Progress Illinois

Crain's Greg Hinz takes a look at Steve Sauerberg's race for U.S. Senate and concludes: "Unless something changes fast, 2008 will become the year in which the Illinois GOP lost its last shred of relevance." From the column:

In most states, electing a U.S. senator is a big deal. Campaigns clash and TV ad wars erupt. Washington big shots drop by to endorse. The winner gets a six-year membership in the world's most exclusive club, don'tcha know.

It used to be that way in Illinois. Remember Carol Moseley Braun against Peter Fitzgerald and Alan Dixon? Or, a bit earlier, Chuck Percy vs. Alex Seith. Barack Obama against, well, who cares? It was Barack Obama.

So, quick, tell me who the Republicans have put up this year against incumbent Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin — the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and quite possibly the majority leader of that body not too far in the future.

If you can't recall the name, you have lots of company.

Hinz goes on to assert that Sauerberg "will not embarrass the party like the jaw-dropping Alan Keyes did." However, it's worth noting that Sauerberg has run a rather perplexing campaign so far.

Early in the year, it was clear that something was wrong when he bought ads on liberal websites declaring: "We must stop liberal Dick Durbin." Then, at a press conference in April, he said with a seemingly straight face: "I think Barack Obama will probably endorse us." Then in June, he challenged Durbin to "commit" to retaining U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald -- even though both Durbin and Obama have never wavered in their support of the prosecutor. Most recently, his campaign put out a radio spot that violated the Federal Election Commission guidelines on advertising disclaimers.

It's not "Keyesian" embarassment, but still ...

Although the Prairie State has survived the severe economic downturns faced by other states in the region, the local economic landscape isn't too pretty these days. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reports the state's May jobless rate was 6.4 percent, up one full percentage point from last month and 1.5 percent from this time last year. Illinois sits well above the national unemployment rate of 5.5 percent as well.

Employment agency director James Sledge told the AP that this uptick further proves the need for Gov. Blagojevich's capital improvements plan. I'd say it also proves the need for more robust unemployment insurance, something Rep. Mark Kirk and his Republican cohorts in the Illinois Congressional delegation aren't too interested in providing.

Backyard Conservative joins the chorus of Illinois Republicans -- along with John McCain and President Bush -- calling for more oil drilling to lower fuel prices:

This is what the American people want: Drill here, Drill now, Pay less--where we have proven reserves!!!

Lift the ban on offshore drilling on the Outer Continental shelf, far from our beaches, but rich with oil. New technology is least intrusive, protecting coral reefs and habitat.

But what effect will offshore drilling have on gas prices? Dean Baker does some back-of-the-envelope calculations:

According to the NYT, the Energy Information Agency estimates that the total amount of oil in the offshore zone in question is about 16 billion barrels. If we assume that it would take about ten years from the day of authorization to get to peak production and that most of the oil is pumped out over 30 years, this would translate into a bit over 1 million barrels of oil a day.

That would be equal to about 1 percent of world production in a decade. If we assume a long-run demand elasticity of 0.3, this would imply a drop in world prices of approximately 3 percent. In today's prices, we would be looking at a drop in the price of a barrel of oil from around $135 to $131. If this were passed on one to one in gas prices (this is long-run story), we might expect to see a drop in the price of a gallon of gas from around $4.00 to around $3.92 a gallon.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration backs up Baker's work. Last year, they released a report suggesting that drilling on the Continental Shelf wouldn’t have “a significant impact” on gas prices until 2030.

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On Monday, the Illinois Board of Elections bumped Green Party candidates off the ballot in three Illinois congressional districts -- the 8th, 10th, and 14th. The decision came after "objectors" petitioned to have them removed, citing the Greens' failure to properly follow state nominating rules in slating the candidates.

Because the Green candidate in the 10th District fought in Iraq, Illinois GOP chairman Andy McKenna decided to accuse Democratic candidate Dan Seals of "car[ing] more about himself than Iraq war veterans":

“Yesterday, Dan Seals and his campaign succeeded in kicking Iraq war veteran David Kalbfleisch off the November ballot. David Kalbfleisch fought to defend Dan Seals’ freedom and all he asked in return was a chance to participate in our democratic process. Unfortunately, Dan Seals cares more about himself than Iraq war veterans. Voters should know this is how Dan Seals treats our veterans.”

Capitol Fax's Rich Miller hits the nail on the head in his response:

Republican Congressman Peter Roskam is running against an Iraqi War veteran, Jill Morgenthaler. So, will the state GOP now blast Roskam every time he does something negative to his opponent?

