Illinois Primary Election Thread (polls close at 7:00 p.m. CST)

Vanity | 2-2-10 | TitansAFC

[TitansAFC]

Check all this nonsense. It’s getting us nowhere.

You have Freepmail. 2006 is over!

[Impy]

Voting for tax hikes has never been “pragmatic”. And saying “(I) (don’t) want to raise taxes, but (my) opponents who aren’t even considering it are “pandering“” is a statement that wants to make me punch something.

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_81210ea8-e5ef-11de-90dc-001cc4c002e0.html

Anywhoo.

I heard there are 1800 absentee and provisional ballots.

And also that you can’t ask for a recount till like a month from now.

Dillard needs to do the right thing and quit. I’ll email him and ask him to.

With the talk of redistricting the other day I was thinking “eh maybe I should vote for him if he wins”.

If he steals it though that’s another story. That’s not cool.

[Impy]

“Fitzgerald could not have won in 2004”

Bull. He was the best chance to keep Obama out of office. Know the facts before you open your mouth. CBS, lol.

[AuH2ORepublican]

So you would refuse to vote for a John McCain-type Republican (in *Illinois*) and let a liberal Democrat remain as governor, spend the state further into bankruptcy and sign a redistricting bill that would make it impossible for the GOP to win more than 1/3 of seats in either house of the state legislature or more than 1/4 of seats to Congress?

I want Brady to win, but if Dillard actually got more votes I’m not going to give the car keys to the Democrats (although I would move to institute run-offs in primaries in which no one got 50%+1, or 40%+1 if that’s more palatable; heck, they should do it even if this time the conservative won by a plurality). I also think that it’s unreasonable to tell a candidate that worked for months towards an election that would be the fulfillment of decades in public service to concede a race in which he’s behind by less than 500 votes without at least calling for a recanvassing to make sure that there wasn’t a mathematical error that mistakenly put him behind (remember when Gov. Riley first won in AL that he initially appeared to have lost because there was a transcription error in the vote total out of Baldwin County?).

[PhilCollins]

In Mar. 2006, I voted similarly to you. If I thought that Oberweis could have defeated Topinka and that Brady couldn’t beat her, I would have voted for Oberweis. Since I knew, on election day, that Oberweis wouldn’t win, I voted for Brady.

[PhilCollins]

I’ve never voted for Oberweis. In the 2002 U.S. Senate primary, I voted for John Cox. In the 2004 U.S. Senate primary, I voted for General John Borling. In the 2006 governor primary, I voted for State Sen. Bill Brady.

I had many disappointments, on Tues. I voted for Don Lowery, Arie Friedman, Adam Andrzejewski, Randy White, and William Kelly.

[fideist]

Impy, in political terms “pragmatic” means a “willingness to compromise in order to get legislation passed.” In other words, “You vote for my pro-tax bill, I’ll vote for your anti-abortion bill, even though you are against taxes, and I am for abortion.” Quite obviously, the more principled the legislator is, the less willing he is to compromise.

Making laws is ugly. Bills have to be written, approved by the party leaders, gotten out of committees, then passed on the floor, then started all over again on the other side of the capitol.

The more pragmatic you are, the more effective you are, but the less principled. This is especially true for Republicans in our state that is controlled by Dems. Republicans can either sit on their hands or learn to compromise and negotiate.

Groups like the United Republican Fund don’t take all the trade-dealing into consideration when they produce their grades. Years ago, all the special interest groups were like the URF. But nowadays most cut the legislators some slack and don’t score every single vote. They give the congresscritters some room to maneuver, and announce when a vote comes up they will score.

Having said all that, I STILL prefer the principled candidate over the pragmatic! I want to know when I vote for someone he will represent those values he said he would, not trade them away.

Dillard has spent YEARS being pragmatic, and now he is paying for it! His conservativism is in doubt to far right voters.

[stars & stripes forever]

JUST IN FROM SEN. BILL BRADY!

With the final vote totals now reported, our campaign has a 406-vote lead over Senator Kirk Dillard at the top of the Republican gubernatorial contest. Still to be counted are absentee ballots that were not included in Tuesday's balloting and provisional ballots that will not be counted for several days. Our legal and political team does not believe those votes will be sufficient to offset our lead.

We're confident our vote will hold up and we will move onto victory in November.

I have great respect for Senator Dillard and all the others who traveled with me during this gubernatorial primary campaign season. Every one of them stands head and shoulders above the Democrat candidates.

This state is going to go like Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey. The Republican Party is here to support Illinois families and business and to take this state back with positive politics.

[Impy]

If the combine steals it for him I’d have a major problem with that. There’s nothing I hate more than when democrats steal elections. I don’t normally have attacks of conscience but I don’t know if I could vote for a combine election thief just cause he was the Republican.

It would be a battle in my mind to put that up against redistricting and my ‘strong negative feelings’ towards Pat Quinn. Under such circumstances I probably decide in November whist looking at the ballot.

Thankfully it doesn’t look like they will steal it. But with that talk of “Dillard’s ‘own numbers’ showing a closer vote count”........

Jim Edgar thinks Brady’s margin will hold up.

Fideist, I get what you are saying about pragmatism but I don’t think for example Dillard traded his vote for a sales tax increase to bailout the RTA/CTA for some rat’s vote on a pro-life bill. He was just plain in favor of it. DuPage Chairman Bob Schillstrom was in favor of it. Dan Cronin who will be the new DuPage County Chairman unfortunately voted for it too. The rats won’t ever cut spending so they voted for the tax hike. That kind of “pragmatism” is why we have higher taxes. We gotta just say no or taxes will always go up and the obscene spending will never ever ever go down. They need to be forced to cut it. That’s why a flat “hell no” to any tax increase (some “swaps” are ok with me, and I don’t give a crap about cigarette taxes but would be reluctant to raise even them) is my number 1 issue. All 4 levels of government I live under have more than enough revenue. Let them get rid of the ghost payrolling before they dare even think about a tax hike.

[Impy]

I missed the part of your post about the differing numbers. Yes all legal votes should counted properly.

It’s just my inking that it’s just BS, Dillard saying there are more votes in his own favor. He is a combiner. It suddenly switches to Dillard I’d plum have trouble believing it was legit.

I wouldn’t want Brady to concede if he was down by the same margin. I have to plead guilty on hypocrisy here. ;D But then again Brady (imo at least) isn’t a combiner so it’s not likely there would chicanery on his behalf.

[BillyBoy]

Some political junkie on facebook actually made a homemade map of the county-by-county results in Illinois for Governor by coloring in the totals himself. Hee hee. Some people have too much time on their hands. But check this out. Like the Bush vs. Gore race, it's veryyyyyy interesting when you break it down by region instead of raw numbers statewide. And I think it shows more than even why Dillard needs to concede and support the voter's choice:

One of the reasons why it's so close is that Crook County is home to Chicago and has a population of over five million, but Brady did terrible here and only got 5% of the vote. I also broke that down by region... Brady got 5.2% in all of suburban Cook County... 6.75% in my township of 150,000 people, and 16.80% of the vote in my precinct where I knocked on doors for him. Lost to McKenna by one vote in my neck of the woods. Just damn. If I had know it had been this close I would have worked three precincts for him and not handed out Proft's stuff as well (with a note saying they're both solid conservatives but suggesting voters support the strongest conservative in the race)

[stars & stripes forever]

WOW! Very telling map that pinpoints the area that must be penetrated for the November elections.

[Impy]

My bad. Seals actually did slightly better as Obama was taking 60%+ of the district votes.