Democratic Party

Katie Couric, on the media coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primary.

However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I've ever seen.

Two thoughts:

For me, the most refreshing thing about this otherwise disappointing election season is the shocked realization by some Democrats (Clinton supporters, mostly) that the legacy media is absolutley politically biased and terribly monolithic, and that when they want to push their narrative, they will do so without shame and without relenting.  Republicans have been dealing with this for at least as long as I can remember, while getting a Democrat to admit to a left-wing media bias was difficult.  Now, maybe not so much, at least among Clinton's supporters.

Couric ain't seen nothing yet: I'm no McCain shill, but the media's treatment of McCain will be much, much more unfair than that of Clinton.

I wonder how long it will be before Rep. Naomi Jakobsson starts talking about impeachment?  Speaker Madigan has already issued the talking points, so that should be all the direction she needs.

Notice as well that Senate President Emil Jones is opposed to impeachment:

I think it’s wrong for the Democratic Speaker and Democratic Party Chairman to promote the impeachment of a Democratic Governor. Impeachment is unwarranted in my opinion, and should not be used as a political tool. It is a serious state action that should not be used to divert attention from the issues at hand which are the operating budget and passing a capital bill.

And it's worth remembering that Jones' statement and position nullify the positions and opinions of every other Senate Democrat, including "tough and independent" Sen. Mike Frerichs.

This may be old news, but I didn't see either a post or a NG story on it:  the Illinois Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in the petition challenge court case involving Democratic County Board member Brendan McGinty, which means that he will remain on the ballot for November's election.

UPDATE:  I missed it - the NG story is here.  Sorry!

Is there any other reason for him to not give in to Hillary's demands on the Florida and Michigan delegates?  As it stands now, with the 50% deal that was struck yesterday, Obama is 66 delegates short of locking up the nomination.  In the last two months, I think he's far outpacing Clinton in super delegates, even though Clinton has had the best of Obama in the primary contests.  By appearances, Obama needs just to wait this thing out and he'll continue to rack up the super delegates necessary to get the nomination.

By my calculation, if you gave Florida and Michigan their full allotments, and gave Hillary the share that she demands in Michigan, then the new number for nomination would be 2198, and Obama would have 2112, putting him just 86 short of the nomination.  Wouldn't a magnanimous move by Obama to seat all those delegates take a legitimate argument away from Clinton?  There seems to be little doubt that the current Obama position will foster some hard feelings among some Clinton supporters, and perhaps some voters.  Why take that chance when it seems apparent that you're going to put the nomination away anyway?

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

"Mr. Wright seems to me to be part of the great "barbaric yawp," as Walt Whitman called the American people fighting, discussing, making things and living. I like the barbaric yawp. I don't enjoy it when it makes me wince, but at least when I am wincing, I know the yawp is working."

Here is a great roundup of the State Democratic Convention, via CapFax.

The News-Gazette editorial today:

A challenge to Jones from within his Democratic majority might be the best option. Eleven Senate Democrats, including Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-Champaign, voted last Thursday to put recall on the ballot. Time will tell whether theirs was a courageous challenge to Jones or just a calculated maneuver that gave them political cover in their home districts. The real test is whether those Democrats, and others, are willing to offer an alternative leader to Jones and restore some semblance of respect and responsibility to the people and the government of Illinois.

A comment I made last week:

Who is going to be the first Senate Democrat to stand up and say Jones' leadership and devotion to protecting Blagojevich is part of the problem? 

Are any of the Democratic State Senators "tough and independent" enough to admit that Jones is is part of the problem?

It's not that I'm tweaking the NG for echoing me, as I hardly think that's the case. 

The point is that it's obvious that the Senate Democratic leadership, and their supporters (including our own Sen. Mike Frerichs) are a key part of the intractable problems in Springfield, due to their protection of and acquiesence to Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Someone needs to challenge Senate President Emil Jones' leadership of the State Senate, even if it's only a challenge to this policy of deference to Blagojevich.  Mike Frerichs campaigned as a "tough and independent" Representative for the 52nd District, but has so far challenged Jones only superficially, if at all. 

Does Frerichs not see the need to challenge Jones, or is his unwillingness to do so due to loyalty, policy agreement, and/or the massive campaign contributions Jones gave Frerichs in 2006, and likely will again in 2010?

An open invitation from Champaign County Libertarian Party Chair Dianna Visek:

Would you like to see more participation in the
political process? Greater voter turnout? A wider
range of views? More informed voters?

Then please join us at 7 pm on Thursday May 8 in the
auditorium of the Urbana Free Library to discuss:
"Enhancing Democracy in Champaign County: Where Do We
Go from Here?"

We will have a brief overview of issues affecting
democracy in Champaign County and brainstorm about
ways we might enhance it. We will then select the
issues we find most important and form working groups
to address them. Refreshments will be served.

Although this meeting is sponsored by the Champaign
Co. Libertarian Party, it will have no official
involvement after the working groups are formed. The
Urbana Free Library is not sponsoring this event.

Our goal: A coalition of diverse individuals and
viewpoints united to increase public participation in
the democratic process. No matter what your political
affiliation, we'd like your help. Please join us.

After the breakdown of another thread, I asked myself, what's the best way for political parties, of all stripes, to encourage more young people to vote, get involved, to get interested in the overall political process?  I have a few ideas, but I know that the wider IP community would have more, and probably better, ideas.  First, a couple of set-up questions...

