Posted on 01/18/2006 10:55:11 AM PST by spintreebob
On Bloomington's AM1230 Rush was pre-empted by Blago's State-of-the-State address. While waiting for Blago to enter the radio announcer, speaking in the hushed voice of a golf or bowling program, said
"And on the Democrat left side of the platform we have the Superintendant of Schools and State Treasurer Judy Barr-Topinka"
Then in a parenthetical voice he said. "Ron Gidwitz, Jim Oberweis and other detractors of the governor are not in attendance in the chamber."
Eisendrath and Brady not mentioned by name. Of course, Brady, a St Sen, was there.
Blago proposes a capital construction program. His KeenOH gambling expansion will allegedly bring in 80 million per year. That will provide debt service on new debt of about 1.6 billion.
Of that 1.6 billion the " .6 " will go to pinstripe patronage in chunks of $809,000 to arrange for the bonds that create the indebtedness.
Of that $809,000 about $500,000 will then go to 2 or 3 Republican Sullivan type legislators who will vote for the new indebtedness so that Blago can claim that there was bi-partisan support for the bonds and the Dimocrats cannot be singled out for blame.
Sullivan was a State Senator who voted with the Dems last time.
When the Dems use our tax money to pay the GOP State Chair to take a dive, the GOP State Chair does not get to keep all of the money for himself. He has to spread a little around to get other members of the bi-partisan combine to take a dive with him.
The beauty of the bi-partisan combine in selecting Alan Keyes was that it didn't cost them a dime to get Keyes to take a dive.... to say and do things destined to lose and lose big.
Jim Oberweis and Ron Gidwitz are the anti-corruption good-government candidates who will split the conservative/good-government vote and allow the bi-partisan Tooopinka to be nominated. That will allow her to raise her price to take a dive.
Boss Daley might just prefer to work with Toopinka rather than an intra-party rival, in which case Toopinka will not be paid to take a dive.
(If sued for slander, I'll claim this came from the Onion.)
Want to comment on Blago's program?
Which cards does he have in his hand?
Which statements are just a bluff to raise the ante or scare others out of the game?
Eg
Propose banning "assault weapons". Then negotiate with the legislators under pressure from the constitutionalists
"I'll let you vote against my gun ban if you agree to vote for my KeenOH and Capital bond program that will bring in taxpayer funded campaign contributions from the pinstripe patronage who profit from the inefficient Illinois bond process."
"Who knows, even you, a lowly state legislator might get some of those campaign contributions from the bi-partisan combine if you play your cards right."
Your right on top of this. The Republican party in this state is run by the Democrats, it's a mirror image of Chicago.
Spin, you've misspelled JB(m)T.
It is Judy Barr much-Too-pinko. Feel free to add another "much" or 2.
I missed the whole speech! I do not enjoy hearing all the lies anyway!
Did he mention the church he donated 1 million dollars to was burned down by illegal alien roofers?
NO SPEEK ENGLISH!!
I'm supporting Bill Brady. His voting record in the Illinois State Senate confirms he is pro-family values, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-education, pro-business.
I prefer Brady or Oberweis, but after hearing Blago beat his chest over making us pay for [embryonic] stem cell research, hamstringing pharmacists, and being proudly more pro-abort than anybody, I would even put up with Gidwitz.
Unfortunately, Topinka would be the same, only with milder rhetoric.
I did a google on Oberweis and revisted the November 2001 US Senate Candidate Compares Pro-Life Politicians to Taliban fiasco.
I forsee a Brady landslide.
GIDWITZ OUTLINES HIS VIEWS
On abortion, for example, Gidwitz described himself as "pro-choice," but he favors requiring parental notification and consent when teens are involved.
On guns, he said he favors extending the expired federal ban on assault weapons but would like to see Chicago's ban on handguns lifted.
Gidwitz said he favors re-evaluating spending priorities over raising state taxes, but he declined to take an ironclad stance against increasing taxes. "We have a long way to go before I'd think about increasing state income or sales taxes," he said.
