GOP ROLLS OVER, PLAYS DEAD IN 5TH CONG DIST (Rahm's seat)

Shame on Andy McKenna, Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. Shame on the entire party, which seems hellbent on continuing its dismal record of losing elections. Although the Illinois GOP has won more "games" than the Chicago Cubs have over the past 100 years, at least the Cubs can honestly say they've been trying. The Illinois Republican Party seems content to roll over and play dead.

Rosanna Pulido won the Republican special primary election in the Illinois 5th Congressional District on Tuesday, March 3. The election is being held to fill the seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel. You might not know this, however, from looking at the Illinois Republican Party's website (http://www.weareillinois.org/), where there are only two brief mentions of Rosanna Pulido. Pulido will face Democrat candidate Mike Quigley and Green Party candidate Mathew Reichel on April 7.

We're not talking about a minor elected office. We're talking about a seat in the US Congress. Although it is unlikely that Pulido can defeat better funded Quigley, the GOP should at least be touting their candidate in the 5th. Barely a mention on their website. The GOP is making a lot of noise in support of a special election to replace Roland Burris, who was appointed by Gov. Blagojevich to fill the congressional seat vacated by Barack Obama.....

Why no such words of support for Pulido from McKenna and the Illinois GOP?

Because she's not part of the Combine.

The Combine is that group of both Republicans and Democrats that are either in office, work for people in office, contribute towards people in office, or hold governmentally-funded contracts (construction, etc.). The purpose of the Combine is to stay in office and ensure that public money, corrupt and otherwise, continues to flow to the right people and that the right people continue to get elected.

The members of the Combine are above party or ideological principles. They will gladly work to get someone elected or defeated based solely on their relationship to the Combine and irrespective of party.

This is a major reason why we now have President Obama. His predecessor in his seat was Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL). Sen. Fitzgerald was most definitely not a member of the Combine, having opposed the Combine's candidates in the primary and general elections and having financed his own campaign with his own money. Once elected, he defied the Combine (among much controversy and complaint) and instead of appointing somebody's friend from LaSalle Street (the heart of the Chicago financial district) or the Daley Center (Cook County/City government) or Springfield (Illinois' capital) he elected someone nobody knew from New York, one Peter Fitzgerald, as U.S. Attorney for the District of Northern Illinois.

Mr. Fitzgerald's previous efforts resulted in a number of New York Mafioso getting new homes at Riker's Island. Mr. Fitzgerald got involved in the case of a gruesome traffic accident wherein a van with a pastor, his wife and his 9 children struck a part that had fallen off of a truck on the Interstate. The pastor, his wife and 3 of the children survived. The other 6 were immolated when the van burst into flame.

The truck the part had fallen off of was identified, as was the driver. Numerous other drivers reported having tried to raise the driver of the defective truck on their CB's, but he ignored them. There turned out to be a very good reason for this - he didn't speak English. But you HAVE to speak English to get a CDL. How, then, did this man have a CDL?

It turns out that he paid a bribe to people at the Secretary of State's office. Now, this didn't shock anyone. What did shock the Combine was what happened next. You see, if the U.S. Attorney was someone local he'd have hung the driver and the low-level SoS official out to dry and proclaimed a great victory against corruption. But Mr. Fitzgerald did something that a Combine functionary would never do. He asked the SoS official "What did you do with the money?" And then he followed the money. Turns out that to keep your job in the SoS's offices you had to contribute a considerable amount of money to the SoS's re-election campaign (pretty standard stuff in Illinois state government, BTW). The amount was big enough that they couldn't afford it, so they took bribes and used those to pay the contributions. The money led all the way to the SoS himself. But by that time, the SoS was Governor, Governor Ryan. Who is now in jail.

Suffice it to say that Mr. Fitzgerald has put 60+ public officials, lobbbyists, etc. in jail at this point via this investigation. All dutiful members of the Combine. That didn't sit well with the Combine. So in revenge and self-interest the Combine did everything they could to run Sen. Fitzgerald out of office, and succeeded.

In an election year where the national GOP was desperate to keep every seat they could hold in the U.S. Senate, the Illinois GOP told a sitting Republican Senator that they were going to oppose his re-election and run a candidate against him. Sen. Fitzgerald didn't want to run himself raggedly into the poorhouse, so he quit. The first candidate that the GOP put up dissolved in sex allegations. The second was Alan Keyes, an import from Maryland and who was too far right for the State to boot. Then there's the fact that due to other misconduct brought to light by Mr. Fitzgerald the Illinos GOP was without a chairman for about 30 days towards the end of the campaign. So State Senator Barak Obama won the seat in a walk where he might well have lost to Sen. Fitzgerald, who enjoyed a pretty good reputation based on what Mr. Fitzgerald had been up to.

Illinois claims it has given us President Barak Obama. Maybe - but it seems to me that Illinois corruption and the Combine deserves the most credit.

Register as a Republican in the primaries and vote conservative. If a RINO gets nominated, vote Democrat in the General Election. If it happens too often, start a third political party.

My own feelings are the conservatives in the Republican Party should really get out if they can;t squeeze the RINOs like Whitman et al out of it. It will be difficult as the Whitmans and other RINOs are limousine liberals with lots of bucks. Their only in the Republican Party is to have a political organ which opposes any taxes which might threaten their personal wealth. But the NUMBER of these RINOS is far exceeded by rank file social and fiscal conservatives. Its only the money of the RINOs which gets them influence in th GOP and that is what makes it difficult to flush them out.

With a new political party, it owuld be easier to set ground rules for the party platform and make it clear from the beginning it is not a place for those people. Eventually they will gravitate over to the Dems where they belong and use their money to swing it further to the center.

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