Not long ago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office threatened Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn with political divorce. Quinn has been a critic of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority for years, but he was completely cut out of the governor’s massive restructuring-and-reform plan. This did not please the formerly outspoken lieutenant governor, and when he made plans […]
Rich Miller
Posted inOpinion
Proxy fight
This year’s only Illinois Supreme Court race is just about the hottest political thing going. The 5th District race pits appellate justice Gordon Maag, a Democrat from Glen Carbon, against trial judge Lloyd Karmeier, a Nashville Republican. For many, this race isn’t between two candidates; it’s an all-out proxy war fought on behalf of, and […]
Posted inOpinion
Statehouse murder
Up until last week the Capitol had been one of the safest places in Illinois. No one had ever been killed there in its entire history. And then some unbalanced kid stops taking his meds and all hell breaks loose. William Wozniak, security guard, who had a wife and two kids and a mortgage and […]
Posted inOpinion
Planet Blago
Over the last few weeks it’s become clear that Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, lives in his own little world — and it’s a pretty odd planet. In Keyes’ version of reality, pro-choicers are like terrorist sympathizers, his Democratic opponent Barack Obama has a “slaveholder mentality,” and Jesus would never even consider […]
Posted inOpinion
Weird Al
As if Alan Keyes wasn’t embarrassing enough with his hours-long diatribes, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate had to go off and verbally slime the vice president’s daughter. That’s just great. It’s not as if Dick Cheney holds grudges or anything. Calling Cheney’s lesbian daughter a selfish hedonist will have absolutely no repercussions. If Keyes […]
Posted inOpinion
Deal with it
Word from on high is that the U.S. Senate’s Republicans are planning to contribute lots of money to candidate Alan Keyes. It’s not that the national pooh-bahs actually believe Keyes can win, mind you. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a sane person to predict that. Then again, what sane person could have predicted a month […]
Posted inOpinion
The commitments
No governor ever gets everything he wants in a budget. But this year’s budget agreement reflects what appears to be the greatest expansion of legislative power in decades. Gov. Rod Blagojevich had to give up a lot during the two-month overtime session, and he didn’t get much in return. Governors are usually given plenty of […]
Posted inOpinion
Fifteen minutes
Finding a replacement for Jack Ryan has turned into an “opportunist playground,” a top Republican official grouses. Each time somebody floats his or her own name and then “withdraws,” the media paints it as yet another disaster for the state party, the clearly annoyed official complains. Case in point: the decision last week by state […]
Posted inOpinion
What could have been
I never thought Mike Ditka would actually run for the U.S. Senate. But I really, really wanted him to. Hey, I know he might not have been a great senator. He’s too obnoxious, too impatient. But there are plenty of lousy senators, mainly because so many professional politicians don’t have even a hint of spine. […]
Posted inOpinion
Time to clean house
The scandal of the year is not about Jack Ryan’s sex life. It’s about an obscure little state board that appears to have gotten completely out of hand. For years, rumors of corruption have swirled around the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. As it turns out, those rumors may have been true. The scandal broke […]
Posted inOpinion
Behind closed doors
Slowly but surely, the legislature is being replaced by five guys in a back room. It’s old news that the four legislative leaders and the governor have hijacked the budget process. For years now, the governor, the House speaker, the Senate president, and the two minority leaders have met behind closed doors to hammer out […]
Posted inOpinion
To tell the truth
You might think Jack Ryan was forced out of the U.S. Senate race because the media found out that his ex-wife had alleged that he dragged her to kinky-sex clubs on two continents. Tabloid television programs, right-wing pundits, and Republican insiders from Washington, D.C., emphasized the sex, either to sell their stories or defend Ryan […]
