Monday, October 26, 2009

Who's Missing from First-in-Line Filers Today?

Well, now that the dust has settled, we can take stock of those candidates whom we had heard for weeks, if not months, that they were serious about campaigning, and that they alone had the winning formula, but for some reason didn't show up today in Springfield to be in line to assure themselves at least a chance to be first on the ballot.

In the U.S. Senate race, everyone you might have expected to file did so, with the very notable exceptions of Cheryle Jackson on the Dem side, and conservatives Patrick Hughes and Eric Wallace on the GOP side. Hughes may have been too busy dealing with the bad PR from the Ditka kerfuffle, or perhaps he did not pay well enough to incentivize the paid army he tried to hire to acquire signatures. So where was that groundswell of conservative support? Don't they know how to sign their names? I have no idea what Wallace's excuse is.

As Greg Hinz at Crain's noted on his blog today:

[T]he fact is, most well-functioning campaigns usually file on the first day, so they're eligible for the top ballot spot. Feel free to speculate as to whether any or all of the above are having trouble with their campaigns.

In the 10th district, everyone whom we expected to file did, including Republican candidates Bob Dold, Dick Green, Bill Cadigan, Beth Coulson and even some guy named Paul Hamann, who we've scarely heard a peep out of. Dems Dan Seals and Julie Hamos filed, but Dem attorney Elliot Richardson did not show, although I'm not sure if we really expected him or not.

Dem Terry Link filed for Lt. Governor, but I sure hope someone is going to check his petitions. The first clue is to look to see if all the names are in alphabetical order and correspond to phone book pages. Next, cross-reference them against the death registry. You get the point.

In some local races, no Dem candidates filed against State Reps. Ed Sullivan Jr. (51st) or Mark Beaubien (52nd), but I'm sure if no Dem does, they will appoint a sacrificial lamb to be able to have a race. Sid Mathias (53rd) pulled a Dem challenger, Linda Birnbaum. Republican Lauren Turelli is going to have a go at Karen May in the 58th Dist. Our hero, Dan Sugrue, will try to best Kathy Ryg's replacement, Carol Sente, in 59th. Sugrue is supposed to have a primary challenger, Mohan Manian, but he apparently did not file today. Sente, for that matter, was supposed to be challenged by Buffalo Grove Mayor Elliot Hartstein, but he did not file today either.

Eddie Washington up in Waukegan/North Chicago's 60th District did not have a Dem challenger file (we heard a while back that County Board Commissioner Angelo Kyle was going to try again, but no filing today, at any rate), and no GOP contender filed, although I'm sure one will be appointed if need be. Republican JoAnn Osmond (61st) has a Dem challenger, Scott Pollak of Antioch. Incumbent Sandy Cole (62nd) has a primary challenger, Paul Mitchell, as well a Dem opponent in the general, Rich Voltair of Round Lake Beach.

And for those who don't understand why any of this matters: Read the latest column by Charles Krauthammer on the Obama administrations's attempts to bully and control those that might disagree with them. All politics is local folks, and it starts here with you.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like more Hughes incompetence after the on again off again Ditkagate.

Anonymous said...

Time will tell how well these recruits fare. They'll do better because of Mark, but dissapointing fightin Tim Stratton didn't come back and unclear if Hamilton Change made the rodeo.

FOKLAES

edsullivanjr said...

FOKLAES:

Tim S. indicated early on he had some work related time constraints and the fact that his law partner?, Shillerstom is running for Gov. He will be helping him. Turelli was recruited with his blessing. Chang is in and has a primary opponent.

Rep. Ed Sullivan

Anonymous said...

Hi FOKLAES, Rep Sullivan is correct, I am helping the Schillerstrom campaign and with my commitment on my park district board, law practice and two babies the timing was not right this cycle. I am still active and there is still a lot of fight in me! You'll see me again soon on a ballot near you.

Tim Stratton

Anonymous said...

Tim,

This is too bad. Karen May is overdue for mothballing. Hopefully we'll see you in the arena in the near future.

Team, I renew my protest at comment moderation. Censorship is the kind of thing I expect on catwoman's pravda, not here.

Also Matt Murphy, you are dead to me as a reformer for saddling up with McKenna. Perhaps you haven't been following politics for the last 7 years but McKenna destroyed not only Senator Fitzgerald, a true reformer, conservative rock star and hero, but also the state GOP. He nearly cost us Mark, and is perhaps going to cost us Mark's seat not to mention 3 others. Senator Fitzgerald was a leader with cuts, you apparenlty don't have those cajones. No thanks.

You sold out big fella and for that you are persona non grata to conservatives and die-hard republicans.

FOKLAES

Anonymous said...

Matt Murphy is a good man and it will help Mark Kirk to have a strong NW suburbanite on the ticket with him.

Anonymous said...

Matt Murphy is a sellout who decided to trade his principles for higher political office.

If you've enjoyed the last 7 years of democrat dominance here, the higher taxes you are paying, the corruption, the democrats winning every office then go support mckenna and his new bff murphy. We had strong conservative leadership in this state in peter fitzgerald, mckenna got rid of him with that hideous judy baar topinka, murphy is now on board with that. These guys will both get 2 percent of the vote and be sent to political siberia for the rest of their careers. Only a machine democrat would support these RINO clowns.

Fan of King Louis Astaves the Ellen Slayer

Anonymous said...

Team

props on getting rid of comment moderation, I've never doubted that this was only northern illinois blog that wasn't run like a Tehran media outlet.

FOKLAES

Anonymous said...

I obviously must have missed something. What was JBT's role in getting rid of Fitzgerald? Thanks.

Anonymous said...

topinka was part of the republican establishment that quit on fitzgerald and drafted mckenna to primary him.

she and murphy are enablers and we won't miss either of them.

FOKLAES

Anonymous said...

Really? That's not the way I heard it.

Anonymous said...

Topinka and McKenna and LaHood and Murphy for saddling up with them are all traitors. The party can find actual republicans who don't want to serve in democrat administrations (ray lahood), have democrat views on social issues (topinka) or donate tens of thousands of dollars to democrats (McKenna).

Game over for the RINOS.

FOKLAES

Anonymous said...

Seriously, FOKLAES, I have enough to deal with on the "RINO" topic over at IR. Do we really need to start having them here as well?

Anonymous said...

Until we get a compelling agenda with a spine, you bet your ellen we do not need a coulson RINO.

The only thing worse than a democrat is a bad republican like coulson. She and her mafia of RINOs in springfield have put up the resistance of a 20th century french general. She has stood with every single democrat special interest. I can deal with a republican who is soft on social issues like MSK, but one like coulson who is militantly big government, anti-taxpayer, pro-union, anti-small business and utterly visionless, no thanks.

I'll take a pup and a republican challenger with ta's or louis's guts in 2012.

FOKLAES