Nationally, and in some places locally, there is great reason for those of us who call ourselves Democrats to be jubilant.
Linda Chapa LaVia, who garnered 70% of the vote to win a third term in the state legislature is certainly the shiniest of stars from last night. And the other Linda, Linda Holmes, won a narrow victory in another traditionally Republican district to go on to the state Senate.
Throughout Kendall County, however, the results of the takeover by the Jim Birch Society was evidenced by numbers that clearly show they are out of their league.
John Laesch spent well over $600,000 -- many times what his primary opponent, Ruben Zamora, spent in 2004 -- and had nothing to show for it. Sure, it was 40% overall by the end of the night, but the voters the Lashies attracted to the polls yesterday were not the kind that like his kind.
Nosir, you can see it in the numbers.
Gov. Blagojevich received only 38% countywide, after the Birch party all but ignored his incumbency like some sort of pox. Rich Whitney's 13% showing in the county underscores my point.
And where there were once signs that other great local candidates, like Frank Craig, had a chance to post gains in the county, there was nothing but Republican ridicule at the end of the night.
The drinks must have been flowing for the GOP's county board winners, for instance, at the Yorkville Legion Hall, as they once again took all the seats on the board. Another good candidate who friends recently told me had many Republicans actually shitting in their britches, John Crawford was, like Craig, completely ignored by the local party.
Craig's and Crawford's literature I received. Some of it, twice. For the first time in memory, I got nothing of any kind from any of the other candidates. I consider that a pretty good measure of the "hard work" these morons pledged last spring.
So what the fuck were these people doing?
Apparently, they were all assembled at a supper club in Batavia, spending the last of Laesch'$ campaign money on a victory party for Denny "J. Dennis" Hastert.
Nice job, boys and girls.
Nice job.
Correction: Laesch had raised about $230K by the last reporting statement (still 10x what Zamora had) and had $83k on hand a week before the election. Nice dinner. My bad. Guess I was still thinking about what John Pavich had raised by, oh, about six months prior to the election.
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Perhaps now they will pack-up their tent and go home. What this election shows from the numbers here is that there was VERY little growth in the party. The mighty tom was not able to even get the vote out in his precinct WHEN THERE WERE 3 TAX REFERENDUMS on the ballot. (Tax referendums are often the only reason disinterested voters show-up at the polls).
I found a copy of the "Newspaper" the KCDCC put out in my door on TUESDAY. The early voting info was nice to see, too bad it had ended a week before the paper ever made it.
Linda and Linda both won due to extreamly hard work by their own opperations without the help of the Kendall party. JDL didn't even break 35% here in Kendall.
So what were they doing since they took over? Holding meetings, listening to ideas, holding more meetings, more listening, more meetings, more listening...
No fundraising to speak-of, no real help for canidates, no real voter registration, and no results. They took over the party and did basically nothing.
There is a bright side..
They ran their experiment durring a mid-term so the damage was not as bad as it could have been. There is time for the democrats in the county to take the party back and put an effective organization back in place and get the growth going again. There is still time to get real.
Jim Birch and friends have to go. And with any luck the county democrats (the 7000+ who don't attend thier little stroke-fests) will choose committeepersons who will represent the majority who want results and not the the people who only want to feel important.
18 months to go and counting.
Ok Insider...I've copied and pasted this from another section of this blog...the numbers really don't support your statements. You were misinformed about the size and make-up of my precinct, you're misinformed about the money that's been raised since the Flowers left (that's only 6 months), you're misinformed about the amount of support the candidates received - at least for those who wanted help - some dind't. These numbers are from the precinct I work - that's Oswego 30 and I help in Oswego 4 - I'm not ashamed of these numbers - they're not what I had hoped for, but then again, they are better than the county as a whole.
Tom Brophy said...
Hey anon...I don't think the county quite came out for Denny the way you thought....what happened to the 75% - 25% margin...oh well!
Here's the numbers for Oswego 4 and 30 - not as good as I was shooting for, but not hjorrible either considering the county I live in...
For US Congress Hastert got 471 votes..57%...John Laesch got 352 votes..43% (that's higher than the overall District average and a point more than Ruben got last time).
