Wealthy Hopefuls Lead Senate Race

Multimillionaire candidates Blair Hull and Jack Ryan lead in their U.S. Senate primaries -- but voters don't buy opponents' complaints that they are buying the election, a new poll shows.

The survey of 1,500 Illinois voters finds that three out of four respondents said either that they are more likely to vote for a person who spends millions of his own money to win office or that a candidate's wealth doesn't matter either way. The primary is March 16.

Hull -- a trader who has pumped $24 million of his own money into his Democratic race -- leads with 27 percent, ahead of state Sen. Barack Obama and state Comptroller Dan Hynes, who each had 17 percent.

On the Republican side, Ryan -- a former investment banker who has dipped into his wallet for nearly $2.6 million -- leads dairy and investment magnate Jim Oberweis, 41 percent to 17 percent.

Some say the deep-pocket guys like Hull and Ryan are leading because they have blanketed the airwaves with TV commercials.

But the poll, by the Sun-Times' sister paper, the Daily Southtown, specifically queried respondents about attitudes toward super-rich candidates, like Hull, a trader worth as much as $444 million, and Ryan, an investment banker whose worth has been estimated between $38 million and $96 million.

Asked how they would view a candidate who spent millions of his or her own money to pay for campaign commercials, 42 percent said they would be "more likely'' to vote for such a candidate. Thirty-four percent said such a financial status would have "no impact'' on their decision to vote for the candidate.

Voters aren't sold on the notion that ultra-rich candidates can't represent them fairly. Asked is it possible for a very wealthy candidate to understand the problems and concerns of ordinary citizens, 48 percent said "yes'' and 16 percent responded "not sure.''

"This is a capitalist country, and a lot of people want to be rich and admire those who are,'' said David Mark, editor in chief of Campaigns and Elections magazine, a Washington-based publication that tracks national voting.

"Hull and Ryan earned their money, and that makes a big difference'' with voters, Mark said.

Hull defends his spending, saying using his own money insulates him from "special interests'' and that his "independence'' is attractive to voters.

The poll asked if Hull "should be allowed'' to spend more than $40 million of his own money to win the Senate race, as he has declared he is willing to do. Sixty-one percent said he should, while 23 percent said no, and 16 percent weren't sure.

Hull said he would be "open to caps'' on campaign spending -- if candidates got free TV time, government financing of campaigns and a time limit on campaigning.

Democrat Gery Chico calls Hull's spending "obscene'' and likens his Senate bid to an advertising campaign for "soap, butter and cars.''

"Basically what we're seeing is a marketing campaign. There's a very eerie correlation between that campaign and the sale of products,'' he said.

Chico said the U.S. Senate is "being overrun by millionaires'' and called for the removal of limits on donations to candidates, which, for this Democratic primary is $12,000.

"If a person who's independently wealthy can dip into their own resources, why can't I go to someone with that kind of money and ask them to help me?'' Chico said.

"Right now, the rules aren't structured for fair competition. I may have a more powerful message than Blair Hull, but try to compete under the rules as they're presently structured,'' Chico said.

"I don't begrudge extraordinarily wealthy people spending their money. But what I do know is that although you can buy television time, you can't buy a track record and you can't buy the experience that's necessary to hit the ground running when you get to the United States Senate,'' Obama said.

"Illinois voters are extraordinarily discriminating. I have not spent a dime on television, not done a single mail piece and basically folks are paying attention,'' Obama said.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has estimated that at least 42 senators are millionaires, and 10 percent of the chamber is made up of those worth upward of $10 million each.

The Southtown survey found Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas in fourth place among the Democratic candidates, with 14 percent. Chico had 5 percent, radio personality Nancy Skinner received 2 percent and health care consultant Joyce Washington got 1 percent.

Among Republicans, businessman Andy McKenna Jr. had 11 percent; state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger 4 percent; retired Air Force Major Gen. John Borling 2 percent, and entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria, former state Rep. Jonathan Wright and Grayslake retiree Norm Hill each received less than 1 percent.

The automated poll was conducted by Rasmussen Reports of Ocean Grove, N.J., on Feb. 19. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

IF THE PRIMARY ELECTION FOR U.S. SENATE WERE HELD TODAY, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR . . .

