
The agenda for fixing Illinois schools can be summed up in two words: Choice and accountability. That means:
•More quality charter schools. Lawmakers last year doubled to 120 the state's cap on the number of charter schools. But there is no valid reason to have any cap. There are 15,000 children on waiting lists to attend charter schools in Illinois. 15,000! Their parents want a better education for their kids. They want charter schools, which often offer longer school days, fewer creativity-deadening rules and more dedicated teachers.
Sen. Bill Brady, the Republican candidate for governor, favors eliminating the cap on charter schools right now; Gov. Pat Quinn doesn't.
One more thing on charters: The state doesn't attract as many top-notch charter school operators as it should. The reason: money. State law allows local school districts to shortchange funding for charters. Springfield needs to fix that. Charters have to scramble for private donations. The charters shouldn't be placed at a financial disadvantage because local officials want to choke off the competition for their traditional schools.
•More options for schooling. We enthusiastically supported a bid to provide private-school tuition to as many as 30,000 kids in Chicago's worst schools. The bill passed the Senate last spring with the strong backing of Sen. James Meeks, but failed in the House. State Rep. Karen Yarbrough says she'll bring it up again in November.
Brady voted for this program. Quinn — a product of the finest private schools, Georgetown University and Fenwick High School — would deny Chicago's children the opportunity.
•Compensation based on performance.
Illinois is revamping teacher evaluations and building a data system that should help track students' progress from kindergarten through high school. The state needs a robust "value-added" system that identifies those teachers who help students advance and those teachers whose students lose ground. The best educators should be paid more. The worst should find new jobs. Teacher ratings should be available to parents.
• Consolidation of school districts. Illinois has 869 districts, more than any other state. That's makes for expensive bureaucracy, not for better schools. A lot of small districts can't afford specialized courses in areas such as science and languages. Quinn says combining school districts is "a great place to start" reducing the size of government in Illinois. Brady says he would slash the State Board of Education's "bloated" bureaucracy. It's all music to our ears.
School reform routinely runs into protection of the status quo — a status quo that serves adults well but miserably fails children. "The temptation at every turn is to water down, to seek less controversy and preserve the illusion of success and harmony," Tim Daly of The New Teacher Project told us.
Voters: You have to break that nasty habit in education. Illinois faces a steep climb to the top. The path is clear: Expand choice. Enhance accountability. Lure the best people into teaching. Put every dollar available on the kids.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-schoolagenda-20101021,0,3496551.story
HULTGREN ENDORSED BY NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION
ST. CHARLES – The Randy Hultgren for Congress campaign issued the following statement today regarding Hultgren’s endorsement by the National Rifle Association, a national organization with more than 21,000 members in the 14th Congressional District.
“The National Rife Association is among the nation’s most respected and influential sportsmen’s organizations, and has always been an outspoken defender of our Second Amendment rights; I am proud and honored to have received their endorsement,” said Randy Hultgren. “I’ve fought to defend the Second Amendment rights of Illinoisans in Springfield, and I look forward to fighting for the Second Amendment rights of all Illinoisans in Washington, DC.”
“Randy Hultgren’s commitment to preserving our Second Amendment freedoms has earned him the NRA-PVF endorsement. Gun owners and hunters in Illinois can trust him to fight for their Second Amendment rights,” said Chris W. Cox, chairman of NRA-PVF. “On November 2, I urge those in Illinois’ 14th District to vote Randy Hultgren for Congress.”
“The National Rife Association is among the nation’s most respected and influential sportsmen’s organizations, and has always been an outspoken defender of our Second Amendment rights; I am proud and honored to have received their endorsement,” said Randy Hultgren. “I’ve fought to defend the Second Amendment rights of Illinoisans in Springfield, and I look forward to fighting for the Second Amendment rights of all Illinoisans in Washington, DC.”
“Randy Hultgren’s commitment to preserving our Second Amendment freedoms has earned him the NRA-PVF endorsement. Gun owners and hunters in Illinois can trust him to fight for their Second Amendment rights,” said Chris W. Cox, chairman of NRA-PVF. “On November 2, I urge those in Illinois’ 14th District to vote Randy Hultgren for Congress.”
Obama's Incoherent Closing Argument
While the economy is the No. 1 issue, the president constantly changes the subject..
By KARL ROVE
At an April 2008 fund-raiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama let loose with his famous "they cling to guns or religion" line. Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."
Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.
The economy and jobs are the No. 1 issue in every poll. Yet Mr. Obama of late has talked about immigration reform and weighed in (unprompted) on the Ground Zero mosque. He devoted Labor Day to an ineffective Mideast peace initiative. He demeans large blocs of voters and now is ending his midterm pitch with attacks on nonexistent foreign campaign contributions and weird assertions that "the Empire is striking back."
Meanwhile, Republicans have talked about little else than the economy—drawing attention to lackluster job growth, the failed stimulus, out-of-control spending, escalating deficits and the dangers of ObamaCare.
On Sunday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod promised that the administration's focus next year would be "to generate more growth and jobs" and "on our fiscal situation." That must have left congressional Democrats—battered for months by the GOP's message discipline—wondering why there's been no focus on that up to now.
Much of the blame lies with the president, who has left his party with an incoherent closing argument 12 days before the election.
In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core of their difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions."
Communications? After the president devoted 58 speeches and events to health care over a 51-week period, his bill grew progressively less popular.
The comment about bipartisanship is a joke. As a candidate Mr. Obama spoke about it, but as a president whose party enjoyed massive majorities in both houses of Congress, he ignored it. He could have severely weakened his opposition by drawing them in. Instead, Mr. Obama strengthened Republicans by taunting them with their seeming irrelevance, and he fashioned legislation that only Democrats could vote for. Now many of them will lose their jobs because of their votes.
How many? Virtually everyone agrees that 20 of the 37 Senate seats on the ballot this year are in play. Twelve are now held by Democrats and eight by Republicans. The Republican-held seats appear increasingly safe. It's Democrats' seats that are at risk.
As for the lower chamber, the political handicappers Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg both now have 91 Democratic House seats and nine Republican House seats in play (albeit with slightly different names on each list). Politico.com sees 99 Democratic House seats up for grabs versus five Republican seats.
How many are likely to fall? The American Enterprise Institute's Henry Olson examined wave elections (in which one party gains a big number of seats) and found that the winning party picks up roughly 70% of the seats considered vulnerable. If that model holds, we're looking at a net Republican pickup of 64 to 69 seats in the House and roughly eight seats in the Senate.
I doubt Republican gains will be that big, at least in the House. Democratic candidates have a financial edge—they ended the third quarter with an average of 53% more cash on hand than their Republican opponents. While the GOP is closing the financial gap in the final weeks, money matters.
Democrats have also invested heavily to turn out their vote. Not only will unions spend an estimated $200 million to get their supporters to the polls, but the Democratic National Committee is also investing $50 million in helping state Democratic parties with their ground games. The GOP's efforts have been much smaller.
These tactical advantages will save some Democrats in close contests. Still, even a superior ground game will not save most of them. The political environment is awful. The party's record is toxic with the public. And compounding these problems, Mr. Obama is now overseeing one of the worst White House midterm strategies in American history.
Earlier this year Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas warned moderate Democrats of a midterm bloodbath comparable to 1994. "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me," he reported the president as having said. "We're going to see how much difference that makes now," Mr. Berry added. Yes, we will.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304741404575564383870852928.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
By KARL ROVE
At an April 2008 fund-raiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama let loose with his famous "they cling to guns or religion" line. Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."
Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.
The economy and jobs are the No. 1 issue in every poll. Yet Mr. Obama of late has talked about immigration reform and weighed in (unprompted) on the Ground Zero mosque. He devoted Labor Day to an ineffective Mideast peace initiative. He demeans large blocs of voters and now is ending his midterm pitch with attacks on nonexistent foreign campaign contributions and weird assertions that "the Empire is striking back."
Meanwhile, Republicans have talked about little else than the economy—drawing attention to lackluster job growth, the failed stimulus, out-of-control spending, escalating deficits and the dangers of ObamaCare.
On Sunday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod promised that the administration's focus next year would be "to generate more growth and jobs" and "on our fiscal situation." That must have left congressional Democrats—battered for months by the GOP's message discipline—wondering why there's been no focus on that up to now.
Much of the blame lies with the president, who has left his party with an incoherent closing argument 12 days before the election.
In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core of their difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions."
Communications? After the president devoted 58 speeches and events to health care over a 51-week period, his bill grew progressively less popular.
The comment about bipartisanship is a joke. As a candidate Mr. Obama spoke about it, but as a president whose party enjoyed massive majorities in both houses of Congress, he ignored it. He could have severely weakened his opposition by drawing them in. Instead, Mr. Obama strengthened Republicans by taunting them with their seeming irrelevance, and he fashioned legislation that only Democrats could vote for. Now many of them will lose their jobs because of their votes.
How many? Virtually everyone agrees that 20 of the 37 Senate seats on the ballot this year are in play. Twelve are now held by Democrats and eight by Republicans. The Republican-held seats appear increasingly safe. It's Democrats' seats that are at risk.
As for the lower chamber, the political handicappers Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg both now have 91 Democratic House seats and nine Republican House seats in play (albeit with slightly different names on each list). Politico.com sees 99 Democratic House seats up for grabs versus five Republican seats.
How many are likely to fall? The American Enterprise Institute's Henry Olson examined wave elections (in which one party gains a big number of seats) and found that the winning party picks up roughly 70% of the seats considered vulnerable. If that model holds, we're looking at a net Republican pickup of 64 to 69 seats in the House and roughly eight seats in the Senate.
I doubt Republican gains will be that big, at least in the House. Democratic candidates have a financial edge—they ended the third quarter with an average of 53% more cash on hand than their Republican opponents. While the GOP is closing the financial gap in the final weeks, money matters.
Democrats have also invested heavily to turn out their vote. Not only will unions spend an estimated $200 million to get their supporters to the polls, but the Democratic National Committee is also investing $50 million in helping state Democratic parties with their ground games. The GOP's efforts have been much smaller.