Republicans met in Decatur this weekend for their state party convention, giving members an opportunity to hash out strategies for the rest of this election year. Gov. Blagojevich's poor reputation is an obvious boon for the GOP, but observers suggest that Barack Obama's position atop the national ticket will drive Democratic turnout in 2008, delivering a huge advantage to statewide Democratic candidates, as was the case in Illinois' 14th District this March.

Yet State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington was in full denial mode about Obama's expected coattails:

Brady said Obama's liberal political stance could also be a weak point.

"There's a great number of people in this state who do not agree with what Barack Obama believes in," Brady said.

It's not clear what planet Brady has been living on for the last four years, but he obviously missed Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2004, when 70 percent of Illinoisans backed him. He also apparently ignored Obama's romp through Illinois' Democratic primary back in February, during which he garnered over 64 percent of the vote, including huge swaths of Independent and Republican voters. If the Illinois GOP thinks running hard against Obama is going to deliver the goods this November, they are in worse shape then we thought.

Republican congressional candidates here in Illinois have plenty of reason to worry about their fate this November, particularly with Barack Obama on the top of the ticket. Over the course of the spring, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee expanded its list of targeted races in the state to include Judy Biggert's 13th District and the 18th District seat being vacated by Rep. Ray LaHood. Another race worth keeping an eye on is the 19th District, represented for 12 years by GOP Rep. John Shimkus (who last year, for those who may have forgotten, compared the Iraq war to a Cubs-Cards game).

His 27-year-old opponent, Daniel Davis, was profiled in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

At 27, Daniel Davis has no elective experience, little money, and, it would seem, little chance of unseating incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. John Shimkus in a three-way race this fall.

But Davis, a Democrat, is spending the next several months trying to persuade Southern Illinois voters to give him a shot in Congress, instead of sending Shimkus back to Washington for a seventh term. [...]

Davis has no paid staff — only volunteers — and has been staying with siblings and other family members who live throughout the district when he travels. He acknowledged that he is at a disadvantage in fundraising and name recognition, and he is putting the focus on a grass-roots approach to try to compensate.

"A lot of it is getting around talking to people … sitting down talking to people and saying, 'What's your story?'" Davis said.

To be clear, Davis is just as the Post-Dispatch headline labels him: a "longshot." But depending on the mood of the electorate as the general election season progresses -- not to mention the turnout improvements spurred by Obama's 50-state voter registration drive -- there will very likely be some longshot victories come November.

Check out the numbers in the 19th:

During the competitive primary in 2006, 33,390 voters in the district cast ballots for one of the two Democratic candidates (on par with Democratic participation in previous primaries there). Later that year, Shimkus won by just under 50,000 votes. But during this year's primary, 68,158 district residents pulled Democratic ballots -- more than twice the number in 2006.

That surge can be attributed to a mix of newly registered Democrats, Republicans-turned-Democrats, and Democratic voters who generally skip primaries. The respective percentages are unknown. But clearly the Democratic enthusiasm and energy seen across the country this year is to found downstate as well.

Following some internal changes orchestrated by House Minority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole, Republican congressmen and strategists met in Washington yesterday to hash out a vision for the party's future. The Illinois delegation was well represented, with Rep. Mark Kirk reintroducing his "suburban agenda," a platform he first unveiled when the GOP controlled the House, but that has laid dormant since:

The new version includes many of the same policy prescriptions as the original — college savings accounts and legislation to target online predators — plus new items, such as a food safety measure offered by Illinois Rep. Peter J. Roskam.

But all the meetings and ideas may be for naught. In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, Republicans look to be "rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg":

Boehner and his colleagues in the leadership began laying out principles for their own policy platform last week. But that rebranding push, and its accompanying policy component, has been marred by infighting among House Republicans as members argue over its specifics, and some lawmakers Tuesday expressed impatience with the pace.

So why can't the party coalesce around an electorally successful strategy? George Packer's must-read piece in this week's New Yorker unpacks that conundrum in great detail.

(Click "Read More" to continue ...)

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As I reported in my feature article last week, the new crop of young progressives running for state and local office across Illinois will have a difficult time unseating their incumbent rivals. But if a certain Illinois senator sits atop the national ticket, it could get a whole lot easier:

If Obama, Illinois' junior senator, wins the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, some Republicans feel it could boost the candidacies of Democrats seeking a variety of posts in the state, including in the General Assembly and on county boards.

"It's got everybody working harder," said veteran Lake County Board member Larry Leafblad, a Grayslake-area Republican who launched his re-election campaign earlier than usual because of Obama's bid. "In 20 years of campaigning for the county board, I've never done this much organizing."

The local excitement generated by Obama should drive Democratic turnout, as it did on Super Tuesday, when 20 percent more voters cast ballots than in any other primary in state history. If John McCain writes off the Land of Lincoln like his party did in 2000 and 2004, Republican volunteer and fundraising efforts might dry up statewide as well, resulting in reduced GOP turnout.