Jack Ryan 41% Jim Oberweis 17% Andy McKenna 11% Steve Rauschenberger 4% John Borling 2% Other 2% Not sure 22%

Blair Hull 27% Barack Obama 17% Dan Hynes 17% Maria Pappas 14% Gery Chico 5% Nancy Skinner 2% Joyce Washington 1% Not sure 16%

Suppose a candidate running for the U.S. Senate paid millions of dollars from their own personal finances to pay for campaign commercials. Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who used their own money in this manner?

In the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, Blair Hull has said that he will spend more than $40 million of his own money to try and win the Democratic primary? Should he be allowed to do this?

Is it possible for a very wealthy candidate to understand the problems and concerns of ordinary citizens?

The Problem is where did their money come from That is what voters need to worry about.

If you do a web search on Jon Corzine, Jack Ryan's Business Partner for many years, it would surely raise your eye brows, and make you spit up your coffee. Strange bed fellows...or are they?

Democrook Jon Corzine

( Jack Ryan Ill Republican Senate Candidate LEFT Goldman Sachs in 2000 )

Sen. Jon Corzine, whose Wall Street expertise plays a key role in Democrats' strategy on corporate responsibility, led an investment banking firm that is being accused of inflating stock prices in the 1990s and contributing to the market crash.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle lately has kept Mr. Corzine at his side frequently as Democrats call on President Bush to get tougher with corporate executives who fraudulently inflate company earnings to boost stock prices.

"I think he's made a stellar contribution," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, Maryland Democrat and author of a bill approved Monday by the Senate that would increase the penalties for corporate wrongdoers.

But Goldman Sachs, the firm that Mr. Corzine left as chairman in May 1999, has been a target of class-action lawsuits and accusations by a former broker who complained to the Securities and Exchange Commission that the investment house engaged in a scheme to force unwitting investors to pay artificially high prices for certain stocks.

Mr. Corzine, New Jersey Democrat, said he knew nothing about such schemes when he ran the firm from 1994 to 1999.

"I don't believe there is ever going to be anything that sticks about us at Goldman Sachs forcing anybody to buy anything," Mr. Corzine said in an interview. "Goldman Sachs never forced anyone to buy anything when I was chairman, I can tell you that."

But Nicholas Maier, who was syndicate manager of the Wall Street firm Cramer & Co. from 1996 to 1998, told SEC investigators in the spring that Goldman Sachs routinely forced him to buy stocks at inflated prices if he wanted to purchase shares of an initial public offering (IPO).

"Goldman, from what I witnessed, they were the worst perpetrator," Mr. Maier said. "They totally fueled the [market] bubble. And it's specifically that kind of behavior that has caused the market crash. They built these stocks upon an illegal foundation manipulated up, and ultimately, it really was the small person who ended up buying in."

For example, Mr. Maier told the SEC that Goldman Sachs would offer him shares of a new company's IPO at the initial, low price of $20 per share only if he agreed to purchase "aftermarket" shares of the same company at $100 each. In turn, he would sell the shares of the higher-priced stock to small investors.

"None of these aftermarket orders had anything to do with what I honestly valued a company to be worth," Mr. Maier said. "Goldman created the convincing appearance of a winner, and the trick worked so well that they seduced further interest from other speculators hoping to participate in the gold rush. The general public had no idea that these stocks were actually brought into the world at unnaturally high levels through illegal manipulation."

Mr. Bush on Monday said Wall Street went on a "binge" in the 1990s and now has a "hangover," a characterization that Mr. Corzine called "a diversion away from reality."

"What we had was a breakdown in corporate ethics and corporate responsibility that I don't think has anything to do with anything other than excessive focus on share price and managed earnings," he said.

Mr. Corzine retired from Goldman Sachs in 1999 after taking the firm public and receiving $320 million worth of its stock. He ran for the Senate in New Jersey in 2000, spending more than $60 million of his fortune to win the seat.

The bubble of high-priced technology stocks began to burst in March 2000. In August 2000, the SEC issued a warning against aftermarket sales, also known as "laddering."

