This is an open letter to Andy McKenna and the GOP leadership. Please stop asking for a special election. Senator Burris was just put into place after the Democrats publicly and openly screwed up and you want to help them get rid of their problems. We don’t need to give the Democratic leadership, including new Governor Quinn, cover to fix what they did. There will be an election for Burris’s seat! It’s the elections of 2010. We’re in that cycle now; let the voters have their chance to show their disgust at the polls in November of 2010, your job is to put the facts out and find candidates.

Last January the leadership of the Democratic Party; called for a special session of the General Assembly (GA) to change the law that allowed the Governor to appoint the replacement for Obama’s Senate seat, they failed to pass the law. The problems seemed to occur when polling showed that voters were open to a Republican filling the seat, then all talk of a special election stopped on the Democrat side and the focus went from a new election to removing the Governor. Even though the voters and a majority of the newspapers called for the special election the Democratic leadership didn’t pay any attention and did what they wanted.

Governor Blagojevich, then announced his choice to fill the seat, saying quite openly that he did it because the General Assembly didn’t change the law (that he said he would have signed). When the courts sided with Blagojevich, Burris was sworn in (even though Democrats in the U.S. Senate said it would never happen) making the Democrats eat crow. The GOP kept pushing the special election issue instead of making the Democrats pay a political price for lying to the voters. By pushing the special election the GOP looks like milksops. Reminding the people that the GOP is so weak that the Democrats don’t pay attention to them doesn’t help anyone but the Democrats.

The chickens have come home to roost and instead of letting the Democrats live with their choices and explain why they put politics in front of the voter’s best interest the ILGOP is again going to help them. Andy let’s forget about special elections and focus on the upcoming elections. Fill all of the slots on the ticket with quality candidates and get them some money. Let the anger that the electorate feels come out on the majority party the way it’s supposed to. In short, just get out of the way and let the Democrats hang themselves with their own rope.

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Jim Leahy is a regular contributor to the Chicago Daily Observer