"I'm from Barrington, and I don't need your vote," State Senator Dan Duffy told folks at a south side barbershop recently, "but I'm here because I vote on legislation that impacts your community. I want you to ask me questions," he said.Kerry Lester has a great feature on State Senator Dan Duffy in this morning's Daily Herald, in which she chronicles Duffy's efforts to reach beyond the confines of his own constituents in northern Illinois, as have several other legislators who are participating in a program organized by the nonpartisan Young Government organization, which brings in groups of legislators to African-American communities.
Duffy also noted that the Republican party needs to do a better job of reaching out to African-Americans, many of whom, Duffy has learned, think that the Republicans "have just written off" blacks, which obviously impacts the GOP's ability overall to build bridges and a broader base of support statewide.
Is a statewide race in Duffy's future? As Duffy mentioned to Kerry Lester, "If people are going to win statewide offices, then... you need to be receiving votes and building relationships in the African-American communities."
Well, even if Duffy is more concerned about the success of the Illinois GOP in general, rather than any statewide ambtitions of his own, it's great that Republicans like Duffy are really starting to get the idea of reaching out to minorities to learn about their concerns and problems, and figuring out how to give them an option beyond the Democrats.
Did I mention that Duffy is a fellow Augustana grad and fraternity brother? Well, now I have. ;-)
And, yes, I know the photo is from a Libertyville parade, not a south side barbershop, but that's the best photo I had. You can see Duffy's outreach photos on the DH website along with the full article.
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17 comments:
Finally something with a lil substance. Maybe things really are improving around here
Did Duffy explain why or how conservative policies to tax the middle class/coddle the wealthy/ignore the rest would help the community he went to?
every few years republicans get cute and say let's go try and win the african american vote. Judy Baar Topinka in 2006 went and campaigned there-and then was promptly blown out. In 2004 then rnc chief ken mehlman spoke at the naacp conference and tried to make inroads in the black community with the gay marriage issue where they are actually quite conservative. It went nowhere. Duffy would be better off trying to get an actual message for the party-which springfield has failed at horribly this century and some people behind it. Let's try to win northbrook and lake forest before we go to the south side.
FOKLAES
Foklaes here is speaking the heart of the Illinois and Lake County GOP: forget outreach, forget communities other than our insulated own, and just work harder to get everyone walking in lock-step.
I wonder how Duffy felt when the community groups down there said they like red-light cameras because they have 25 X's more frequent pedestrian/vehicle accidents than Mundelein. I can imagine it dampened his, "I'm a victim, not a perpetrator" tirade.
@ Bozo,
How exactly did Democrats protect the middle class by raising our taxes 66%? Or our businesses 47%? Or allowing our Cook County taxes to skyrocket? I'm very middle class and I feel so grateful that the Democrats in Springfield have fought against all of those terrible tax laws that Duffy voted for. Oh, wait, I got that wrong...
Anon, Duffy is a member of a state party that could not last year defeat a governor who was #2 in an administration where the prior governor was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for corruption and who promised to raise taxes. Duffy is part of a caucus in springfield which has not in 12 years of this century managed to even threaten to retake control of the state senate. They need to focus on developing a message, campaigns, an agenda and candidates who can win the republican and swing districts that are essential to taking back the state senate.
Instead he's off trying to talk to voters that vote against the gop 9-1 at best. Learn to crawl before you try to run the new york city marathon.
Mark kirk reaches out to jewish voters and women and latino voters because when he was in this district, they were essential to winning. That's fine. George Bush and Rick Perry as Governors of texas worked hard to win latino voters because that's a big part of the vote down there. Republicans in places like atlanta and minneapolis work hard to win the somali-american and ethiopian-american vote because there are huge numbers of those communities in those areas, that's great. I am not against opening up and boy do we need to, but he's got northbrook to figure out first.
FOKLAES
FOKLAES, as always, you make some good points, but Dold is the one who has to worry about Northbrook, not Duffy. Duffy has about as safe a district as one could hope, and the Dems have decided that they are just going to have to put up with him, so that they could overload other districts with Democratic votes (like the 59th). Duffy is exactly the kind of GOP legislator that can afford to be leading this kind of effort, and should be, although I will be the first one to agree that the GOP leadership needs to develop and bring its A-game, not the C-game we've been seeing for years.
Hey 12:27 the taxes went up 2% and my taxes would of gone up less if Quinns original original original plan ever saw the light of day. Water under bridge.
If you want to look into why taxes went up you need to go back to the start. The exponential financial problems we see today stem from the budget policies put in during the 80s.
That mean Big Jim Thompson was large and in charge in Illinois and Reagan was running the show in DC.
I don't recall either of them being Dems but maybe you have a different version of history.
And I agree with Lil Fokker on this
long story short, the idea we need to get diverse is good, but right now this is wrong on so many levels. In politics you start with doing the fundamentals well, which duffy's team in springfield hasn't done yet. There are great candidates for office locally right now reading this blog and their supporters with an actual chance to win and they need his leadership more than outreach to an area we're going to get blown out in by 10-1 in 20 months.
FOKLAES
2%? That must be Illinois Democratic Math. A personal income tax increase from 3% to 5% of your income amounts to a 60% increase in the tax.
For an individual earning $50,000.00 he/she would have paid $1,500.00 at 3%, and now pays at $2,500.00. This also amounts to a 60% increase in taxes paid.
But then again, considering the staggering deficits posted by Democrats in Springfield, claiming it was only a 2% increase may explain how we got into this mess in the first place.
Louis G. Atsaves
I love it. The reason democrats had to raise taxes was because Big Jim Bush... I mean Thompson screwed the state's finances up.
Please go with that.
Whine all you want 2:35 but
3 + 2 = 5
Regardless your GOP deficits since Reagan vastly outnumber anything the Dems could possibly do but go right ahead and ignore your hypocrisy.
And 3:23 I said they started (in Illinois) under Thompson and (US) under Reagan.
Again Dems are cleaning up Repub messes which of course leaves the Juvenile GOPs in the room to whine about it. Babies don't like having their faces wiped off either.
You Dems did a nice job of cleaning up the spending and borrowing problem here in Illinois. Thank goodness Big Jim is out of politics!
Just ask anyone.
Please tell me that "Bozo Doesn't Run Red Lights",is a GOP troll posing as a Democrat to make them look like idiots. Tell me this guy isn't for real.
Sorry for the last post, hadn't read the new rules.
Bottom line on the 66% tax increase or jump from 3.5% to 5.5%...it still didn't make a difference in your take home pay. You see on Jan1 2011 when the IL Tax increase went into effect, the FICA tax dropped from 6.2% to 4.2% and that same break continues into 2012; hopefully the entire year. So while the state got a bolster in revenue, you didn't see a change in your take-home pay.
Look it that the Team blog is getting a dusting of substance on it!
Hey 5:45 the only problem with your idea of a swap is that if you earn more than the SS
Illinois = flat tax. You make $10,000 or $10,000,000 and you pay the same extra 2%.
Payroll tax = reverse Robin Hood tax. The more you make [the wealthier you are] the lower your effective rate.
Maybe that's why the Repubs like Leader Cantor kept saying the payroll tax reduction that mostly helps the middle class wasn't worth it and shouldn't be continued in 2012.
I wonder if Red Light Dan explained that the middle classers in the barbershop.
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