Pera: pain with the pump, or pain with Daley's Machine?
If Pera came out hard against the Machine, I'd feel some sympathy for him. He doesn't. He blames Bush for the high price of gas instead. So, am I to believe Pera would be ok with BP's refining Canadian crude in Indiana? (Which I bet BP will take --with the new jobs-- to Toledo instead.) It's more shortage of refineries than gas we confront.
Is he for more nuclear, more coal, more refiniers --in whose backyard?
It's a little hard to get fired up with him on this one. If he's a progressive fighting the machine, I'd like to see more progressive fight out of him about the machine --police brutality for instance; not gas.
HT Prairie State Blue
Update: From Pera's Website, where he stands on issues. Thanks to a comment from Crash Dev. Find the link in the comments.
By any measure or standard, the strategy for war in Iraq has been a failure.It's Winter 2007 now.
Experts ranging from sitting and retired generals to diplomats and scholars acknowledge that there is no purely military solution to the conflict, and that the battle will only be won with political solutions.
Mark believes that Congress should mandate a pull-out of our troops beginning in the Fall of 2007 [Baar's emphasis] and should also place a cap on funding to accomplish that goal.
If Iraq that important an issue (I think it is) shouldn't Pera's site say something like we should have been out since Fall 2007, so Out Now!.
That's the slogan I recall from Student Mobilization Committee days.
It's gotta be important enough an issue to at least keep your site current on. More important than this gas video.
6 comments:
Let me get this right: You prefer Democrats who back Bush but oppose Daley?
Is that really your point here?
Yes
I don't see how you can be anti-machine if you don't talk against the machine much.
I don't see how a progressive can ignore Chicago Police brutality and instead tell Chicagoans they have more to fear from the Bush administration water-boarding terrorists or warrentless intercepts of emails coming from terrorists.
I don't see how progressives can complain about Lipinski yet apparantly willing to rally behind Morganthaler in the 6th, or throw Laesch over board in the 14th.
There is a good deal about today's kos progressivism that makes little sense.
It would help, if those opposed to the machine, talked about running against the machine.
I'm not hearing that here.
If I did, I'd agree more with them on local stuff and agree to disagree on foreign affairs.
Yes Bill would. But I doubt the majority of Pera's Supporters/Democratic Primary voters agree with Bill on that one.
Here is what Mark Pera is running on:
http://www.markperaforcongress.com/index.php?Path=Public/Left/Issues
Thanks Crash Dev... not a whole lot about the machine there.
If that's the platform fine, but spare me the anti-machine stuff.
I suspect, like Obama, should Pera win, he and the machine will find their peace.
US congress is not really a local campaign.
There is out of district comments, money etc...We can talk about this being a good or bad thing in our political system if you like.
I think the polling supports his approach...
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
Bored Now over at PSB wrote,
...while the incumbent has about a third of those polled who support his re-election, this is still a machine district. and it's not just any machine district, but the core of the chicago political machine.
I don't get a sense of Pera running against the core of the Machine.
I think he's running to win the Machine.
Otherwise he'd attack Machine politics.
Kass wrote of a combine that reachers accross the parties.
Why can't reformers --those against the Machine-- similarly reach accross parties?
A footnote on Iraq and polls. Check Political Arthmetic's analysis of the War polling. This from a few months argo but the link also has more current analysis.
But change in Congress also requires that Republican members perceive that opinion against the war is so overwhelming that it is time for them to also abandon ship. That mark in public opinion has not been reached. So long as a substantial minority (say 40%+) support the current policy (or at least oppose a rapid withdrawal) then Republicans can count on a public that is too divided on the issue to pose the certainty of electoral catastrophe. This isn't to say Republicans don't wish the issue would go away, or that they relish running in 2008 with nearly 6 years of inconclusive war on their watch. But opponents of the war will not prevail in Congress unless a more massive opposition emerges--- and one united on the specific details of how to end the war.
Deomcrats badly overeached on the war after 2006's election. They've stopped talking much about it (Pera wants to talk about gas instead.. the past defeatism is going to haunt so change topics).
If Pera wants to change topics, --and run against the Machine in it's heart-- than attack it; not Bush...
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