These tactical advantages will save some Democrats in close contests. Still, even a superior ground game will not save most of them. The political environment is awful. The party's record is toxic with the public. And compounding these problems, Mr. Obama is now overseeing one of the worst White House midterm strategies in American history.
Earlier this year Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas warned moderate Democrats of a midterm bloodbath comparable to 1994. "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me," he reported the president as having said. "We're going to see how much difference that makes now," Mr. Berry added. Yes, we will.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304741404575564383870852928.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The protection racket and term limits- Tribune editorial
Curbing politicians' time in office can curb corruption in Illinois
What's the best way to curb political corruption in Illinois? Voters responding to a recent Tribune poll put term limits for elected officials at the top of the list — well ahead of recall elections, greater access to government records and limits on campaign contributions.
For a long time, we've wagged a finger at that notion. "The Constitution already provides an effective method of imposing term limits," a 1999 Tribune editorial said. "It's called 'voting.'"
Yet here we are, less than two weeks from Election Day 2010, the state is $13 billion in the hole, this is supposed to be a watershed political year — yet no more than 20 of the 118 seats in the Illinois House are truly competitive. Even fewer Senate races are competitive.
That's not because voters are pleased with how things are going in Springfield. It's because many incumbents are so safely ensconced that they couldn't be ousted with dynamite.
Since the current legislative map was drawn in 2001, 45 percent of House and Senate races have been uncontested, largely because the districts are stacked to favor one party or the other, according to CHANGE Illinois, a coalition that has tried, unsuccessfully, to reform that process. Incumbents seeking re-election have won 98 percent of the contested races.
It's a nice little protection racket. Most incumbents can avoid a primary challenge by being intensely loyal to the party bosses. The bosses can shower money in the general election on the very few races where incumbents are imperiled.
The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform reported Wednesday that the Democratic Party of Illinois — chaired by House Speaker Michael J. Madigan — leads all campaign contributors in the state this fall. Madigan has given $4.8 million in contributions to candidates. The Senate Democratic Victory Fund — led by Senate President John Cullerton — is next up with nearly $4.5 million in contributions.
So how do we break the protection racket? Competitive elections are the best solution. If maps were drawn to promote political balance rather than incumbent protection, we'd get real choices, and candidates who had to appeal to independents and members of other parties.
But Illinois legislative leaders ripped that off the table this year. They refused to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to change how maps are drawn.
They also shielded themselves from recall efforts and passed a campaign finance law that increased their ability to influence elections. Contribution caps for everyone — except themselves.
We're left with entrenched leaders who cement their power by facilitating the election of compliant foot soldiers. That's how their agenda trumps yours. They control who gets committee assignments and which bills get heard. They have exempted themselves from open meetings laws and shoved aside attempts to give state prosecutors more tools to fight government corruption.
Brazenly unaccountable, they feel free to clout their friends' kids into college at the expense of yours. They wouldn't even let you pick your own U.S. senator — you wound up with Roland Burris. They've mortgaged your future with unrestrained borrowing and spending to placate the special interests that keep them in power.
Needless to say, they're not receptive to the idea of term limits. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's ethics panel recommended limiting how long lawmakers can hold top leadership positions. Quinn supports term limits on legislators and statewide officers. His Republican opponent, Sen. Bill Brady, proposed a constitutional amendment that included term limits. So our next governor, whether it's Quinn or Brady, has taken a stand. Hold him to it.
If you don't like the way Mike Madigan runs this state, you can't vote him out. He even engineered his own Republican opponent on the ballot.
That doesn't mean the rank and file are innocent bystanders. If you're not convinced your local lawmaker is working hard to bust the status quo — you can check our candidate questionnaires for guidance — then go ahead, throw the bum out. Insist that your lawmaker commit to a fair electoral map, or term limits, or both. And send a message to Madigan and Cullerton: Give us competitive elections, or get out.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-limits-20101020,0,7311408.story
What's the best way to curb political corruption in Illinois? Voters responding to a recent Tribune poll put term limits for elected officials at the top of the list — well ahead of recall elections, greater access to government records and limits on campaign contributions.
For a long time, we've wagged a finger at that notion. "The Constitution already provides an effective method of imposing term limits," a 1999 Tribune editorial said. "It's called 'voting.'"
Yet here we are, less than two weeks from Election Day 2010, the state is $13 billion in the hole, this is supposed to be a watershed political year — yet no more than 20 of the 118 seats in the Illinois House are truly competitive. Even fewer Senate races are competitive.
That's not because voters are pleased with how things are going in Springfield. It's because many incumbents are so safely ensconced that they couldn't be ousted with dynamite.
Since the current legislative map was drawn in 2001, 45 percent of House and Senate races have been uncontested, largely because the districts are stacked to favor one party or the other, according to CHANGE Illinois, a coalition that has tried, unsuccessfully, to reform that process. Incumbents seeking re-election have won 98 percent of the contested races.
It's a nice little protection racket. Most incumbents can avoid a primary challenge by being intensely loyal to the party bosses. The bosses can shower money in the general election on the very few races where incumbents are imperiled.
The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform reported Wednesday that the Democratic Party of Illinois — chaired by House Speaker Michael J. Madigan — leads all campaign contributors in the state this fall. Madigan has given $4.8 million in contributions to candidates. The Senate Democratic Victory Fund — led by Senate President John Cullerton — is next up with nearly $4.5 million in contributions.
So how do we break the protection racket? Competitive elections are the best solution. If maps were drawn to promote political balance rather than incumbent protection, we'd get real choices, and candidates who had to appeal to independents and members of other parties.
But Illinois legislative leaders ripped that off the table this year. They refused to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to change how maps are drawn.
They also shielded themselves from recall efforts and passed a campaign finance law that increased their ability to influence elections. Contribution caps for everyone — except themselves.
We're left with entrenched leaders who cement their power by facilitating the election of compliant foot soldiers. That's how their agenda trumps yours. They control who gets committee assignments and which bills get heard. They have exempted themselves from open meetings laws and shoved aside attempts to give state prosecutors more tools to fight government corruption.
Brazenly unaccountable, they feel free to clout their friends' kids into college at the expense of yours. They wouldn't even let you pick your own U.S. senator — you wound up with Roland Burris. They've mortgaged your future with unrestrained borrowing and spending to placate the special interests that keep them in power.
Needless to say, they're not receptive to the idea of term limits. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's ethics panel recommended limiting how long lawmakers can hold top leadership positions. Quinn supports term limits on legislators and statewide officers. His Republican opponent, Sen. Bill Brady, proposed a constitutional amendment that included term limits. So our next governor, whether it's Quinn or Brady, has taken a stand. Hold him to it.
If you don't like the way Mike Madigan runs this state, you can't vote him out. He even engineered his own Republican opponent on the ballot.
That doesn't mean the rank and file are innocent bystanders. If you're not convinced your local lawmaker is working hard to bust the status quo — you can check our candidate questionnaires for guidance — then go ahead, throw the bum out. Insist that your lawmaker commit to a fair electoral map, or term limits, or both. And send a message to Madigan and Cullerton: Give us competitive elections, or get out.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-limits-20101020,0,7311408.story
Kass- Why does Madigan not want tax bill sent before the election?
Because in Madiganistan, the political boss is doing all he can to ensure he stays in power
Here in Madiganistan — once known as the Land of Lincoln — taxpayers are routinely slapped in the face by the political warlords.
And now the Democratic Party bosses are adding a twist. They're slapping you in the face with a Cook County property tax bill you haven't yet received.
That's right. You haven't received it yet. But they're slapping you with it just the same. Here's why:
The bill won't come until after the Nov. 2 elections. And that surely helps the Illinois Democrats and the supreme warlord of Madiganistan, Michael Madigan, the Illinois House speaker from Chicago who also runs the state Democratic Party.
Because when you finally get the bill — and by most accounts it'll be a big one even as your property values shrink — you'll probably feel like taking it out on the candidates. But guess what?
By then it'll be too late. You won't get your tax bill until after the voting is done, about the time you're brining your Thanksgiving turkey with apple cider, brown sugar and kosher salt. Some might call it an unfortunate coincidence. But you're not some chumbolone, are you?
By law, the Cook County tax bills should have been sent out by Aug. 1. County officials routinely miss that deadline, but the upcoming bill will be the latest anyone, even the most grizzled politico, can remember.
So write your checks and shut up, because this is Madiganistan. The warlords have spoken. And you? You're just paying rent.
"We're very concerned about it," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a non-partisan tax and government-spending watchdog group. "We're disappointed that the responsible county agencies weren't able to get bills out in a timely fashion. From our perspective, it's a shame."
Msall did not blame Madigan. I'm the one doing that. He's the boss now. And when there is no smoking gun, when the fingerprints are smudged, the first thing you must do is figure out who benefits.
None benefit more than Boss Madigan. He's pushing all his resources into his candidates for the Illinois House, so that they can make him speaker once again.
Then he can continue running the state, even while reaping wondrous fees as a big-time tax reduction attorney for the downtown commercial real estate clients. If that doesn't smell like good government, what does it smell like?
The only way Madigan keeps his power is if Cook County voters cast ballots for his Democratic legislative candidates who will reaffirm him as speaker.
Democratic Party ideals are important to millions of people, legitimately so, but here in Madiganistan, the machine bosses are Democrats primarily because that's been their path to power and treasure. In Texas, they'd probably be Republicans.
The fellow who blew the whistle on the scheme is Cook County Assessor James Houlihan. For this sin, he will soon exit politics.
Back in March, the commissioners of the Madigan-controlled Cook County Board of Review — the group that hears tax appeals — began complaining in a pre-emptive strike.
The board is run by Madigan's guy Joe Berrios. Madigan installed him as Cook County Democratic Party chairman. Berrios just happens to be the Democratic/Madigan candidate for county assessor.
Berrios and his board said Houlihan was responsible for the delay, arguing that the assessor had not finished reassessments on time. Berrios said Houlihan's new method of determining the assessment values of real estate had created a record number of appeals.
