Has the DCCC Walked Away From Dan Seals? (UPDATED AND BUMPED UP)

Has Dan Seals been abandoned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was supposed to roll in like thunder and level the playing field to make up for Seals' massive shortfall in fundraising (as least compared to incumbent Mark Kirk?) It's a question that ought to be weighing on every Chicago political reporter's mind after the DNC got rolling a few days ago now.

A few months ago, Dan Seals was the flavor of the month for national Democrats. Barack Obama was the nominee and suddenly Mark Kirk looked vulnerable. In February, the chairman of the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen, came in to stump for Dan. TA noted back then that Van Hollen's support seemed tepid at best -- but national Democrats were willing to give Dan a shot.

The Obama-euphoria even led the Cook Political Report to upgrade the IL-10 contest -- and as you can see, Dan was pretty excited.

But something has happened -- it looks like the DCCC is walking away from Dan Seals.

Yesterday, as the Politico reported, Chris Van Hollen welcomed the DCCC's top 50 candidates for change on to the stage with him at the Democratic National Convention. Dan Seals wasn't there and wasn't mentioned (though Debbie Halverson was mentioned and Bill Foster got a shout-out in Van Hollen's speech). In fact, the Daily Herald even reported live from the Illinois delegation breakfast in Denver -- and while the article mentions the Kirk-Seals race, there's no mention of Dan being at the convention and getting any love from the DCCC.

Is it because of Seals' failed gas stunt?

Is it because Roll Call named him carpetbagger of the year?

Is it because Dan took $14,000 from Charlie Rangel?

Did they find out what was in the envelope Dan took from Rostenkowski?

It could be -- but it's probably because Kirk Looks Strong, according to the pundits. With a 21-point lead, an endorsement from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the launch of TV ads in August, Seals is looking very weak now. Seals looks so weak, in fact, that the Rothenberg Political Report recently moved the Kirk-Seals race from Toss Up to Leans Republican -- a major backslide for Seals. I don't blame them -- Chris Van Hollen even co-authored legislation with Congressman Kirk as recently as July 1st.

In addition, we know from the blogosphere that Dan or the DCCC recently took their own poll to test the waters -- and since we haven't heard about it in a month, it must've been pretty bad for Dan.

So reporters, if you're going to bed scratching your heads and wondering why Dan Seals isn't getting the love -- well, it's not all that confusing when you put the pieces together.

UPDATED: The Waukegan News-Sun "Newshound" noticed the same lack of Seals-mojo at the DNC that we did and ran this post online this morning. Check it out.

Did Hillary Clinton's Speech Fail to Sell Obama? (UPDATED)

I watched Hillary's Big Speech last night, in which she was supposed to make the sale to all her supporters that were still expressing reservations about Barack Obama. I haven't read the commentary in the press this morning, and I suppose probably at least 75% of the MSM will say she nailed it. But, did she?

The money line in her speech was essentially that if you care about the same things I do, which she listed as things like affordable healthcare, support for veterans, looking out for the working class, etc., etc., you should vote for Barack.

But what does that mean exactly? It essentially means that because Hillary thinks Barack is closer to her in his ideals than John McCain, you should vote for Barack.

But was that what most supporters wanted to hear? Most Hillary supporters already knew that, and they knew that she was going to endorse Barack at the DNC and call for unity. But, prior to the convention, that wasn't enough to send them in droves to Barack's camp, at least not according to the polls.

I guess if all you needed was Hillary's official "permission" last night to vote for Barack Obama, you got it, and Barack should see a huge jump in the polls.

But I'm not so sure. What Hillary really failed to do was explain why she was WRONG all this time, in all the impassioned speeches she gave during the primary, the "3 a.m. phone call," the criticism of Obama's character, ethics, ties to convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko, and all the rest.

Why should we vote for the guy you'd beaten up for months and told us he wasn't ready for the job? That you had real foreign policy experience, and he had a 'speech he gave in 2002.'

That's what Hillary's speech was lacking, and while I think a lot of Hillary supporters truly did just want to get 'permission' from the horse's mouth, a lot more will still have reservations about whether Barack Obama is truly ready to lead this country.

Hillary didn't think he was ready before, and she didn't give anyone any real reason as to why she wasn't wrong back then.

UPDATED: Here's the reaction from Camp McCain, via CNN, which is pretty much in line with my thoughts posted above.

One more thought I didn't get in above--given Hillary's great delivery of her speech, do you think Joe Biden is going to suffer in comparison? For my money, despite all the effort to bring about Dem unity, a lot of Dems have to be asking themselves if the only reason Barack Obama didn't pick Hillary is due to his ego. As many pundits have suggested, in the end, his elitism and attitude may crater for him what should, in many respects, have been a walk-away this fall. Stay tuned...

