Illinois Gubernatorial Election 2014.

[muon2]

I think if they want the governor's mansion again, they need to recruit Judy Baar Topinka (JBT) who is a moderate Republican who is more like most suburban Chicagoans.

Then us Downstate people could vote her in by a large margin.

She won the GOP nod for Gov in 2006 but lost by 10 points to Blago, after the Trib had already started to expose the corruption in Blago's inner circle. Downstate didn't help JBT as you can see below.

[muon2]

I think if they want the governor's mansion again, they need to recruit Judy Baar Topinka (JBT) who is a moderate Republican who is more like most suburban Chicagoans.

Then us Downstate people could vote her in by a large margin.

She won the GOP nod for Gov in 2006 but lost by 10 points to Blago, after the Trib had already started to expose the corruption in Blago's inner circle. Downstate didn't help JBT as you can see below.

I've yet to figure out why Little Egypt liked Blago so much.

Blago was a populist and his campaign was adept at painting JBT as a crazy lady from Cook. Notice how Little Egypt and the upper Mississippi regions trended towards Blago from 2002 to 2006. The data is a bit more complicated due to the 10% vote for the Green Party candidate in 2006.

[muon2]

Cross-posted from the other current Il-Gov thread:

Cook county's population is about half Chicago and half suburban townships. Growth since 2010 is only about 0.35%/year according to census estimates and is fairly evenly divided between city and townships, and no township stands out for high growth since it's all mostly built up. Thus, the 2010 precinct results are a fairly good place to start a forecast for 2014.

The Cook County Clerk put out a detailed report after the 2010 general election, and the maps of precinct results show the relative party strengths in the county. Here are the maps from both the Gov's race as well as Kirk's win for US Senate. The comparison between the two gives a sense of the difference between a narrow loss and narrow win for the Pub in a statewide race.

[muon2]

The numbered areas are the 50 Chicago wards as they existed in 2010. Each ward is divided into precincts, and you can see most of the wards are solid D over 70%.

[muon2]

Some of the Central Eastern Wards and a few Northwest Wards are not as Dem as Chicago as a whole.

The 42nd Ward on that map is the Loop (what we call downtown) and River North with the expensive condos. The 43rd and 32nd Wards just to the north of that cover the tony neighborhood of Lincoln Park. Far NW and SW Chicago are home to many of the white city workers, since police, firefighters and many other city employees must live in the city. NW Chicago still is represented by a Pub in the IL House.

[muon2]

Rauner isn't Sandoval, but more like Christie. He is a businessman who wants a flat tax instead of a fair tax and against birth control for women. Quinn wants a fair tax.

Little Egypt liked Blago cause he kept the flat tax like is. Unlike Burris, who was gonna increase taxes.

Christie was never a businessman he was always in the politics/law field. Christie never campaigned on a flat tax. He campaigned on cutting taxes across the board like Reagan did in his presidency. Christie isn't against birth control though he is pro-life. There is a difference.

Even Dems on Washington DC are against the fair tax because its regressive in that the rich get a tax cut. The Republicans in Washington DC are against it because they see it as a cash cow for the federal government.

In IL "fair tax" is code for progressive income tax. This confuses many Illinoisans who are aware of the nation Fair Tax organization, not to mention those who don't live in IL.

[muon2]

Governor Pat Quinn (D): 71.8%
Fmr. Dir. of CeaseFire Illinois Tio Hardiman (D): 28.2%

Businessman Bruce Rauner (R): 40.1%
State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R): 37.3%
State Sen. Bill Brady (R): 15.1%
Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford (R): 7.5%

I left the atlas key on the Illinois map since it would be confusing to read some numbers (like how Rutherford has either >50% or >20%).

The primary maps I posted on the 2014 election season thread

The two maps show the clear differences between the northern and southern parts of the state. The north is polarized between Quinn and Rauner, with voters more concerned with ideology and less about governance. The center and south doesn't show that polarization with governance the driving force witnessed by the votes for Dillard and "not Quinn".

[muon2]

Quinn will not run for re-election...in 2018

Quinn has spent a 40-year career in politics running as an outsider, even though he has held a number of elected offices and other political positions. He championed term limits 20 years ago, but was unsuccessful getting the question on the ballot. Now there's a GOP outsider running for Gov who's never held elective office and has made term limits a key part of his campaign against "career politicians." Quinn is in a box on this issue.

[muon2]

Rauner's New Gimmick
Launches corruption tip line for state employees

http://www.wlsam.com/common/page.php?feed=11&pt=Rauner&id=95854&is_corp=0

We'll see how this stuff goes over with the voters. Rauner and his staff sure seem to enjoy it.

The irony is that Quinn did pretty much the [img=http://www3.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=2&RecNum=7494]http://same thing[/img] when he first became Gov to clean up from Blago. Before that Blago campaigned on (2002) and passed (2003) sweeping ethics laws in response to the George Ryan scandal, not that Blago followed them.