I have to admit, I was feeling pretty good last night while making the rounds of the election night parties, that is, until the Early Vote totals got dumped in at the end on the Lake County Clerk's website. I guess I won't complain anymore that Willard has taken all the suspense out of election night since she gets the vote totals in so soon. I guess since there is now so much early voting, nothing is for sure until we see the whole enchilada.
In any event, it wasn't all bad -- the Lake County Board is solidly Republican, although David Barkhausen's loss was a little unexpected. Also, Joe Neal's loss to Melinda Bush was a tough one. Add in Friedman losing to Morrison, Mathias losing to Sente, and Cole losing to Yingling, it all contributes to what is now a veto-proof majority for the Dems in both the state House and Senate. Well, Illinois, if you liked the direction the state was headed before, you're going to LOVE it now. Thanks, folks.
On the bright side, Mike Nerheim won State's Attorney, and Keith Brin won Circuit Court Clerk; Mary Ellen Vanderventer's win over Bob Bednar was no surprise, but I really thought that Steve Newton was going to prevail over Dem Thomas Rudd for Coroner.
Don Castella got crushed by Terry Link, but I really respect Don for giving it a go and hanging in there. I've been resigned to the fact that we're not going to defeat Link in that district ever since Keith Gray failed to pull it off in the face of Link's massive petition scandal a few years back.
My friend Dan Shanes won for Circuit Judge, as did Tom Schippers. Pat Fix won over Lou Berrones in a squeaker.
And, of course, the biggest tragedy (besides the Presidential race, of course), is that Congressman Bob Dold was narrowly defeated by lackluster candidate Brad Schneider. That guy better have a bang-up freshman year or he's going to get crushed in the next primary by any other Dem with a pulse.
This will be the first time since this Tenth District Blog's inception that we do not have a Republican leading the 10th District. But, hey, Ellen persevered for years as an opposition watchdog, so that's the role I guess we will have to assume here.
Of course, now that the election has been over for all of 12 or 14 hours, it's now time to look ahead to 2014, and see how the Illinois Governor and Durbin senate seat races are going to evolve.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...
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7 comments:
I'm so sad this morning I can barely function. Wheeling Township has always been critical to the 10th and King Madigan's gerrymandering of the districts made sure that ROWT's massive volunteer base couldn't be spread around for all the candidates although Greg Brobinskoy ran his Victory Center not only with ROWT volunteers but callers coming in from as far away as Cicero. Since I didn't have a Kirk campaign office to go to I spent most of my time at ROWT and was told by one of the members I now belong to them. It's great to be around such dedicated Republicans and their the Township's great committeeman Ruth O'Connell.
I'm thrilled Judge Shanes was re- elected desite his lack of support/endorsement from another Republican candidate who also would not support/endorse Republican Jonathan Greeberg for fear King Madigan would send money and troops to support his opponent. Well he did anyway. Such a pity.
Time to find a new hobby but as a political junkie I'm not sure what that might be. Keep up the good work dear friend - you are part of the younger generation of Republicans that has to keep up the good fight.
And by the way - one very bright spot in this debacle called Illinois - many former Kirk campaign staff got Rodney Davis, former top add to Congressman John Simkus, elected to the US House. Congrats Mike Z - you are amazing!
B&B's Mom
I've been quite numb today. We had such great candidates and many lost. WHY? What should we be doing that we are not doing? Why should a judge candidate win if she is stealing campaign signs? Why should a candidate for coroner run when he didn't get out there and meet voters and not work for it? Why should a very capable leader like Dold lose to a nobody?! We should do a lot better for our candidates. We really have to look at our party and see what we need to do to improve our support for our candidates.