Houlihan accused the board of intentionally stalling the appeals, thereby making sure the bills wouldn't come out before the election.
"First of all, they weren't ready," Houlihan said of Berrios. "Second of all, they took to politicize it by sending that letter and starting the blame game."
Did the Nov. 2 election have something to do with it?
"The election was definitely a factor," Houlihan said.
No further questions, your honor.
Berrios denied it. He said he wanted to get the tax bills out early but couldn't, because of the record number of appeals and Houlihan's alleged bureaucratic fumbling.
"Everybody's trying to get them out as early as possible," Berrios told us. "The treasurer (Maria Pappas) is trying to shave some time off too. Maybe they'll go out before Nov. 22."
But not before Nov. 2, right?
"You'll have to check with the treasurer," he said, thereby proving that classic Chicago saying: We don't want no fingerprints nobody left.
So there was no effort by you or Madigan to delay the bills until after the election?
"Absolutely not," Berrios said.
See? I may have been all wrong about Boss Madigan. It just has to be a coincidence. Democratic officials are pointing fingers, and the result is that voters in Cook County won't get to clutch their crumpled tax bills while standing in the voting booth. Amazing, eh?
After the November elections, the state legislature has another treat in store — a push for a state income tax increase.
And we, the people of Madiganistan, might as well just tattoo our foreheads with "Chumbolone" and start dancing with bells on our toes.
As you step lively to the music, please remember this:
Don't ask for whom the property tax bill comes.
It comes for thee (eventually).
But not before Election Day.
jskass@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-1021-20101021,0,2544367,full.column
Here in Madiganistan — once known as the Land of Lincoln — taxpayers are routinely slapped in the face by the political warlords.
And now the Democratic Party bosses are adding a twist. They're slapping you in the face with a Cook County property tax bill you haven't yet received.
That's right. You haven't received it yet. But they're slapping you with it just the same. Here's why:
The bill won't come until after the Nov. 2 elections. And that surely helps the Illinois Democrats and the supreme warlord of Madiganistan, Michael Madigan, the Illinois House speaker from Chicago who also runs the state Democratic Party.
Because when you finally get the bill — and by most accounts it'll be a big one even as your property values shrink — you'll probably feel like taking it out on the candidates. But guess what?
By then it'll be too late. You won't get your tax bill until after the voting is done, about the time you're brining your Thanksgiving turkey with apple cider, brown sugar and kosher salt. Some might call it an unfortunate coincidence. But you're not some chumbolone, are you?
By law, the Cook County tax bills should have been sent out by Aug. 1. County officials routinely miss that deadline, but the upcoming bill will be the latest anyone, even the most grizzled politico, can remember.
So write your checks and shut up, because this is Madiganistan. The warlords have spoken. And you? You're just paying rent.
"We're very concerned about it," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a non-partisan tax and government-spending watchdog group. "We're disappointed that the responsible county agencies weren't able to get bills out in a timely fashion. From our perspective, it's a shame."
Msall did not blame Madigan. I'm the one doing that. He's the boss now. And when there is no smoking gun, when the fingerprints are smudged, the first thing you must do is figure out who benefits.
None benefit more than Boss Madigan. He's pushing all his resources into his candidates for the Illinois House, so that they can make him speaker once again.
Then he can continue running the state, even while reaping wondrous fees as a big-time tax reduction attorney for the downtown commercial real estate clients. If that doesn't smell like good government, what does it smell like?
The only way Madigan keeps his power is if Cook County voters cast ballots for his Democratic legislative candidates who will reaffirm him as speaker.
Democratic Party ideals are important to millions of people, legitimately so, but here in Madiganistan, the machine bosses are Democrats primarily because that's been their path to power and treasure. In Texas, they'd probably be Republicans.
The fellow who blew the whistle on the scheme is Cook County Assessor James Houlihan. For this sin, he will soon exit politics.
Back in March, the commissioners of the Madigan-controlled Cook County Board of Review — the group that hears tax appeals — began complaining in a pre-emptive strike.
The board is run by Madigan's guy Joe Berrios. Madigan installed him as Cook County Democratic Party chairman. Berrios just happens to be the Democratic/Madigan candidate for county assessor.
Berrios and his board said Houlihan was responsible for the delay, arguing that the assessor had not finished reassessments on time. Berrios said Houlihan's new method of determining the assessment values of real estate had created a record number of appeals.
Houlihan accused the board of intentionally stalling the appeals, thereby making sure the bills wouldn't come out before the election.
"First of all, they weren't ready," Houlihan said of Berrios. "Second of all, they took to politicize it by sending that letter and starting the blame game."
Did the Nov. 2 election have something to do with it?
"The election was definitely a factor," Houlihan said.
No further questions, your honor.
Berrios denied it. He said he wanted to get the tax bills out early but couldn't, because of the record number of appeals and Houlihan's alleged bureaucratic fumbling.
"Everybody's trying to get them out as early as possible," Berrios told us. "The treasurer (Maria Pappas) is trying to shave some time off too. Maybe they'll go out before Nov. 22."
But not before Nov. 2, right?
"You'll have to check with the treasurer," he said, thereby proving that classic Chicago saying: We don't want no fingerprints nobody left.
So there was no effort by you or Madigan to delay the bills until after the election?
"Absolutely not," Berrios said.
See? I may have been all wrong about Boss Madigan. It just has to be a coincidence. Democratic officials are pointing fingers, and the result is that voters in Cook County won't get to clutch their crumpled tax bills while standing in the voting booth. Amazing, eh?
After the November elections, the state legislature has another treat in store — a push for a state income tax increase.
And we, the people of Madiganistan, might as well just tattoo our foreheads with "Chumbolone" and start dancing with bells on our toes.
As you step lively to the music, please remember this:
Don't ask for whom the property tax bill comes.
It comes for thee (eventually).
But not before Election Day.
jskass@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-1021-20101021,0,2544367,full.column
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Stop spending, Part II- Trib Editorial
American taxpayers say they're sick of federal bailouts, but here we go again.
This year, the government expects to pay almost $12 billion directly to one small sector of the economy where incomes have skyrocketed even as the recession has hammered so many others.
Wall Street bankers? Nope, your friendly family farmers.
Seems like the government can never do enough. Last week, another gift arrived in the form of new environmental rules allowing the sale of motor fuel with an increased percentage of ethanol, which U.S. producers brew from corn. It's a great way to keep grain prices high — and they have just set a two-year record.
Funny how you haven't heard much about farm subsidies in the run-up to the Nov. 2 election. Farm lobbyists, and the landowners who mainly benefit from these programs, know enough to lie low when the money is pouring in.
And is it ever: The current farm programs pay almost as much in good times as in bad. During August, federal analysts forecast a 24 percent gain in farm incomes this year, on top of banner years in the recent past. For every dollar of that income — $77 billion in all — taxpayers contribute 16 cents.
The latest spike in commodity markets promises to send incomes even higher, this year and next. As a result, the stock prices of companies that make tractors, fertilizer and seed have gotten a boost. If the Chicago Board of Trade offered a contract for shiny red pickup trucks, it would be limit up.
Farm programs can't fly under the radar forever. Voters rightly worry about federal spending run amok, and even some producers evidently feel a mite guilty about the checks piling up in their mailboxes during a national fiscal crisis. U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Illinois, describes how a farmer approached her at a recent campaign event to say he thought it was nuts for the government to send him tens of thousands of dollars when he's pulling in $250,000 a year from his farm.
He's right.
After the election, lawmakers need to approve a federal budget. The farm lobby is gearing up to fend off the predictable attacks on their little piece of it, hoping at least to postpone the day of reckoning until the current farm bill expires at the end of 2011.
Once given, entitlements can be devilishly tricky to take away. Just look at how Illinois' Seniors Ride Free giveaway continues to undermine public-transit revenues.
As we note in the editorial above, the nation faces its third consecutive trillion-dollar federal deficit this fiscal year. Wasteful and trade-distorting agricultural subsidies have to be led to the slaughterhouse.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ctc-edit-farm-20101018,0,842853.story
This year, the government expects to pay almost $12 billion directly to one small sector of the economy where incomes have skyrocketed even as the recession has hammered so many others.
Wall Street bankers? Nope, your friendly family farmers.
Seems like the government can never do enough. Last week, another gift arrived in the form of new environmental rules allowing the sale of motor fuel with an increased percentage of ethanol, which U.S. producers brew from corn. It's a great way to keep grain prices high — and they have just set a two-year record.
Funny how you haven't heard much about farm subsidies in the run-up to the Nov. 2 election. Farm lobbyists, and the landowners who mainly benefit from these programs, know enough to lie low when the money is pouring in.
And is it ever: The current farm programs pay almost as much in good times as in bad. During August, federal analysts forecast a 24 percent gain in farm incomes this year, on top of banner years in the recent past. For every dollar of that income — $77 billion in all — taxpayers contribute 16 cents.
The latest spike in commodity markets promises to send incomes even higher, this year and next. As a result, the stock prices of companies that make tractors, fertilizer and seed have gotten a boost. If the Chicago Board of Trade offered a contract for shiny red pickup trucks, it would be limit up.
Farm programs can't fly under the radar forever. Voters rightly worry about federal spending run amok, and even some producers evidently feel a mite guilty about the checks piling up in their mailboxes during a national fiscal crisis. U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Illinois, describes how a farmer approached her at a recent campaign event to say he thought it was nuts for the government to send him tens of thousands of dollars when he's pulling in $250,000 a year from his farm.
He's right.
After the election, lawmakers need to approve a federal budget. The farm lobby is gearing up to fend off the predictable attacks on their little piece of it, hoping at least to postpone the day of reckoning until the current farm bill expires at the end of 2011.
Once given, entitlements can be devilishly tricky to take away. Just look at how Illinois' Seniors Ride Free giveaway continues to undermine public-transit revenues.
