McHenry County Blog

That used to be what Republicans hoped was a joke that Chicago Democrats supposedly said.

Now, a group called Rock the Vote has adopted the slogan.

Hard to believe, but take a look below:

This photo was found here on Illinois Review, which caters to Illinois conservatives.

Illinois Review has recently been ranked more popular that Capitol Fax Blog, which has a decidedly liberal bent.

More on problems with vote accountability here.

Kerry Lester, in a post on the Daily Herald Blog, is reporting that the National Republican Campaign Committee has bought “$457,785 reservation on cable stations running from Oct. 5 through Election Day.”

Only yesterday, Capitol Fax Blog was relaying information from The Hill regarding “the NRCC is not doing much of anything for Walsh…

Publisher Rich Miller combined that report with a video of Walsh and a poll by the liberal Daily Kos showing Democrat Tammy Duckworth leading 52%-38% with 10% undecided.

 

It seems the National Republican Campaign Committee does not think the Daily Kos poll is worth much.

The Question of the Day Wednesday on Capitol Fax Blog was

Who is the worst politician in Illinois?

Locals with nominations were

• Joe Walsh
• Jack Franks

The first of many comments about Joe Walsh was

KGB – Wednesday, Jun 13, 12 @ 12:22 pm:

Joe Walsh — First!!

He listens to no one, has a terrible way of responding to constituents, has a horrid personal life that overshadows any accomplishments of the office.

Did I mention he has no accomplishments?

The comment about “Chainsaw Jack” Franks follows:

Dirt Diver – Wednesday, Jun 13, 12 @ 5:15 pm:

Gotta put my 2 cents in for Jack Franks as I can’t believe he hasn’t been mentioned.

Biggest self-promoter there is in the General Assembly. \

I don’t know how that man calls himself a Democrat.

Lacks accountability.

Tried to cash in on the whole pension abuse issue by sponsoring a bill to remove 2 IFT lobbyists from TRS that were allowed into TRS by legislation that he voted for.

He claims he didn’t realize the bill he voted for did that.

Capitol Fax, the best source of political news with a state government focus, had a question today that some might use to define its readership.

Rich Miller asked,

“Do your favor immediate repeal of last year’s state income tax hike?”

Readers voted against the idea 68% to 32%.

Draw your own conclusions.

Rich Miller selected half of the photo you see above for a caption contest on his Capitol Fax Blog.

You can guess which half.

And, if you can’t look below:

I pointed out that the original photo is better than the cropped one and got this reply from Miller:

Agreed. But you couldn’t see Brady’s eyes with both in the pic, so I cropped it.

Thanks to Capitol Fax Blog for the link to Public Opinion Strategies memo describing its poll findings in the 11th district race between Democrat incumbent Debbie Halvorson and challenger Adam Kinzinger.

51%-40% for the Republican with the ratio getting better as the less interested voters are pealed off.

Rich Miller, who writes Capitol Fax Blog, cautions that the same pollster was way off in the November election two years ago.

This is the second incumbent Democrat to come out on the short end of an internal poll run by a Republican opponent.

But this is the second incumbent whose opponent’s pollster finds in trouble.

The first was Phil Hare, who represents northwestern Illinois’ 17th District south of 16th District Congressman Don Manzullo. Hare’s opponent is Bobby Schilling.

The question locally is whether 14th District incumbent Bill Foster and 8th District Congresswoman Melissa Bean are in danger as well.

Do challengers Randy Hultgren and Joe Walsh have a chance?

In the 11th district, Glen Bolger writes,

“…26% saying things in the country are going in the right direction and 68% believing the country has gotten off on the wrong track.”

A generic Republican would have won the district 48%-32%, with 20% undecided, in early August.

With regard to Halvorson’s image, the pollster reports her favorables are now at 35% favorable, lower than her 39% unfavorable rating.

This might be significant in Bean’s race, since it shows a woman, with her built-in advantage of about five percentage points, can lose favor, if there is enough negative light shined on her.

In Halvorson’s case, I believe the negative publicity has come from her misplaced criticism of Republican Adam Kinzinger’s war record.

The challenger got reassigned after the primary election, but his web site was not updated.

“Big deal!” I think the constituency concluded while also deciding that Halvorson’s criticism was far too harsh.

No similar negative publicity has resulted for Bean.

And, Bean has had the advantage of hundreds of thousands of dollars of favorably television ads over three elections. Halvorson is in her first term, having replaced Republican Jerry Weller in the Illinois Barack Obama landslide.

There’s something call a “new person” rating. Apparently, it refers to the number of people who think a new person would be best for the office.

Halvorson now has a 33% level of support against 55% wanting a new person.

Methodology for the survey?

400 likely voters having a margin of error of +4.9% in 95 out of 100 cases.

When I was running for governor on the Libertarian Party ticket, both of my opponents were soft on the Second Amendment.

Rod Blagojevich was downright hostile, having introduced a bill while we both served in the Illinois General Assembly to greatly increase the Firearm Owner Identification Card fee. Jim Ryan also favored more gun control.

I was advocating a Personal Protection Act and had a radio ad that was to ear catching that WGN radio talk show hosts introduced it by saying that they didn’t want to run the ad, but Federal law required them to do so.

It was inspired by an NRA TV ad I saw in the Travis City, Michigan, American Legislative Exchange Council Convention in 1992, the year I started my second eight years in the Illinois House.

In our version, a woman is calling 911 saying a man was trying to break into her home. She runs up the stairs and locks herself in her bedroom, calling again. “He’s breaking in,” she shouts. Then, a gun shot is heard. Next an announcer gave a pitch for the Personal Protection Act, which would have allowed the woman to have a gun in Chicago, and my candidacy.

