While John McCain spent Super Bowl Sunday in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney made his pitch to the most reliably conservative county in Illinois. At a packed rally of several hundred people at the College of DuPage yesterday, he tried to convince voters here that he is the true conservative standard bearer. Romney vowed that as president he would "stand up for the principles of the Republican Party and to live in the house that Ronald Reagan......

Last night marked the official beginning of the 2008 presidential season. The close of the Iowa Democratic caucuses saw Barack Obama with 37 percent, John Edwards with 30 percent, and Hillary Clinton in third place with 29 percent of the votes, with 99 percent of Iowa precincts reporting. On the Republican side Mike Huckabee was the big winner. In fact, last night was a night of few surprises. The big shockers coming out of the......

A 14-year-old Illinois girl was on a cruise off the coast of California with her family when her appendix burst. The USS Ronald Reagan was dispatched to rescue her, and they did--including a helicopter transport between the ships. [Trib] Mayor Daley says he had no idea his son Patrick had invested in a sewer company that did work for the City. Reading from a prepared statement, the Mayor said "I did not know about......

Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar is expected to endorse Rudy Giuliani's presidential candidacy today, according to the Chicago Tribune. The endorsement comes as Giuliani makes several fundraising stops in Illinois. Besides Edgar, he has the backing of former governor Jim Thompson and Illinois Republican House Leader Tom Cross. With the Illinois GOP divided ideologically and Republicans desperately seeking Ronald Reagan, the Giuliani campaign is hoping that an endorsement by Edgar will help shore up his......

Barack Obama might not be Ronald Reagan (thank God for small blessings?), but he and Dick Cheney share something: A common ancestor. Yes, our junior senator and the good old face-shooter are distant cousins. Freaking out! Oh wait, no we're not: The Sun Times reported this over a month ago. Obama definitely has presidential timber in his family tree: He's distantly related to three U.S. presidents — Harry S Truman, George W. Bush and George......

In probably his most bizarre comment to date, Rudy Giuliani paid Barack Obama a big compliment yesterday. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Giuliani cited Obama's statement that he would engage leaders of renegade nations, including meeting with leaders of Iran, Cuba and North Korea, without precondition. "Then he went on to explain that Ronald Reagan negotiated with the communists," Giuliani told the audience. "I say this most respectfully: You're not Ronald Reagan,......

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, it's morning in Chicago, but not for long. The storms that wreaked havoc throughout the area are a faint memory, and we're left to clean up the mess as we wait for more storms to come today. The north and northwest sides of the city felt the brunt of the storm, with reports of trees being split by the high winds. Over 300,000 businesses and residents were left without electricity......

Remember when all the county hacks on the payroll were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, crying about how Forrest Claypool was going to destroy Cook County by laying off everybody? Remember when progressives and reformers were begging people to vote for Tony Peraica and all the DINO pork-choppers were saying that he was Ronald Reagan reincarnated, hell-bent on destroying the social safety net of Cook County? We hate to say we......

In the marathon that this presidential political season is becoming, presidential hopeful and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards made a pair of brief campaign stops in Chicago Wednesday, just one day before Barack Obama made a campaign stop in North Carolina. At BB's bar and restaurant on Hubbard, part of his "Small Change for Big Change" series of fundraisers, Edwards told the crowd, who had paid between $15 and $100 a head to hear......

Has Cook County politics become so cynical, so corrupt, and so arrogant, that it just doesn't matter anymore? If recent calls for an investigation of $500,000 that is "missing" from the county budget are any indication, we have to wonder if there is a light at the end of the tunnel for both taxpayers in Cook County and the people that use the services that the county finances. Tony Peraica, the Republican that was supposedly......

Yesterday we gave you a preview of who might be running for president in the Democratic camp. Today we turn our focus to the right, looking at the Republican side of the primaries. Since Dick Cheney isn't going to seek the presidency this time around, the field is wide open for any Republican to join the fray, hoping that his agenda is the one that will resonate most with conservative voters. And not unlike the......

Dear LAist, When we read your mash note this morning, we were all set to go all Superboy-Prime on you. Such is the way we get when we read things that are critical of the City of Big Shoulders. Except that it wasn't really critical. Maybe it was the full night's rest we got last night, or the really strong latte. Or the cold pizza we had for breakfast. Or maybe it was the......

Lauded as one of the great economic minds of the late 20th Century, Milton Friedman died today in San Francisco. Friedman’s greatest contribution to economic thinking was his advocacy of monetarism, the idea that changes in the supply of money precede changes in economic conditions, not the other way around. He trumpeted free market principles, deregulation and privatization. Both President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher gave him a listening ear. His chief economic rival was......

Some of our readers think we don’t pay enough attention to the world of news and entertainment on the south side. Point taken. It’s nothing personal. We love the south side and would get down there more often if it wasn’t such a trek. So for our readers looking to explore south of the South Loop, we’ve put together a late summer art gallery crawl for your enjoyment. In Pilsen, the alternative art space Polvo......

Actually, it isn't really, considering how much fighting goes on about O'Hare and Chicago's other airports, but Chicago officials, airlines and Illinois Congressmen have been jumping all over the Federal Aviation Administration's plans to extend flight caps at O'Hare Airport. Using an authority under the now-eliminated High Density Rule, the FAA and Department of Transportation can limit the number of flights taking off and landing at O'Hare, Laguardia, JFK and Ronald Reagan National. Last year,......

The Super Bowl of the movie industry begins in about four hours or so and we couldn’t be more inebria...er, excited. Did anyone else know Oscar producer Gil Cates had a blog? Does anyone else know who Gil Cates is? Or care? His most recent entry includes such nuggets as: Without giving away anything from his performance, I can tell you that Chris will be hilarious. “He better be or it’s my ass on the......

Kerry Wood's Fastball Franks hit the shelves today in grocery stores all across Chicagoland. Wood teamed up with Vienna Beef to endorse the athlete-friendly fare, and part of each purchase goes to Children's Memorial Hospital to help fight childhood cancer. According to the Vienna Beef "Editorial" section, "Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood takes three things seriously: pitching his smokin' fastball, working to raise funds and awareness that benefit childhood cancer treatment and research, and grilling......

In a move guaranteed to excite the many Republicans of DuPage County and other western suburbs, Governor Blagojevich announced yesterday that I-88, once blandly known as the "East West Tollway", will now and forever be known as the "Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway". While we're pleased to hear that another one of our expressways has been named after another great Illinini, we're betting the name will soon be morphed into the "Reagan Tollroad", which would be......

Former President Ronald Reagan passed away today at 93. An actor and Governor of California before moving into the White House, Regan was an Illinois native. Born in Tampico, Ill. on February 6, 1911, Reagan grew up in Dixon, Ill. and graduated from Eureka College in Eureka, Ill. His entertainment career began on radio in Iowa before he headed out to California to act in movies. Reagan served as Governor of California from 1967-1974.......