Russ Stewart
Attorney at Law & Political Analyst

March 2012 Articles  
     

March 28, 2012 NEGATIVITY MATTERS: AN ANALYSIS OF 4 HOUSE RACES Negativity matters. Imagine that. Running a positive, thoughtful campaign is a one-way ticket to the political dumpster. Here's an analysis of 4 Democratic primaries for the Illinois House. The common thread? Incumbents win unless challengers give voters a persuasive reason to oust them, or if embatrtled incumbents fail to muddy a pesky challenger. In an open race, the machine-backed favorite wins unless the challenger has the money to go negative. But there's always an exception: Black guys caught stealing $7K, backed by the "Village Idiot," still win if their foe is a white guy (and ex-Republican).   full article...

March 21, 2012 THE END OF "NEWSPAPERS"? AND THE FALLACY OF GLOBAL WARMING "Newspaper" has become an oxymoron. So has "global warming." As to the former, news has become so instantaneous, and so accessible on the Internet, TV and newsradio, that a next-day print recapitulation is irrelevant. Daily newspapers are shriveling, and will soon vanish. As to the latter, the media needs to be a purveyor of fear, and what better than "global warming" and planetary extinction? But the facts are otherwise: "Extreme weather" is not abnormal; the Earth is 5 billion years old; hurricanes are fewer than in the 1930s; temperatures are up one-third degree; we've been in an Ice Age for 700,000 years.   full article...

March 14, 2012 "3-C'S" WILL IMPACT ON PRIMARY OUTCOMES In predicting the outcome of the March 20 primary, the proverbial "3-C's" are determinative. That describes three kinds of voters in Cook County: Controlled (350,000), Committed (250,000) and Casual (450,000). When voting is trendy and fashionable, casual voters flock to the polls. Voting on March 20 will be neither. So the "controlled" vote will dominate, although there will be exceptions. In the Supreme Court Democratic primary, expect a narrow Pucinski win; Munoz will win for Clerk only if black turnout is super-low; Shore-Thompson-Young will win for the MWRD; it's Jackson and Duckworth for Congress.   full article...

March 7, 2012 "SUPER-TONI'S" CLOUT TESTED IN COURT CLERK RACE This is all about "Super-Toni" and e-filing. Dorothy Brown, the black Clerk of Court, has wanderlust. Her office is swamped with 1.3 million filings annually, 100 million pages of documents, and 50 million scans. No wonder she wants to bail; she ran and lost for mayor and county board president. "I love this job," she avers. Ald. Ric Munoz (22nd) is challenging her in the 3/20 Democratic primary. Toni Preckwinkle has endorsed him. Munoz, a liberal, wants to "reform" the office, and activate e-filing. Primary turnout will be 500,000 -- 150,000 black, 50,000 Hispanic, 300,000 white Can Super-Toni deliver black votes to Munoz? Will whites reject Brown? Edge to Munoz.   full article...