Posted on 01/12/2009 1:33:24 PM PST by Wolfstar
WASHINGTON – It looks like Roland Burris will take President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat later this week. Senate Democratic leaders said they expect to swear in the former Illinois attorney general in the coming days, barring objections from Republicans.
Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin made that statement after Burris' lawyer met with Senate officials, who said his formal paperwork was in order.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Did anyone here actually believe Durbin and Reid wouldn’t cave in?
If you thought otherwise, you are either very young, or you have a very short attention span.
I’m shocked.
Playing the race card out was brilliant... knew then and there that the Dims would fold like cheap suits.
Are you kidding me? This would be a mighty strange time for the Repubs to develop a spine...
Actually, this is an instance when the Republicans have absolutely no dog in this hunt. A Dem is going to fill that seat no matter what. The Republicans gain absolutely nothing by opposing Burris.
Oh, I totally agree. If anything they should just sit back and let Dingy Harry have total ownership of this one.
They probably would have looked better had they called on the Demons to seat Burris.
Come Thursday, Senator Burris should get on the mike and suggest a change in Majority Leader—one sensitive to racial issues and the rule of law....
A new record for caving in . White flag party .
Not only those two, but Obama as well.
He didn’t want Blago appointing anyone, but the spectacle that ensued made him press Reid to fold.
Snicker...Reid actually makes Daschle look good by comparison.
Nah. They can't win either way on this matter. Besides, if Reid didn't wangle a promise from Burris not to run in 2010, then the Illinois Republicans have a shot at running a strong candidate against a weak and tainted one.
ROFLMBO!!! Now THAT is something I'd pay to see. Burris will be a good little go-along-to-get-along Dem though.
ML/NJ
Of course they will seat him. bo knows if they don’t, Burris and blago blab.
I’m not shocked. The ‘Rats had little ground to deny Burris what he was appointed to, as Blago hasn’t been convicted of anything yet.
Republicans were sensible to mostly stay clear of this.
Just a bunch of rattlesnakes eating their own. No one would miss any of them.
Re #15 Of course he will. We can dream though. ;^)
Yeah. We can dream, but I suspect we'll soon enough be waking to a nightmare caused by the Left's current stranglehold on our federal government. Burris will be part of making the nightmare come true.
Yep. *sigh*
For a while there it looked like their strategy was to drag their feet until Blago was impeached, but I guess they just didn’t have the stones to wait till Feb. Plus, I believe IL Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn stated he would resubmit Burris’ name when he took over anyway.
They want to clear the decks so they can hurry and pass all that Marxist legislation Obama will push.
What a ridiculous carnival of chest thumping. And the Rookie got to referee.
Quite a few of them did.
I just left a message on Reid’s voice mail telling him what an idiot he and Durbin look like over this. 1-877-762-8762 gets you the Capitol switchboard. Just ask for any Senator or Rep by name. You will be connected.
Very well said. Reid and Durbin lost the fight the day Burris showed up on Capitol Hill in the rain and cold looking a little lost, overwhelmed, but remaining gracious.
They would in fact gain everything by supporting Burris. He will be remain a liberal Democrat, but there may be opportunities to use him to exact payback on Harry Reid after the way he was treated by him.
What a surprise......not.
It would have been a nice tweak at the nose of pinky reid. Oh I’ll bet that Burris runs again. Just by the way he tried to force them to let him. He will play the race card to the max to run again.
I’m sure the Harry-Dick couple is very upset over having to obey the Constitution. To make themselves feel better, I’m sure they’ll try to unofficially amend the Constitution again. BTW, when is the DC House vote bill up for a vote?
I think this is the ultimate middle finger to other Dems by Blago.
In a number of respects, that's exactly what it is.
Al Franken wins this one. Trying to seat him is why they allowed this to happen.
Burris in ‘10 in our best bet for a GOP Senator.
My mother told me a friend of hers, big Bush donor obviously he was invited to some good bye dinner, knows Aaron Schock and vouches for him. Don’t want him to peak too soon though.
In fact hell he’s not old enough till after new term starts. He’d be another Rush Holt Sr. :p
He didn’t want Blago appointing anyone...
Initially he did. He had a list of favorites. But when Blago was arrested, the O decided to get on the Senate bandwagon an oppose any nomination. But then the Burris appointment, Reid/Durbin being so far in the wrong legally, and subsequent squealing about racism from the likes of Bobbie Rush, forced him to make kind remarks about Burris. The last thing the O needed was this brouhaha dragging on into his inauguration. Not to mention the light it shines on his political background...
This situation shows Reid and Durbin for being the putzes they are, and the O for being the lightweight he is. If anything is above his pay grade, handling political infighting is it.
We still do...if we can find a strong candidate. Burris is not going to shine as a Senator. And much depends on how long the Blagojevich thing lasts. The jury trial, that is. The Illinois Senate trial should be over sometime next month. But the jury trial, depending on what Fitzgerald "conjures" up, and how talkative Blago remains, will take many months, if not years.
