Free Republic

Illinois Democrats nominated Alex Giannoulias to run for the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. As Richard Baehr noted Monday on AT, Giannoulias has substantial weaknesses that could enable Congressman Mark Kirk, the Republican nominee, to take the seat in November. The GOP Senatorial Campaign Committee is wasting no time in focusing on Guannoulias's shady past, something that may resonate with Illinois voters, sick of Democrat machine corruption that has left the state arguably in worse fiscal shape than California.

Massachusetts had 116,483 dead people on its voter registration rolls and another 538,567 people who were no longer living at the addresses on their registrations, according to a study released Oct. 28, by Aristotle International Inc., a nonpartisan political technology and data firm. On Tuesday, Massachusetts will hold a special U.S. Senate election between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown. Polls show a close race. Alicia Moran, spokeswoman for Aristotle, told CNSNews.com on Monday that people should be cautious about drawing any conclusions from the company’s late October analysis about the quality of the Massachusetts voter registration rolls going...

Vote of Confidence A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. By Gretchen Reynolds A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. In the final, climactic buildup to November's general election, with George Bush gaining ground on Bill Clinton in Illinois and the once-unstoppable campaign of senatorial candidate Carol Moseley Braun embroiled in allegations about her mother's Medicare liability, one of the most important local stories managed to go virtually unreported: The...

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of "operatives" who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state's liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to "educate the idiots," assigned to the state's AFL-CIO union. Among the operation's intended targets: "minorities, GED's, drop-outs." Individuals named in the document, marked "CONFIDENTIAL," "for internal use only," and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE," are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter's press...

Rusty at TheJawaReport connects the dots between the Obama campaign, a major PR firm, and a variety of baseless anti-Palin smears being circulated by lefty bloggers. As he notes, "Within an hour of this post going up, YouTube videos implicating Ethan Winner were yanked, sockpuppet accounts deleted, and more importantly, the Wikipedia entry on David Axelrod began to edit out mentions of his well-known astroturfing campaigns." If he were totally off base, would everything be coming down off the net? Sure seems like somebody's got something to hide. UPDATE: I like the way Ace puts it: "eswinner" is not sitting...

Obama is a product of the corrupt Chicago Machine. One of the key players in this corrupt machine is Tony Rezko - a Syrian real estate developer/slumlord who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the machine and to Obama's law firm and to Obama's various campaign funds - and was VERY connected to the governor of Illinois. We've covered it previously HERE. NOW, THERE'S NEW NEWS: The real estate agent who sold Obama the house he now lives in - for more than a million bucks - was a pal of Rezko, someone he'd been pressuring the guv to...

Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) collapsed on the City Council floor this afternoon after delivering a speech in favor of a resolution calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. The 72-year-old alderman was standing near one of the exit doors to the City Council chamber, on the 2nd floor of City Hall, about 1:25 p.m. during the council's regular meeting. Ald. Virginia A. Rugai (19th) had just started to speak when another alderman got the chairman's attention by yelling, "Call 911!" A recess was called and proceedings came to an immediate halt as Natarus' colleagues ran to him. An aide...