Saturday, February 19, 2011

Campaign Contributions: The Thread

By popular demand (and rerouting this discussion over from the "Borders Sale" thread), have at it about campaign contributions in the aldermanic elections.

21 comments:

  1. 2 days left!!! 'nuff said! after that helen, scott, james, michael, marc, andy, caitlin, don, molly, befekadu, diane, emily will not matter! there will be an alderman or perhaps 2 names for the 2nd round! and best of all the most loved and hated person will have left!

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  2. Thank you, UU.


    El Barto said:

    "Any candidate that runs for office and refuses donations tells me one of 3 things:

    1) They are weak-minded, and fear that they will be corrupted, swindled, and easily influenced. They do not realize that the check they just received is someone buying into THEIR philosophy, not the reverse.

    2) They enjoy the status quo, where only those already within the ward hope to invest in it.

    3) They wish to lose.

    Have I missed one?"


    Dat's a bit simplistic dere EB.

    1. I don't blame Molly for taking the money from where she can get it, but having people point that out is part of the price of taking da cash.

    2. Shiller was also the darling of outside the ward types and that hardly translated to lotsa investment in da ward.

    3. The key to getting outside the ward investment is going to be reducing the crime, improving the EL stops and when the real estate market improves increasing the number of market rate housing units in da ward.

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  3. Now on to other campaign related stuff.

    Nowonty's final mailer with the maps was quite good. Good for you Don! Will it propel Don into the runoff. We'll see.

    Stewart's final mailer was also good. Will it propel Emily into the runoff. We'll see. The big paper endorsements may do her some good.

    Carroll seems to have a decent number of volunteers. Will it propel.........we know where I'm going with this.

    Molly has had a good and bad week. It was the best of times, fundraising, and the worst of times, minor missteps regarding FWY disclosure and the mailers. Also putting the cop on her mailer may come back to haunt her if she makes the runoff. Will she make the runoff or will she be propelled out of the race.

    Cappleman keeps chugging along. He's the energizer bunny of this election. Will he make the runoff? Methinks yes. The bigger question is will a convincing showing Tuesday propel him to the alderman's office?

    Is Retta ready to rumble on Tuesday or will his campaign flounder on the shoals of 48th Ward supportive despair?

    Kaplan also sent out a mailer. Snicker. Show COURAJ on Tuesday Marc, smoking em if you got em, cause your campaign is going down quicker than the Lusitania off the Irish coast.

    Will Scott Baskin
    Andy Lam
    Caitlin McIntyre and
    Diane Shapiro

    see their shadows on election day? If they do will we have six more weeks of elections?

    Also will Shapiro fire a few rounds at her shadow from a 45 Caliber handgun?

    Tune in Tuesday boys and girls, ladies and gents because the one thing I'm sure of is that it's going to be a fun night for some and the agony of de feet for others.

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  4. It's one thing for candidates to get a few large checks from outside the ward.

    It's quite another when over 90% of a candidate's funds come from outside the ward. It's even worse when these outside donations come from clients of a real estate law firm owned by the candidate's father and these clients have a vested interest in getting their taxes lowered. I ain't buying there's no conflict of interest.

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  5. KOK,

    "If Phelan makes the runoff I will personally be contacting the department to file a complaint. I am surprised no candidates filed a complaint yet. Maybe they hope to use it against her if she makes the runoff."

    What are we two? Are you gonna tell on him? If it is so bad why wait? Just do it now.

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  6. At least Molly didn't take money from Bomberg Property Management which owns the Wilson Men's Hotel and other decrepit SRO's. Can't say the same for Cappleman and Nowotny.

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  7. Jason,

    using a cop in your literature, particularly a cop and his police vehicle, is bad. It shows poor judgment on his part and on Molly's part. Is it a BIG deal? Eh, prolly not. Is it a small deal, certainly. Is it a medium deal, could be. It could certainly have a negative short term impact on the cops career prospects.

    Now if you look at the UU Facebook page you will see another cop is under investigation for a seemingly lesser election related gaffe. Making robo phone calls for a candidate and ID'ing himself as a fine member of Chicago's Police Department. That apparently happened off duty and out of uniform with no police vehicle present.

    Now I don't know why this matter hasn't apparently been brought to the attention of the department. Perhaps it has and we just don't know. I do know that if Molly doesn't make the runoff then the issue will largely be forgotten.

    As for "KOK" telling on da copper he may have to get in line. Politics is like that. Actually all someone has to do is email a few reporter types and let them start da poop rolling.