As we note in the editorial above, the nation faces its third consecutive trillion-dollar federal deficit this fiscal year. Wasteful and trade-distorting agricultural subsidies have to be led to the slaughterhouse.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ctc-edit-farm-20101018,0,842853.story
Stop spending, Part I- Tribune editorial
Resist the urge to indulge seniors
Is the biggest fiscal crisis in decades enough to suppress politicians' instinct to pander to senior citizens? We're about to find out. Faced with an expected third consecutive trillion-dollar federal deficit this fiscal year, President Barack Obama and his party leaders in Congress think now is the perfect time to shower the elderly with goodies.
The goodies they have in mind consist of $250 in payments to everyone on Social Security. Why now? Because the Social Security Administration announced it would not confer a cost-of-living raise on retirees this year — on the grounds that the cost of living is lower than it was in 2008. Recipients also got no increase last year, for the same reason.
This prolonged price stability is good news to anyone who remembers the days of double-digit inflation back in the 1970s and 1980s. But seniors are used to getting annual raises, and politicians are loath to ask them to do without, no matter what happens to the actual cost of living.
The president and Congress gave each recipient $250 as part of the 2009 stimulus package. Obama proposed another one last fall to compensate the elderly for the lack of a cost-of-living raise, but it went nowhere. With an election approaching, though, he and his allies in Congress have resurrected the idea.
Maybe there are enough fiscally responsible members in both parties to give it the burial it deserves. The largesse would cost $14 billion that the government doesn't have, putting the taxpayers of today and tomorrow deeper in debt.
On the bright side, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered hope that the GOP would resist the urge to pander by expressing "a real deficit concern about this." No Republican had signed on to the House legislation as of last week.
Most retirees understand that this indulgence would be indefensible. Millions of American workers are doing without raises — or enduring pay cuts — and millions of others are out of work. Seniors, who once had the highest poverty rate of any age group, now have the lowest. There is no good excuse to single them out for generosity right now.
Last week, a White House spokesman said that "the president thinks we still need to do a lot of work in order to get our fiscal house in order." He's right, and Job One is rejecting this proposal.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-social-20101018,0,1286681.story
Is the biggest fiscal crisis in decades enough to suppress politicians' instinct to pander to senior citizens? We're about to find out. Faced with an expected third consecutive trillion-dollar federal deficit this fiscal year, President Barack Obama and his party leaders in Congress think now is the perfect time to shower the elderly with goodies.
The goodies they have in mind consist of $250 in payments to everyone on Social Security. Why now? Because the Social Security Administration announced it would not confer a cost-of-living raise on retirees this year — on the grounds that the cost of living is lower than it was in 2008. Recipients also got no increase last year, for the same reason.
This prolonged price stability is good news to anyone who remembers the days of double-digit inflation back in the 1970s and 1980s. But seniors are used to getting annual raises, and politicians are loath to ask them to do without, no matter what happens to the actual cost of living.
The president and Congress gave each recipient $250 as part of the 2009 stimulus package. Obama proposed another one last fall to compensate the elderly for the lack of a cost-of-living raise, but it went nowhere. With an election approaching, though, he and his allies in Congress have resurrected the idea.
Maybe there are enough fiscally responsible members in both parties to give it the burial it deserves. The largesse would cost $14 billion that the government doesn't have, putting the taxpayers of today and tomorrow deeper in debt.
On the bright side, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offered hope that the GOP would resist the urge to pander by expressing "a real deficit concern about this." No Republican had signed on to the House legislation as of last week.
Most retirees understand that this indulgence would be indefensible. Millions of American workers are doing without raises — or enduring pay cuts — and millions of others are out of work. Seniors, who once had the highest poverty rate of any age group, now have the lowest. There is no good excuse to single them out for generosity right now.
Last week, a White House spokesman said that "the president thinks we still need to do a lot of work in order to get our fiscal house in order." He's right, and Job One is rejecting this proposal.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-social-20101018,0,1286681.story
Thursday, October 14, 2010
I Am No Threat to Democracy
The president says secret foreign money might steal the election. He's not even fooling the New York Times
By KARL ROVE
Last Thursday, in his speech at Bowie State University, President Obama accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of trying to "steal our democracy" by funding campaign activities with donations from foreign contributors. The chamber denied this charge immediately, insisting donations from foreign nationals were not used for political campaigns (that has been illegal since the 1907 Tillman Act). The White House produced no evidence to the contrary.
This weekend, the Democratic National Committee escalated its assault with a TV ad claiming that former GOP National chairman Ed Gillespie and I "even take in secret foreign money to influence our elections." The ad was referring to two groups for which Mr. Gillespie and I are informal advisers and fund-raisers: American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Neither accepts foreign contributions.
By KARL ROVE
Last Thursday, in his speech at Bowie State University, President Obama accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of trying to "steal our democracy" by funding campaign activities with donations from foreign contributors. The chamber denied this charge immediately, insisting donations from foreign nationals were not used for political campaigns (that has been illegal since the 1907 Tillman Act). The White House produced no evidence to the contrary.
This weekend, the Democratic National Committee escalated its assault with a TV ad claiming that former GOP National chairman Ed Gillespie and I "even take in secret foreign money to influence our elections." The ad was referring to two groups for which Mr. Gillespie and I are informal advisers and fund-raisers: American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Neither accepts foreign contributions.
Inside Bright Start fund's flameout
How Giannoulias dealt with college saving plan's mounting losses during 2008 market meltdown
By Jeff Coen and Todd Lighty, Tribune reporters
As the economy began its meltdown in 2008, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was faced with a dilemma over the state's college savings plan for families.
Giannoulias had made revitalizing the underperforming program a key component in his successful 2006 campaign, and the investment firm he selected to turn around Bright Start was making positive changes. But the fund manager also made a decision to heavily invest in volatile securities tied to the housing market.
Documents and e-mails recently obtained by the Tribune under the state's open records law show the rookie treasurer and his staff were concerned early on about the aggressive move by OppenheimerFunds Inc. in what was supposed to be a more conservative fund in the Bright Start program.
But at each turn Giannoulias stuck with the firm's strategy, even as the housing market soured and losses accelerated.
Now, with Giannoulias locked in a tight U.S. Senate race against Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, the $150 million loss in the Bright Start program has become a major campaign issue. Republican television ads question the competence of Giannoulias, a one-time officeholder whose financial expertise was based on a short tenure at his family's failed bank.
Kirk — who once faulted Oppenheimer and not Giannoulias — says his campaign's review of the public records shows Giannoulias mismanaged the Core Plus Fixed Income Strategy fund, which at one time held 15 percent of the money invested in Bright Start.
"Before documents surfaced showing that Alexi Giannoulias had information about the poor performance of Core Plus and urged Illinois families to keep investing anyway, the congressman was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt," said Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. "Now that the facts have come to light, voters need to know about the gross mismanagement by Alexi Giannoulias and the treasurer's office."
In the past, Giannoulias has been quick to blame Oppenheimer for mismanaging the fund but has offered little explanation about his role in overseeing the fund — including when he first knew about Core Plus losses and what he did about it.
In a recent interview with the Tribune, Giannoulias reiterated that he was one of the first officials to confront Oppenheimer about the losses. He said he stayed the course based on advice from Oppenheimer managers, his own staff and an outside financial consultant.
"Our office was concerned, upset, with the performance of that fund and wanted an explanation," Giannoulias said. "We pressed hard on Oppenheimer. They continued to reassure our office that their strategy was appropriately positioned especially when the markets restabilized."
Giannoulias said his office moved quickly to recover about $77 million for more than 65,000 Bright Start investors in a settlement with Oppenheimer, which admitted no wrongdoing. He also said he took Bright Start from one of the worst-ranked programs in the country to among the top-rated by national publications.
Analysts said the volatility of the market in 2008 caught many financial professionals off-guard. They also said that among states with exposure to such funds managed by Oppenheimer, none reacted any faster than Illinois.
"Plenty of people more astute than the state treasurer were under the impression things were relatively safe," said college savings expert Kevin McKinley, owner of McKinley Money, a Wisconsin-based financial advice and management company. "It was very difficult for anybody to see how bad things got and how quickly things got bad, regardless whether it was Bright Start, Oppenheimer funds or whatever."
Like many college savings programs of its kind, Bright Start offers investment choices that vary depending on the child's age.
Families with younger children tend to invest in the program's higher-risk funds in search of higher rewards, since they have more time to ride the ups and downs of the market. Families with children nearing college age often tend toward safer funds to preserve their savings — not unlike people nearing retirement who move their 401(k) plan toward more conservative funds.
The program's Core Plus fund was considered more conservative because it was supposed to be based in government bonds and other less-volatile investments. But in late 2007, Oppenheimer moved more of the Core Plus investments into mortgage-backed securities in pursuit of a better rate of return, which had the effect of adding more risk.
That potential risk was greater for parents of children nearing college age, because Oppenheimer was placing more of their money into Core Plus.
In early 2008, the risk of mortgage-backed securities — which depend on a healthy real estate market — came into sharper focus because of the role they played in the collapse of global investment giant Bear Stearns.
Giannoulias' office asked Oppenheimer for an accounting of Bright Start's financial performance as it began to lose value. In a May 6 e-mail to Oppenheimer managers, Shirley Yang, the treasurer's director of college savings programs, said Giannoulias would attend a meeting with them on May 19, 2008, in the treasurer's downtown Chicago office.
Giannoulias was interested in the "recent underperformance relative to our benchmarks" and "how Oppenheimer will be addressing performance going forward in order to 'turn the ship around,'" the e-mail said.
In an e-mail days after the meeting with Giannoulias, Yang specifically noted concerns about Core Plus and asked Oppenheimer to explore how other college savings plans were using such fixed-income funds.
"The intuition we have is that most consumers think of Fixed Income as very conservative which may or may not be the case," Yang wrote in the May 23 e-mail.
Things worsened over the summer, both for the economy and for Core Plus.
In an Aug. 19 e-mail, Yang wrote to Oppenheimer managers, "I think the bottom line is we're having a difficult time answering the question of 'why should we stick with Core Plus?'"