"I've never even heard the term 'laddering' before," Mr. Corzine said yesterday. "We may have recommended on the analysis that we had that [a stock] was a 'good buy,' but you can't force anyone to buy anything. Investors make their choices about where people invest, unless they've asked somebody to manage their money."

Mr. Corzine was highly respected in his tenure at Goldman, and no one has accused him of encouraging "laddering" or even knowing about the practice. But Mr. Maier said it happened on Mr. Corzine's watch.

"For Corzine not to know of a common practice being utilized to generate and manipulate stock prices would be surprising," Mr. Maier said. "He was obviously there during this time. I definitively saw his company engaged in illegal activity."

The SEC would not comment yesterday on whether Goldman is under investigation. Mr. Maier said he has not spoken to the investigators in several months.

"They expressed to me that laddering is a trickier thing [to prove]," Mr. Maier said. "I will say it. They did it. They laddered. Whether the SEC can construct a case is a different story."

Asked whether he knew about an SEC investigation, Mr. Corzine said, "That could very possibly be; I'm not aware of it. I'm divorced from [Goldman] since 1999."

A class-action lawsuit filed in April 2001 accused Goldman Sachs and others of engaging in "laddering" on the initial sale of stock of NetZero, driving up the company's share price to artificially high levels.

In another class-action suit, shareholders of Buy.com have accused the firm and its underwriters, including Goldman Sachs, of engaging in a laddering scheme in its IPO in February 2000, after Mr. Corzine left Goldman. And investors of defunct online grocer Webvan.com have filed a similar suit in federal court concerning that firm's initial public offering in November 1999.

Another class-action suit filed last year says that underwriters, including Goldman Sachs, manipulated several IPOs since 1997, including at least six when Mr. Corzine was still at the helm of Goldman. Source: The Washington Times, July 17, 2002; "Corzine tied to stock scheme

Well, now the intelligence insulting drivel that has been being posted on the board for Ilinois is spilling over into the breaking news section.

Let's look at this nonsense for what it is.

Jack Ryan was a vice-president of Goldman, Sachs like about three thousand other people. Jon Corzine was a big deal at Goldman, Sachs. Everyone who is a gullible idiot should now presume that Jack Ryan must therefore be a leftist Demonrat in disguise. Never mind that he is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family, anti-lavender marriage, fiscally conservative, anti-regulation, pro-military and whatever.

Goldman, Sachs is being sued and it just MUST be Jack Ryan's fault!!!!! Why because chicagolady just does not like Jack Ryan but, of course, refuses to say why on the Illinois boards as she will likely refuse to say why here. The outfit that she relies on for her GQ on Jack Ryan being a marionette of "elitists" is some bunch with a board of directors including the likes of Clinton's buddy former Federal Judge and long-time leftist former Congressman Abner Mikva and the ludicrously elitist Whitney North Seymour, Jr., (read John Lindsay clone with a bigger inheritance) with whom Northeasterners are well familiar, and Vichy Republican pro-abortion anti-family Maryland former US Senator and Weickerite backstabber Charles Mathias, Jr., who is so elitist that he makes Whitney North Seymour, Jr., look like the stable boy.

She forgot to repeat the additional charge here that Clinton pal and staffer Congressman Rahm Emmanuel is also an alumnus of Goldman, Sachs. Hide your children!!!!! The Wall Street commies are coming to get them!!!!! And Jack Ryan is their general!!!!!!

Jack Ryan grew up in a financially modest Irish family, did well enough in school to do his undergraduate work at Dartmouth on MERIT not inheritance, got his MBA at Harvard and his law degree at Harvard. In spite of all those years of education, he was able to retire from Goldman, Sachs before he was 40 with a fortune of about $50 million. I would have liked to have done that. I would like my children to do that well. How about you folks? Do you agree with chicagolady that the active and brilliant practice of capitalism should disqualify self-made Jack Ryan from the Senate????? I don't.

I support Jack Ryan. The relevant questions for each of us are:

1. Are you a conservative? Why are you a conservative?

2. Are you a Republican? Why are you (or aren't you) a Republican?

3. What issues in order of priority are important to you in choosing a Senator?

4. Is there a candidate who is viable (financially, personally, etc.) to actually win the seat?

5. Should the conservative vote be concentrated on one candidate to maximize the achievement of the goals you deem important or should we scatter our votes among many candidates?

