The handlers for state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias are touting the results of an August poll his U.S. Senate campaign committee commissioned that shows him with a "solid lead over" 10th Congressional District Congressman Mark Kirk in a head-to-head matchup. The Democratic statewide officer should have a lead over Kirk at this time. After all, the Highland Park Republican represents only a sliver of Illinois, whereas the treasurer has his "Cash Dash" to give his office and name recognition.
But trumpeting a poll of only 805 Illinoisans reached by telephone isn't the largest of samplings in what will be a volatile contest, and especially this early. Of course, Giannoulias is showing his "lead" to other potential Democratic primary challengers for the Senate seat once held by President Obama.
The Giannoulias campaign certainly danced around those poll numbers, though, according to the report in Michael Sneed's column in the Aug. 23 Chicago Sun-Times. Sneed said a source says the treasurer has a lead "outside the margin of error of 3 percent" over Kirk. What, 4 percent? And what does this mean that his campaign told Sneed: "...even after a battery of equally weighted positives and negatives, Giannoulias still came out ahead." Does that mean a negative is a name with lots of vowels in it?
With the poll, state and national Democrats believe at this time Kirk will be the GOP candidate come next fall. Bet Kirk releases a poll soon showing him closer than the Giannoulias camp thinks after only being in the race for less than a month. This one is an election to watch. .
Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian has the pedal to the metal working on getting some sort of motorsports road race to his city next year or more likely in 2011. The Hound hears all those Waukeganites backing the mayor: "Go, speed racer, go!"
Sabonjian and city minions appear farther along the trail than most originally thought. They have a map of the 1.9-mile course which uses the Amstutz Expressway (or is that the Bobby Thompson Expressway which state Rep. Eddie Washington, D-Waukegan, unilaterally christened two years ago?) and downtown streets. Anybody check with the County of Lake, which has a pretty large presence in Waukegan's downtown for their input? They've also had preliminary talks with race organizers and they have a steering committee, Waukegan Grand Prix LLC.
What they don't have is money. Estimates run between $12 to $15 million for the initial rally; about a $9 million ante every year after. The bet is the seed money will generate millions more. Other cities have done it and been successful. It is within the realm of possibility for Waukegan.
So far, the city's populace has been eerily silent on the topic. Perhaps they're stunned or they haven't caught up to speed on what the impact could be on the city both in quality of life issues and financial gain or loss. Or they are a silent majority, riding in the back seat with the new mayor on this issue.
The Hound like's Sabonjian's attitude about landing any sort of road race: "We can be world class, but we have to do it right." So for right now, it's full speed ahead!
It's good to be the party chairman of an Illinois county, as state Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, has found. You know most of the other party chairmen and can call your counterparts in the state's other 101 counties and ask them to support your political advancement. In this case, Sen. Link wants to be Lt. Gov. Link.
Illinois hasn't had a lieutenant governor since Pat Quinn was elevated to governor with the departure of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Have we missed one? The Hound doesn't think so. What does the lite guv do besides applaud the actions of the governor, as Quinn was fond of doing during the nearly two terms Blagojevich served?
If, as the late Texan John Nance Garner once said about the vice presidency being as worthless as a bucket of warm spit, or words to that effect, the office of lieutenant governor must be even lower on the political food chain. But folks really want to be lite guv so they must see some value in the office. As The Hound said, we haven't missed one for much of this year so do we really need one? Well, the state constitution says we need one, so we must.
As for Link, he has as good a chance as being first nominated and then elected lite guv as any of the other no-name candidates who might be thinking of making the statewide run. Lake County has foisted a Republican lieutenant governor on the rest of Illinois, we might as well offer them a Democrat as well.
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Yowza! Those Lake County pols are just announcing left and right for offices as we're in the midst of petition passing for the February 2010 primary races. So far, the Democrats look to have some formidable intraparty squabbles:
Like governor. Already there's two announced candidates, appointed incumbent Pat Quinn and state Comptroller Dan Hynes. The Hound hears there are others mulling a statewide run.
Like the 10th Congressional District. Without Mark Kirk seeking re-election, some Democrats are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with a crowded field come filing time this fall.