Two days later, the records show, the treasurer's staff prepared a briefing for Giannoulias that included the idea of taking Core Plus in a more conservative direction. Staff materials prepared for the meeting noted that "getting out now would lock in substantial losses that may be difficult to overcome."
No changes were made to the Core Plus allocation. Giannoulias said that's because, like Oppenheimer, his office's outside consultant also advised against bailing out of the fund.
In September, the U.S. government announced it would seize mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Exposure to mortgage-backed securities sent major investment firms into nosedives, and Core Plus losses ballooned to nearly 9 percent for the month.
Losses were accelerating in October, but in an Oct. 29 letter to Bright Start account holders, Giannoulias sought to calm concerns over the crisis in the financial markets. He noted the savings program was well-diversified. Without mentioning Core Plus, he wrote that the decline of fixed-income funds could be reversed "when credit markets normalize."
Giannoulias said he could not guarantee improvement but warned that by "making an emotional decision based on a short-term outlook, you could jeopardize your future college savings objectives."
Losses continued to mount, however, and the treasurer's office met again with Oppenheimer. Yang said in an interview Wednesday that was the point when the treasurer's staff realized there would be no rebound.
"In November we hit the low point," she said. "We said we'd had enough. (Giannoulias) basically said, 'We're done.'"
The treasurer's office directed Oppenheimer to divert any new contributions from Core Plus to safer U.S. Treasury bonds.
By the time that change took effect on Dec. 4, Core Plus had lost 38 percent of its value for the year. Over the same period, other funds of its type showed about a 5 percent return.
Giannoulias said in an interview that losses were made worse because the fund was invested in even riskier credit-default swaps, which he said was hidden from his office. Oppenheimer declined to comment for this story.
"It breaks my heart to hear that people have lost money in any fund," Giannoulias said. "But what took place with the markets was devastating to a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses."
Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago securities lawyer who represented families that lost money in Bright Start, said his clients had little choice but to take the settlement offer — in part because their children were about to go to college.
"Can Alexi Giannoulias be faulted for not figuring this out sooner? Sure," said Stoltmann. But, he said, "even some of the best minds on Wall Street had a hard time figuring it out."
jcoen@tribune.com
tlighty@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-senate-bright-start-20101013,0,6925166,full.story
By Jeff Coen and Todd Lighty, Tribune reporters
As the economy began its meltdown in 2008, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was faced with a dilemma over the state's college savings plan for families.
Giannoulias had made revitalizing the underperforming program a key component in his successful 2006 campaign, and the investment firm he selected to turn around Bright Start was making positive changes. But the fund manager also made a decision to heavily invest in volatile securities tied to the housing market.
Documents and e-mails recently obtained by the Tribune under the state's open records law show the rookie treasurer and his staff were concerned early on about the aggressive move by OppenheimerFunds Inc. in what was supposed to be a more conservative fund in the Bright Start program.
But at each turn Giannoulias stuck with the firm's strategy, even as the housing market soured and losses accelerated.
Now, with Giannoulias locked in a tight U.S. Senate race against Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, the $150 million loss in the Bright Start program has become a major campaign issue. Republican television ads question the competence of Giannoulias, a one-time officeholder whose financial expertise was based on a short tenure at his family's failed bank.
Kirk — who once faulted Oppenheimer and not Giannoulias — says his campaign's review of the public records shows Giannoulias mismanaged the Core Plus Fixed Income Strategy fund, which at one time held 15 percent of the money invested in Bright Start.
"Before documents surfaced showing that Alexi Giannoulias had information about the poor performance of Core Plus and urged Illinois families to keep investing anyway, the congressman was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt," said Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. "Now that the facts have come to light, voters need to know about the gross mismanagement by Alexi Giannoulias and the treasurer's office."
In the past, Giannoulias has been quick to blame Oppenheimer for mismanaging the fund but has offered little explanation about his role in overseeing the fund — including when he first knew about Core Plus losses and what he did about it.
In a recent interview with the Tribune, Giannoulias reiterated that he was one of the first officials to confront Oppenheimer about the losses. He said he stayed the course based on advice from Oppenheimer managers, his own staff and an outside financial consultant.
"Our office was concerned, upset, with the performance of that fund and wanted an explanation," Giannoulias said. "We pressed hard on Oppenheimer. They continued to reassure our office that their strategy was appropriately positioned especially when the markets restabilized."
Giannoulias said his office moved quickly to recover about $77 million for more than 65,000 Bright Start investors in a settlement with Oppenheimer, which admitted no wrongdoing. He also said he took Bright Start from one of the worst-ranked programs in the country to among the top-rated by national publications.
Analysts said the volatility of the market in 2008 caught many financial professionals off-guard. They also said that among states with exposure to such funds managed by Oppenheimer, none reacted any faster than Illinois.
"Plenty of people more astute than the state treasurer were under the impression things were relatively safe," said college savings expert Kevin McKinley, owner of McKinley Money, a Wisconsin-based financial advice and management company. "It was very difficult for anybody to see how bad things got and how quickly things got bad, regardless whether it was Bright Start, Oppenheimer funds or whatever."
Like many college savings programs of its kind, Bright Start offers investment choices that vary depending on the child's age.
Families with younger children tend to invest in the program's higher-risk funds in search of higher rewards, since they have more time to ride the ups and downs of the market. Families with children nearing college age often tend toward safer funds to preserve their savings — not unlike people nearing retirement who move their 401(k) plan toward more conservative funds.
The program's Core Plus fund was considered more conservative because it was supposed to be based in government bonds and other less-volatile investments. But in late 2007, Oppenheimer moved more of the Core Plus investments into mortgage-backed securities in pursuit of a better rate of return, which had the effect of adding more risk.
That potential risk was greater for parents of children nearing college age, because Oppenheimer was placing more of their money into Core Plus.
In early 2008, the risk of mortgage-backed securities — which depend on a healthy real estate market — came into sharper focus because of the role they played in the collapse of global investment giant Bear Stearns.
Giannoulias' office asked Oppenheimer for an accounting of Bright Start's financial performance as it began to lose value. In a May 6 e-mail to Oppenheimer managers, Shirley Yang, the treasurer's director of college savings programs, said Giannoulias would attend a meeting with them on May 19, 2008, in the treasurer's downtown Chicago office.
Giannoulias was interested in the "recent underperformance relative to our benchmarks" and "how Oppenheimer will be addressing performance going forward in order to 'turn the ship around,'" the e-mail said.
In an e-mail days after the meeting with Giannoulias, Yang specifically noted concerns about Core Plus and asked Oppenheimer to explore how other college savings plans were using such fixed-income funds.
"The intuition we have is that most consumers think of Fixed Income as very conservative which may or may not be the case," Yang wrote in the May 23 e-mail.
Things worsened over the summer, both for the economy and for Core Plus.
In an Aug. 19 e-mail, Yang wrote to Oppenheimer managers, "I think the bottom line is we're having a difficult time answering the question of 'why should we stick with Core Plus?'"
Two days later, the records show, the treasurer's staff prepared a briefing for Giannoulias that included the idea of taking Core Plus in a more conservative direction. Staff materials prepared for the meeting noted that "getting out now would lock in substantial losses that may be difficult to overcome."
No changes were made to the Core Plus allocation. Giannoulias said that's because, like Oppenheimer, his office's outside consultant also advised against bailing out of the fund.
In September, the U.S. government announced it would seize mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Exposure to mortgage-backed securities sent major investment firms into nosedives, and Core Plus losses ballooned to nearly 9 percent for the month.
Losses were accelerating in October, but in an Oct. 29 letter to Bright Start account holders, Giannoulias sought to calm concerns over the crisis in the financial markets. He noted the savings program was well-diversified. Without mentioning Core Plus, he wrote that the decline of fixed-income funds could be reversed "when credit markets normalize."
Giannoulias said he could not guarantee improvement but warned that by "making an emotional decision based on a short-term outlook, you could jeopardize your future college savings objectives."
Losses continued to mount, however, and the treasurer's office met again with Oppenheimer. Yang said in an interview Wednesday that was the point when the treasurer's staff realized there would be no rebound.
"In November we hit the low point," she said. "We said we'd had enough. (Giannoulias) basically said, 'We're done.'"
The treasurer's office directed Oppenheimer to divert any new contributions from Core Plus to safer U.S. Treasury bonds.
By the time that change took effect on Dec. 4, Core Plus had lost 38 percent of its value for the year. Over the same period, other funds of its type showed about a 5 percent return.
Giannoulias said in an interview that losses were made worse because the fund was invested in even riskier credit-default swaps, which he said was hidden from his office. Oppenheimer declined to comment for this story.
"It breaks my heart to hear that people have lost money in any fund," Giannoulias said. "But what took place with the markets was devastating to a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses."
Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago securities lawyer who represented families that lost money in Bright Start, said his clients had little choice but to take the settlement offer — in part because their children were about to go to college.
"Can Alexi Giannoulias be faulted for not figuring this out sooner? Sure," said Stoltmann. But, he said, "even some of the best minds on Wall Street had a hard time figuring it out."
jcoen@tribune.com
tlighty@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-senate-bright-start-20101013,0,6925166,full.story
Still waiting for Supaerman-Tribune editorial
The families gather in the school auditorium or the gym. They're nervous. They're hopeful. They share a single goal: Getting their child out of a bad neighborhood school and into a top-notch charter school.
It's charter school lottery time. In cities around the country, much the same scene unfolds. There are more kids than places for them in the local charter school. Some will win a seat. Many more will not.
The parents know their children's future is on the line.
School officials draw numbered pingpong balls or slips of paper and call out the winning numbers for a coveted slot in the fall class. Each announcement brings a jubilant shriek from the winner. For everyone else, the odds get a little steeper.
That's what you see in the final wrenching scenes of "Waiting for Superman." We don't usually review movies here, but you should see this one. You won't forget the crestfallen faces of the kids whose number isn't called. Bring some Kleenex.
