 a voter file.
Anon get a clue. This ain’t amateur hour. Progress Illinois, Talking Points Memo, the Sun Times, the AP, the Tribune WTTW and WGN all got the names of the people who worked at Grainger Terry on behalf of SLC. Those people at Grainger Terry ran an astroturf campaign, that paid kids to show up at astro turf job fairs, so they could issue a few press releases and shoot a crappy commercial. Yeah, they won. But those guys names are all well known by Democratic Chattering Class all over DC, Chicago and Springfield. In the next few days look for stories to come forward about who they were and what kind of campaign they ran. SLC could be facing state and federal legal action for tax evasion and issuing faulty campaign finance reports too and no, I am not making that up. The Grainger Terry crews days working on progressive democratic campaigns or for any progressive democratic candidates anywhere in the United States are over.
If you think that’s a smackdown from Rich Miller, you’ve obviously never seen a smackdown from Rich Miller.
As for the name-calling, well, if you want to call me smug, fine.
But Durbin’s blowing this one just like he blew Roland Burris.
Granger Terry doesn’t HAVE the voterfile, or they would have sold it to him.
There are less than a handful of vendors that you can purchase a good statewide file from, and they only work for one candidate per office.
I’m not saying there’s absolutely, positively no way he could have gotten the data. But the fact that so few candidates have it ought to tell you something.
The fact that Durbin felt the need to step in and make it available to candidates only further emphasizes the point.
OK, you got me there. One.
25th Floor is absolutely right.
Political consultants getting their name in the paper is hardly ever a good thing.
How hard is it to get basic facts correct?
The fact of the matter is that the campaign manager for Gen. John Borling (one of Ryan’s primary opponents on the GOP side) was the guy waving around an “unredacted” copy of the divorce papers in the days before the 2004 GOP primary.
He had a copy because the divorce record had been public info up until Jack! decided to run for Senate at which point he went to California and asked Jeri and the judge to seal the papers. They agreed.
Borling fired the guy for doing it, by the way, but it wasn’t the Trib or even Obama that threw the first lob… It was a GOP primary opponent.
Did the Trib pick up that torch and go about obtaining the previously public records via legal means?
Did the Obama campaign push the story behind the scenes?
But, Siriusly, it was the Republican Borling campaign that made the first move before the March primary.
Irish - It bothers me, too.
People can condemn SLC (his past repulses me), affix blame (plenty to go around), and consider who MJM will tag as replacement.
But the issue remains: IL Dem leaders, with MJM in the front of the line, have overturned the people’s fairly elected choice.
IL citizens vote. Party leaders don’t approve of voter’s choice. Out he goes. MJM gets to handpick Pat Quinn’s running mate.
There already was a process in place for making sure SLC didn’t become IL next Lt. Gov and it was supposed to happen in November.
Thankyou, Rod Blagojevich.
There is also no law forbidding someone from dropping out of a race at any point in time.
WCW, others on this board would know better than I but my hunch is that Durbin was acting relatively on his own here as a “senior statesman” in the state party.
He’s been pushing Madigan (vis a vis him being state party chair) for some time now on a few fronts. For instance, trying to provide a counterbalance to Madigan is one of the reasons Durbin was helping organize the county chairs into a more cohesive group (”trying” being the operative word).
And just like then, Durbin is getting lots of help from the rest of the Democratic gang. Seriously YDD, Durbin didn’t appoint Roland and he says he didn’t vote for Cohen. Voter file schmoter file.
Cohen and every other nominee that won on Tuesday were not elected to anything.
They were nominated by their parties.
And it is well within the rights of the party members, including the party senior leadership, to ask any given nominee to step down from said nomination.
Republicans asked Jack Ryan to do it in 2004 just as much as Dems asked Scott Lee Cohen to do it this year.
But neither Ryan nor Cohen were ever “elected” to any office. They were nominated for the right to be elected to an office in the future.
You know what’s worse than asking a LG nominee to withdraw?
Cutting and raping women.
Any idea WHY Durbin feels he needs to provide a counter-balance to Madigan?
No coordinated campaigns. Involvement in primaries that benefit only his House members (Turner only latest example). Use of DPI solely to benefit House members. No real party building outside of recruiting House candidates. No Web presence.
That’s more than enough Rich. That’s a beef-sausage combo, wet, with hot peppers.
Look up “Kurth Lampe” on teh Google.
===Any idea WHY Durbin feels he needs to provide a counter-balance to Madigan?
===What’s the beef?
The County Chairs are pretty clear on the problem–their candidates can’t get voter files or other help from the party so they started to organize themselves. If Madigan doesn’t like it, he can work with them to grow the party.
But again, a voter file didn’t win it for this guy. A little bit of publicity on his background and he wouldn’t have won. The Republicans did it with Martin and you’d think after 1986 the Democrats would know the importance of paying attention to the others on the ballot.
If anyone wants me to name the names of who works at Grainger Terry and who did what over there on behalf of Scott Lee Cohen, I would be happy to. But I am going to let his play out for the next couple of days and let the so called “Main Stream Media” do their work. And no, this is no knock at you at all Rich. As you know, I am a fan of the blog and active participant in this total BS never-ending Illinois political circus. Maybe Zorn or Marin will take a shot at Grainger Terry and their astro turf stunts next.
Seriously? What Rich said.
Adding, Madigan was the only state party chair to refuse the DNC’s 50 State Strategy funding a few years back because he was unable to convince the national chairman to simply fork over the money to the state party.
The DNC directly hired a DNC-funded organizer or two in every other of the 49 states.
It’s not so much that Durbin has a personal beef with MJM (that I know of) but that MJM runs the state party as his own personal campaign fund/operation to do with as he sees fit.
Exactly. There is blame to go around, but this couldn’t be more true.
That’s it? Please.
Lay off YDD, guys.
You may not like what he posts, but at least his arguments are coherent and he writes in complete sentences.
Speaking of which, wonder when we’ll hear from CircularFiringSquad blaming all this on McKenna, Cross or George W. Bush. He may be too busy to post.
Although to be fair, “coordinated campaigns” are only possible when they are perceived to benefit BOTH candidates.
House Democrats have coordinated with campaigns in those instances.
If you were a House candidate, would you have coordinated your campaign with Rod Blagojevich or Emil Jones in 2006?
House Democrats DID coordinate with other Democrats in other elections, but the fact is its pretty tough to coordinate with any other Democrats in most contested House races because those candidates are focusing on attracting independent voters and running against the Machine.
Finally, given Madigan’s track record in contested statewide Democratic Primaries, I’m not sure how big of a difference it makes.
McCarthy, McLaughlin, Kelleher, Mangieri….
The last one is particularly on point. Madigan on more than one occasion raised serious concerns about Alexi in 2006, and he was voted in overwhelmingly anyway.
In fact, while hindsight is 20/20, the only election that I can see where the state party’s failure to weigh in was in 2002, when there was no endorsement in the Governor’s race.
Who did Durbin endorse in the 2002 governor’s primary? No one that I can recall.
Apple, I will say, while not exactly falling on their sword, at least the Sun Times admitted some fault. I give big credit to those like Rich and a few others who genuinly admitted a mistake. On the flip side, those who do not, like the SJ-R (who supposedly take pride in their political reporting, and whom a lot of people go to become informed) should be called out.
Hey Rich - Your quoted on Michelle Malkin’s blog!