Dead Heat Between Obama - McCain Makes It Easy to Measure Convention Bounce

Everyone anticipates this week's Dem festivities at the official coronation of Barack Obama as the Dem presidential nominee will give the junior senator from Illinois a big bounce, as the masses begin to focus on the upcoming general election. But going in, McCain and Obama are in a dead heat. Why?

Even after the much-anticipated announcement of Obama's Veep pick, and the experience and foreign policy credentials that Senator Joe Biden arguably brings to the ticket, why can't Barack walk away with this? The popular polling indicates the country wants a Democratic president, assumedly to repudiate 8 years of George Bush in some kind of national catharsis. But, they can't seem to decide that they want Barack.

This will be an interesting week to measure the bounce Obama is expected to get, beginning with a speech by his wife, Michelle. Just don't dare to criticize her, or you might get a nasty call from Barack telling you to lay off.

But, with the two candidates in a dead heat, and Barack widely expected to hit his speech out of the park, the bar is set pretty high. Anything less than an 8 or 9 point post-convention jump and a killer speech in Denver is going to be considered a setback for the campaign heading into the next big deal, the announcement of McCain's running mate and the Republican National Convention. It's sure to renew the debate over why Barack just can't seem to seal the deal....

Weekend Update: Obama, Kirk, Link, Curran

Lots going on this morning, so we'll get right to it.

Obama-rama: Someone leaked out the choice last night that Obama has chosen long-time senator Joe Biden of Delware as his veep pick. Sorry, Hillary. You never really had a chance, anyway. It'll be interesting to see how the die-hard Hillary supporters take this, especially if McCain picks a woman as his veep candidate. Team McCain wasted no time in putting up an attack ad using Biden's words stating that he didn't think Obama was ready to be president. Biden has the reputation for not mincing words, so this'll be interesting. Get ready for a couple months of Team Obama having to constantly "clarify" or "explain" what Biden really meant when he said "blah blah blah".

Mark Kirk Gives Dan Seals Gas: The Kirk campaign agreed to re-tool an ad that used some footage from a NBC-5 news report on Seals' ill-conceived and executed gas-for-votes stunt. Team Kirk revamped the ad to exclude the news footage after NBC-5 complained. The Seals team is harping on this, thinking it makes Kirk look bad, but maybe they ought to consider that every time they bring it up, they remind folks of what a hair-brained stunt that was... maybe they ought to shut up and hope everyone forgets about it as soon as possible. BTW, wasn't that stunt about the last time Seals was in the news? Wonder what he's been doing the past few months. BONUS: Here's a LTE re Seals' 1970 redux energy policy. Remember the 70s...?

Terry Link is Off to the Convention: While State Senator Terry Link is going off to the Democratic National Convention to bask in the reflected glory of Barack Obama, here at home, he's getting a lot of heat. Several hours of time were spent by various personalities on WKRS this week discussing the Link petition scandal, and a number of LTE's have started appearing criticizing Link on several different issues. See here and here.

Sheriff Mark Curran Still in Jail: Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran continues his investigation of the Lake County Jail from the inside, and the News-Sun has some good coverage. Although the response to Curran's effort (I won't call it a stunt, yet) has been pretty positive, it seems, the article notes that Curran wore jail scrubs outside the jail to go to a few meetings, and claims that prisoners don't wear that stuff outside the jail. Is that going a little far? I suppose if you're going to do something like this, you may as well go all-out, but I'm still reserving judgment on this one.

Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran 'Divinely Inspired' to Enroll In His Own Jail (UPDATED)

As much as I was initially inclined to dismiss this as a political stunt, especially after hearing that Sheriff Mark Curran told the media that his idea to enter his own jail for a week was 'divinely inspired' (because the idea came to him in church), maybe it's not such a bad idea. Curran's intent is to examine the living conditions in the Lake County jail in central Waukegan to see what the issues are--food, safety, medical care, etc. While actually entering the jail and essentially being treated as an inmate (although he won't have a cellmate) is a little extreme, and seems designed to grab headlines, it unquestionably will draw attention to these issues and allow Curran to collect some data from a first-hand perspective.

This is in stark contrast to, for example, the ill-conceived and executed gas stunt that 10th Congressional candidate Dan Seals pulled a few months ago in Lincolnshire. That didn't do anyone any good, considering it snarled traffic, wasted gas, and simply drew attention to Seals' ineptness as a candidate (we already knew gas prices were high, so drawing attention to that fact was pretty useless).

Whad'ya all think about Sheriff Curran???

UPDATED 8/22/08 7:00 a.m.: The News-Sun has an interesting piece on Mark Curran's first day in jail. Among other interesting factoids, he had to remake his bed three times to meet the expectations of the jail guards, had bologna, bread and cereal for breakfast, and was visited by Congressman Mark Kirk, who gave him a Johnny Cash CD.