Think about this: There are some 420,000 children on waiting lists to get into charter schools across the nation, including about 15,000 children in Illinois. These are kids whose parents want a better education for them. These kids and parents are being told to wait.
They don't have time to wait.
If you take nothing else from "Waiting for Superman," you'll understand the urgency of families who desperately want a better school, but are trapped in the public education monopoly.
Charter schools aren't a magic bullet. Not every charter does better than the traditional public schools. But many do. In Chicago, 25 of 27 charter high schools outperform their neighborhood counterparts on state tests, according to 2009 Chicago Public Schools figures. Every one of the charters graduates students at a higher rate than the neighborhood schools. Every one has a stronger attendance rate.
"Waiting for Superman" has drawn a lot of blowback. Critics say the film unfairly casts teachers unions as the villains and that many charters don't perform as well as public schools. Director Davis Guggenheim has said of his film: "It's not 'pro' anything or 'anti' anything. It's really: Why can't we have enough great schools?"
Great question. Why doesn't Illinois have a charter school for every kid who wants to go to one?
One reason: There's still a cap on how many charter schools can operate in Illinois. Last year, Illinois lawmakers doubled the cap to 120 schools as part of the state's Race to the Top bid. They should have abolished the cap.
Too many school boards and teachers unions still see charter schools as unwelcome competition. They operate outside the regular school rules. They receive tax revenues. Their teachers often don't belong to a union. So the unions and the school boards continue to resist them. Even as Illinois raised the cap on charters, it put new restrictions on their independent operation.
Illinois hasn't attracted as many high-quality charter operators as it should. The state ties funding for charters to a school district's tuition rate, which is generally lower than what a school actually spends per student. Bottom line: many charters may receive as little as 75 percent of the per-pupil tax money that goes to regular public schools. Private funding helps make up some of the difference. But lawmakers need to change the rules so charters get the same public dollars as regular schools.
The state needs another way for charters to get approved. An independent state commission or a local community institution, such as a college, should get approval authority so reluctant local school boards can't stall them. Let good charter schools flourish.
And beyond charters, it needs to give children more choices in education. The legislature should approve legislation that would give tuition vouchers to 30,000 students in Chicago's worst-performing schools. That bill passed the Senate but was stuffed by the House earlier this year.
Go see "Waiting for Superman." You'll meet Daisy, a Los Angeles fifth grader who wants to be a veterinarian. You'll meet Anthony, a Washington, D.C., fifth grader who lost his father to drug addiction and wants to do better for his own kids someday. Bianca, a Harlem kindergartner raised by a single mother struggling to afford a decent education for her daughter.
Let's give parents and students more choices. No child should have to wait to be rescued from a poor education.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-superman-20101012,0,6677923.story
It's charter school lottery time. In cities around the country, much the same scene unfolds. There are more kids than places for them in the local charter school. Some will win a seat. Many more will not.
The parents know their children's future is on the line.
School officials draw numbered pingpong balls or slips of paper and call out the winning numbers for a coveted slot in the fall class. Each announcement brings a jubilant shriek from the winner. For everyone else, the odds get a little steeper.
That's what you see in the final wrenching scenes of "Waiting for Superman." We don't usually review movies here, but you should see this one. You won't forget the crestfallen faces of the kids whose number isn't called. Bring some Kleenex.
Think about this: There are some 420,000 children on waiting lists to get into charter schools across the nation, including about 15,000 children in Illinois. These are kids whose parents want a better education for them. These kids and parents are being told to wait.
They don't have time to wait.
If you take nothing else from "Waiting for Superman," you'll understand the urgency of families who desperately want a better school, but are trapped in the public education monopoly.
Charter schools aren't a magic bullet. Not every charter does better than the traditional public schools. But many do. In Chicago, 25 of 27 charter high schools outperform their neighborhood counterparts on state tests, according to 2009 Chicago Public Schools figures. Every one of the charters graduates students at a higher rate than the neighborhood schools. Every one has a stronger attendance rate.
"Waiting for Superman" has drawn a lot of blowback. Critics say the film unfairly casts teachers unions as the villains and that many charters don't perform as well as public schools. Director Davis Guggenheim has said of his film: "It's not 'pro' anything or 'anti' anything. It's really: Why can't we have enough great schools?"
Great question. Why doesn't Illinois have a charter school for every kid who wants to go to one?
One reason: There's still a cap on how many charter schools can operate in Illinois. Last year, Illinois lawmakers doubled the cap to 120 schools as part of the state's Race to the Top bid. They should have abolished the cap.
Too many school boards and teachers unions still see charter schools as unwelcome competition. They operate outside the regular school rules. They receive tax revenues. Their teachers often don't belong to a union. So the unions and the school boards continue to resist them. Even as Illinois raised the cap on charters, it put new restrictions on their independent operation.
Illinois hasn't attracted as many high-quality charter operators as it should. The state ties funding for charters to a school district's tuition rate, which is generally lower than what a school actually spends per student. Bottom line: many charters may receive as little as 75 percent of the per-pupil tax money that goes to regular public schools. Private funding helps make up some of the difference. But lawmakers need to change the rules so charters get the same public dollars as regular schools.
The state needs another way for charters to get approved. An independent state commission or a local community institution, such as a college, should get approval authority so reluctant local school boards can't stall them. Let good charter schools flourish.
And beyond charters, it needs to give children more choices in education. The legislature should approve legislation that would give tuition vouchers to 30,000 students in Chicago's worst-performing schools. That bill passed the Senate but was stuffed by the House earlier this year.
Go see "Waiting for Superman." You'll meet Daisy, a Los Angeles fifth grader who wants to be a veterinarian. You'll meet Anthony, a Washington, D.C., fifth grader who lost his father to drug addiction and wants to do better for his own kids someday. Bianca, a Harlem kindergartner raised by a single mother struggling to afford a decent education for her daughter.
Let's give parents and students more choices. No child should have to wait to be rescued from a poor education.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-superman-20101012,0,6677923.story
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Texas gov. says reported beheading of investigator in border lake shooting meant to intimidate
APRIL CASTRO, OLGA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake plagued by pirates has been decapitated and his head was found in a suitcase, a Texas sheriff says.
The death of Rolando Flores, commander of state investigators in Ciudad Miguel Aleman, was a message from gangsters for investigators to "stay out of their territory," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. Flores was part of a group investigating the reported shooting of David Hartley on Falcon Lake.
"I think their attempt is to intimidate law enforcement, no matter who they are or where they are," Perry told The Associated Press.
Flores' decapitated head was found Tuesday in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told the AP.
Cartels have used beheadings in the past to terrorize the public and send messages to Mexican law enforcement. U.S. officials have said threats from drug gangs who control the area around Falcon Lake have hampered the search for Hartley, though divers have been in the lake searching this week. Hartley was reportedly shot Sept. 30 while touring the lake with his wife on Jet Skis.
That part of Tamaulipas state is overrun by violence from a turf battle between the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta drug gang, made up of former Mexican special forces soldiers, and both are battling the Mexican military.
The search for Hartley's body is expected to continue, although Gonzalez said it's becoming increasingly unlikely the body will be found.
Perry said investigators shouldn't back off because of threats such as Flores' slaying.
"The worst thing we can do is let the terrorists dictate the terms of how we're going to live."
Instead, he said, the threat should be handled by increasing "the numbers of law enforcement and military."
Ruben Rios, a spokesman for the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office, said authorities "don't know how or why he was killed. We don't have any details on how he died."
But Gonzalez said later Tuesday that "reliable sources within the law enforcement community of Mexico" told him Flores' head was found Tuesday morning in a suitcase outside of an Army base.
Hartley's wife, Tiffany, said she and her husband were returning to the U.S. from photographing a half-submerged church in Mexico when they were attacked by pirates on speedboats. Hartley was shot and presumably fell into the lake. Tiffany Hartley said she tried to retrieve her husband's body and his Jet Ski but the pirates continued firing and she fled. Gonzalez has said he has an eyewitness who corroborates her account.
U.S. officials, particularly Perry, and Hartley's family have been pressuring Mexico to step up the search for Hartley and determine what happened.
Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande, 25 miles long and 3 miles across. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on the Mexican side, prompting warnings to Americans by Texas state officials, but Hartley's death would mark the first violent fatality on the lake.
Dennis Hartley, David Hartley's father, expressed shock and regret at Flores' killing.
"I just, I'm in shock about this right now," he said from his Colorado home. "I really don't have any hope that David will be found. I really hate other people putting their lives at stake. We don't need more sons lost."
The Mexican Foreign Ministry says it has been using federal, state and local resources, including the military and helicopters, to search for Hartley's body and opened an investigation. Over the weekend, authorities named two possible suspects.
However, Rios on Tuesday said no suspects have been identified and wouldn't comment on why a state investigator had already named two suspects.
On Sunday, state investigator Juan Carlos Ballesteros, who is assigned to Ciudad Miguel Aleman, said police believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Zaldivar Farias may have killed Hartley. Ballesteros didn't answer calls seeking comment Tuesday.
___
Rodriguez reported from Mexico City. Associated Press Writer P. Solomon Banda contributed to this report from Denver.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-border-lake-shooting,0,5414534.story
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake plagued by pirates has been decapitated and his head was found in a suitcase, a Texas sheriff says.
The death of Rolando Flores, commander of state investigators in Ciudad Miguel Aleman, was a message from gangsters for investigators to "stay out of their territory," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. Flores was part of a group investigating the reported shooting of David Hartley on Falcon Lake.
"I think their attempt is to intimidate law enforcement, no matter who they are or where they are," Perry told The Associated Press.
Flores' decapitated head was found Tuesday in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army base, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told the AP.
Cartels have used beheadings in the past to terrorize the public and send messages to Mexican law enforcement. U.S. officials have said threats from drug gangs who control the area around Falcon Lake have hampered the search for Hartley, though divers have been in the lake searching this week. Hartley was reportedly shot Sept. 30 while touring the lake with his wife on Jet Skis.
That part of Tamaulipas state is overrun by violence from a turf battle between the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta drug gang, made up of former Mexican special forces soldiers, and both are battling the Mexican military.
