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To: mosesdapoet; Impy; BillyBoy; LS; NFHale; GOPsterinMA; campaignPete R-CT; AuH2ORepublican; ...

My GGG-grandfather was the son-in-law of one of IL’s Founding Fathers who drew up the state constitution at Kaskaskia 200 years ago. I’m not from Ohio (or the Toledo or Cincinnati areas as you inferred), so I don’t know where you got that from. I am from Tennessee (where my aforementioned GGG-grandfather was an early settler and fought under Andrew Jackson in the Creek Campaign in Alabama before he moved to the IL Country).

In any event, I’m fairly close to key (Chicago) IL FReepers and discuss IL politics with them quite often, so I do know something about the state. Chicago & Cook County Republicanism is at its weakest point now, and continues to shrivel (and, sadly, that cancer has spread out to formerly heavily Republican suburban counties, notably Du Page & Lake).

Last I checked, there was only ONE Republican out of 50 on the Chicago Board of Alderman. The last GOP Governor to hail from Chicago was Jim Thompson, and he failed to carry Cook County in his last two terms. The last GOP States Attorney for Cook County was Jack O’Malley, who last won in 1992. He was the last Republican to get higher than 27% of the vote since. The last GOP Cook County Sheriff elected in 50 years was James O’Grady in 1986 for a single term. No Republican has gotten above 29% since (including O’Grady’s reelection campaign in 1990, when he got just 28%). Since 1954, only on one occasion, in 1966, has a Republican won the County Board Presidency, that being Dick Ogilvie, who was elected Governor 2 years later and ended up an utter fiasco in imposing an income tax, killing his political career and Presidential ambitions in one fell swoop. Not to mention the last GOP Chicago Mayor was the mobbed-up Big Bill Thompson, last elected in 1929, hardly someone to crow about.

Add to that now there are zero Republicans from Cook County in Congress, and although there are 3 GOP State Senators, they only take in a fraction of the outskirts of the county. There’s a paltry 2 GOP House members, also both of whom are on the extreme outskirts of the county overlapping into the adjacent counties. President Reagan never carried Cook County in either 1980 or 1984, and the last Republican to do so was Nixon in 1972, if only because McGovern was too extreme to stomach (and by today’s standards, he’s well to the right of Hillary & Zero).

No, indeed, the Republican strength of Cook County & Chicago you recall was weak at best and fleeting (with the last breath of strength coming to an end in the 1970s), and now is non-existent. Corruption there is an epidemic and what few Republicans remaining there often have been assimilated into the hive known as the Combine, and it’s not local to just Chicago.

You can point out where I’m wrong.


40 posted on 05/19/2019 6:31:17 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj
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To: fieldmarshaldj
Thanks, interesting post!

41 posted on 05/19/2019 6:48:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

I note your opposition to the creation of Chicago as a separate city state which I share while offering no alternative solution and minimizing any attempt to consider return to a previous state constitution which is easy to do.
My reply was prompted by your characterization of conditions that would occur if Illinois did return to its previous state constitution. Which could be expected from anyone who anyone who comes from another area and has not participated in Illinois Republican politics during that period of time when it was successfully functioning.

The party fell apart when that change in it’s constitution removed minority representation at the state representative level. Using the political results you furnished which are post that 1980 period when the change took effect ignore its previous success offering political alternatives. Which offers a worthy consideration to return to as a solution .


46 posted on 05/19/2019 9:37:58 PM PDT by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L,J,Keslin posting for the record hoping some might read and pass around)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

That was, as usual, brilliant, DJ...


48 posted on 05/20/2019 4:54:48 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Tennessee - go Buckeyes!!!


50 posted on 05/20/2019 8:55:26 AM PDT by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

“My GGG-grandfather was the son-in-law of one of IL’s Founding Fathers who drew up the state constitution at Kaskaskia 200 years ago.”

Who dat? I forgot.


54 posted on 05/21/2019 1:05:17 AM PDT by Impy (I have no virtue to signal.)
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