Team America understands that the office of Senate President John Cullerton has been calling into Lake County looking for a candidate to replace State Senator Michael Bond (D-Grayslake) of the 31st District, who recently announced his intention to run for the 10th Congressional seat currently held by fifth term incumbent Mark Mirk.I found this a little unusual; not that the SDems would be trying to recruit a candidate; of course they would be. But the fact that they are practically cold-calling into the district looking for someone tells me that the Dem bench in Lake County is not nearly as deep as one might have thought. Several of their top prospects only recently were elected to other offices on the county board or similar posts, so it does not look so great for such a candidate to immediately announce his or her intent to jump to another post. A number of other Dem up-and-comers were tainted by petition scandals (either caught up in Terry Link's petition problems or their own). And although the GOP gets most of the attention for having faction issues within their party, make no mistake, the Dems have them too (e.g., Terry Link v. Pat Jones, Terry Link v. Eddie Washington, Terry Link v. whomever), which makes getting a consensus candidate for a high-profile local race somewhat complicated. Finally, the prospect of running against County Board Chairwoman Suzi Schmidt, the GOP candidate, is probably having quite a chilling effect on the enthusiasm of prospective Dem candidates.
The fact of the calls also tells me that Senator Michael Bond's announcement was not well-coordinated with the SDem leadership, and that Bond did not have an heir apparent in mind before he made the announcement. I find that interesting, since Bond generally has worked hard to build up his army of local politicos that owe him favors; hand picking someone to step into his shoes and leveraging his considerable contacts and fundraising ability would certainly have given such a candidate a leg up.
So what gives? TA wonders, perhaps, if Michael Bond is hedging his bets and really is not as enthusiastic about running for IL-10 if Mark Kirk decides to stay home in IL-10 for a sixth term race in 2010. There have been no follow-up announcements from camp Bond that I have seen.
Interestingly, a Bond supporter has reserved a website address but it is not yet "live." Most serious candidates nowadays put a lot of time into their website as a primary campaign tool (see the impressive site put together by dark horse GOP guv candidate Adam Andrzejewski as an example). And when a Google search for "Michael Bond 10th District" comes up with the Team America Blog as the top result, you know you have some message control to do.
It will be very interesting to see what Bond does once Kirk announces (no, there has been no decision made that I know of, so everyone who is speculating out there is just speculating, as far as I can tell). Now Bond is in a tight spot- running against Kirk (whom he counted on being gone) or slinking back to the 31st District with his tail between his legs to face a possible trouncing by Suzi Schmidt.
Meanwhile, please contact the office of the Senate President if you're from the 31st District and want to get your clock cleaned in 2010 by my friend Suzi.
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9 comments:
Good observation TA...do you think we're starting to see the pendulum swing the other way in Lake County?
It's Terry Link's responsibility to help field a strong candidate to run for Bond's seat, but it appears that Link is too busy looking for ways (slots at Arlington Park, Casino in Park City, speeding cameras, etc.) to plug the gaping budget hole he helped create over the last 6 years instead.
Maybe Bond and the SDems are not too keen on Link being involved with fielding a candiate for the replacement given the outcome of his guy Richard Hyde's race!
Don't forget that Bond and Link got smacked around twice with the goofball Gentes. If Gentes is the best they could come up with in an open seat I am sure Cullerton is second guessing their leadership.
Why don't they place an ad in the paper:
HELP WANTED: Illinois State Senate - Democrat Party - Must be capable of speaking well (but saying nothing), proficient in the use of Pay to Play Politics (see Pay to Play Guide for Dummies, Rod Blagojevich) must be blind in your ethics eye and sharp in your patronage eye.
Benefits include automatic pay raises every session; pension; healthcare; jobs for your kids at IDOT, and a variety of other State Departments.
We don't want nobody nobody sent.
LOL, Anon 9:09. I assume Gentes is still available...
Yes, Gentes is available, but he lives in a different state senate district.
Phil Collins
Calling who? They just made random phone calls?
That's not how candidate recruitment is normally done by these guys.
I'm not saying your source is wrong, but your description of "making calls" may be a bit off.
I agree that Sen. Bond may yet decide to stay in Springfield, but I think it's more likely that he will run for Congress.
Suzi Schmidt is scaring away candidates? Not likely. The truth is that there is an incumbent Democrat who just announced 3 weeks ago that he is not running again. Give the Dems some time, there will be a good candidate.
Paul- they are not making "random" phone calls, but based on what I've heard, they are calling some people who I would not think would usually be on their short list as they are not huge D's. That seems to imply to me that they are having to reach out way beyond their usual comfort zone of "known" potential candidates, which in turn implies to me that they are having some challenges in recruiting from their usual base.
No one has called me yet, though.
2010 is it for McKenna, if he can't do anything to move the party forward with an awful economy, a corrupt party and a hunger for change he needs to go back to corporate winnetka and stay on the sidelines. This senate race is a good test.
FOKLAES
I find the comment about alleged disorganization amongst Dem's unique from the Party that lost a significant number of elections last year from the local level to the national level, a Party that put up Alan -The Carpet-Bagger- Keys for Senate, and that does not have a clear infrastructure of its own on the State level.
All they have are nay-sayers who provide no credible options of their own. ("We need middle ground and not scare tactics." No, we need to know what is at stake and whether there are alternatives. Complaints and finger pointing are not viable options.)
Also, press reports note the 10th Anniversary of George Ryan's Illinois First program. An initiative that even some Republicans at the time felt was too big. (George Ryan tax and spent?) While it was clearly not the main culprit for Illinois' woes - we have Blago to thank for that - Mr. Ryan laid a solid foundation via over-spending and putting his name on it to boot.
Finally, the status quo kings of Edgar and Thompson weren't much to write home about. What's Jim doing now? Begging for clemency in some sort of moral relativist approach in which one's current straits should out-weigh any untoward actions one is convicted for.
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