Like the District 8 Lake County Board race, where two heavyweight Dems have announced within the week. One, newly elected Waukegan city Treasurer John Schwab and the second, Waukegan Park District President Bill Durkin, son of former Democratic Mayor William Durkin. Durkin was the choice of the Lake County Democratic Central Committee to replace Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian who left the County Board when he took office in May. He was rejected in favor of Collin O'Rourke. The young appointed incumbent so far has been below the radar if he is going to seek election to the remainder of the Sabonjian term.
Like the 59th House District. Without incumbent Kathy Ryg of Vernon Hills in the race, this is now a wide-open contest. She is jumping to the lobbyist side of the Springfield combine as president of the advocacy group, Voices for Illinois Children. Republican Dan Sugrue of Green Oaks, who lost handily to Ryg last year, decided prior to Ryg's announcement she'll resign Aug. 31, that he would take her on again. In '08, Sugrue threw his campaign together only seven months before the election. With a jump start and the conventional wisdom this is a GOP year, it will be interesting to see who surfaces to carry the Dem torch in the 59th District.
Yes, the hair on The Hound's neck is rising as the flurry of political announcements continues unabated. Game on!
Like a Roman emperor, Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian is offering the city's citizens bread and circuses to perhaps keep their minds busy with extracurricular activities. This at a time when the city's finances appear to be on shaky ground, to say the least. Not that a deficit budget and high-interest loans are any of his doing. He's cleaning up those messes.
Sabonjian suggested this week some sort of motorsports event --- a road race or circuit --- on city streets next year. Folks in his administration are meeting with folks who apparently can make this happen. Except for a few things, Mayor Bob has a sound plan.
Those few things happen to be what this economy has done to auto racing in the U.S., whether it be NASCAR, IndyCar or Grand Prix events. They're hurting, to say the least. Sponsor money has dried up, along with the evaporation of racing venues.
The Milwaukee Mile, aka the Rex Mays Classic, usually held at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in West Allis the weekend after the Indy 500, has been off the map for several years. The Detroit Grand Prix is DOA. The Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet hosted a NASCAR event earlier this summer and will do an IndyCar event later this month. To fill the stands for this race, promoters made sure race fans bought a package ticket to go with the NASCAR race.
It's a tough market out there for racing events and it also should be noted the schedules for race dates for major events certainly already have been set for 2010. Which Waukegan residents should be grateful.
Putting together a race which could draw thousands for a weekend, the logistics involved and closing city streets needs a bit more planning than a year, The Hound believes. This isn't Scoopin' Genesee, after all.
The Hound understands Mayor Bob's need for speed, but there's more important races to run at the present.
It would appear the Zion City Council has gotten themselves in a bit of a bind by rejecting a special-use permit for the Dungeon of Doom, a creepy haunted house set to open next month in the old Warwick Building of Deborah Avenue. It certainly would be a better tale if the building was once the Warlock Building, don't you think?
But such naming would never happen in Zion because the Warwick Building dates back to Alexander Dowie and the founding of Zion City, if The Hound recalls what the geezers were talking about the other day. One question for the good burghers of Zion, though: Why did you reject something you originally sought to lure into the city? Yes, before the city's religious leaders caught wind of the black magic being brought to Zion, the planning and zoning commission endorsed the Dungeon of Doom with a 5-to-1 vote. It was a conditional vote, meaning that officials would see how things went this fall and the promoters would have to come back next year for permanent approval.
Forsooth, the city's economic development commisson actually pursued the developers to bring the fright house to Zion, which may leave a gap in the City Council's rejection of the Dungeon of Doom. If the economic development commission was pursuing bringing this attraction into Zion to inject some zombie-like life into the Warwick Building, then The Hound would only conjure the mayor and members of the City Council had an inkling what was going on. Especially since the application was filed in April. Nobody raised red flags about demonic goings on back then.
Mayor Lane Harrison saying he was urging rejection of the special permit because of traffic and neighborhood concerns in a neighborhood once surrounded by traffic generated from the Warwick Building and the nearby nuclear plant rings hollow to The Hound. A good lawyer might have a nice argument that a contract had been entered into with the economic development folks reaching out to the dungeon's promoters. Then again, who knows?