Gidwitz also said he opposes gay marriages but is not opposed to civil unions, and he said he favors the death penalty but is undecided about whether to lift a moratorium on executions.
Unfortunately, Gidwitz would be the same, only with milder rhetoric.
FROM http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-gidwitz25.html
The words getting out on Brady.
Gidwitz is completely unacceptable. Please read:
Ron Gidwitz: Mayor Daley's Stealth Candidate for Governor of Illinois
Written by Robert Klein Engler
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Richard Wagner’s opera Twilight of the Gods opens with the three Norns busy spinning threads of past, present, and future. As the race for governor of Illinois heats up, we can imagine the Norns also at work here, spinning the destiny of Illinois politicians. What a complicated design they tease out.
The current Illinois governor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, has millions of dollars to spend on his reelection campaign, but also has declining support around the state. Illinois Republicans, still hurting from an unsuccessful attempt to run a candidate for the U. S. Senate, but realizing Blagojevich’s growing unpopularity, feel they can get back power in the state capitol. They just might be able to do that if they can decide on a candidate from the many Republicans who are seeking to win the primary election.
If the Democrats in Chicago sense they may lose the govenorship to a Republican, then they might try to counter this move by working to elect a Republican they can use to their advantage. To do that, they could support a stealth candidate. Of all the Republican candidates who have announced so far, Ron Gidwitz could be Mayor Daley’s stealth candidate for governor of Illinois.
Thread of the Past
Ron Gidwitz is the former president and CEO of Helene Curtis Industries and past Chairman of the State Board of Education. He is on many boards, including the Board of Directors of Lyric Opera Chicago. Membership on these boards does not say much about Ron Gidwitz’s qualifications to be governor. Nevertheless, in an operatic move that seemed more calculated than caring, Gidwitz announced his campaign for governor in Dixon, Illinois, the boyhood home of former President Ronald Reagan.
Dixon is a long way from Ron Gidwitz’s seat at the Lyric Opera, but not so far away that money from his well-heeled supporters had trouble following him there. Robert C. McCormack and T. Russell Shields, among others, contributed $100,000 to Gidwitz’s campaign fund. It costs a lot to run for governor or to attend college in Illinois these days.
Most voters in Illinois have to work at least two years to make $100,000 just to support their families. Undaunted by this fact of life in Illinois, Gidwitz said in a telephone interview with reporter Bernard Schoenburg of the State Journal Register, he would “restore fiscal responsibility, honesty and integrity and ‘adult leadership’ to the state. ‘I think the governor too frequently acts just a little juvenile,’ Gidwitz...said.” After reading these remarks, those cynical about Illinois politics asked, “How much honesty and integrity does $100,000 buy?”
If you want to know what kind of governor Ron Gidwitz would be, then you should ignore his comments about the present governor and instead look at Ron Gidwitz’s record at the City Colleges of Chicago. Gidwitz was Chairman of the Board of the city colleges for many years. Some say he left the city colleges worse off than when he came.
According to an interview by Fran Eaton, in the IllinoisLeader.com, Gidwitz’s involvement with Mayor Daley and the City Colleges of Chicago goes back much father then may be good for the state of Illinois. “I was vocal about the quality of the product coming out of community colleges, and Mayor Daley asked me to chair the City Colleges of Chicago and I did for three terms,” Gidwitz said.
This statement ought to be investigated by the media because “da mayor” does not ask people out of the blue to head a department or agency. We know from the ongoing federal corruption investigation that things work differently in Chicago. Gidwitz came to the city colleges with little background in education, so it must have been something other than expertise that landed him the job as chairman.
The city colleges in Chicago are part of an apparatus that keeps the mayor in office. Those familiar with the college system know that the colleges assure votes for the mayor, but not always an education for the students. It is hard to believe Ron Gidwitz was unaware of this. The rumor among the faculty at the time of Gidwit’s appointment was that Daley’s wife Maggie and Gidwitz’s wife Christina were good friends. That friendship probably contributed above all to his being picked as chairman of the city colleges board.
