Governor's Race in FL, MI, IL all Toss Ups

Altgeld is so much ancient history and has so much contemporary competition for evil in the Springfield governor’s mansion that I had no idea he was as bad as he was.

Karma works in odd ways, however; my only previous familiarity with Altgeld was Altgeld Gardens, a public housing disaster on Chicago’s Far South Side - a fitting memorial to Progressive failure. For non-Chicagoans, that translates to the following: if you ever have car trouble on the Bishop Ford (nee Calumet) Expressway near the 130th Street exit, make sure you go East, not West, to look for help.

Blago did provide some real entertainment value, and I do miss the hair, but other than that I always thought of him as a third-rate Clinton impersonator: slick, slimy, self-absorbed and utterly unprincipled. My only regret as to Blago’s fate is that Bubba isn’t his cellmate.

Seems kinda silly they threw the book at Blago, for embarrassing Obama, while much worse crimes go completely unpunished. If I were in charge I’d commute his sentence (not pardon) just as an F you to the rest of the party.

Atlgeld was foreign born, or else he may have run for President!

“Altgeld Gardens”

VERY fitting that’s named after him.

Cabrini-Green was only half fittingly named, the Green portion was named for the former President of the American Federation of Labor, William Green. Poor Mother Cabrini didn’t deserve the “honor”.

I don’t know whether Robert Taylor deserved it.

>>> I don’t know, it seems to me that the proverbial “they” prefer to keep to Quinn, the late union surge in the primary on behalf of Dillard (a social conservative ostensibly to Rauner’s right, despite being a combine douchebag) was the first sign that maybe Rauner wasn’t the combine’s #1 boy. He is a liberal though. <<

I guess it depends on how you define "they".

If by, "they", its the rank and file special interests groups that keep this state in one-party Chicago DemonRat machine rule (the teachers unions, the feminazis, the illegal alien lobbyist organizations, the Occupy crowd that hates "corporations", etc.), then yes, they certainly prefer Quinn to Rauner, even though they know Quinn sucks and Rauner agrees with them on most issues. They hated Kirk for the same reason. It doesn't matter how much the guy with the "R" kisses their butt. The fact Rauner is part of the "richest 1%" and a self-made millionaire makes him the enemy, and since he's a WASP (white anglo saxon protestant... and a straight one who is married with several kids), they hate him even more for being part of the demographics of America before it was "fundamentally transformed").

If by, "they", its the powerful political elites in this state that run the government in this state (Madigan, Rahm, Cullerton, Daley, Toni Preckwinkle, etc.), it seems pretty clear to me that they are rooting for Rauner to beat Quinn behind the scenes, (correctly) assuming that Rauner will be much more effective in "getting things done" in Springfield by providing "bipartisan" support to Madigan's schemes like the good ol' days of George Ryan, and like Mark Kirk is currently doing to assist the RATs on the federal level in a way that Alexi Ginnanolis couldn't. They are tired of Pat Quinn and they realize that he's become an effectively powerless Governor who talks a big game but accomplishes nothing.

The election will certainly be close. Mike Bloomberg (unofficial RAT running as a Republican) vs. Mark Green (official RAT) was close too, and Bloomberg ultimately got a bare bones majority of 50.3% in that election.

The question for me boils down to whether the Democrat party bosses will be able to twist enough arms to "cross over" for Rauner in order to save his butt. They did so for Kirk, but he was a lot smoother than Rauner and I think he was better at fooling social conservatives despite being to the left of Rauner on social issue stuff. Even the GOP party bosses that love Rauner don't seem to be particularly good at drumming up support for him in the general election.

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