    What I learned in the last week is that a whole lotta people have a serious dislike for Molly. I had missed that before. It's seemingly more than the normal campaign "dislike" and frankly surprises me.

    There are also some folks out there with a serious dislike of Cappleman as the "ex priest". That also surprises me.

    With the exception of Kaplan and Two Gun Tea Party Shapiro I think all the candidates are seemingly decent people.

    Which is more than can be said for you or me Jason.......we're pond scum.

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  8. "At least Molly didn't take money from Bomberg Property Management which owns the Wilson Men's Hotel and other decrepit SRO's. Can't say the same for Cappleman and Nowotny."



    Well perhaps she wasn't offered any money by Bomberg.

    Seriously, Bomberg gave Cappleman $200 and Nowatny $250. He also gave to Shiller and Mary Ann Smith numerous times.

    Personally, as a Cappleman supporter, I feel that any donation under $200.01 should be ignored. Some of you may call that hypocrisy and you'd be right.

    If I were Cappleman I wouldn't have taken that donation because of the "optics". What a silly words and meaning, "optics".

    I shall "interface" with a glass of beer soon.

    So you found one problematic donation to Cappleman. I'll take that and raise you dozens of outside the ward donations to Phelan and the Terry Teale donation. Teale having been deputy chief of Staff to Daley and a political insider's insider.

    We're talking 50 grand to $200 dollars. Phelan also took a large donation from a local nursing home; although, Yellow Dog Democrat swears on his grandma that the nursing home is well run.

    None of the major candidates is immune from criticism regarding donations.

    As I said before if I were Molly I'd take the outside money too. Taking it comes at a cost, but so does not taking it. Much of the money she has gotten is from her contacts in the real estate community and not unexpected. I expect Cappleman may be pulling in some of that national gay money after Tuesday and that would not be unexpected.

    What is gay money?

    $1 Bill---Washington Monument

    $2 Bill--Liberace

    $5 Bill--Young Lincoln Carrying an axe. Very butch!

    $10 Bill--Cher

    $20 Bill--Harvey Milk

    $50 Bill--Stays the same cause nobody is butcher than US Friggin Grant

    $100 Bill--A smiling Ellen Degeneres. Because funny lesbians and $100 bills are rare.

    Sixty hours from now we shall know which candidates will make the runoff.

    Given the amount of vitriol out there I'm hopin' for a Capplemaniac v Molly Money Machine runoff.

    Like the groundhog it will give me six more weeks of fun.

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  9. Uptown, there's a difference between taking a couple of hundred dollars from a business inside the ward and grabbing tens of thousands of dollars from firms outside the ward that happen to be connected to daddy's law firm, ya think?

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  10. IP,

    I am going to shed the attorney attitude and try to make my point. This is what is BS about politics.

    Police officers, fire fighters and other city employees were once part of the community. Taking a picture with them for a campaign was no big deal. Now, everybody seems to want a piece of them.

    This whole issue is dumb. People who rip on the cops (or any city employee) take the fun out of everything.

    Or maybe they are just jealous.

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  11. Irish Pirate wrote:

    "Seriously, Bomberg gave Cappleman $200 and Nowatny $250. He also gave to Shiller and Mary Ann Smith numerous times.

    Personally, as a Cappleman supporter, I feel that any donation under $200.01 should be ignored. Some of you may call that hypocrisy and you'd be right.

    If I were Cappleman I wouldn't have taken that donation because of the "optics". What a silly words and meaning, "optics"."

    What does any of this mean? A candidate can accept $200, and become a tireless public servant, but one who endorses a check for $225 has been purchased?

    For the record, I don't think any of the candidates in this race are that gullible.

    IP, if you can be had so cheaply, I will save my allowance money. I wish to see the 'dat der dis' shtick retired for a few months, if not longer.

    As for the Aldermanic race, I can't imagine questioning someone's reasoning for accepting money, then still supporting that candidate.

    If you think a candidate is guilty for accepting money, by all means, sling mud. Just accept that candidates that don't accept money don't win.

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  12. Jason,

    praise the Lord you're shedding da attorney attitude.

    The whole issue isn't dumb. By running that photo in a campaign mailer Molly, and I'll use some non-attorney language here, potentially put said Officer into the trickbag. She may have turned him into an asshat.

    In uniform, seemingly on duty, vehicle outside her campaign office.....oh yeah......his supervisors may be measuring his oversized cranium for the hat right now.

    Jason, you're Molly's Mooshie. Mooshie being the former Uptownite who was a FERVENT supporter of Michael Carroll. Mooshie was over the top in her defense of Carroll and her attacks on his opponents.