Ron Gidwitz was chairman when the city colleges board selected a new president for Daley College, one of the seven colleges that make up the system. Even though the selection committee at Daley College recommended three candidates to the board, the board chose as the new president a man who was not among the three recommended. It was reported that the mayor needed Latino votes for his reelection, so it was politically expedient to select a candidate from Texas and not one from Chicago with more experience.
That new college president from Texas proved to be tumultuous. Today, Daley College is a shadow of what it used to be. Ron Gidwitz, who professes to care so much about education, does not seem to care about that, or the trail of ruin left behind. The example of Daley College alone ought to be enough to convince the voters of Illinois that Ron Gidwitz should not be their governor.
While at the city colleges, Gidwitz imposed a so-called “business model” on the system. It had little effect. Most of the classes at the city colleges are taught by adjuncts who earn sweatshop wages, the college has just suffered a disastrous faculty strike, and the academic reputation of the system has plummeted. Can the state of Illinois expect the same results if Gidwitz becomes governor? If the answer is “yes,” then the strains of a Republican Gotterdammerug may echo all the way from Springfield, across the cornfields and up to the high offices of Chicago’s major corporations.
Thread of the Present
Even if Ron Gidwitz’s tenure as chairman of the city colleges was problematic, what is worse now is his present vision of higher education for Illinois. Ron Gidwitz holds the shortsighted view that public education should train people for jobs. He probably learned such nonsense at Brown University where he earned a degree in economics. Perhaps, if he had attended the University of Illinois at Urbana instead, he may have learned that the motto of the University of Illinois is both “LEARNING and Labor.”
The purpose of public education and especially public higher education is not simply to train people for jobs. Public education should also make good citizens and preserve our traditions. If Illinois’ students cannot afford to go to an Ivy League school like Brown University, then they should be given an educational opportunity at a public university, or at a community college. The future of Illinois rests more with good citizens than it does with workforce training.
As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City Colleges of Chicago, Gidwitz supposedly cut waste and inefficiency and reformed course offerings. Yet, to cut course offerings solely because they do not match the needs of the workforce is what they do in communist China, not what we ought to do in a republic that values education.
The fundamental problem with Ron Gidwitz’s vision of education is that it represents liberalism at its worst—in short it is Marxism in disguise. To focus public education on training for the workforce is to define people only as workers. Furthermore, it places authority in the hands of a few instead of creating a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” If public education teaches us simply to work and not about our heritage of freedom and responsibility, then we will stop being free. Go to China and you will learn this lesson.
Ron Gidwitz claims mistakenly, “From a community college standpoint, the colleges have always been basically a work force training program.” Contrary to this, many working-class and minority families in Illinois without $100,000 to give to his political campaign send there sons and daughters to community colleges so that they may have an opportunity to get a traditional liberal education, not simply to be trained for dead-end jobs. These families believe the words of Abraham Lincoln, that we must educate our citizens so they “may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions.”
Such an appreciation seems absent from Gidwitz’s vision of education. He admits, “I came there with the intention of changing how we train people so that they are ready for the 21st century work force, and became shocked to find that 95 percent of graduates of the Chicago public school system required remediation.” If this is the case, then why did Gidwitz go in the wrong direction? Did he ever confront Mayor Daley about the shoddy state of education in Chicago? It is not the fault of the state’s universities and community colleges that Chicago’s public grammar and high schools do not educate, even after years of being controlled by the mayor?
Lack of direction is repeated on Gidwitz’s webpage where we read, “In 2003 Ron personally launched Students First Illinois, a nonpartisan, statewide grassroots coalition...to help put Illinois’ 2.2 million children first in state policy.” What Students First Illinois has to do with quality education is anyone’s guess. If you know anything about how you get an education, then you know it is never students first, but really teachers first that makes for quality education.