Next, note that Jack Ryan can finance his own campaign and is generally describable as a charismatic, energetic, personable guy who, in addition to his career as an investment banker, retired to teach ghetto kids on the South Side of Chicago what he already knows about moving up financially and careerwise from modest circumstances, giving him an interesting credential that no other candidate has. He originally offered to teach in the public schools in Chicago but the Demonrat bureaucracy insisted that he get a "teaching certificate" because the Machine couls not entrust the "high quality" education of Chicago ghetto kids to Jack just because he graduated Dartmouth and had two graduate degrees from Harvard. They have their standards, after all. Jack has 41% in this latest Chicago Sun Times poll and his closest competitor is a wealthy dairy operator Jim Oberweiss who gets 17%.

Jim Oberweiss: Now calls himself a lifelong Catholic and pro-lifer. Two years ago, he called pro-lifers the Taliban. So much for honesty and credibility. He spins as vigorously on social issues as does John Fonda Kerry on Vietnam. Oberweiss is using his dairy commercials to promote his Senate candidacy. Isn't he clever? Tax-deductible poltical ads! You can trust Oberweiss as far as you can throw the Taj Mahal. Untrustworthy on issues, can finance his own campaign, big buddies with the corrupt regime of our soon to be jailbird former governor Lyin' George (clean out death row) Ryan (who is NO relation to Jack) and is also a crony of the spineless liberal party leadership of the last quarter century. How well they are all regarded is evidenced by the fact that Oberweiss, with all their help, is getting his clock cleaned by more that 2 to 1.

None of the other candidates are politically viable in that the next closest candidate, reputedly a conservative hero in the state senate, State Senator Steve Rauschenberger is getting 4%, has no serious financial resources and will therefore not be our next US Senator. Steve needs to endorse Jack Ryan and a new and conservative party leadership (that we all need to make happen) needs to promote Steve Rauschenberger to the GOP leadership in the State Senate.

General Borling was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. He is a genuine military hero. He is quite long in the tooth to be a freshman senator. He is pro-abortion and inexperienced enough to admit it. He will not be our next senator.

As to the generalized smear that is the first post on this thread. Believe nothing until you see actual specifics which actually tie bad behavior PERSONALLY to Jack Ryan.

GOOD NEWS! JACK! is well out in front for the GOP nomination.

JACK Ryan 41%
"Taliban Jim" Oberweis 17%
Andy McKenna 11%
Steve Rauschenberger 4%
John Borling 2%
Jonathan Wright <1%
Chirinjeev Kathuria <1%
Norm Hill <1%
Not sure 22%

More good news: pro-abortion candidates Oberweis and Borling only have 19% of the vote combined. The IL GOP is clearly rejecting the "moderates".

Blair Hull 27%
Barack Obama 17%
Dan Hynes 17%
Maria Pappas 14%
Gery Chico 5%
Nancy Skinner 2%
Joyce Washington 1%
Not sure 16%

I'm not sure what to think about the Democrat field. Basically I question the conventional wisdom about general election matchups, whatever that happens to be. :) Can Hull win by saturating the market with his message, outperfoming downstate, and buying Daley's support? He has a good resume, too, including military service. OTOH, the guy looks like a chipmunk, it's obvious he's trying to buy the seat, he'd make Jack Ryan look like the lovable underdog, and can he appeal to blacks, who are mostly voting for Obama?

Obama probably wouldn't play well downstate, but would he need to? He has a moderate and distinguished record, he's a law professor, he'll have massive black turnout at his back, and in the 'burbs he can do well in a place where everyone wants to be like Mike.

As for Hynes, I've been successfully underestimating him for a while now, so I'll give myself kudos for that. But if he can weasel his way into the general somehow, there's no too much reason to vote AGAINST him -- or for him. I think JACK would make his case and win against Hynes, but if not enough people are convinced they'll say, "two smart, attractive young guys -- I'll stick with the Democrat/moderate/liberal". There's not as much contrast here.

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