Posted on 04/17/2006 9:03:49 AM PDT by Petruchio
You certainly have a lot of nerve casting aspersions like that given your particular history in Illinois.
Hah.
What are you, a George Ryan fan?
Not at all.
I'm not a fan of any politician (or his flunkies) making sweeping promises he has no intention of keeping, and then decrying the state of politics he leaves behind.
I'm funny that way I guess.
Yeah, right.
Enjoy your Combine...
Illinois governors convicted and incarcerated for felonies in the last forty years: Otto Kerner (D), Dan Walker (D), Richard Ogilvie (R) who instituted the Illinois state income tax, Lyin' George Ryan (R). It is not every state that can boast 4 jailbird governors in as many decades. Only Gentleman Jim Edgar and Big Jim Thompson escaped notice, detection, prosecution and conviction in the last forty years.
But wait, folks, the best may be yet to come. The feds have intensively investigated BOTH major party candidates: incumbent Governor Blagojevich (D) AND Judy Baaaaah Tooooopinkovna who is every bit as Republican as Lincoln Chaffee or the early John Lindsay. FedProsecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office has also taken three depositions from Richie the Corrupt Pup Daley and indicted or jailed many of his close buddies. Who knows? Today's political contenders may become tomorrow's cellmates.
Illinois governors convicted and incarcerated for felonies in the last forty years: Otto Kerner (D), Dan Walker (D), Richard Ogilvie (R) who instituted the Illinois state income tax, Lyin' George Ryan (R). It is not every state that can boast 4 jailbird governors in as many decades. Only Gentleman Jim Edgar and Big Jim Thompson escaped notice, detection, prosecution and conviction in the last forty years.
But wait, folks, the best may be yet to come. The feds have intensively investigated BOTH major party candidates: incumbent Governor Blagojevich (D) AND Judy Baaaaah Tooooopinkovna who is every bit as Republican as Lincoln Chaffee or the early John Lindsay. FedProsecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office has also taken three depositions from Richie the Corrupt Pup Daley and indicted or jailed many of his close buddies. Who knows? Today's political contenders may become tomorrow's cellmates.
Ryan's conviction actually began in Wisconsin, when an under-qualified truck driver annihilated a family of 6 on the Interstate.
The trucker's license was purchased in Illinois.
You are right and we dodged a bullet with this magnificent verdict.
What happened in Wisconsin? I understand that Doyle actually a signed a bill prohibiting lawsuits against Mickey D's for making its innocent customers poster children for Sumo wrestling. Either Doyle must really be in trouble OR the Trial Lawyers' Association failed to see and raise the payoffs from the fast food industry or both.
"Ryan's conviction actually began in Wisconsin"
Long before the Willis event, there were seeds of the anti-corruption revolt. Fitzgerald and Salvi made early plans to run anti-corruption campaigns. Salvi had made early comments about "cleaning up" the SOS office. From early in the campaign, the combine was opposed to both Fitz and Salvi and tried to find ways to "divide and conquer", both in the primary and in the general.
Salvi made some poorly phrased comments that enabled the "divide and conquer" approach. A less than scrupulous campaign consultant knew how to push the buttons of some anti-corruption conservatives and manipulate them into supporting Jesse White. The same paid consultant has played a major role in creating other divisive situations for conservatives since then.
My involvement since 97 has been directly driven by those events. I worked a Schaumburg precinct for Fitz and Salvi with occasional support for Topinka and Pucinski. I opposed both George and Jim Ryan but never mentioned them as it would detract from my focus on Fitz and Salvi. I thought Salvi would do well, almost as well as Fitz (who had very strong building trades support in the precinct).
With anti-George Ryan conservatives dominating the GOP vote, I did not expect George to do well.
Then, after I had knocked on doors all of September and October, a mail piece from the high profile anti-corruption conservative hit the mail boxes at the last minute. It said we could trust George Ryan and not Salvi. It swung the hard core conservatives I had taken for granted away from me.
That motivated me to insert myself into the operation of the conservative who sent that mail piece and "straighten him out". It took him a whole month after George Lyan's inauguration before he would switched to anti-George. When he did, he reacted as if he had been personally betrayed.
And which conservative events will you be attending in Illinois this election season?
Oh yeah, that's right; you just conducted a drive-by campaign, collected the checks, and hit the road.
You really are in NO position to moralize about Illinois politics until your candidate keeps his campaign promises, or you own up to the fact that his campaign was a scam.
As usual, your post is shot through with malicious inaccuracies.
Feel free to dispel any of those "malicious inaccuracies" that you care to.
But, as usual, I don't expect you to do that.
I didn't 'conduct' the campaign there at all. It was run by IL hacks (who did quite well for themselves).
I did what I could to help, but hardly profited by it, as you claim.
All I got out of it was grief from jerks like you.
There are quite a few like you in the Land of Lincoln, actually.
Which is the primary reason the IL GOP is in the mess it's in.
Thanks for opening your big mouth and offering such a fine illustration of my original point.
Ha! That is so typical...when the campaign is going on, you put yourself at the center of the action. When your candidate (inevitably) loses, you downplay your involvement and blame everyone else for a miserable failure.
And as for collecting the checks--are you saying that your salary (and the salary Keyes paid HIMSELF out of the campaign fund) wasn't paid by the same Illinois conservatives you abandoned at the end of the election?
All we heard from people like you in 2004 was how you were shaping a grass-roots conservative movement in Illinois, but when the campaign was over, and when the campaign checks stopped coming in, you and Keyes were nowhere to be seen.
Ah, I see you've piled distortion on top of distortion since I've been gone.
Keyes didn't pay himself out of campaign funds in the IL Senate race.
Lying claims like that are another demonstration of how right I am when I say hacks like you are the reason IL politics is such a cesspool.
Thank you again for jumping in and illustrating this point so nicely.
Most of the funding for the IL Senate race came from grassroots conservatives around the country who believe in Alan and his message; and who were, like Alan, willing to do what was in their power to try and help the conservatives of IL try to break free of the failed leadership of their party.
I personally did not run the IL campaign, for many reasons...not the least of which was that I was spending most of that time period taking care of my just-orphaned niece and nephew. People who actually know me know about that.
IOW, you're a malicious liar.
Fact is, it was a couple of IL political hacks who made out like bandits on that campaign. Were you one of them?
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