BTW, the only dog the Republicans had in this hunt is the desire for an open election for the Senate seat. That was a non-starter because 1) The Illinois Constitution awards the Governor the right to appoint a successor, and 2) The Illinois Democrats who control both houses would never allow it.
On first blush, I didn't think of this, but you have an excellent point.
If the R’s expect the D’s to obey the Constitution, they should support strict constructionism even when they don’t have a dog in the race.
With a side of humble pie washed down with a glass of very bitter bitters?
But Peter Roskam is over 30 . . . .
What I would be preferable?
(1) For the IL legislature to change the law so that the election to fill the Senate seat takes place this summer, and have Roskam run without having to give up his House seat; Roskam would beat Burris (assuming that the two would win their primary), and then he’d be the incumbent going into the November 2010 regular election for a full 6-year term.
OR
(2) For the IL legislature to do nothing, and have Burris as the incumbent in the higher-turnout for 2010 general against Roskam (who would have to give up his seat), and then have Roskam win the 6-year term?
Given that Roskam would have a better chance against Burris in a November 2010 regular election than against the Democrat that would get the 2010 nomination if Burris was defeated in a Summer 2009 special election (whether it be Shakowsky, Madison or whomever), we may be better off with Burris as the Senator through 2010 so that he has a better chance of winning the Dem nomination and Roskam wins a 6-year term, not an 18-month term.
I’m not so sure we’d have a better chance in 2010 than a special, I’d think Republicans would be much more motivated to turnout in a special?
But I agree with your other points , Burris would stand a very good chance of losing the special primary, we need him as the rat nominee. And an 18-month term isn’t worth much, (although we need all the Senators we can get right now.)
“Republicans would be much more motivated to turnout in a special?”
Than the rats I mean.
I agree that we’d have a better chance of winning in a 2009 special than a 2010 regular. But my concern is that a victory over Burris in a low-turnout 2009 special would be pyrric, given that it would get Burris out of the picture and allow the Democrats to nominate a stronger candidate in 2010 and greatly reduce our chances of holding the seat from 2011-2017. Frankly, I think I’d rather let the Dems keep the Senate seat for the 18 months prior to January 2011 if it improves our chances of winning the 6-year term in November 2010.
Of course, some may argue that winning a special election this coming summer would help the GOP to win the 6-year term in 2010, since we would have an incumbent running for reelection. However, I think that whomever would be our candidate in 2010 would be better off running as a non-incumbent against the incumbent Burris than running as an incumbent against a non-incumbent Shakowsky or Madigan.
At the end of the day, though, the decision on whether to hold a special election will be made solely by the Democrats, so we can have this philosophical discussion without risk that we’ll make a bad decision, since there is no decision for us to make.
Who should the republican nominee be, in 2010? The only Illinois Republican who was elected to the U.S. Senate, within the past 20 years, was Peter Fitzgerald, who was a state senator, when he was elected. I think our nominee should be St. Sen. J. Bradley Burzynski, of the 35th District, which includes De Kalb Co. and part of the Rockford area. These are some of his latest interest group ratings: NRA, A+; Chamber of Commerce, 100%; URF, 90%; AFL-CIO, 10%; and Planned Parenthood, 0%. He was elected to a four-year term, in 2008, so he could run for a statewide office, in 2010, without giving up his state senate seat. He’s been a state senator since 1993. If he becomes a U.S. senator, he would have 18 years of experience, as a state senator. That’s more than twice as long as Obama was a state senator.
I’m sure that Peter Fitzgerald would have defeated Mosely-Braun in 1998 even had he followed up his state senate service with two terms in Congress.
I don’t know anything about Burzynski. Do you think he’d make a better statewide candidate than Roskam?
I think that Congressman Roskam would be a very good U.S. senator, but I think that St. Sen. Burzynski would be a slightly better candidate. Burzynski is more conservative, especially concerning gun rights. Burzynski has more years of experience, in elected office. I hope that Roskam will be a congressman until Sen. Durbin retires, probably in 2014. Then, Roskam should run for the U.S. Senate.
Burzynski has only 4 more years of experience in elected office than Roskam (currently 18 years for Burzynski and 14 for Roskam) and has the disadvantage of being 6 years older (53 instead of 47). Also, I think that Roskam’s experience would be more helpful in convincing the electorate that he has what it takes to represent it in the U.S. Senate given his experience with both state and federal issues, given that he served 6 years as a state rep, 6 years as a state senator and, at the time that the U.S. Senate term in question commences, will have served 4 years as a U.S. Representative, while Burzynski would have served 2 years as a state rep and 18 years as a state senator. And as someone who has already run three very competitive federal races (he narrowly lost a GOP congressional primary in 1998), including his 2006 victory against all odds, we know that Roskam can take the strain of what promises to be a very tough campaign.
That being said, I know nothing about Burzynski, so maybe you’re right and he’d be an even better candidate.
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