My answer to your question: The whole Republican Party needs to look at itself from the inside. The country has turned left because of a so-called charismatic speech maker (for myself I don't see that at all). We have to become more moderate and more inclusive. Republicans don't make an effort to appeal, encourage and groom Hispanic and Black voters. Republicans talk too much about social issues. I don't approve of gay marriage, abortion on demand, legalizing drugs and host of other issues which are prevalent in today's society, but we need to stop making some of those our major issues. You know the dems will always throw that in our face because they don't have real issues to run on. They are downgrading our defenses and security and our economy so they throw social issues at us because they have nothing else to run on. We have to become more moderate.
I love some of the Tea Party candidates but you saw what happened to them all over the country. They mean well but are just too extreme and obstructionist to the majority of citizens. And what have they accomplished. And now Joe Walsh (whom I like very much) is talking about running for governor. Do we what to take that chance again with an ultra conservative.
We need fresh young blood, we need Hispanics, we need blacks and we need to help and groom them.
In IL the dems control everything and until voters stop voting for a state candidate with a D behind their name because he/she is a "good" person we will continue with more of the same. A vote for a D candidate is a vote for Madigan.
I could go on and on but we are in big trouble and all need to put our thinking caps on and come up with some solutions. I'm not sure we can do much more on a national level, but then again our party is run by senior citizens who have made politics their career and are out of fresh ideas. Look at the two Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri who opened their big mouths up about legitimate rape and right then and there we lost the possibility of picking up those two seats. I'm a 70 year old senior but even I know it's time for fresh blood running our party.
Enough for now, I feel the BP going up again so I think I'll get on the couch with B&B and let them console me.
B&B's Mom
Of course the arm-chair quarterbacks are going to give their opinions. I think what has to be considered is the fraction of the Lake County GOP. The LC GOP sent a sharp message when Bob Cook was elected to be Chairman. The shift to the far right began and Tea Party ideologies became mainstream talk with some GOP candidates. Moderate Republicans didn't like what they were seeing in a county that is just barely "center-right"
Clearly with this election, Democrats who are more organized in Lake County that even saw an opportunity. They cleaned house (somewhat) in their organization, recruited some pretty dynamic candidates who understood the ground game/hard work and they made significant progress this past Tuesday.
In the eyes of the voters only three Tea Party Candidates (Carbone, Bednar & Weber) popped up for the 2012 cycle. Two of them were crushed.
The Daily Herald attributes (11/8/12) the win in the collar counties to five "M"s. I encourage everyone to read it. If you think the map is why, I encourage you to look past your nose. Even Dems mapped into tougher GOP Districts were triumphant.
Perhaps it is time to take a cue from the Lake County Democrats and clean the organizational house.
We haven't heard from you FOKLAES in a very long time. Your thoughts?
B&B's Mom
I think B&B's Mom is right on a lot of points.
1. Republican's don't win in suburban America on social issues. As long as we allow the Democrats to frame the discussion, we will continue to get our butts kicked on those issues.
2. If we don't follow what Mark Kirk started doing 12 years ago and engage the hispanic vote, we may very well see the end of the Republican party.
3. We need to realize that the "Tea Party" identity is damaging our brand. They are too easy for the left to identify as right wing radicals and independents identify with those beliefs. The Tea Party can and should exist, but the Republican party should NOT identify directly with them.
4. When we have horrible candidates who damage our image, aka Joe Walsh, our leaders need to step up and take away their voice. I personally told Bob Cook that he didn't do enough regarding Walsh two years ago. Bob disagreed with me. I believe that today we can all recognize that when the Democrats can run a successful ad tying Biggert and Dold to Walsh and beat BOTH OF THEM, then we should have cut Walsh off when we had the chance.
A. Bees
I take exception to your 4th point. In 2010 Joe Walsh won because he had a legion of people behind him. He won the primary and then the election not because of support from the party (there was none) but he had the support of many groups who agreed with his concern wanting our country back.
The 2012 defeats of Dold, Biggert, and Walsh are a direct result of the loss of the governorship in 2010. It was unobstructed gerrymandering that cost us these 3 seats, coupled with outright falsehoods in the Ds ads. Dold lost by 0.77% in a redrawn 10th that Madigan designed as D+8.
Trebor of Libertyville
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