Terry Link for (State Senate) President? (UPDATED x2 + 10th District Update)

I have a legal brief due today, so not much time to write, but the big news of the morning (for me anyway) is that several news outlets (see Tribune and Sun-Times), plus Capitol Fax, are reporting that Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, who has been a staunch supporter of unpopular and embattled Governor Rod Blagojevich, is retiring as president of the Illinois Senate. For us, the most interesting part of this is that State Senator Terry Link, who is on Jones' leadership team, is reportedly on the short list to be a possible successor as Senate President.

Probably most people don't realize the significance of the office of Senate President; I sure didn't, until relatively recently when it became clear that Senate President Jones was one of the most powerful people in the state, given his ability to essentially block any piece of legislation by not calling it for a vote in the Senate. Even if the State House passed a bill, and the Governor expressed his support, if Jones didn't call it for a vote, there is no way it could become law, and really no way to force Jones to change his mind.

That's POWER, folks.

So, you can bet there are going to be a boatload of Dems who are going to be knocking each other over to get at that seat. Will Link try to grab it? It certainly seems that he has the ambition for something like this (and it would be a nice capper to his career), as well as the fact he could probably get his beloved Waukegan casino a lot easier if he were Senate President.

On the other hand, he might decide he's better off throwing his support to another contender in exchange for favors later on, since if Link is seriously considering throwing his hat in the ring, he will have to contend with the recent scandal involving his two indicted petition circulators, Jerry D. Knight and Kenneth Davison.

As TA readers know, Davison turned himself in last week and we're dying to see if he cuts a deal with prosecutors to finger Terry Link's right-hand man, Pete Couvall, who actually hired Knight and Davison to pass petitions, which the duo then (allegedly) used the phone book or other methods (old petitions?) to fake the signatures of voters who were living and dead. If that happens, who knows where this could lead. But for now, prosecutors have been falling all over themselves to point out that they feel there is no evidence to tie Link (or Couvall) in to the forgery scheme.

Frankly, I hope Link goes for it. That will invite even more scrutiny into the petition scandal and maybe we'll actually get some movement up the food chain (although it's still very, very early in the investigation, so patience, campers).

Link isn't all that popular, even among members of his own suburban caucus that he's put together (Rich Miller at Cap Fax is reporting this morning that some members of Link's own caucus are expressing reservations already--would that be you, Susan Garrett? Rich also referenced the petition scandal, although he's been doing a good job keeping the lid on it to the extent he can). Check out Capitol Fax Blog later today, I'm sure there will be a ton of speculation on how all this will turn out.

Given that we have been following this story ever since we broke it back last November, I will be watching my Sitemeter with interest over the next few weeks to see if Team America's Blog suddenly becomes a very popular research tool for the Senate Democrats and friends... although, it's not that the other senate Dems would actually have any moral reservations about naming a guy like Link senate president, but the competition will no doubt be ruthless in trying to villify Link and would be happy to raise the petition scandal to do it. And, we'll be happy to oblige.

UPDATED: The Pioneer Press blog is talking about Link and his possible state senate president aspirations, and whether the Dems would want that kind of publicity. Interestingly, Rich Miller of Cap Fax was already there to comment. Miller has covered the Link scandal this week, mostly by excerpting favorable quotes from the MSM stories where Link is proclaiming he's been exonerated, and avoiding linking to Team America, even though we by far have the most detail on the inside story of this scandal. Judge for yourself whether Miller is out doing damage control for Link.

UPDATED x2 8/19/08 6:40 a.m.: Terry Link has stated to several media sources that he is "definitely a candidate" for the retiring Emil Jones, Jr., as State Senate President. Whether Link is 100% serious or is just saying this to be a player holding some cards when the actual decision time comes around, who's to say, except Link? But, this also means that there is no way the petition scandal scrutiny is going to die down anytime soon, not with Mr. Davison in jail, and Mr. Knight on the lam. Link continues to protest that he had nothing to do with the acts of these men, saying "you can't control everyone in the world." But, isn't that what Emil Jones' job is all about, at least as far as Illinois goes? ;-)

FYI, GOP Chairman Dan Venturi will be on WKRS AM 1220 (your best bet is to listen on the Internet) with Libby Collins today talking about the Link petition scandal at about 8:15 a.m., and then Link's GOP challenge Keith Gray will be on Al Salvi's show at around 11:00 talking about his race, and the potential impacts of Link's issues.


