Archive for November 5th, 2008
November 5th, 2008
What you saw Tuesday was the most amazing political campaign ever put together, steamrolling the most inept campaign ever put together.
McCain ran possibly the worst campaign of modern history. There was no central theme, the vice presidential choice of Sarah Palin drove voters away in droves, and McCain seemed either grumpy or angry most of the time.
Obama, however, assembled a tough, disciplined team from Chicago, where politics is a blood sport. They treat an election as a war, they target voters, assemble lists, make phone calls, knock on doors, and on election day they have a massive precinct army that makes sure people favorably disposed to their candidate votes.
That’s what Obama did, but not just in a city, or a state, but nationwide, taking the action to the “red” states and fighting the election on McCain’s turf, putting him on the defensive.
Combine the Chicago-style election machine with the power of the Internet, and the Obama campaign, with 5 million volunteers and donors, was unstoppable.
Meanwhile, McCain had no ground army at all. No volunteers, nobody making phone calls, nobody going door to door. That’s because that role has been played in recent elections by the Christian Right. But they’re no fans of McCain, and while they probably voted for him, they didn’t stuff any envelopes, walk any precincts or make any phone calls.
Thankfully, this election marks the repudiation of Karl Rove style politics of personal destruction. Republicans — not the McCain campaing, mind you — ran the dirtiest, sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen. Combined with that were the thousands of hours of anti-Obama vitriol on AM talk radio and FoxNews, the Republicans’ news channel.
November 5th, 2008
As Barack Obama took the state in Grant Park, where 125,000 people had gathered to witness history being made, the TV camera panned over the massive crowd. It looked like America, which nowadays is fast-becoming a nation of minorities. This is the emerging America, and Obama is the first president of this new America.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party succeeded in driving nearly all nonwhites into the Democratic coalition. The GOP now bears close resemblence to the old National Party of the apartheid-era South Africa. Black voters voted Democratic 96 to 4 percent. Latinos voted Democratic two-to-one.
The Republicans are fast on their way to becoming a permanent minority for the simple reason that there soon won’t be enough white folks to make up a majority. But it’s amazing to me that the Republicans do not seem to realize this. They not only don’t have minorities in their party, they do not seem to want them.
November 5th, 2008
Wow, if Democrat Paul Gorski had actually figured out that he had to raise money to have a real campaing, he might well have defeated Republican Winnebago County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen.
Christiansen raised loads of money, had good campaign commercials, but he defeated Gorski, a county board member from Cherry Valley, 52 percent to 48 percent. Gorski never raised enough money to meet the requirement of the state Board of Elections to file a contribution disclosure statement. The threshold is $3,000.
Gorski ran four years ago and nearly defeated Christiansen, who at that time was serving as appointed chairman.
Still, a win is a win is a win, and Christiansen can be expected to continue his aggressive agenda for economic development, not traditionally the role of a county board chairman.
November 5th, 2008
Some thoughts on the elections:
In both the Winnebago County state’s attorney’s race and in two judges races, voters signaled that they want change in key elements of the criminal justice system. People are really serious about reducing the state’s highest crime rate, and they chose Joe Bruscato, a young newcomer, to be state’s attorney, despite the fact that Chuck Prorok had been first deputy assistant state’s attorney under Paul Logli, the state’s attorney for 21 years until stepping down in 2007.
And it’s somewhat ironic that Logli, who was appointed as a circuit judge, lost his post in only the second election in his long career where he had to face an opponent. Lisa Fabiano defeated him with old-fashioned neighborhood canvassing, Â something Logli apparently didn’t do enough of. We don’t know much of Fabiano, but we trust she’ll be a good judge.
The other history-making local election was Gwyn Gulley’s victory for circuit judge. She becomes the first black judge in the 17th Circuit’s history.