Regarding all of the Statewide candidates...The Democratic candidate won every race with Dan Hynes coming in lowest at +6% to Madigan coming in at +23% - (where's your repug GOTV effort now?).
regarding the County Board in District 1 - if these 2 precincts were what determined the outcome, Liz Flowers would have been elected to the Kendall County Board...
Haffenrichter..388 votes, 21%
Vickery..370 votes, 20%
Flowers..355 votes, 19%
Parr.....342 votes, 18%
Gregg....271 votes, 14%
Musich...266 votes, 14%
Linda Holmes was elected to the Senate seat in the 42nd - I'm sorry she didn't win in these precincts, but she did OK..383 votes, 47% and Wintermule got 437 votes, 53%.
There was a 41% voter turn out in Precinct 4 and a 50% turn out in Precinct 30.
all in all, I don't think it was a bad night - in these precincts, we swept all of the State-wide candidates, we would have put a Democrat on the County Board (Liz Flowers), Wintermule only had 6% more than Linda Holmes, but Linda won anyway. Denny only got 14 points more than John Laesch - not the 3 to 1 margin that was being predicted here. Most important is that the Democrats now own the House - Denny has to find a new role in Congress...maybe he'll have to start representing those of us who live in his district...WHAT A CONCEPT!
The way it looks to me is that the Democrats are getting stronger in Kendall County - not weaker. We'll continue to work hard and push the Democratic agenda. We'll continue to find qualified candidates to run for local office as well as help find candidates to run for the State-wide and National offices. Things are looking better for Democrats in Kendall.
All of the candidates did a great job..especially John Laesch, Frank Craig, Linda Holmes, Joe Serra, John Crawford, Joe Plocher, Liz Flowers, Ken Musich, and Rubby Gregg.
Watch out repubs...we're continuing to move forward - we're not standing in place...Our potential is unlimited.
Now, let's all take a breath and relax for a while before the shit hits the fan again...
8/11/06 11:14
Now that we're done fighting the repug lies, are we going to have to fend off your lies as well? If you have a problem, come to the monthly meeting and tell us about it. Sitting and bitching from the sidelines really doesn't accomplish anything...if you want to help, we'll accept that, if all you want to do is bitch and pass out wrong information - we can't accept that.
You can see it in the numbers, eh? Laesch didn't raise anywhere near $600,000 and you know it. That is a number you simply made up out of thin air.
Anybody who wants to check for themselves can look at his most recent FEC filing at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?_26950676491+0 and check the year-to-date total for themselves. $230,165.70. Then ask yourself why HRC is making this sort of thing up?
Tom,
Didn't fearless leader Birch state at a meeting that he wasn't going to actively fundraise in the last 3 months prior to the election?
Didn't the party used to hold a dinner (amos Kendall I think it was called) every year in September? I seem to have this thought that they raised almost $5000 in 2004 at that dinner and had a very impressive speaker, (a vet who really did serve with John Kerry) where as this year the party put out a paper that included the canidates who were "freinds" of the party.
Hmm... Nice job.
Jim Birch was to busy servicing his best friend Dallas. Instead his buddy Tom was giving the reach around.
Here we go again...I love it when someone posts bullshit as facts using an anon name...Jim Birch never pleged to do any fund raising in the last 3 months of the election cycle. Don't you think that might interfere with the candidates fundraising...you idiot! That's one of the reasons the Amos Kendall dinner wasn't held - Marty and crew might want to take funds away from candidates who needed it - we chose not to. By the way, we managed to raise over $3K in the first 3 months since the primary.
Speaking of the Amos Kendall dinner...Jimmy showed up because a good friend of mine asked him to...he asked him to show up because Marty promised Lisa Madigan to the county...guess what, she wasn't coming and my buddy Dale pulled Marty's ass out of the fire. The Kendall Democratic organization had nothing to do with Jimmy being there.
Speaking of true American heroes...go find a veteran and thank him for his or her service to our counry. Tell them you appreciate their sacrifice..after all, tomorrow is Veteran's Day.
I guess I need to amplify "Jimmy" - that's Jim Wasser, a Vietnam Veteran who served on a river boat with John Kerry.
Sorry
Top 10 list of Tom Brophys famous friends!
