Chicago Daily Observer

Common sense strikes Wilmette. Last year taxes went up 9% for the Village of
Wilmette, this year the village board has approved a 4% hike in the property
tax.

A small pat on the back because they didn’t raise it by the projected 6%
(which last I looked is at least double the underlying inflation rate). The
board was somewhat sensitive to the fact that residents are facing hefty tax
hikes in Cook County and the state.

Yes, there was much talk about painful choices, and while the board did cut
$1 million in expenses, and has moderately improved its budgeting, the
choices must not be painful, they must be easy by now since they have raised
taxes significantly for the last several years. The village president again
complained that single family homes comprise 90% of our tax base, so ... Read More...

TO: Senator Barack Obama

FROM: Karl Rove

SUBJECT: How to Beat Hillary

Not that you have asked for advice, but here it is anyway: Iowa is your chance to best her. If you do not do it there, odds are you never will anywhere. You are way behind her in most national polls. The only way to change that is to beat her in Iowa so people around America take another look at you. You did a smart thing organising effectively in the early primary states. But you can take advantage of that only if you win Iowa and keep her from building an overwhelming sense of invincibility and inevitability.

Political realignments occur regularly. When Democrats consistently win in historically Republican areas, like northern metropolitan-area suburbs, or the Republicans consistently win in historically Democratic areas, like the Deep South, it’s not an aberration.

But there’s a new factor: unalignment. The American electorate is divided into thirds: Democratic, Republican, and unaligned independents. For this the thid r group, which is heavily white, affluent, suburban and secular, voting Republican is seldom cool or acceptable.

Hardcore Democrats disdain Republicans as macho, war-like, tight-fisted, mean-spirited, intolerant, bigoted and dictatorial. That’s expected. Hardcore Republicans deride Democrats as squishy-soft on national defense and terrorist issues, and obsessed with creating a Utopia on earth. That’s expected.

What’s unexpected is that independents, driven by the “politics of culture,” have turned strongly against the Republicans. For them, issues like abortion rights, gun control, gay rights, immigration reform resonate, and to them, Republicans are on the wrong side. In their ... Read More...