Chicago Daily Observer

Why do so many in the party insist that millions of votes in two key states be counted only if they don’t matter — that is, if the result is a fait accompli — and not be counted if they do?

If they were counted now — even if some of them were counted now — things might be quite different. According to the Real Clear Politics total, when one includes estimated vote totals in caucus states (a factor which favors Obama) plus results from Florida (which favor Clinton), but nothing from Michigan, where Obama’s name was not on the ballot, Obama’s lead in the national popular vote is 411,915. That figure is less than Obama’s margin of victory in his home of Cook County, Illinois, where, according to the Illinois Board of Elections, Obama won by 429,052 votes. By other counts, Obama’s lead is far less than his winning ... Read More...

First the good news: The city deferred action on its latest proposal for licensing concert promoters, originally set for tomorrow’s City Council meeting.

Some people have been naive enough to call it a victory, but don’t be fooled. The delay doesn’t protect all the small promoters and club owners and not-for-profits who want to throw fund-raising bashes. It’s merely what one alderman calls a “tactical retreat” on the part of the mayor.

Here’s the deal from several good City Hall sources, including an alderman or two.

The vendor’s licensing bill (commonly known as the promoter’s ordinance) has been resurrected because Mayor Daley wants it, and no one in City Hall has the guts to tell the mayor he can’t have what he wants.

A bit of pleasant news was buried in the Business Section of the Sun-Times yesterday. St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island was sold to an investor group who promise to keep the troubled hospital open and invest $30 Million in improvements to the facility.

Contrast this to the Front Page howls in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times a month ago claiming that St. Francis could not be sold at any price. Apparently it could be sold, and even attract a sizable investor. Incidentally, this is the same investor who had been negotiating with St. Francis for over a year, apparently unknown to The Tribune and Sun-Times.

There still is a major hurdle to providing healthcare in Blue Island. The Illinois Healthcare Facilities Planning Board has yet to approve the sale of the hospital. Yes, this is the same Board once graced by Stuart Levine, brokered by Tony Rezko, and ... Read More...

Bill Ayers is a funny guy.

Well, maybe not so funny when he was saying things like: ’‘Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.”

But his memoir—Fugitive Days, an accounting of his life on the run in the 1960s and 1970s as a chieftain of the radical and violent Weather Underground—is funny. I know, we’re supposed to be taking Ayers seriously ever since he showed up as a contributor to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) But a read of his 295-page book suggests he is a bit more notorious than he deserves, and a lot more comical.

Considering the controversy that Ayers has stirred up, I thought that his book might provide needed insight. But getting through it was like a slog through a used clothing store crammed with bellbottoms, psychedelic ... Read More...

Hillary Rodham Clinton romped to victory Tuesday in the West Virginia primary, burying Barack Obama in a landslide that seemed unlikely to stop his steady march to the Democratic nomination.

Running in a state tailored to her strengths—with a large turnout of white, rural and working-class voters—Clinton posted one of her biggest winning margins. With nearly all of the vote counted, she was leading Obama 67% to 26%.