The search for Hartley's body is expected to continue, although Gonzalez said it's becoming increasingly unlikely the body will be found.
Perry said investigators shouldn't back off because of threats such as Flores' slaying.
"The worst thing we can do is let the terrorists dictate the terms of how we're going to live."
Instead, he said, the threat should be handled by increasing "the numbers of law enforcement and military."
Ruben Rios, a spokesman for the Tamaulipas state prosecutor's office, said authorities "don't know how or why he was killed. We don't have any details on how he died."
But Gonzalez said later Tuesday that "reliable sources within the law enforcement community of Mexico" told him Flores' head was found Tuesday morning in a suitcase outside of an Army base.
Hartley's wife, Tiffany, said she and her husband were returning to the U.S. from photographing a half-submerged church in Mexico when they were attacked by pirates on speedboats. Hartley was shot and presumably fell into the lake. Tiffany Hartley said she tried to retrieve her husband's body and his Jet Ski but the pirates continued firing and she fled. Gonzalez has said he has an eyewitness who corroborates her account.
U.S. officials, particularly Perry, and Hartley's family have been pressuring Mexico to step up the search for Hartley and determine what happened.
Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande, 25 miles long and 3 miles across. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on the Mexican side, prompting warnings to Americans by Texas state officials, but Hartley's death would mark the first violent fatality on the lake.
Dennis Hartley, David Hartley's father, expressed shock and regret at Flores' killing.
"I just, I'm in shock about this right now," he said from his Colorado home. "I really don't have any hope that David will be found. I really hate other people putting their lives at stake. We don't need more sons lost."
The Mexican Foreign Ministry says it has been using federal, state and local resources, including the military and helicopters, to search for Hartley's body and opened an investigation. Over the weekend, authorities named two possible suspects.
However, Rios on Tuesday said no suspects have been identified and wouldn't comment on why a state investigator had already named two suspects.
On Sunday, state investigator Juan Carlos Ballesteros, who is assigned to Ciudad Miguel Aleman, said police believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Zaldivar Farias may have killed Hartley. Ballesteros didn't answer calls seeking comment Tuesday.
___
Rodriguez reported from Mexico City. Associated Press Writer P. Solomon Banda contributed to this report from Denver.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-border-lake-shooting,0,5414534.story
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
What Alexi knew- Tribune Editorial
His damning non-denial about loans to criminals
After Sunday's "Meet the Press" debate with Rep. Mark Kirk, Alexi Giannoulias' campaign put out a batch of things their candidate said, under the title, "10 Quotes, 10 Reasons to Vote for Alexi." Here's a quote that was not included: "I didn't know the extent of their activity."
Giannoulias was responding to a question from NBC's David Gregory about his bank's loans to organized crime figures back when he was a loan officer at the family business. As the Tribune reported in April, Broadway Bank had lent millions of dollars to Michael "Jaws" Giorango and his business partner Demitri Stavropoulos by the time Giannoulias arrived at the institution. During his time as a loan officer, the bank kept giving them loans — even when they were about to go to federal prison on felony convictions.
Confronted with these embarrassing facts, the candidate has squirmed to put the best face on them. "If I knew then what I know now, these are not the kind of people that we do business with," he said Sunday. But when Gregory asked, "Did you know that they were crime figures that you were loaning to?", Giannoulias couldn't fudge his way to safety. "I didn't know the extent of their activity," he said.
That is a roundabout way of saying: "Yes."
It's probably true that Giannoulias was not fully briefed on their illegal activity, which is the sort of thing felons rarely publicize even to their financial enablers. But he and his colleagues did know — or should have known — enough to show these clients the door. Not only had Giorango served prison time in the 1990s for his involvement in illegal bookmaking, but he and Stavropoulos had been convicted, in 2004, of new felonies for which they later served prison time.
Those crimes were not enough to get them a rejection from Broadway Bank. The two continued getting loans until September 2005. That was the same month that Giannoulias says he stopped his involvement in "day-to-day" operations of the bank as he got ready to run for state treasurer. In other words, it wasn't till he left to run for office that the bank cut off these customers.
Of course, there's still this question: How can Giannoulias say he left in 2005, but report to the IRS that he worked hundreds of hours in 2006, thereby qualifying for a $2.7 million tax deduction?
Giannoulias tries to minimize the significance of all this, but there is no way to deny the central fact: While he was a loan officer at the family bank, the bank chose to lend money to known felons connected to organized crime. Maybe he didn't know the "extent of their activity." But a conscientious banker wouldn't have needed to.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-senate-20101011,0,3842583.story
After Sunday's "Meet the Press" debate with Rep. Mark Kirk, Alexi Giannoulias' campaign put out a batch of things their candidate said, under the title, "10 Quotes, 10 Reasons to Vote for Alexi." Here's a quote that was not included: "I didn't know the extent of their activity."
Giannoulias was responding to a question from NBC's David Gregory about his bank's loans to organized crime figures back when he was a loan officer at the family business. As the Tribune reported in April, Broadway Bank had lent millions of dollars to Michael "Jaws" Giorango and his business partner Demitri Stavropoulos by the time Giannoulias arrived at the institution. During his time as a loan officer, the bank kept giving them loans — even when they were about to go to federal prison on felony convictions.
Confronted with these embarrassing facts, the candidate has squirmed to put the best face on them. "If I knew then what I know now, these are not the kind of people that we do business with," he said Sunday. But when Gregory asked, "Did you know that they were crime figures that you were loaning to?", Giannoulias couldn't fudge his way to safety. "I didn't know the extent of their activity," he said.
That is a roundabout way of saying: "Yes."
It's probably true that Giannoulias was not fully briefed on their illegal activity, which is the sort of thing felons rarely publicize even to their financial enablers. But he and his colleagues did know — or should have known — enough to show these clients the door. Not only had Giorango served prison time in the 1990s for his involvement in illegal bookmaking, but he and Stavropoulos had been convicted, in 2004, of new felonies for which they later served prison time.
Those crimes were not enough to get them a rejection from Broadway Bank. The two continued getting loans until September 2005. That was the same month that Giannoulias says he stopped his involvement in "day-to-day" operations of the bank as he got ready to run for state treasurer. In other words, it wasn't till he left to run for office that the bank cut off these customers.
Of course, there's still this question: How can Giannoulias say he left in 2005, but report to the IRS that he worked hundreds of hours in 2006, thereby qualifying for a $2.7 million tax deduction?
Giannoulias tries to minimize the significance of all this, but there is no way to deny the central fact: While he was a loan officer at the family bank, the bank chose to lend money to known felons connected to organized crime. Maybe he didn't know the "extent of their activity." But a conscientious banker wouldn't have needed to.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-senate-20101011,0,3842583.story
Epitaph for Barack Obama's Democrats: 'Is that the best you can do?'
By Toby Harnden
Bob Schieffer and Mark Halperin are not exactly Tea Party activists. Within their respective generations, they are archetypes of the media elite, inside-the-Beltway, liberal-leaning purveyors of the conventional wisdom. They don’t want to be wrong, of course, so at times they are also weather vanes – when the conventional wisdom has undeniably changed, they swivel.
So the White House and the hapless Democrats running for re-election on November 2nd must be in near despair over David Axelrod’s interview with Shieffer yesterday. In it, the host of CBS’s Face the Nation was incredulous at Axelrod’s focus not on the economy or jobs or health care or the Islamist threat or the wars America is engaged in but, er, the possibility that the US Chamber may be funding ads with foreign money. A charge, of course, which would be called racist if Republicans had levelled it against Obama.
Did you get that last comment from Schieffer? “I guess I would put it this way. If the only charge Democrats can make three weeks into the election is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?” Ouch.
Obama himself has been ditching the hope ‘n’ change riffs to make the charge, drawing on a report posted on the liberal blog Think Progress, even though it has been thoroughly debunked by the New York Times, again not normally seen as a tool of the vast Right-wing conspiracy.
Then today we have Time’s Halperin piling on with a piece carrying the web-bait headline “Obama Is in the Jaws of Political Death” (since, apparently, changed to the much tamer “Why Obama is Losing the Political War” – no doubt there were some anguished calls from the White House). With a metaphorical knee to Obama’s groin, he writes:
With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.
Double ouch. Accusing Obama of losing bitter clingers, blue collars voters, moderates, independents, Reagan Democrats etc etc is one thing. But “politically engaged elites”? Halperin certainly knows how to hurt a Harvard Law grad.
Axelrod is not backing down. When the post-mortems are done on the mid-term campaigns, the fact that Obama himself and the rest of the Democratic party saw fit to try to frame the election by hitting out at George W. Bush, Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce will certainly be prominent.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100058504/epitaph-for-barack-obamas-democrats-is-that-the-best-you-can-do/
Bob Schieffer and Mark Halperin are not exactly Tea Party activists. Within their respective generations, they are archetypes of the media elite, inside-the-Beltway, liberal-leaning purveyors of the conventional wisdom. They don’t want to be wrong, of course, so at times they are also weather vanes – when the conventional wisdom has undeniably changed, they swivel.
So the White House and the hapless Democrats running for re-election on November 2nd must be in near despair over David Axelrod’s interview with Shieffer yesterday. In it, the host of CBS’s Face the Nation was incredulous at Axelrod’s focus not on the economy or jobs or health care or the Islamist threat or the wars America is engaged in but, er, the possibility that the US Chamber may be funding ads with foreign money. A charge, of course, which would be called racist if Republicans had levelled it against Obama.
Did you get that last comment from Schieffer? “I guess I would put it this way. If the only charge Democrats can make three weeks into the election is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?” Ouch.
Obama himself has been ditching the hope ‘n’ change riffs to make the charge, drawing on a report posted on the liberal blog Think Progress, even though it has been thoroughly debunked by the New York Times, again not normally seen as a tool of the vast Right-wing conspiracy.