That same campaign season, a woman had been killed (on the South Side, I think) by a home invader. The story got a lot of play.

Today, Capitol Fax Blog‘s Rich Miller, a journalist who has to be called a liberal,  not that he would mind, writes this revealing section:

Here’s the rest of the post with the beginning taken out and slightly edited so it makes sense…

* Mayor Daley said yesterday that more money to hire more cops would be nice to fight crime, but he has no extra money lying around and wants tougher gun laws…

“’This is all about guns — and that’s why the crusade is on. We hope to get their cooperation in Springfield.’

“The cops have a lot of tools to arrest people already. More gun laws might help, but the ones on the books haven’t stopped a whole lot of criminals from breaking the law so far. What’s needed, besides for the communities in question to get their acts together, is more cops on those streets – far more than Daley’s police superintendent wants – and a much more sophisticated use of city resources.”  (Emphasis added.)

Notice that Miller does not align himself with those who think gun control is the be all and end all answer to stemming the outrageous violence in Chicago.

I count that as progress in the campaign to convince people that they ought to have a right to defend themselves with a gun, regardless of where they live.

And, the U.S. Supreme Court may provide that right before the end of summer.

Now, if the Tribune’s Eric Zorn would return to his pro-Second Amendment stance of the early 1990′s…

Maybe after John Lott’s successor to “More Guns, Less Crime” is published.

It hits the book stores in May, but can be ordered from Amazon for shipment today.

The Aurora Beacon-News was the first to complain about a bill that would eliminate some legal advertising.

Now, the Bloomington Pantagraph has taken up the drumbeat.

In response, Rich Miller at his Capitol Fax Blog floated an idea that should shivers of terror down the backs of newspaper owners and managers. Talking about special interests complaining about their government funding being cut, Miller writes:

And the newspapers aren’t being much of a help, either. Balance that budget, state and locals, but don’t eat into our gravy train…

At a time when public officials should be championing greater openness in government, a bill is pending in Springfield that would do away with requirements that Illinois fire protection districts print public notices in general circulation newspapers.

Instead, appropriation and penalty ordinances could be posted on a Web site.

The state ought to just open a website for all public notices in Illinois and charge everyone a fraction of what newspapers do. But that would eat too much into their cash flow, so it’ll never happen.

One reader commented on the Pantagraph editorial like this:

Chadwick Snow said on: April 7, 2010, 8:20 am

No, this has nothing to do with newspaper interest in advertising revenue generated through public notices.

I think a portion of the Pantagraph’s position is driven precisely by that motive.

Circulation of newspapers continue to decline. Public notices are extremely expensive. Advertisers are continually seeking other marketing strategies and pulling their resources from newspapers.

Why shouldn’t government institutions also use more creative means to communicate with the public.

Web-based notices, billboards and public service announcements are just a few alternative strategies.

Would the newspaper publishing industry be as enthused about public notices within their publications if they were required to devote free space to government or not-for-profit agencies – similar to FCC requirements – to publish their notices?

I doubt it.

Here we go again.

The liberal apologists in the media are promoting the Governor Pat Quinn’s 33% income tax increase as a “one percent increase.”

Maybe it’s not their liberal bent.

Maybe they have problems with math.

The first notice of this impairment I heard was on WBBM News Radio 78 while picking up my son from school just after 2 PM. The announcer led into the tax hike story by saying it was a

“one percent increase.”

The reporter on the story got it right.

He identified it immediately thereafter as a “33% increase.”

hen, on the ABC Channel 7 newscast, Charles Thomas, the man who replaced Andy Shaw, said it was

a “one percent increase.”

I later noticed that Rich Miller at Capitol Fax Blog headlined his income tax article with the incorrect “one percent tax hike for schools.”

Specifically:

Budget address live blog – Quinn proposes one percent tax hike for schools

Wednesday, Mar 10, 2010
• Have at it in comments. Thanks.

That was just before Quinn’s noon speech.

Added later:

* I’m told that the one percent tax surcharge would bring in somewhere between $2.8 and $3 billion. Wish I knew that when I was on live TV and was asked the question cold.

It was not until more than SIX hours later that anyone corrected Miller:

- Elin – Wednesday, Mar 10, 10 @ 6:13 pm:A one percent tax increase would bring in far less than $2.8 billion or $3 billion. A 33 percent tax increase, on the other hand…

And, as of over nineteen hours after it was originally posted, it remains incorrect.

But, it served its purpose, if, indeed, it was deliberate and not a mistake.

Reporters and political opinion leaders all over the state were told it was a “one percent tax hike.”

Can it be that reporters really so bad at very simple math?

Maybe so.

Even the Chicago Sun-Times got it wrong:

Rich Miller, who writes Capitol Fax Blog, asks a question today that stimulated a response from me:

Talking about the refusal of the Chicago Tribune to release emails between those seeking to help it get state money for the Tribune-owner Cubs’ Wrigley Field, Miller asks,

“Do you have any other questions the Trib should answer?”

Actually, I do have a question for the Tribune which has nothing to do with the subject of Miller’s article:

“Don’t you really favor limiting campaign contributions so rich newspaper owners can have more influence than rich folks who don’t own newspapers?”

The liberals mantra for campaign reform is

That pretty much guarantees two things:

• Rich newspaper (radio, TV) owners will have more influence on the political process than rich non-media owners.
• Rich folks will win elective office.

The later certainly has been too often the case in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Now rigorous and immediate campaign contribution reporting (which Illinois most certainly does not have), that would be reform. Add a requirement that those contributing report any contracts, including dollar amount, which they have will governments, local and state, and that would be real reform.

= = = = =
That’s Capitol Fax’ Rich Miller being interviewed by WTTW in January, 2009, the day Rod Blagojevich presided over the Illinois Senate’s swearing in ceremony.