1. God { Tom has a direct line}
2.Jesus { they spent time together in the middle east}
3.The pope {Tom has lunch with him once a week as he takes John Laesch's private jet}
4.Stormin Norman { they served together in Vietnamn}
5. Santa Claus { he fixed the toliet at the north pole}
6.Easter Bunny { Tom bailed him out of jail after a bar fight}
7. Superman { they went to high school together}
8. Sammy Sosa { they bowl together}
9.Bill Clinton{ they smoke cigars and drink beer together at Tom Friday night poker game that includes presdients Ford, Carter, Bush sr, and Yassir Arrifat}
10.Babe Ruth { he was Tom Little league coach}
These guys are definately young repug thugs...as in the past, I didn't make the last post....the little repukes must have. You children don't even posess the courage to make a post with your own name...you're wasting my time.
Tom you are a real cool dude the kind of guy we would like to have a beer with. Oh yeah we have to keep one hand on the front of our pants and keep the other on the back of our pants because you or your weird friend rehn might want to have your way with us. We just do not want to be an enabler. Sorry we missed you at the victory party how was your little party hear only 15 people showed up. Oh Well see you on the other side Tom and look forward to your scholar and wisdomn.
Maybe we should take a hard look at this. It is unfortunate that John Leasch did not win the district. But the district covers a lot more than just Kendall County. I also know that there was a lot of Kendall Democrats who worked very hard to get the message out.
So for all you morons who want to try to blame it all on the Kendall Democrats lets examine the local candidates that were offered up by the previous administration (Marty F.) and inherited by the current administration. We have Ken Musich(sp?) who is a functional illiterate, Ruby Gregg who, we heard through the grapevine, didn't even know she was running as late as September and Lizzy Flowers who has about as much personality as desk lamp. The sum total of information I heard from these candidates was a few forum letters in the paper and the letters were all signed by all three of them. I guess a vote for one was vote for them all. The one article I read that attempted to outline these three candidates position stated that Ken M. didn't want to be interviewed. Nice move by somebody suposedly running for public office. The only campaign signage that I saw for the local candidates was for Crawford. All these candidates campaigns were run by Marty Flowers. Not exactly a stellar job, but I don't see the HRC 5 railing against him.
We also should point out that we, the Kendall Dems, offered to help out John Crawford, the only viable candidate that the previous admin offered up, and were basically told to go fuck ourselves. We included all these candidates names in most of our lit and advertising even though they refused to work with us in any way. All because Marty was fairly voted out as chairman and his small group of friends couldn't keep it in perspective.
You clowns who think you know how to do it better have a couple of choices. You can come to meetings and contribute or you can try to organize and you get a chance to try to take it over in two years. I doubt you guys can pay attention that long.
Hey HRC, Linda Chapa LaVia got 71% of the vote, not 70% ;). She killed! Perhaps we'll be calling her Congresswoman soon?
I agree that LCL would be THE candidate if she steps up. If she doesn't, we need to take a good hard look at alternatives to JDL. No disrespect to John, but if he couldn't do better against a seriously wounded incumbent, I'm not sure he would do any better the next time around. any suggestions?
Re: Correction: If you were thinking about Pavich, you're still just making it up as you go, HRC, because Pavich hadn't raised anywhere near $600K six months ago. Closer to half that. He was just up to $523K as of the last report, just a few weeks ago. Again, this is publicly available information that you could have dug up very easily if you had the slightest interest in being truthful. And, once again, to make it easy for anyone out there who wants to check for themselves, because there's no reason anyone reading this should take my word for anything, either, here's where you go to check the facts: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00411256
But since you seem to want to have it both ways HRC--Laesch raised 10X what Zamora did, so he sucks, and Laesch didn't raise as much as he should have by comparison with Pavich, so he sucks--the question I have for you now is: How did Pavich raise so much more money than Laesch? Answer: By being born into a very big, very rich family, and by being friends with a whole lot of very wealthy attorneys. Or, to make the more general point, by being the kind of Democrat the rich and powerful are very comfortable with. Ex-CIA. "Generally endorses the Patriot Act" according to the Peoria Journal-Star. A fiscal conservative. Not exactly a man of the people, I dare say. In fact, it seems to me that a reasonable case can be made that unless you are on the right wing of the Democratic Party, Pavich is little more than the lesser of two evils. And since Weller's the son-in-law of a genocidal mass murderer for cryin' out loud, being the lesser evil in that race was not exactly a high bar for your boy to cross. Pavich didn't have to _raise_ much of his money at all, the vast majority of it was handed to him on a silver platter. He sounds to me like more a part of the problem than a part of the solution, but that's just me. If Pavich is your kind of Democrat, fine, more power to ya. The Democratic Party is supposedly a big tent. There's no reason why I need to stand on the same side of it as you and Pavich do.
