Category Archives: Politics

Illinois’ really dumb party-line primaries

2 comments | Posted on March 16, 2012 at 12:56 pm by Linda Grist Cunningham

On Tuesday, I’m off to vote for, oh, let’s say Rick Santorum. My housemate will do similarly, although I think he’s leaning toward the old Mittster.

I noticed that former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer is still on the Illinois ballot, though he officially dropped off the GOP slate and went rogue back in February. Rick Perry’s there, too, but he’s already got a defined-benefit pension gig in Texas. Oh, yeah, and good ol’ Ron Paul. He’s sure no John B. Anderson.

I’ll be pulling a Republican ballot in Tuesday’s primary. Illinois doesn’t require one to actually belong to a party …

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Newt Gingrich — Blago with white hair

2 comments | Posted on January 23, 2012 at 4:35 pm by Linda Grist Cunningham

Illinois voters ought to be able to tell the nation a couple of things about governance by charisma, ego and brilliance run amok. After all, we danced with Rod Blagojevich for a lot of years before the ex-governor flamed out while selling Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.

None was better than Blago in front of an audience. Witness him at Rockford Register Star Editorial Boards, which I did many times. Having a governor in for an edit board always draws a full house. Even Pat Quinn gets a decent showing. Having Blago meant standing room only.

He could sing, weave …

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Scary LOL: Web world confounds old guys in Congress

Leave a comment | Posted on January 19, 2012 at 10:49 am by Linda Grist Cunningham

Update 1-19-2012, 7:02 p.m.: This from Joshua Kopstein at Motherboard: “But the chilling takeaway of this whole debacle was the irrefutable air of anti-intellectualism; that inescapable absurdity that we have members of Congress voting on a technical bill who do not posses any technical knowledge on the subject and do not find it imperative to recognize those who do. This used to be funny, but now it’s really just terrifying.”

Surfing the web is like panning for gold. You’ve got to sift through a ton of junk to get to the good stuff.

Then there’s all that “can you believe …

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Americans just aren’t going to elect a woman as president

7 comments | Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:27 am by Linda Grist Cunningham

By the time, Michele Bachmann pledged yesterday to rally round the eventual Republican nominee for president, I’d wearied of hoping she’d come front and center as a viable candidate. She just couldn’t do it.

There are a handful of analyses on the whys of Bachmann’s fall from the elephant, including an empathetic one from Washington Post conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin. Most everyone has turned their attention to the “Santorum surge” — I am hating  that word, surge.

But before Bachmann is little more than a footnote, three things did her in:

(1) Americans are not about to elect a …

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Two RRS bloggers — and public officials — wish for private conversations

1 comment | Posted on December 14, 2011 at 2:50 pm by Linda Grist Cunningham

Ted Biondo and Kris Kieper exchanged a shared lament today on Ted’s blog. Wouldn’t it be nice, Ted wrote, if elected officials could meet privately without all those pesky “bureaucrats” looking on.

Kris commented that as a new appointee to the Winnebago village board, she was concerned about getting up to speed without having more private, shared conversations.

It’s been a while since I posted, and after this one, the Register Star may kick me off, so let’s get a few items on the table. First, Ted and Kris are two of the good guys.

I often disagree with …

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Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, Winnebago County, Winnebago County Board