Exactly, most of what LouisVanDerWright and a few others have said about Rahm I agree with and really no one is questioning in the first place. Of course we know that he uses nationalized campaign tactics, and money, we know very smart people run his campaign and many used to work for Obama, etc. However just because he uses "new" tactics does not mean he doesn't use "old" machine tactics in addition to them, the two are not mutually exclusive.

If anything Rahm is more machine now than four years ago because unlike then with Gery Chico there is no machine candidate alternative so the machine leaders that still exist are either going to endorse Rahm or stay out of the mayor's race altogether.

I said it before and I can tell you exactly where this is happening. In the 13th Ward (SW side near Midway and Ford City) Alderman Marty Quinn (Mike Madigan protege) is using these very tactics. They put up tons of Rahm Emanuel yard signs in high traffic areas. You can see them on Central Avenue between 59th and 63rd and in other parts of Clearing and West Lawn (just pick up a 13th ward map and see what you find within the boundaries). I know people personally who live in the vicinity of Nathan Hale Park and Elementary School (near 63rd and Narragansett) where people have been going door to door and soliciting people to put up a Rahm Emanuel sign in their yard (asking them to put up a sign, not even asking for their vote) and they try to be quite persuasive about it too from what I was told, "they practically begged me to put it up" is what I was told verbatim. There are also signs up and down Narragansett between 65th and 56th Street (which happens to be the boundary of the 13th ward). I know from other sources that these are people from the 13th ward organization that are doing this solicitation. I really can't tell you any more without breaching personal confidence.

Granted it is 2015 and not 1955 so the machine usually can't be quite as bold with their intimidation as they used to so if someone told these campaign workers to get the hell off their property they probably would but that doesn't mean it isn't a form of high pressure solicitation. You can try and argue semantics all you want but anyone who has worked in the machine in any capacity knows this is a classic machine tactic.

You only see Rahm Emanuel signs like these in the 13th ward, contrast this with the 23rd ward where there are virtually zero Rahm yard signs. I live in the 23rd ward and I have actually walked around with a map and can see the difference as soon as I enter the 13th ward. So it isn't as simple as there is a huge gap of sentiment between the 13th and 23rd, it is because the machine is pushing Rahm in the former but not the latter. In a non-machine campaign you would send out mailers and do door to door knocking but signs only go up when someone calls the office or at the door requests a sign, at most you might put up signs on public right of ways or in front of apartment buildings where there is plausible deniability as to who might have put it there. Door to door moderate to high pressure solicitation in specific electoral districts just to put up a sign without said voter expressing a prior interest in the campaign is a machine tactic. To make some claim that Rahm uses no machine tactics or has no machine infrastructure is not only very naive but demonstrably false, I know that for a fact.

yep. it'll be close. last time rahm was able to squeeze out a 55% win to avoid a run-off. if he avoids a run-off this time around, i expect the margin to be much thinner. the polls keep putting him right around the 50% mark (well within the margin of error) when undecideds are pushed, so it's impossible to tell from polling if he will do it or not.

if rahm doesn't get to 50% + 1 in the first round, i still expect him to beat garcia in a run-off.

only one week to go!

It's nice to see Fioretti trailing Wilson.

At least the whiteys don't mind him..

^ :haha:



I'm prepared to call it:

Rahm: 51.9%
Chuy: 25.7%
Willie: 13.2%
His Orangeness: 6.4%
Dock: 2.0%
Other/Nonsense/Nobody <1.0%

^^I would love to see 'Nobody' win at least 1% of the vote :haha:

"His Orangeness" :haha:


:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha:


what is the source for that poll?

I took that as Sam's prediction. It looks about right to me.

Rauner's budget seems to weigh heavily on Chicago, between cuts to direct aid to cities and the cuts to transit agencies and Amtrak.

Not what I expected out of a pro-business governor - is he also planning to cut IDOT's budget for road maintenance? What about raiding some of the Tollway's rich coffers to cover the state's shortfall? We can't do that, of course, because drivers rely on roads to get to work! While transit riders are degenerates!

