42ndWardDemocrats.com

Congratulations to Alderman Toni Preckwinkle on her victory in the Democratic Primary for Cook County Board President.  Toni’s win represents a victory for reform of Cook County Government.  I was proud to endorse Toni in the Democratic Primary and I’m looking forward to helping her win the General Election on November 2nd.  If elected, Toni will be the first woman to hold the office of Cook County Board President.  Her deep integrity, progressive policy views, fiscal responsibility and pragmatic politics make her the right public servant for the job.  We look forward to helping elect Toni and the great slate of Democratic candidates running statewide and locally.

Once Again, the 42nd Ward’s vote totals outpaced most other Chicago Wards in the 2010 Primary.   The Ward was in the top 10 in the City of Chicago in Democratic voter turnout with 9,626 persons casting ballots - which far exceeded most north side Wards.  I am also very proud to report that, once again, our Ward turned a deeper shade of "blue" in this year's Primary Election. On February 2nd, Democratic voters accounted for 76.25% of the total vote in the 42nd Ward. In addition, the Ward delivered 6,578 votes for Alderman Preckwinkle in her race for Cook County Board President - which was 70.6% of the Democratic vote. These vote totals are very significant given the large number of voters who have voted Republican in the Ward in years' past.

Heading into the General Election, I am happy to report that Illinois remains a strong “blue” State and our Cook County Democratic numbers, not surprisingly, are very strong.  Democrats currently outnumber Republicans statewide by a healthy margin.  In the U.S. Senate race Democrats took in 904,776 (54.9%) votes while the Republicans had 742,268 (45.0%).  In the Governor’s race, Democrats received 915,726 (54.4%) votes and Republicans had 767,485 (45.6%).  An interesting statistic is this one: Cheryle Jackson, the third placed Democratic candidate for Senate received more votes across the State than the Republican Nominee for Governor Bill Brady, 179,682 to 155,527.  Cook County vote totals for Senate (568,864 (D) - 156,185 (R)), Governor (568,429 (D) - 159,034 (R)) and County Board President (575,483 (D) - 137,384 (R)) show that the Democratic Party has retained its significant margin over Republicans locally.

Vote Democratic – Vote Recovery

Notwithstanding the above strong numbers, the 2010 General Election will be a difficult one for Democratic candidates.  In the last year alone, we, as a Party, have made many mistakes.  We have witnessed our Governor indicted, his appointment to Barack Obama’s Senate seat falter and disappear, the loss of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat and the election of an unqualified pawn broker with significant personal issues become our nominee for Lt. Governor, quit in a slapped together teary eyed press conference at an Andersonville bar on Super Bowl Sunday and two months later decide to run for Governor despite the fact that his alleged prostitute ex-girlfriend thought he’d be unqualified to serve as Lt. Governor.  Hollywood’s finest screenwriters could not - in a million years - dream up some of this nonsense.  Fortunately, most of these issues are now behind us but the National Republican Party is smelling blood in the water.  Wealthy Republican donors, at the behest of Sara Palin, Rush Limbaugh and other Tea Party leaders are flooding Illinois with gigantic campaign contributions in an attempt to eliminate important Democratic policy advances that have helped working families send their children to college, keep assault weapons and handguns off of our streets and out of the hands of criminals, keep small class room sizes in our elementary and secondary schools, put more cops on the street to fight crime, defend a woman’s right to choose, and provide health care assistance for seniors.  

Democrats, standing alone in Washington and Springfield, are also leading the way in turning around our nation’s sagging economy after years of “borrow and spend” deficits, unwise financial deregulation, miniscule banking oversight and other fiscally undesirable policies brought about by President Bush and Republican policymakers who controlled Congress for nearly a decade.  This Perfect Storm of fiscal irresponsibility caused a “near miss” depression that the Republican Party would rather now ignore than address by participating in economic recovery efforts in a bi-partisan fashion.   Going alone, the Democratic Party’s job creation efforts are beginning to revitalize our nation’s economy.  The stock market is making good gains in 2010, jobs numbers are turning around and the real estate market is beginning to stabilize.  The economic optimism of a few years ago is beginning to return all over the Nation and State and with that so will renewed investments in small business and local projects that have been shelved for the last few years as investors have weathered the economic storm.   As we head into the November General Election please keep in mind that all of these recovery policies were fought – tooth and nail – by the Republican Party and they have offered absolutely no solutions of their own.  Instead of rolling up their sleeves and working to get our nation back on the right economic track, they have spent the recession parading around the country throwing tea bags and claiming that Barack Obama is not a citizen.  The country is now clearly on the path to recovery and Democratic candidates must be re-elected so the Party can finish cleaning up the mess caused by the Bush years.  The decision is clear - Vote Democratic and vote for recovery.