{"id":541377,"date":"2010-04-22T15:23:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T19:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ecdfc92c970b"},"modified":"2010-04-22T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T19:23:13","slug":"illinois-republicans-close-fundraiser-featuring-controversial-national-gop-chairman-michael-steele","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/541377","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Republicans close fundraiser featuring controversial national GOP chairman Michael Steele"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Rick Pearson<\/em> at 2:21 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The state\u2019s long out-of-power Republican Party holds its annual big fundraising soiree tonight at the Drake Hotel in Chicago and is labeling the event \u201cIllinois is Next\u201d after recent GOP wins in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>The question is, will anybody know it?<\/p>\n<p>The event, featuring embattled national Republican Chairman Michael Steele, is now closed to the media. Pat Brady, the Illinois Republican chairman, announced the fundraiser would be private today. Brady, no relation to the Republican governor nominee, state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, said the decision was his, but offered no rationale.\n<\/p>\n<p>There is little doubt, however, that Steele\u2019s attendance at the big-bucks event is a major factor and Brady, the state GOP chairman, has been a Steele ally even before the national chairman was picked for the job. In recent weeks, Steele has been embroiled in several controversies, ranging from the use of a party credit card by aides to pay for young GOP donors to go to a West Hollywood strip club to Steele\u2019s comment comparing himself to President Barack Obama and contending African-American political leaders have a \u201cslimmer margin\u201d for error.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The closed-door fundraiser stands in contrast to the post-February primary election unity day. Back then, Republicans sought media coverage to tout their chances against Democrats who have problems due to the scandal of disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and one-party rule of state government. The state GOP\u2019s decision to close the event to the press may raise more questions about the ideological and social direction of the Illinois GOP when the votes of independent, non-partisan aligned voters are the key to winning in November.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Among the financial co-chairmen of the event is wealthy ultra-conservative Republican activist Jack Roeser, a businessman from Barrington who has long been at odds with the structure of the traditionally moderate-controlled state Republican Party. Roeser, bitingly critical in the past of U.S. Senate nominee Mark Kirk and others on the statewide ticket, last month gave the state GOP $50,000 and asked to be welcomed into the tent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Rick Pearson at 2:21 p.m.The state\u2019s long out-of-power Republican Party holds its annual big fundraising soiree tonight at the Drake Hotel in Chicago and is labeling the event \u201cIllinois is Next\u201d after recent GOP wins in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey. The question is, will anybody know it? The event, featuring embattled national [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541377","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\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}