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In case you missed it, there was an election yesterday. Chicagoist hopes you got out and voted. And after we rocked the vote, we rocked the Daily Bar & Grill at a special election night happy hour; you should have been there.
That said, it was an exciting day: The Democrats have taken the House, but the Senate is still a toss-up. And yes, that means that Nancy Pelosi will be the new Speaker of the House. Rich Whitney carried the Green Party to a "permanent" ballot line in Illinois, in spite of his previous role in the Socialist Labor Party. Sadly, it looks like Joe Lieberman won, which is just a national tragedy.
We would put our money on both Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama being owed some big political favors for all the money that they raised and all the support that they threw into bringing a whole bunch of new Democrats into the mix. And even though we are disappointed that Obama backed the Toddler, sometimes paying back the machine is more powerful than any of us realize.
As of this publishing, the County Board President race is still in play, but it doesn't look good for our guy. Both Todd Stroger and Tony Peraica are claiming that they are still in the fight. Peraica even led an angry march this morning on the County Board of Elections. We're pretty sure we'll be writing about this race, and the County Board, for a while, no matter what happens. Tammy Duckworth ran ahead of Peter Roskam most of the night, but it looks like she couldn't quite pull it out. Melissa Bean has held on to her seat. Blagojevich has limped to a second term, but the indictments haven't gone away.
We suspect that things will slow down a bit in the next few weeks, as the winners and losers make their plans and get ready for the next Congress. George W. Bush is pretty much a lame duck; not much is going to happen in the next two years, unless the Democrats can take the Senate definitively. We here at the Chicagoist offices are nursing a bit of a hangover today, but it sure does make us feel good to see all that new blue on the map. Now that this election is under our belts, we can pay a little more attention to the upcoming city races.
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Either I had a wild ass dream with the tv on or all hell broke loose about 2am this morning. What I remember... Peraica banging on the door to the county building in the middel of the night, having a shit fit bacause the boxes were being delivered open and without sherrif supervision, and demanding them to count the votes from Schaumburg. Then some guy being arrensted for going nuts in a freight elevator. Did anybody else see any of this?
I don't know if I would say Blagojevich limped to a second term... he won pretty handily.
When all is said and done, it will probably be a double-digit win in a race people were saying just two days ago was "too close to call."
10 points is a huge win in such a tight and high-profile race.
Don't know why you think the re-election of Lieberman is a "national tragedy," but his victory, along with the win of Casey in PA and the possible win of Webb in VA suggests that conservative Democrats hold more promise than the leftist wing of the party would like to admit. Like it or not, this country is still in the midst of a conservative backlash, one that began with a reaction against the Great Society and its aftermath. If you thing going left will keep the Dems in power, I think you will have a rude awakening in about two years.
What's needed now is not some cynical Clintonian strategy of trapping the GOP in a corner--which leads to only half-assed, semi-progressive gains--but a strong, honest centrist push that takes the best of the conservative, liberal, libertarian and green movements.
Conservatism, like liberalism and socialism, as an ideal is a noble endeavor. What made me happy last night was that voters rejected the philosophy of "neo-conservatism", which is just fascism with a smile, across the country. A philosophy fostered and pushed by people with no real convictions other than to enrich themselves by any means necessary (ballot or bullet, so long as neither can be traced back directly to them).
John Cafferty on CNN put it succinctly when he said the neo-conservative movement was "toast."
JohnR: I say that Blagojevich limped to victory not based on the numbers, but based on what happened in this election cycle. He is hardly riding a wave of popularity, or coasting into a second term with any kind of mandate. His image took a beating, not just from JBT, but also from his own campaign strategy, and from the indictments that came down, and no doubt will continue to haunt his administration. Let's face it: voters don't like the guy, but just like JBT less. I'm a big fan of the "a win is a win and I'll take it" school of thought, but Blago has some problems. If the state GOP wasn't such a mess, he'd be screwed.
vise22: Joe Lieberman is a traitor. If you think that Democrats can take power by being centrists and adopting some of the policies of the republican party, you're on drugs. When you run two republicans the real one inevitably wins. Nor would I agree that we are "still in the midst of a conservative backlash"; there was an excellent article in May's American Prospect by Michael Tomasky (you can read it here: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11424) defining the end of this conservative backlash.
Joe Lieberman represents everything that is wrong with the Democratic party.
you missed the easy "Tammy Duckworth Limped to a Loss" headline.
OUCH.
NSH, you were not dreaming. Articles about it in the Trib and Sun Times. Someone sabotaged the elevator they were using to bring up the ballots and "hooligans" (David Orr quote) were in the alley trying to steal ballots from the people delivering them from the precincts.
Think about it NHS. Polls closed at 7:30pm. The Peraica people sitting around drinking free alcohol untill 2:00pm, only to find out they lost!
Screw it, they take to the streets!Its gonna be a hot time in the old time tonight!
Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders in the Senate. Yeah, this election really proved the ascendency of the "conservative Democrat". Somewhere Paul Wellstone is smiling on this election.
"Your guy" Peraica is a big loser.
He showed everyone in that ugly mob scene what he really was all about. No one would say he should not have gone there, or sent his top aides to determine what happened. But his enormous ego and a liquored up mob chanting his name got him going, Fuhrer-style.
You can talk about "reform" all you want, but what you saw there is Bridgeport Tony, Cicero Tony who was a Democrat then a Republican then a Democrat and a Republican again.
What you should write about is how embarassed you should be to support someone who was an absolute fraud.
And speaking of frauds, you lied when you said you would post on this site before the election what Stroger would do for the JTDC. It was posted here, available to you and you were not true to your word.
I guess the truth is only convenient when it suits your view of the world.
Todd Stroger is the President-elect of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Thank God.