Reality Check
The beef against Mike Quigley, the reform candidate/progressive with the highest name recognition (and currently leading in the polls) in the 5th Congressional District in Illinois is that he's simply too valuable in his current job as Cook County Commissioner.
Progressives in Chicago respect Quigley's opposition to the Democratic machine, especially with regard to his fierce stands against corruption, nepotism and the wasteful spending related to both. In setting up the camera to do a scheduled interview, I asked Quigley his response to this criticism.
"Yeah, let's start with that question," Quigley responded. "I want to answer that."
So I asked him about this criticism, on the record, before I got into the standard questions that I've asked to record all the candidates in this race. That video will be posted later.
Quigley's response is to the point. In our system of government, candidates for office are self-selected. It's not the easy to move up the political ranks, and open seats in Congressional seats are fairly rare -- especially in Illinois. If that is one's ambition, then one must take advantage of the openings when they become available.
But the election of Barack Obama offers an even more enticing opportunity for legislative workhorses like Mike Quigley (and John Fritchey, for that matter). The attraction of going to Washington, DC with President Obama is great, especially if you have an idea of what you'd like to do once you get there.
Progressives in Chicago respect Quigley's opposition to the Democratic machine, especially with regard to his fierce stands against corruption, nepotism and the wasteful spending related to both. In setting up the camera to do a scheduled interview, I asked Quigley his response to this criticism.
"Yeah, let's start with that question," Quigley responded. "I want to answer that."
So I asked him about this criticism, on the record, before I got into the standard questions that I've asked to record all the candidates in this race. That video will be posted later.
Quigley's response is to the point. In our system of government, candidates for office are self-selected. It's not the easy to move up the political ranks, and open seats in Congressional seats are fairly rare -- especially in Illinois. If that is one's ambition, then one must take advantage of the openings when they become available.
But the election of Barack Obama offers an even more enticing opportunity for legislative workhorses like Mike Quigley (and John Fritchey, for that matter). The attraction of going to Washington, DC with President Obama is great, especially if you have an idea of what you'd like to do once you get there.
6 comments:
Reality Check: Softball?
Don Rose plays 'Hardball' in his post to the Chicago Daily Observer Feb. 3, 2009.
"Who Wants to Take Fifth?"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IL5thCD/message/230
Joe Lake, Chicago (Bucktown)
seriously?
you want to take rose's outright endorsement of another candidate as "hardball?" seriously?
=== the election of Barack Obama offers an even more enticing opportunity for legislative workhorses like Mike Quigley (and John Fritchey, for that matter). ===
Please, define "Legislative Workhorse" for me.
Between 2003-2008, both Fritchey and Feigenholtz passed and had signed into state law about 60 statutes.
How many county ordinances did Quigley enact in that same period?
And if Fritchey and Feigenholtz have both passed about the same number of bills. why is Fritchey a workhorse but Feigenholtz not?
ydd, i don't pretend to know enough about sara feigenholtz. i have no problems learning more, and her staff has reached out to me.
i'd have thought by now that *you* would know that i don't talk about things i don't know anything about. i have talked to her campaign about things i see out there that are misnomers (which i am willing to write about) and asked her a couple of questions in that regard. so there may be a reality check post on her very soon.
in this particular case, the meme that mike quigley was (to paraphrase) too valuable to be elected to congress was something out there in several progressive blogs. i've written previously about how i disagree with that argument and asked quigley about that here...
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