Glad to help, even in a small way.
PTBOR,
Pinging you to this thread.
Flaglady,
I took the liberty of copying your reply to a question I asked to this thread. Yours is the most concise and easy to understand explanation I have read. It certainly helps me get a grasp on IL politics...takes it out of the abstract into reality for my slow brain
Monday, January 26, 2009 1:25:43 AM · 20 of 25 flaglady47 to Protect the Bill of Rights
[My question to flaglady]
“Why was he re-elected?
Serious question...”
Serious answer. First, Illinois is now a blue state. Two Dem Senators (one of course was Obama, now is Roland Burris), the other is Durbin. Blago is a Dem Gov. Chicago is the home of the Democratic Machine. Our prior Governor before Blago was a Pub, a crooked one in his own right, George Ryan, who ended up in the pokey. So Blago first came in as a “reformer” (what a joke) after the debacle of a fallen Pub Governor, who later ended up in jail.
When it came to reelection time, the Dems in the State rehired him (because a lot of them are politically ignorant or just plain stupid). One main reason was that the Pubs in this State are badly split into two factions, the RINO’s and the Conservatives. A guy named Jim Oberweiss represented the Conservative faction, and a woman named Judy Barr Topinka represented the RINO’s in the primaries. A stalking horse conservative from downstate jumped in to water down the conservative vote, and the RINO woman therefore won in the primaries. Many conservatives didn’t come out to vote for her, or voted for the stalking horse conservative (downstaters). It wasn’t enough to beat back a second Blago win, because Blago curried favor with the blacks in Chicago, and with the Chicago vote plus some downstate Dems votes, he won a second round.
By this time, his own Dem party in the IL Congress couldn’t stand him (in particular, Mike Madigan, Dem Speaker of the House, and his daughter who is IL State Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, father/daughter nepotism), but made a deal with the devil they knew and was a Dem rather than some other Dem they might not have won with. Blago had built up a huge war chest (all that pay to play money) and was financially ready to go when it came to reelection time. The Pubs in this State are openly split now between RINO and Conservatives, and RINO’s keep getting chosen in the primaries and then lose to the Dems in the general election.
Now, into his second term as Gov, the Dems in both Houses for the most part loathe Blago, and can’t wait to unload him, one way or the other. The Pubs can’t stand him either, because he is a nutty narcissist who has been spending us into a hole. He has spent up money our State doesn’t have such as on health coverage for all children in the State, even though our state is billions of dollars in debt. He has tried to get his meathooks into State employee pension plans to spend up the money and in fact has borrowed some already from the pension plans. He wanted to get a new Constitutional Convention passed by referendum to change the Illinois Constitution to make it easier to get access to these pension funds by changing the law, and to gerrymander districts, and change other stuff to the benefit of the Democratic Party. He refused to raise taxes in the State which normally would be a good thing; however, he continued to spend non-existent state money anyway with no money source other than stealing from pension funds, or from other programs. He is a scum bucket.
Hope this explains the situation here in the land of Illinois politics for you.
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