That's worrying Grant Eckhoff, a DuPage Republican hoping to retain his position on the County Board:

[Eckhoff] said he expects the county-level races will be much closer than usual even in DuPage, which has long been dominated by the GOP.

"Obama is not going to make that any easier," said Eckhoff of Wheaton. "I don't think anybody's taking anything for granted."

As the gas tax debate has raged this past week between the presidential candidates in Indiana, one recurring suggestion is that Barack Obama's current opposition to a national gas tax holiday is hypocritical or an example of "flip-flopping." Those making this accusation -- whether Clinton or McCain supporters -- point to Obama's vote as an Ilinois state senator in 2000 in favor of a six-month suspension of the state gas tax. For instance, in a recent web video titled "Gas Tax Hypocrisy," the Republican National Committee aired clips of Obama criticizing McCain's gas tax proposals before showing the following text:

The Illinois Republican Party has also gotten in on the act, putting out the following statement from State Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine):

The gas tax moratorium passed in 2000 with Barack Obama's help lowered gas prices and saved Illinois drivers hundreds of millions of dollars. So I’m surprised to learn that Obama now opposes a federal moratorium this summer. Lowering gas prices would deliver immediate relief to American drivers and help grow our economy. It worked in Illinois, and it would work nationwide. John McCain understands the plight of hardworking American families, that's why he's proposed a moratorium on the federal gas tax when we need it most.

Let's be clear: no one should be "surprised to learn" that Obama now opposes the idea of suspending the federal gas tax.

His is not a hypocritical position or one based on political opportunism. Obama did not switch his stance in the heat of the presidential race; rather, he did so shortly after supporting the suspension in Illinois and observing the meager benefit it offered consumers.

Perhaps Murphy should talk to some of his colleagues who actually served alongside Barack in 2000. If he did so, they might point out that, after supporting the state gas tax holiday in April of that year, Obama opposed a measure to make it permanent seven months later. Why? Because he could find no evidence that the suspension passed considerable savings on to the consumer. From his November 15, 2000, floor statement (PDF):

OBAMA: [T]here is an organization, the Illinois Tax Accountability Project, that is in the process of trying to track the gap between wholesale prices and prices at the pump during the period since we took this -- we removed this tax, and what they have found so far - and the study is not yet complete, but apparently it appears that any decline in prices at the pump have been perfectly matched by declines at the wholesale level. That is, that what you essentially can attribute declines in prices to are declines at the wholesale level, that have nothing to do with the tax. That would indicate, at least at this point, that the elimination of the tax has not been passed on to the consumer. [...]

I originally voted for the suspension because I thought that it was extraordinary circumstances, given the huge hike in prices, but I don't think that we have the evidence yet to make this a permanent three-hundred- or four-hundred-million-dollar hole in the General Revenue Fund. And for that reason, I'll be voting No at this time .

Oh, and Jim Ryan? Our Republican governor who proposed the gas tax holiday that year? He too opposed making it permanent.

Indeed, there remains no evidence that the benefit to Illinois consumers during the 2000 suspension outweighed the strain put on the state's fiscal situation -- a point that Obama has been making on the stump as he defends his current stand on the issue.

As Politifact.com's Bill Adair wrote in a fact-check of the RNC video, "[I]t's not fair to call it a flip-flop when the very reason Obama opposes a suspension of the gas tax now is because he concluded that it didn't work when he supported one in the past."

During this race, there's been a lot of talk about the importance of "experience." But what's the point of emphasizing experience if you're only going to attack a candidate for showing the ability to learn from his?

Illinois Republicans wasted no time piggybacking off of Monday's Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana’s strict voter-identification law, which declared that the state has a “valid interest” in improving election procedures as well as deterring fraud by requiring voters to produce photo identification at the polls. Via the Bloomington Pantagraph:

After a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week, a Republican lawmaker says he plans to push forward with a plan to require Illinois voters to show a photo identification card before casting a ballot. [...]

In Illinois, state Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, has been trying to convince his fellow lawmakers to approve a mandatory ID law for three years without success. He says the requirement of showing proof of identification is important to preventing voter fraud.

As Reis' renewed push shows, the Court's decision will likely spur Republican legislators to replicate the Indiana law in their own states, a pattern that unnerves many voting rights advocates. Along with the introduction of new proposals, The New York Times says that "similar laws in the other 20 or so states that have photo-identification rules would appear to have a good chance of surviving scrutiny."

Why is this problematic? As Slate's Marty Lederman recently put it, the decision essentially institutionalizes a solution to a problem that does not exist.

(More after the jump ...)

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