    Now I doubt you or your compatriot in Mooshie-level fealty Yellow Dog Democrat are emotionally capable of critical thinking regarding Molly's campaign.

    It's all defense defense attack woof woof woof with you two.

    It was a silly move to post the photo of the cop in her mailers. It wasn't some photo of her and a cop in some parade or at some street festival standing around.

    I said it before I don't think it's a huge issue, but it does show a certain lack of political judgment. IF she makes the runoff it will bite her in her campaign behind. Woof, woof.

    Now in two days we'll know which two candidates will enter the runoff.

    Woof, woof.

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  13. El Barto,

    woof woof.

    Dis and dat. Hey, I tink I got a leak in da gracht* roof.

    Look up the definition of the word "sarcasm".

    I hope you early voted. Because with the level of annoyance I'm apparently causing you I'd hate to think you would be incapable of walking to the polls on Tuesday.

    *garage

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  14. Holey Moley,

    All property owners have a vested interest in lowering their property taxes. If Molly were running for Cook County Assessor, conflict of interest might be an issue. Aldermen, however, do not have any influence over a property's assessed value. What aldermen can do to help lower our taxes is champion fiscal responsibility and root out corruption. Tightening the use of TIFs in the city would be a great place to start.

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  15. All property owners have a vested interest in lowering their property taxes. - gordon

    One little glaring flaw in your reasoning there, gordon. I could agree with you if Molly's approach to addressing the city's budget crisis and TIF reform differed remarkably from the other candidates. The fact is that most of the other candidates have rather similar responses to these same issues. The only real difference is that for Molly, clients of her daddy's law firm are throwing tons of money at her.

    Now you can think what you want, but I am not that gullible to believe Molly is the hope of the city's ability to control its spending and that's why all these law firms are throwing their money behind Molly rather than candidates in other wards where there are clearer differences of opinion.

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  16. Even if Molly leaves her family law practice, if elected, the fact that the practice concentrates on real estate tax appeals gives certain machine types influence over her.

    At this point with the Assessor's office firmly in the hands of Joe Berrios I think many people would say that Mike Madigan is running the tax appeals show.

    It's difficult to be an independent alderman when you have close family members whose livelihood depends on keeping Mike Madigan happy.

    Let's say a seriously contested vote comes up in the council on TIF reform or selling O'Hare airport to some CHASE Bank inspired investment group. If the machine has leverage over a family member they may choose to use it.

    More recently it's been done through exempt jobs. Da Mare gives an alderman's dumbass brother in law an exempt job. The alderman not dare cross da mare or the alderman will be listening to his wife complain that her brother is jobless.

    Dat's how it's done. Right El Barto?

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  17. Good point, IP.

    Made even more interesting by the fact that Yellow Dog Democrat worked for Mike Madigan for eight years. And now look who he's helping out.

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  18. IP,

    WOW, that gay money gag was borderline offensive AND unfunny not to mention technically inaccurate with the rare gay lesbians.

    If you're going to be borderline offensive, at least come up with something original and accurate.

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  19. MFM,

    get some more fiber in your diet. You're constipated.

    I said funny lesbians were rare. My lesbian niece would agree. Of course she's funny due to my tutelage.

    When she was about 15 or so I took her and some of her Catholic High school girl friends to see the play "Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack". Considering it was around Division and Ashland at the time she needed an oversized driver who wouldn't rat her out to her mom. I was forced to wait at a nearby watering hole whilst they watched the play.

    Funniest line in a local play:

    Gay Male Character Points Out to the Audience and Shrieks:

    "Look a lesbian with a sense of humor"

    I went to the play later based on their laughing in the van on the way home.

    Lighten up. As for being borderline offensive next time I'll work harder and be totally offensive.

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  20. I am looking forward to the runoff election. With a field of 11 candidates, it is diffilcut to truly understand a candidate's vision for the ward in a forum or debate setting with ten other candidate competing for time.

    The runoff will show where a candidate's support is coming from. I personally think that we want an alderman that is supported by the neighborhood, and getting campaign contribution is one sign of that support. The final two candidates will also get funding from local and regional PACs as well. I think we are already seeing who the tax/real estate attorneys are supporting - there are many other organizations with deep pockets that have stayed out of this election so far. Round 2 will be an expensive and eye-opening experience for the 46th ward.

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  21. IP,

    The line from the play IS funny... especially accompanied by the break in the fourth wall and shriek.

    And a BRAVO for bringing your daughter to the show!

    More fiber in my diet? Harrrr harrrr harrr (see what I did with the obvious connection to your screen name?)

    Like I said, become more original fellow.

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