It is a *fantastic* time for Illinois politics! Oh, how the world is crumbling...
Here in Chicago, the mayor is in a bit of trouble because apparently patronage is alive and well in the Windy City. Of course, this problem was just discovered. [I think, either way, this looks bad for Daley: you either gave out jobs for support OR you have no idea what is going on down the hall.] Add this to the "truck for hire" scandal (where contractors were coerced into donating funds to re-elections war chests to have a shot at city contracts) AND the whole "minority business scandal" (where white guys set up dummy companies headed by non-existent minorites and women to get a shot at city contracts) ... and things look bad for the old Daley. PLUS, there are ongoing concerns about Section 8 money being used by slumlords in the city, with little being done to help folks living in these places. No wonder approval ratings are falling and Jesse Jackson Jr. keeps saying he's not running for mayor [
]...
Down in Springfield, G-Rod is having troubles of his own. I mean, the fact that the guy is never down *in* Springfield, likes to fight with his own party (and father-in-law....), and spends his days worrying about video games is only part of the problem. There's also the whole scandal of giving out various state panel positions to big time donors, some of who then use their position to extort for their buddies. On top of that, school funding is a mess. There is was a plan to fix that, via shifting the tax burden to income taxes, but our tax-allergic governor backed right off that shit.
The Republican party ... well, they're still hosed post-Alan Keyes.
Oh, AND a couple of Illinois House members are implicated in the whole "is your representative in Congress being flown to Paris by interest group X?" thing that is going down in Washington right now. They just "forgot" to fill out the proper fomrs. (Actually, that is possible - bureaucracy can be complicated.)
Of course, Illinois still does lay claim to some real Democratic up-and-comers: notablly Barack Obama, but Rahm Emmanuel is another as well.
I don't know what this all means, other than I'm slightly drunk on just how kick ass state and local politics have been in Illinois lately. I'm not honestly sure that there is better shit hitting the fan *anywhere* in the country than there is right now in Springfield and Chicago.
On a more serious note, it's a bit disparaging to see that local politics is such a mess still here in Illinois. I mean, the notion of patronage is a bit overblown at times. Martin van Buren and the "mass patronage party" are not all bad, as they are actually goods tools to get people involved and distribute much needed resources/political capital. But in the end, they lead to a lot of waste in government. It's just a bit wild that things are *still* like this in Illinois, nearly a generation and a half after the massive Daley machine was dismantled. No real point ... just pure amazement at the bad-assedness of my home state.
Here in Chicago, the mayor is in a bit of trouble because apparently patronage is alive and well in the Windy City. Of course, this problem was just discovered. [I think, either way, this looks bad for Daley: you either gave out jobs for support OR you have no idea what is going on down the hall.] Add this to the "truck for hire" scandal (where contractors were coerced into donating funds to re-elections war chests to have a shot at city contracts) AND the whole "minority business scandal" (where white guys set up dummy companies headed by non-existent minorites and women to get a shot at city contracts) ... and things look bad for the old Daley. PLUS, there are ongoing concerns about Section 8 money being used by slumlords in the city, with little being done to help folks living in these places. No wonder approval ratings are falling and Jesse Jackson Jr. keeps saying he's not running for mayor [
]...
Down in Springfield, G-Rod is having troubles of his own. I mean, the fact that the guy is never down *in* Springfield, likes to fight with his own party (and father-in-law....), and spends his days worrying about video games is only part of the problem. There's also the whole scandal of giving out various state panel positions to big time donors, some of who then use their position to extort for their buddies. On top of that, school funding is a mess. There is was a plan to fix that, via shifting the tax burden to income taxes, but our tax-allergic governor backed right off that shit.
The Republican party ... well, they're still hosed post-Alan Keyes.
Oh, AND a couple of Illinois House members are implicated in the whole "is your representative in Congress being flown to Paris by interest group X?" thing that is going down in Washington right now. They just "forgot" to fill out the proper fomrs. (Actually, that is possible - bureaucracy can be complicated.)
Of course, Illinois still does lay claim to some real Democratic up-and-comers: notablly Barack Obama, but Rahm Emmanuel is another as well.
I don't know what this all means, other than I'm slightly drunk on just how kick ass state and local politics have been in Illinois lately. I'm not honestly sure that there is better shit hitting the fan *anywhere* in the country than there is right now in Springfield and Chicago.
On a more serious note, it's a bit disparaging to see that local politics is such a mess still here in Illinois. I mean, the notion of patronage is a bit overblown at times. Martin van Buren and the "mass patronage party" are not all bad, as they are actually goods tools to get people involved and distribute much needed resources/political capital. But in the end, they lead to a lot of waste in government. It's just a bit wild that things are *still* like this in Illinois, nearly a generation and a half after the massive Daley machine was dismantled. No real point ... just pure amazement at the bad-assedness of my home state.
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I am patenting that word if it doesn't exist, by the way.
SIGNALNOISE, YOU'VE BEEN WALKING AROUND PSCW* LIKE YOUR CRAP DOESN'T STINK. WELL, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE HOW IT SMELLS WHEN I RUB YOUR NOSE IN IT, BROTHER!!! STATS? LINEAR REGRESSION? MULTIPLE REGRESSION? RATIONALITY? RATIONALIZE HOW MUCH PAIN YOU'RE GONNA FEEL WHEN YOUR BACK IS TO THE CAGE, BROTHER!!!
*Political Science Championship Wrestling