Placing students first is putting the cart before the horse. It is just a smoke screen to hide placing administrators first. Students first does little to improve education or take away the root cause of failed educational systems in the state. Besides politicians who use public education to get votes, in Illinois there have been at least two other long-standing reasons why teachers are not first: poor administrators, many of them Affirmative Action political appointees, and obfuscating unions like the Cook County College Teachers Union in Chicago. Now, it looks like there may be another reason--mayor Daley’s stealth candidate for governor of Illinois.
Thread of the Future
Although Ron Gidwitz has said little so far about his position on illegal immigration, we may guess he will do nothing to stop it. Even though illegal immigrants cost the state millions of dollars a year in education funding and social programs, Gidwitz’s web page offers a link to the page in Spanish. Why that Spanish link is needed in a state whose official language is English is not clear. Maybe Ron Gidwitz needs a webpage in Spanish because his plans for education have been such a failure that not enough voters leave the state’s schools able to speak and read English. That must be the case, for anything else looks like pandering again to get the Latino vote.
If the citizens of Illinois want real change in Springfield, then they need to elect a Republican governor who has few ties to the Daley administration in Chicago. Having been a part of that administration, it seems unlikely that Ron Gidwitz will speak out against the mayor anytime soon. Yet, the more Gidwitz distances himself from being viewed as the mayor’s stealth candidate, the better off he will be. If he doesn’t distance himself, he may have to run a political campaign against the backdrop of a growing scandal in Chicago.
Changing Ron Gidwitz’s view on public education is another matter. Taking him at his word that he wants to help students, he could help them much more by spending $100,000 on scholarships, rather than spending it on a campaign for governor or a grassroots coalition that perpetuates failed educational policies. Those scholarships would be a lasting legacy for him, the Republican Party and the state of Illinois.
The next act in Illinois politics is about to begin. If Rich Miller’s accusation in the Daily Southtown that “A Gidwitz family company manages a hellhole of an apartment complex in downtown Joliet,” is not enough to make voters wonder about Ron Gidwitz, then voters ought to spend a few moments looking at Gidwitz’s record at the City Colleges of Chicago and his vision for education. After doing that, they most likely will send him back to his seat at the Lyric Opera and not to the governor’s chair in Springfield.
Fortunately, Illinois voters have an opportunity to cast a vote for a Republican candidate other than Ron Gidwitz. The Illinois state Treasurer, Judy Baar Topinka, may announce her candidacy soon, and then emerge as the Republican front-runner. In this opera, it’s not over until the state treasurer sings.
About the Writer: Robert Klein Engler is an adjunct professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and a versatile writer of op-ed articles, poetry, and philosophy. His recent book, "A Winter of Words," is available from amazon.com
the candidate chooses a campaign manager who finds staff and volunteers to run a statewide campaign.
Last Friday at the Crook County GOP Convention:
Oberweis fans Freeper DMZFrank Penn and Angel Garcia were everywhere as were others i don't know so well. Freeper ChicagoLady and Rick Beseida were positive to Oberweis.
Toopinka patronage were highly sophisticated and effective.
Bill Hogan was trying to help Brady, but IMO, not effectively. Brady's staffer Joe Beveridge seemed clueless as to what to do. A lot of doing nothing.
Rauschenberger was the only one I saw talking up Gidwitz. With the Gidwitz money, where was the staff? I don't even know who his staff are.
It's a Toopinka - Oberweis race. Toopinka has her vote. She can't gain or lose much from that static number. She knows precisely who they are. For example, she will get 95% of the absentee ballot vote and that will be 30% of her total vote. That is sophisticated organization.
Oberweis will have to do better down the stretch to win. He'll have to do better than 5% of the absentee vote...I'd say at least 20%... But I don't see it yet. He'll have to do better at registering many in his base who are not registered.