Rauner should take an example from Rick Snyder in Michigan and encourage transportation investments of all kinds as a way to encourage that growth he keeps promising. To be fair, Rauner hasn't taken the knuckle-dragging stance of other Republican governors yet, but he keeps edging closer. The indifference displayed toward working-class people and even elites who rely on transit services is disappointing but not surprising for somebody with such privilege.

If these cuts go through, I hope CTA responds by raising fares instead of cutting service. Ventra means that the fares don't need to be a round number - they can increase fares by the 11 or 12 cents they need.

Agreed. Only the worst type of conservatives still believe that spending cuts alone are the solution. I haven't parsed it that much, but I did see that he isn't proposing any new revenue sources, which is nuts; in the very least, the timing is perfect for a gas tax hike.

I also noticed that fire fighter and police officer unions are exempt from his pension-cutting plans. :rolleyes:

^ It's a "white male demographic" thing. Republicans often seem to not tamper with those particular unions. See Scott Walker a couple of years ago.

Agree. With. Every. Single. Word. Period.

If this was a serious proposal, it was incredibly naive. Basically, what Rauner asked the Illinois economy to do is to turn around, bend over, say "Please, Mr. Private Equity", and enjoy a good 'brownbacking', full hillbilly-style. It was (and Rauner could very well turn out to be so himself, as a lot of republican businesspeople/investors often are - to the surprise of many simpletons who think that if some dude got himself rich, than his policies for the economy at large must be pro-growth, that running a business is obviously like running a government and devising economic policy, that if you've had some success managing a businesses, than those qualities would apply to leading a government and running an economy - duh!) completely ignorant of how macroeconomics actually works. This was certainly an anti-growth proposal, and also an anti-urban proposal, and also an anti working class/middle class proposal and a lot of supply-side nonsense in general. Significant revenue obviously needs to be part of the equation here. Everybody knows the long term structural pension issue is a major issue and needs to be fixed. This is not the way to get us there, and I don't think gets us there at any rate.

Let's hope this was a wildly right wing opening negotiating position. Otherwise, if this was serious, and an indication of things to come for the next 4 years, I - and many others - will I suspect quickly develop an acute case of voter's remorse......

Postscript: I'd like to see the forum's more Randian-disposed members (you guys know who you are - you're the ones who don't understand how macro works, or what makes for good fiscal, monetary and all other forms of public policy) employ their well-worn pretzel logic to defend what Rauner shitted out into the microphone yesterday......floor is open......

Vlajos is right....wasn't a poll, just my guess for Tuesday's results.....

Well, don't blame me, I voted for Kodos er, Quinn.

Frankly, how did no one expect some shit like this from Rauner?? He's essentially a smarter, wealthier Scott Walker (and that's working out so well for the folks north of the Cheddar curtain).

^ Well, I thought indeed he would certainly be smarter than Walker (WI's economy - eg job growth has indeed stumbed badly - and is far, far short of his projections when arguing for and implementing his anti-growth policies), and also definitely smarter than what we heard yesterday.....

Walker had a track record as a public official before he became governor - voters had no excuse and should not have been surprised by Walker's moves once in Madison.

Rauner on the other hand was a political unknown. Illinois and Wisconsin are very different states politically, there was no reason to suspect that Rauner would be any more of a right-wing ideologue than Chris Christie or Andrew Cuomo (yes he's technically a Dem), who are both pretty moderate by the standards of today's GOP.

Like or dislike Chuy Garcia the first minute and five seconds of this ad is an awesome piece of uplifting Chicago civic patriotism that I have rarely seen in a Chicago mayoral campaign. I only wish this was airing on TV, maybe in a runoff.

• Video Link

Gov's Budget: Even Diana Rauner Flatly Turns Down Husband's 'Brownbacking'
 

Good for her. What is it though, that we should be reading into this?

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...s-budget-plans

IL Budget, Mayoral Race.....Gee - Why Don't We Go Ahead and Connect the Two?
 

So, has Rahm come out and bashed Rauner's budget yet? If so, I can't imagine why not - the politics for it would certainly be overwelming, and with four days to go and closing in on avoiding a run-off Tuesday, he probably should go ahead and do so......