Elections: February 2008 Archives

BY MIKE CETERA

With Aurora Alderman Rick Lawrence perhaps poised to launch a mayoral bid, we could see for the second consecutive election cycle a primary for the city's top elected job.

Alderman Stephanie Kifowit has already said she plans to run. And incumbent Mayor Tom Weisner has amassed a large campaign war chest, although he has not announced his intentions. If all three (and maybe more) seek the office, Aurorans will be asked to winnow the field down in a primary early next year.

BY MIKE CETERA

After much eye-rolling and smirking from the candidates, we've just completed our editorial board endorsement session with Bill Foster and Jim Oberweis.

The best line of the day: "Jim, you're just making stuff up." That's Foster after Oberweis tried to tell the editorial board what he thought Foster's position was on immigration reform. It might just as well have been the quote either candidate used throughout the session to describe the other's positions.

This will come as no surprise, but while the primary election was a study in nuanced differences, the special general election is all about the chasm separating Oberweis and Foster on the issues. If you support the concept of universal health care, Foster's your man. If you support the war effort in Iraq, Oberweis is your guy.

BY MIKE CETERA

Bill Foster won't participate in any public forums leading up to next month's special election. The question is, why?

Why shouldn't voters get one more crack at asking questions, or at least hearing Foster respond to questions, in a public forum?

This isn't the first time Foster has been criticized for not attending public debates. His Democratic challengers in the primary, John Laesch and Jotham Stein, took Foster to task for missing repeated forums during that election.

But Foster spokesman Andrew Dupuy said that the campaign tries to aim for the highest audience possible when scheduling public appearances, so that as many voters as possible can be informed about the candidates. He noted that four of the five upcoming appearances would reach wide audiences -- two of them are televised, and two of the editorial board meetings will appear on the Internet.

Foster and Jim Oberweis will appear before The Beacon News editorial board today. We'll have more on that here after their 3 p.m. meeting. But meeting with a bunch of newspaper people is far different than meeting with the voters, even if the editorial board sessions end up as Internet videos (as ours will).

BY MIKE CETERA

If I was working for the Jim Oberweis campaign, I'd consider sending a thank you note to the New York Times, for waiting to publish its hit piece on presumptive GOP Presidential nominee John McCain until after he touched down in Aurora on Wednesday.

Oberweis got both the fundraising boost and the positive press coverage without having to get tied up in this brewing story about McCain's ethics (a story largely focused on things that happened 10 years ago, by the way).

BY MIKE CETERA

Stephanie Kifowit has a lot of ground to make up in her bid to become Aurora's next mayor.

It remains to be seen if she trails incumbent Mayor Tom Weisner in popularity. But there is no doubt she trails him when it comes to fundraising.

After all, Weisner had more cash on hand at the end of 2007 than he has had at the end of any reporting period since he announced his bid for mayor in 2003. Weisner has some $148,000 at his disposal today. For a mayoral race, that's a lot of cash to get a message out.

Of course, Weisner won't say whether he's running again, despite his fundraising prowess.

BY MIKE CETERA

UPDATE BELOW: FEB. 14

Rich Miller over at The Capitol Fax Blog posted this: "I’m told that Sen. John McCain is making his first trip to Illinois as the presumptive nominee February 20th to attend an event for Jim Oberweis in Aurora."

If the presumptive Republican nominee for president comes to the Fox Valley to stump for Oberweis, that's obviously going to attract a lot of attention. But will it affect the congressional race at all?

BY MIKE CETERA

A reader just pointed out to us that comments for the live blog entry were turned off. We have no idea how or when this occurred. It was inadvertent. Comments have been restored should you want to discuss Tuesday's election or the blog post.

Which was our original hope.

Argh. Sorry.

BY MIKE CETERA AND DAVE PARRO

Welcome to Election Day.

We'll be live-blogging throughout the day with various updates, random nuggets and tales of woe (or not) from the polling place. Please join the conversation.

How did voting go? Were there hitches or did it go smoothly? Any candidate sightings? Wacky signs? General sense of voter turnout? Add your thoughts after the jump.

BY MIKE CETERA

With early voting over, is there anything that the numbers tell us?

Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham reports that just under 5 percent of registered voters pulled ballots prior to Election Day. That's 10,391 people who voted early. During the 2006 congressional election, about 9,800 people voted early in Kane County.

Not sure what to glean from those numbers -- especially considering this is a presidential election year.

There is, however, something potentially interesting shaping up in the 14th District Congressional race. Fewer people pulled Democratic ballots in the special election than in the regular primary.