For example, the largest conservative event of the year, Pro-Life SpeakOut is Sat Jan 28. At a previous SpeakOut, I polled the attendees and found 33% were not registered to vote and another 33% had no clue who they were going to vote for in the primary despite them having a clear choice between a pro-life and pro-abort candidate. I suspect things can only be worse now. Pro-Lifers are notorious for not voting in Illinois. Oberweis needs to change that to win.
Jim Leahy is listed as the Oberweis grassroots organizer. He is a great guy. But so far, I haven't seen any results from him.
Gidwitz and Brady can only play the role of spoiler... or as the Palatine people aptly put it... the Warren Kostka role. Their only chance of doing even moderately well is if Oberweis continues to not "stay-on-message" and "frame-the-issue" and "set-the-agenda" which then results in a poorly phrased sound bite.
Gidwitz is a much worse candidate than he would be governor. He would be great on anti-corruption, taxes, spending, deregulation. He is pro-life on all the "fringe" issues that the state can touch. He is only pro-choice on the issues in the Roberts-Alito ballpark.
We could use a Dem like Glenn Poshard again. But we won't get one!
Patience, patience. Keep your notes on Blago for 1/28 at Chicago. Tooooopinka would be worse. Like Gidwitz's consort, she actually believes in Blago's expressed principles which is likely more than Blago does. Admittedly, by Blago's performance, that is not easy to prove.
BTW, if you get a chance, tune in to Charlie Sykes 8:30 AM-Noon M-F WTMJ-AM radio in Milwaukee (also apparently streams on the internet) to hear the new ads being played by black groups and business groups against Governor Doyle on the voucher issue. "Decades ago, Governor George Wallace and Governor Orville Faubus stood in the school house door to keep black kids from getting the education they needed. Now, not in Alabama or Arkansas, but in Wisconsin, Governor Doyle is standing in today's schoolhouse door....." As you know, I am not a fan of vouchers because they bring unacceptable strings but these ads are pure gold.
AND, does Blago frequent the Chicago fag/ lesbian/ cross dressing/ transgendered/ transsexual/ threesome through infinitysome/ interspecies (did I forget anything???) parade???? Re-Read Mike Royko's marvelous biography of Daley the Elder and try to imagine Daley the Elder putting up with the sort of parade that ToooooPinka just adores!!!!
I wonder if the next parade could be a hardhat moment???
Next, you seem to think that Gidwitz is her main opposition when she is actually Oberweis's main oposition. I have differences with Oberweis. I will suck it up and support Oberweis. Nobody's perfect but Oberweis is a LOT more perfect than Toooooopinka or Gidwitz. As they say in the NFL draft, all things considered, Oberweis is the best athlete available politically.
Since Gidwitz and MOST CERTAINLY Toooooopinka are utterly unacceptable, that leaves us with Brady and Oberweis. I suspect I may agree more with Brady but I see absolutely no evidence that he is independent of the corrupt leaders of the GOP's last few decades here (Brady is not corrupt but he would be vulnerable to those who are) or capable of running an adequately organized and adequately financed campaign. Oberweis can do those things. If a candidate is not flush, he will make the bad decisions that taking money from bad guys this ONE time in exchange for services to be rendered is justifiable because of all the good he will do. Such a candidate may even believe such crap but, just because he can lie to himself, does not require anyone else to believe his lies.
Great analysis Bob!! One correction though. JBT's name is spelled J-U-D-A-S B-A-A-H T-O-O-P-I-N-K-A
Brady is the best choice for Illinois on March 21, 2006, if he or Oberweis doesn't win conservatives would have to look at former Marine Randy Stufflebean for a 3rd party run to vote for a real conservative in the fall. He has a website set up
If you didn't pass petitions or sign petitions for any governor candidate already, Randy Stufflebean would need 25,000 officially, more like 55,000 signitures because he will be challenged by the Republican Party of Illinois like they did with Cal Skinner, the former State Republican Rep who ran as a Libertarian and got 2.1% of the vote in 2002.
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