{"id":218521,"date":"2010-01-22T09:49:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T14:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/illinoiseducationassociation.org\/?p=5382"},"modified":"2010-01-22T09:49:57","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T14:49:57","slug":"blast-from-the-past-could-be-gov-game-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218521","title":{"rendered":"Blast from the past could be Gov game changer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Something not very funny, from Gov. Pat Quinn\u2019s perspective, happened as he was skipping to an easy victory in the Democratic primary for governor.\u00a0 Just a few weeks ago, polls had Quinn leading his opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, by 20 points.<\/p>\n

(UPDATE: Here’s the new Tribune poll)<\/a><\/p>\n

(IEA\u2019s primary recommendations are here)<\/a><\/p>\n

Quinn’s problems began when an avalanche of post-Christmas bad press swamped his campaign, generated by an early release program that saw some prisoners who were sprung early for budgetary reasons ending up back in jail.<\/p>\n

Quinn has tried to fight back by touting a Chicago cemetery scandal that he blamed on his opponent<\/a>. He has been mostly unsuccessful in generating bad press for Hynes.<\/p>\n

This week, as the early release story had played itself out, the Hynes campaign showed everyone what it had been keeping up its sleeve; 1987 video of Harold Washington, Chicago\u2019s first black mayor, explaining that he fired Pat Quinn as his revenue director for being an incompetent self-promoter. See the Hynes TV spot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Sun-Times\u2019 Dave McKinney explains,<\/a><\/p>\n

Quinn, at that point an up-and-coming government reformer, was brought on by Washington in 1986 to clean up the city\u2019s scandal-plagued Revenue Department. But Washington canned Quinn in June 1987, alleging that Quinn engaged in grandstanding and repeatedly ignored orders.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe went in there like a bull in a closet, wouldn\u2019t do what he was told, which was to put the systems in there which I had discussed thoroughly with him,\u201d Washington said, showing flashes of anger as he spoke. \u201cNo, he thought that department was a PR plantation, and he didn\u2019t do his work. He was dismissed. He should have been dismissed. My only regret is that we hired him and kept him too long.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

For good measure, Washington called hiring Quinn his “greatest mistake in government.”<\/p>\n

Some internal political polls in recent days reportedly showed Hynes pulling within 6-7 percentage points of Quinn as a result of Hynes\u2019 release program media barrage. This ad, launched 12 days before the election, might be a game-changer.<\/p>\n

As Washington\u2019s former press aide told the Chicago Current blog<\/a>,<\/p>\n

“If I’m Pat Quinn, I’m s—ting my pants,” says Alton Miller. “It’s a total nightmare for any candidate who expects support from the African American community.” <\/em><\/p>\n

The run-up to the February 2nd election should be interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something not very funny, from Gov. Pat Quinn\u2019s perspective, happened as he was skipping to an easy victory in the Democratic primary for governor.\u00a0 Just a few weeks ago, polls had Quinn leading his opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, by 20 points. (UPDATE: Here’s the new Tribune poll) (IEA\u2019s primary recommendations are here) Quinn’s problems began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}