Saturday, December 06, 2008

Story on Kwame Raoul potentially picked to repeat his "replace Obama in the Senate" performance

Senator Kwame Raoul gets a story in The Daily Beast by Benjamin Carlin on his odds of replacing (again) Barack Obama in a Senate.

The story is here.

My favorite parts:

The similarities between Raoul and his predecessor are almost uncanny. Raoul,
like Obama, was an accomplished attorney, representing the City Colleges of
Chicago in his most recent job. He has a foreign background from his Haitian
parents. He belongs to Trinity United Church of Christ, and, having grown up
in a racially mixed neighborhood as one of the only black students in an
elite school, has appealed to voters across ethnic lines.

[snip]

Raoul is quick to brand himself as an Obama-style consensus builder in the
legislature. He points to one of his signature bills, a law increasing penalties
on people who sell guns to minors, as an example. For that legislation, he not
only corralled Republicans into voting unanimously for the measure, but won the
approval of the Illinois State Rifle Association as well. Within the party, he
often reaches out to political rivals, like Democrat Toni Preckwinkle, who
defeated him twice for alderman; Preckwinkle later sat on the committee that
appointed Raoul to the state senate over the favorite in the race, former Obama
aide Will Burns. Once again reaching out to a former competitor, Raoul endorsed
Burns this year for a successful run for state representative. The moves were
reminiscent of Obama's famed forgiveness in picking former arch-rival Hillary
Clinton as his Secretary of State and declining to retaliate against Joe
Lieberman for jumping ship in the presidential election.


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