1.  What's the best definition of a "young voter"?  Is it a certain age range (18-25 or maybe 18-27)?  Is it educational status (high school vs community college vs university, or some combination)?  Is it employment status (full-time vs part-time vs part-time while in school)?  Is it some combination of everything I've listed above, or maybe something completely different, something outside the little box I just described?

2.  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect with a party, a candidate, a political philosophy, whatever?  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect, and then get them to act on their connection, by voting, by organizing for a party or candidate, by maybe even running for office themselves?

3.  What's the best way to keep a young voter connected, to keep them involved, so that they continue that connection into "non-young voter" status?  Not necessarily keep them chained to a specific party or candidate per se, but more how do we maintain their interest in the process and continue to keep it relevant for the voter?

4.  What am I forgetting, or missing?

I'm not writing this to mock anyone, or to throw gasoline on the floor and wait for the trolls to come by with matches, but I want to ask this seriously, as a "non-young voter":  How do we get young people to get connected and stay connected?  I'm not as interested in hearing about how a specific political party or candidate can connect with young voters, so much as I'm interested in hearing how we can get young voters connected and interested in the first place.

HG

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

Found this at opinionjournal.com (adjunct of the Wall St. Journal)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120873309012529689.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is extorting Illinois social service agencies into endorsing his budget proposals.

No, I'm not kidding. 

I cannot think of a more compelling argument for limited government.

http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2008/04/16/question-of-the-day-504/#comments

95 hilarious comments to go with it!  (the one about negative space is pretty good...)

Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally released their income tax returns for the years 2000-06.  In these years, they list an income of almost $109,000,000.  (Do all the blue collar voters supporting HRC feel like chumps yet, or will they quit voting for her when they learn she's been slow to pay the health ins. premiums for her campaign staff?  Remember, helath care issues are very important to her!)

It made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune.  I quickly scanned the News-Gazette and the Chicago Sun-Times,  but didn't see mention of this in either paper. 

I'm left wondering how late Friday this was released, and do they honestly hope people will have forgetten about this by Monday? 

Did either John Edwards or Mitt Romney make this much in the same time frame?  The Clintons are among the 14,500 richest people in the U.S.

Peggy Noonan has the week off at the WSJ; I can't wait to see what she writes about this next Saturday.

http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2008/04/01/question-of-the-day-494/#comments

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

..."she lies even more than is humanly possible, or even politically usual."

Last week, I received the Petition for Leave to Appeal on the Reynolds v. McGinty case.  I'm nott sure how the case will be decided, and when.  And I'm thinking that we'll have to wait until such leave is granted before we learn just what kind of relief will be requested (a big question considering that the election has already been held).

On the motion Wyman brings up interesting points.  As I noted in my post on the appeal, the decision of the Appellate Court really offered little in guidance and in some ways made things more confusing.  At the Electoral Board, we approached the two questions of mandatory vs. directory and noncompliance vs. substantial compliance as questions of law.  The Appellate Court implied that the question of compliance was a question of fact when it gave deference to the decision of the Electoral Board. 

The particular issue of what constitutes substantial compliance seems to be ripe for greater explication.  My reasoning for finding the petitions not substantially compliant was based on the idea that substantial compliance was not met if the petitioner could have met the standard without any effort to meet the standard.  So for example, in the McGinty case, the peitions were numbered 1,2,1,1.  If such numbering is accepted, then a petitioner could just go ahead and number all their petitions with either 1 or 2 prior to distrribution and then not need to worry about the numbering later.  It appears that the Appellate Court's reasoning is that in this particular instance because of the small number of petitions there is no question of identifying the petitions.  So, from the decision it seems likely that a statewide filing of a thousand petitions numbered with 1 and 2 would be stricken.  At what number of pages we cross from noncompliance to substantial compliance is still up in the air.

The Supreme Court could take on this case and clear up some of the loose ends of the 4th District decision.  If not, we'll be left with the opinion that clearly states that the page numbering provision is mandatory and that the way in which that provision is met is murky.

From Tom Kacich's column in yesterday's N-G:

Feuding Democrats

One of the sidelights of the recent primary election was the continuing feud among Champaign County Democrats.  It even came down to one faction of the local Dems trying to boot a member of the other group -- county board member Brendan McGinty -- off the ballot.

Attorney Ruth Wyman led a legal effort to have McGinty thrown off the primary ballot (he wasn't) because his five sheets of nominating petitions were not numbered in order.

"I think it's extremely important not only to maintain the integrity of the electoral process, but also to maintain appearance of that process," Wyman said in a Dec. 1 News-Gazette story.

It turns out, though, that McGinty wasn't the only Democrat to turn in what Wyman would consider flawed petitions.  Two other county board candidates submitted multiple pages of petitions that were not numbered at all.  Incumbent board member Michael Richards' four pages of petitions weren't numbered, nor were challenger Pattsi Petrie's six pages.

Wyman was out of town and unavailable for comment.  When he was informed, McGinty just laughed and said, "There are a lot of things I could say, but I won't."

The Governor gave his budget address today.  Looks like more of the same.

The best place for coverage, as always, is Capital Fax Blog.

I received a copy of the email below this morning.  I first met Lori when she ran for Vermilion County Board, and I can say with all confidence that she is a tireless campaigner, and will be a great champion for both Champaign and Vermilion Counties in Springfield.  I think Democrats have a lot of cause for celebration that Lori has decided to run.

(Text of email in first comment.)