One thing The Hound knows: If Six Flags was in Zion, there wouldn't be a Fright Fest this year --- or in eternity. Hope The Fielders don't have a bat night next year. Bats could be equated to Dracula and you know what could happen then: Boo!
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has made the Land of Lincoln's highways extremely safer this week by signing into law two bills. One bans texting while driving, the other bans using a cell phone while driving in a construction zone or school zone. Do we have enough cops, judges or jail space to accomodate all these criminals? The Hound doesn't think so.
Matter of fact, The Hound is LOL that the governor thinks a swipe of the pen will change what has become common place not only here but the rest of the nation. It's obvious police will tag on the no texting or no cell phone use charge if a person is involved in an accident, but seldom do people not wearing seat belts get ticketed. So how are they going to track down these miscreants?
The Hound agrees that texting while driving is dangerous. So is reading, watching videos, reading a GPS, painting one's nails when behind the wheel. Those that do it just make the term "weakened gene pool" the more relevant. Unfortunately, when they are involved in wrecks caused by texting or talking on the cell, they hurt others. One driving study maintains mobile phone distractions can increase the risk of crashes 23 times.
Fourteen other states have partial or complete bans on text messaging and cell phone usage while driving. The frequency of arrests is underwhelming. Chicago has had a law banning the use of cell phones while driving. That has worked quite well --- not. Poor cops, they get stuck with everyone of society's dirty details.
The Hound hopes Gov. Quinn isn't using these bills as the linchpin of his campaign to get elected governor next year. Not exactly stuff legacies are made.
Things must be pretty easy in the Waukegan treasurer's office if their newly elected boss can take time off and serve on the Lake County Board. If he is elected in November 2010, that is.
The Hound wonders if City Treasurer John Schwab, a retired podiatrist, might help city officials get out from under Waukegan's continuing budget crisis. He says his budget expertise will be a plus for the County Board.
At this point it is uncertain if Collin O'Rourke, appointed by Lake County Board Chair Suzi Schmidt to replace Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian on the county's august governing body, will seek election to the unexpired term of Mayor Bob. The guy's only been in office less than a month, after all.
But then along comes Schwab, with one victory under his belt, and it was in April, who wants that $40,000 or so County Board salary, on top of his treasurer's pay.
Is The Hound the only one who thinks the good doctor seems to be more worried about his political future than the city of Waukegan's coffers? And, if the treasurer's job is part-time, why does Waukegan need one? Waukegan is a home-rule community. Get rid of this job at the next possible turn.
After all, the city already has a finance director. She used to work for Gurnee but won't as of Aug. 7. Or so The Hound has read. But then, there also is another guy who currently is finance director.
Waukegan is lucky. It appears they have two talented fiscal whizzes, and a treasurer who believes his knowledge of the city budget will be invaluable in representing District 8 voters on the County Board.
With so much skill then, riddle The Hound this: How come the city is wallowing in its current fiscal mess?
For a while there, it looked like The Hound and state Sen. Susan Garrett, D-Lake Forest, were the only ones not running for the 10th Congressional District seat being vacated by Mark Kirk as he seeks to return an Illinois Republican to the U.S. Senate. Well, add state Sen. Michael Bond, D-Grayslake, who bonded out of the race on Friday.
For some odd reason, Bond thought he could match up with Kirk, but without the Highland Park Republican in the race, he was going to be one of a gaggle of Democrats hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and head to Washington. Dan Seals is running, state Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Evanston, announced this past week and others are waiting in the wings. The term "crowded field" will apply by the time filing ends in November.
Political historians may remember this is the opposite of what happened in the 10th District in 2000, when Kirk bested an 11-candidate GOP primary field while then-state Rep. Lauren Beth Gash, D-Highland Park, was the lone Dem hopeful. Or so The Hound has been told by geezers here at The Pound.
Meantime, freshman state Sen. Bond waltzes back into a race where he will be facing Lake County Board Chair Suzi Schmidt of Lake Villa, no shrinking violet and a veteran of this county's bruising political clashes. The 31st Senate contest will be the key county race to watch next year, The Hound believes, and will bet a cookie to that effect.
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