by Andy McKenna, Chairman Illinois Policy Institute With the focus on public employee benefits reform shifting away from Madison, Wis., attention must now be directed to Springfield, where leadership is urgently needed on the same issue (Your View, Crain’s, April…

Before the U.S. Postal Service imposed those uniform capital-letter abbreviations for the states, my state of IL was presciently abbreviated Ill. Indeed, ill we were and ill we remain. Maybe even iller.
I had hoped to devote this week’s column to something genuinely important and of national consequence, like a critical analysis of the president’s jobs program or a body count of Democratic senate seats about to go the way of MA.

But the Ill primary election—on both sides—turned out to be so bizarre I’ve got to vent my mixed emotions.
First, there …

The best analysis of what led to the virtual tie between Kirk Dillard and Bill Brady comes to me from a number of people who seem to agree with Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax. All along the smart prognosticators were saying it’s going to be knife-edge between Dillard and Andy McKenna.  Brady was regarded as not being sufficiently funded etc. True: then McKenna started in with the very negative ads zeroing in on Dillard and Jim Ryan.

The ads were too tough coupled with the fact that Andy was unwilling to go …

Direct e-mail solicitations on behalf of the McKenna/Murphy candidates began several months ago from a Notre Dame classmate of McKenna. Last fall, I mysteriously received “McKenna for Illinois” solicitations as part of their e-mail list server. To my astonishment, the campaign was using an e-mail address listed only with the Notre Dame Alumni Association … and only temporarily for two weeks while moving.
The campaign began with an innocent “fellow classmate” endorsement announcing that McKenna had become a candidate and noted reasons why classmates should provide support to him. For months …

“Junior,” the Republican candidate for governor, Andy McKenna, Jr. didn’t show up to debate with the other contenders on WTTW last night week because…well…he didn’thave to. Invitations had gone out on the debate last November 3 but Andy Jr. couldn’t fit it in to his schedule although the others did. Andy Jr. skipped a downstate TV debate too.

The reason he doesn’t do debates is he doesn’t do well in them. This is because of a congenital condition. He was born terminally bland. So bland, in fact, that if …

Contrary to religious  insistence that there is “intelligent design” in the origin of the human species, there is no evidence of that phenomenon among Illinois’ Republicans. Because of stupid choices in the 1996 and 1998 senatorial primaries, Republicans unintentionally foisted Dick Durbin and Barack Obama upon America. That’s “unintelligent design.”

However, the upcoming Republican primaries for governor, U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative in the North Shore 10th District are positively survival of the fittest.
The Republican species is now adapting to the survival of the most electable. The presence or absence …

The primary election campaign is in full swing thanks to special legislation designed to benefit the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign by advancing the date of the Illinois primary in order to benefit the carpetbagger with a “home” state win. The legislators conveniently rescheduled future gubernatorial primaries at the same time, so voters can exercise their franchise by slogging through the snow and ice next February.

Chicago ward committeemen and precinct captains have long preferred the low voter turn outs that winter time balloting produced …

Dobbs Has Fire.

There is a very good chance that resigned CNN anchor Lou Dobbs may run for president in 2012, says at least one major source I have talked to at CNN. Anyone who has read Dobbs’ book “Independents Day” has had vague forewarning that what is in the back of the mind of this 64-year-old is a race that doesn’t fit either party…and would resemble that of Pat Buchanan’s with some twinges of Ross Perot’s. In issues it would come very closely to Buchanan’s pitchfork crusades with some adaptations. …

President Obama’s former colleagues in the Illinois state Senate used him as a punching bag Thursday in the first debate among all seven Republicans running for governor.
“Just as I worked to defeat Obamamcare when he was a state senator in Illinois, we will defeat it, hopefully, at the federal level,” said state Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington).
“But if we fail to do that, I will impose the [states' rights] 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and tell the federal government they have no right to take our tax dollars and …

Illinois’ government is undeniably corrupt. “Pay-to-play” flourishes. Five of the state’s last eight governors have been indicted, and three convicted and imprisoned. Rod Blagojevich will soon make it four. Every lever of power in Illinois is controlled by a Chicago Democrat.
State Senator Bill Brady (R-44), of Bloomington, the frontrunner for the 2010 Republican nomination for governor, has a simple solution to all of Illinois’ ills: Just say “no” to Chicago…and “no” to lawyers…and “no” to Democrats.
In short, argues Brady, don’t continue to let Chicagoans run Illinois. Elect a Downstater as …