10th District Update: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longshot but possible VP pick, was in town yesterday hanging out with 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk. Bloomberg endorsed Kirk in his upcoming congressional race against 9th District resident Dan Seals, and touted with Kirk a bill that would close a loophole that allows gun deals to sell off their existing stock of guns if they lose their gun selling license. "Can you imagine what would happen if we arrested a drug dealer, and before we took him in, we allowed him to sell all his (drugs)?" Bloomberg said. "There would be a riot."

The Daily Herald cited Dan Seals' spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith stating in response to the endorsement that the Seals campaign will 'remind voters that Kirk falls in line with President Bush on numerous issues.' Yawn. Wake me up when this race is over and Seals gets a job in Wisconsin with the other socialists.

Final Thoughts for this morning: You think Lauren Beth Gash is fuming over Terry Link taking all of the credit for turning Lake County "from bright red to pale blue"? Just askin'.

Hey, when is someone going to ask Susan Garrett, Karen May, Kathy Ryg, Dan Seals and the rest of the suspects to comment on Terry Link's petition scandal, whether they still support him as chairman, and whether they think he'd make a good senate president?

Lake County Democrats Claim Shock, Horror, Ignorance at Petition Forgeries... 8 Months After this Was Pointed Out to Them (UPDATED)

A number of Lake County Democrats are finally being hit with the fallout from the tainted petitions containing alleged forgeries of persons both alive and dead. The Daily Herald is reporting today that the two indicted campaign workers for State Senator Terry Link (Jerry D. Knight and Kenneth Davison) also "circulated" petitions for seven other Lake County Democrats, including incumbents like Coronor Dr. Richard Keller and Recorder of Deeds Mary Ellen Vanderventer, as well as candidates like Michael D. Jacobs (running for State's Attorney against Mike Waller), Cynthia Pruim Haran (who is running for Circuit Court Clerk against Sally Coffelt), Jim Parks (running against JoAnn Osmond in the 61st legislative district) and Diane Hewitt (running for county board Dist. 2 against Randy Whitmore).

Those Democrats that were contacted by the Daily Herald expressed shock and horror, as if this was the biggest surprise of their lives. Former Vice-chair of the Lake County Dems, "Sneaky" Pete Couvall, who hired Knight and Davison, stated that "The only thing I'm guilty of is being hustled by a couple of con artists." Coroner Richard Keller, whose petitions were circulated as a block with the other Dem county-wide candidates, said he was unaware Knight or Johnson had worked on his petitions. "I found out later that (the paperwork) included those gentlemen and that there were irregularities," Keller said. The Herald reports that Hewitt said she knew Knight gathered signatures for her but was unaware of any irregularities. Parks said he learned Knight and Davison worked on his petition after the fact, and called the irregularities embarrassing.

Oh, how the passage of time (and a few indictments) bring some clarity to the situation.

For those of you new to the scene, this space and the Lake County GOP have been talking about this since last November, when Link's Dem primary opponent Jerry Johnson first identified the signatures of dead people on Link's petitions. Things just snowballed from there, culminating in an investigation by the Lake County State's Attorney and the return of indictments of the two paid petition circulators yesterday.

But, way back in December 2007, Lake County GOP Chairman Dan Venturi pointed out that not only had these two individuals circulated petitions for Link, but also these other candidates. His letter was published in the Lake County News-Sun and you can read it here. But even before Venturi's letter was published, this story was all over the newspapers.

Only now, however, after all of the Dem candidates, including Link, are secure in their positions on the general election ballot in November, are these candidates willing to discuss the tainted petitions and apparently admit they'd been collectively bilked (so they say) by these two devious men. Prior to this, only Link would talk, and his statements amounted to a zillion reasons why this was all nonsense, or perhaps the work of the Republicans.

As we have said many times here, we suspect the reason why Senator Link rebuffed all calls for an investigation of his own into the allegations of forgery was that he was afraid that if he looked too closely, the petitions circulated by Knight and Davison (which amounted to over 75% of Link's total signatures) would have shown to be invalid, and Link would not have had enough legitimate signatures to remain on the ballot. To remind everyone, that would have meant that Link would have had to run as a write-in candidate, either against Jerry Johnson directly as the other Dem primary candidate, or face the possibility of both men running as write-ins. A man with the ego the size of Terry Link's would never have been able to stomach that.

The Lake County Dems as a group should be condemned for their silence and refusal to confront the seriousness of this situation until the Lake County State's Attorney had to indict the Dems' petition circulators, and the press finally started making some phone calls to get these people on the record. This bunch collectively has about enough integrity to fill a thimble.

It may be too late to get them off the ballot, but not too late to reject them at the ballot box in November. Lake County citizens, do you want a crew with ethics like these folks representing you? It will be your choice.

BONUS CONTENT: Read some biting comments from the News-Sun "News Hound" here.


UPDATED 8/16/08: The Daily Herald reports that Kenneth Davison surrendered to authorities last night. Knight is still at large.