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Sunday, October 31, 2010

2010 vs. 2006

When the elections ended in 2006 I wasn't very happy. I focused largely on Illinois races. I had no idea that in the rest of the nation, the elections were favoring the Democrats. We were going to have the very 1st female Speaker of the House in America.

In Illinois, it seemed as if machine politics were winning. After his father had his incapacitating stroke, Todd Stroger (son) succeeded John Stroger (father) as not only the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board President, but he won election to that office in November.

Also there was Rod Blagojevich. Yeah the man I often deride as "Ousted governor" was re-elected Governor of Illinois despite the state of Illinois government at the time and the fact that feds were investigating him. He apparently was a safer option than then state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. That bothered me the most and for our trouble we got in 2007 "Overtime in Hell". By December 2008 we know what happened and now we know him as Ousted governor!

Well, while state government or dare I say county government wasn't served that well back then. One positive thing many have said about Todd Stroger was that he may well had put Cook County on solid financial ground. Alas for his trouble he was roundly bounced out of office in four years. He will have a replacement in November.

Nepotism may have served it's purpose in 2006, but having a known surname didn't help Todd in this year's primaries. I would consider Todd not a very good politician, but in spite of some of Blago's more outgoing traits it didn't help him in his political career. It didn't keep him honest either.

If you believe the pundits this year we may well have a wave year in 2010. Perhaps not on par with 2006, but there will be some changes. Who knows what'll happen in this state on Tuesday, but we could see the US House at the very least return to Republican control.

Here in Illinois well a Republican could return to the Governor's mansion. It's difficult to say what'll happen between two very flawed US Senate candidates. Even in my congressional district, there appears to be a real race with a flawed incumbent and an upstart Black Republican getting endorsements and some money.

Either way we shall see what happens on election day.

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