Then today we have Time’s Halperin piling on with a piece carrying the web-bait headline “Obama Is in the Jaws of Political Death” (since, apparently, changed to the much tamer “Why Obama is Losing the Political War” – no doubt there were some anguished calls from the White House). With a metaphorical knee to Obama’s groin, he writes:
With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.
Double ouch. Accusing Obama of losing bitter clingers, blue collars voters, moderates, independents, Reagan Democrats etc etc is one thing. But “politically engaged elites”? Halperin certainly knows how to hurt a Harvard Law grad.
Axelrod is not backing down. When the post-mortems are done on the mid-term campaigns, the fact that Obama himself and the rest of the Democratic party saw fit to try to frame the election by hitting out at George W. Bush, Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce will certainly be prominent.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100058504/epitaph-for-barack-obamas-democrats-is-that-the-best-you-can-do/
For Democrats, Even ‘Safe’ Seats Are Shaky
ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio — Republicans are expanding the battle for the House into districts that Democrats had once considered relatively safe, while Democrats began a strategy of triage on Monday to fortify candidates who they believe stand the best chance of survival.
As Republicans made new investments in at least 10 races across the country, including two Democratic seats here in eastern Ohio, Democratic leaders took steps to pull out of some races entirely or significantly cut their financial commitment in several districts that the party won in the last two election cycles.
Representatives Steve Driehaus of Ohio, Suzanne M. Kosmas of Florida and Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania were among the Democrats who learned that they would no longer receive the same infusion of television advertising that party leaders had promised. Party strategists conceded that these races and several others were slipping out of reach.
With three weeks remaining to save its majority, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has increased its spending on two New York races, along with at-risk seats in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky and Massachusetts, setting up a map of competitive districts that is starkly different from when the campaign began.
The strategic decisions unfolded at a feverish pace on Monday over an unusually wide playing field of nearly 75 Congressional districts, including here in Ohio, a main battleground in the fight for the House and the Senate. The developments resembled pieces being moved on a giant chess board, with Republicans trying to keep Democrats on the defensive in as many places as possible, while outside groups provided substantial reinforcements for Republicans.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s election arm in the House, can afford to make the new investments because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a host of newly formed political organizations have come to the aid of Republican candidates who have far less money than the Democratic incumbents.
Here in St. Clairsville, an Appalachian town on the eastern edge of Ohio, the new investments by Republican groups have become apparent in recent days. Television and radio advertisements are aimed at Representatives Charlie Wilson and Zack Space, both Democrats who were elected in 2006, while new pieces of literature tying the men to President Obama and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, are arriving in the mail.
The two districts, which come together like long and jagged pieces of a puzzle, are among Ohio’s most rural and conservative. Yet even though Senator John McCain carried the region over Mr. Obama in the 2008 presidential race, Republican leaders had initially decided against making major investments because they believed there were greater opportunities elsewhere in the state and because both congressmen had strong connections to the area.
But polls taken for their Republican candidates showed steady signs of promise, party officials said, so over the weekend the national party made an initial expenditure of $350,000 on television commercials in both districts. Democratic strategists believe that the spending is either designed to be a head fake, so they are drawn into spending money on the races, or a signal to outside groups, who are prohibited from coordinating with the party, to begin making their own forays into the contests.
For months, Bill Johnson, the Republican challenger to Mr. Wilson, has drawn little notice and has struggled to raise money. But last week, things began to change.
He was invited to be the guest speaker at a weekly meeting of conservative leaders in Washington that is organized by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. Then he appeared on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, which he said helped his fund-raising efforts, as did an endorsement from Sarah Palin.
“It is a good year to be running as a Republican,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview on Monday as he drove across the sprawling Sixth District, which stretches 325 miles across 12 counties. “People are concerned about rising unemployment, spending and the overreaching of the federal government.”
Mr. Johnson, a businessman and retired Air Force officer, has been largely ignored by Mr. Wilson. He has criticized Mr. Wilson for declining to agree to debates. But the race gained attention over the weekend when the Republican committee’s advertisements began appearing on television, calling Mr. Wilson “party line Charlie” and highlighting his votes in favor of the economic stimulus and health care measures.
The message was amplified in a radio advertisement playing on a country music station here, with Mr. Johnson saying in a chipper voice: “On Election Day, it’s time we say, ‘So long, Charlie!’ ”
The race is springing to life here just as early voting is entering its second full week. Campaign signs for Mr. Johnson and Mr. Wilson can be found in equal measure in Ohio River towns from Bridgeport to Brilliant to Bellaire.
Mr. Wilson, who through a spokeswoman declined an interview on Monday because he was meeting with newspaper editorial boards in his district, has begun striking back. He argues in his own television advertisements that he stood up to Democratic Party leaders on climate change legislation, which he calls an “energy tax,” before closing with a line, “I’m Charlie Wilson, and I’m fed up.”
The outcome of these Ohio races, along with other contests in the newly expanded Republican battleground, will help determine whether projections of a Republican wave are realized. Democrats dismissed the notion that Republicans were actually expanding the playing field, suggesting that they were looking for new opportunities because efforts to knock out Democratic incumbents have proved difficult.
Ed Good, the chairman of the Belmont County Democratic Party here in St. Clairsville, said voters were angry and frustrated and eager to “shoot the messenger, if you will.” A Tea Party rally is scheduled for Thursday on the steps of the courthouse, the latest in a string of events that suggests the political forces may be different for Democrats this year.
“They are going to try to pick off what they think is low-hanging fruit,” Mr. Good said. “But the only way Charlie or Zack can lose is if our party does not get out and vote.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 12, 2010, on page A14 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/us/politics/12repubs.html
As Republicans made new investments in at least 10 races across the country, including two Democratic seats here in eastern Ohio, Democratic leaders took steps to pull out of some races entirely or significantly cut their financial commitment in several districts that the party won in the last two election cycles.
Representatives Steve Driehaus of Ohio, Suzanne M. Kosmas of Florida and Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania were among the Democrats who learned that they would no longer receive the same infusion of television advertising that party leaders had promised. Party strategists conceded that these races and several others were slipping out of reach.
With three weeks remaining to save its majority, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has increased its spending on two New York races, along with at-risk seats in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky and Massachusetts, setting up a map of competitive districts that is starkly different from when the campaign began.
The strategic decisions unfolded at a feverish pace on Monday over an unusually wide playing field of nearly 75 Congressional districts, including here in Ohio, a main battleground in the fight for the House and the Senate. The developments resembled pieces being moved on a giant chess board, with Republicans trying to keep Democrats on the defensive in as many places as possible, while outside groups provided substantial reinforcements for Republicans.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s election arm in the House, can afford to make the new investments because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a host of newly formed political organizations have come to the aid of Republican candidates who have far less money than the Democratic incumbents.
Here in St. Clairsville, an Appalachian town on the eastern edge of Ohio, the new investments by Republican groups have become apparent in recent days. Television and radio advertisements are aimed at Representatives Charlie Wilson and Zack Space, both Democrats who were elected in 2006, while new pieces of literature tying the men to President Obama and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, are arriving in the mail.
The two districts, which come together like long and jagged pieces of a puzzle, are among Ohio’s most rural and conservative. Yet even though Senator John McCain carried the region over Mr. Obama in the 2008 presidential race, Republican leaders had initially decided against making major investments because they believed there were greater opportunities elsewhere in the state and because both congressmen had strong connections to the area.
But polls taken for their Republican candidates showed steady signs of promise, party officials said, so over the weekend the national party made an initial expenditure of $350,000 on television commercials in both districts. Democratic strategists believe that the spending is either designed to be a head fake, so they are drawn into spending money on the races, or a signal to outside groups, who are prohibited from coordinating with the party, to begin making their own forays into the contests.
For months, Bill Johnson, the Republican challenger to Mr. Wilson, has drawn little notice and has struggled to raise money. But last week, things began to change.
He was invited to be the guest speaker at a weekly meeting of conservative leaders in Washington that is organized by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. Then he appeared on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, which he said helped his fund-raising efforts, as did an endorsement from Sarah Palin.
“It is a good year to be running as a Republican,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview on Monday as he drove across the sprawling Sixth District, which stretches 325 miles across 12 counties. “People are concerned about rising unemployment, spending and the overreaching of the federal government.”
Mr. Johnson, a businessman and retired Air Force officer, has been largely ignored by Mr. Wilson. He has criticized Mr. Wilson for declining to agree to debates. But the race gained attention over the weekend when the Republican committee’s advertisements began appearing on television, calling Mr. Wilson “party line Charlie” and highlighting his votes in favor of the economic stimulus and health care measures.
The message was amplified in a radio advertisement playing on a country music station here, with Mr. Johnson saying in a chipper voice: “On Election Day, it’s time we say, ‘So long, Charlie!’ ”
The race is springing to life here just as early voting is entering its second full week. Campaign signs for Mr. Johnson and Mr. Wilson can be found in equal measure in Ohio River towns from Bridgeport to Brilliant to Bellaire.
Mr. Wilson, who through a spokeswoman declined an interview on Monday because he was meeting with newspaper editorial boards in his district, has begun striking back. He argues in his own television advertisements that he stood up to Democratic Party leaders on climate change legislation, which he calls an “energy tax,” before closing with a line, “I’m Charlie Wilson, and I’m fed up.”
The outcome of these Ohio races, along with other contests in the newly expanded Republican battleground, will help determine whether projections of a Republican wave are realized. Democrats dismissed the notion that Republicans were actually expanding the playing field, suggesting that they were looking for new opportunities because efforts to knock out Democratic incumbents have proved difficult.
Ed Good, the chairman of the Belmont County Democratic Party here in St. Clairsville, said voters were angry and frustrated and eager to “shoot the messenger, if you will.” A Tea Party rally is scheduled for Thursday on the steps of the courthouse, the latest in a string of events that suggests the political forces may be different for Democrats this year.
“They are going to try to pick off what they think is low-hanging fruit,” Mr. Good said. “But the only way Charlie or Zack can lose is if our party does not get out and vote.”
A version of this article appeared in print on October 12, 2010, on page A14 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/us/politics/12repubs.html
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