What I really don't understand, however, is why you seem constitutionally incapable of basing your criticism of Laesch on, I don't know, on a honest difference of opinion about policy or principles, say, or about electoral strategy and tactics, or something like that. Why do you invest so much energy in just making things up about the people you don't like, HRC? Seems to me you are more than capable of scoring plenty enough points off your political enemies without having to descend into the realm of the third-rate dirty trickster as often as you do. The only thing I can figure is that at the end of the day you have no principled position about much of anything. That you are little more than a bitter loser who liked being a Big Fish and who now can't stand being just another rank-and-file little fish in a small pond. Unless I'm giving you too much credit and it's something as simple as the fact that you are nothing more than a pathological liar who will say whatever it takes to get the attention you apparently can't live without.
Occam's razor. Yes. Good advice.
Why Don't you go sit on Occam's Razor Steve and do the world a favor grow some sense!!!
The point I would like to make is that the Democratic party in Kane and Kendal counties is pathetic. After all of the work that ALL of the candidates did, they could only get a max of 40% of the vote.
Craig didn't even get that. He worked hard and raised very little money. He had more endorsements than anyone except LaVia and he only got 38%. That sucks. Holmes had little competion - tha'ts the only reason why she won. LaVias competition was very very weak too. Craig had tough competion with an incumbent who the citizen like the same with Serra. Serra raised little money and still got 40% against a very popular incumbent.
It really doesn't matter how hard you work in these two counties and it really doesn't matter how much money you have. These two counties are just fucking moronic in their refusal to vote for anyone who is a democrat - If reagan was alive and a democrat hw would not be elected.
There's absolultely truth in that statement. There is a group of retired military guys in the county who have formed a small social group. They think Denny is the greatest guy on the earth and have no idea that he sticks in Vet's asses all of the time. I agree, the mindset here is that there is only one party - Republican - nothing else matters and they don't care how bad a candidate might be. Although, I have to be honest and admit that it was the same (only Democratic) where I grew up on Chicago's South side.
This midset will be very difficult to change.
Tom you are just jealous because the world war 2 guys won't talk to you. The Korean War Vets won't ackonweldge you. The Vietnam Vets thing you a stroke. The Young guys who served think your a joke. Now why don't you tell the truth. The Vets in the county don't want anything to do with you. You are a social mistfit and the truth is it is because you are crazy aka psycho...
Tom Brophy is not psycho he is the smarest and most sexy person I have ever met. I wish we had 10 thousand tom brophys because we would not have gotten our ass kicked so bad if we had him.
Tom- is a progressive patriot who through his conncetions with the vets and Dale were able to bring Sen.Feingold to the 14th two days before the election. Tom had to bail John Laesch's ass out of the fire. Tom is a great patriot who was a power behind JDL' express...
Seeing that my name is being brought up here with a series of untruths is a little more than unsettling.
Let me just set the record straight, and I won't accept any rejoinders.
The Kendall Dems never approached me with an offer for help or support. I had been contacted twice about "working" at party booths, but already had commitments. If a statement that I made to Mr. Birch in a private conversation was construed as something meant as a general statement to the Party, you're wrong.
I was proud to have my longtime friends, the Flowers family advising me, but any claim that I was "Martin's candidate" is patently false.
I did openly seek support at the June meeting and received nothing in return. That meeting then dragged on for two hours and accomplished nothing. I have been to dog club meetings that went on only 45 minutes and accomplished much, much more.
And contrary to conventional wisdom, whatever form that has taken on lately, the Young Democrats of Illinois were the best supporters I had, thanks to Martin Flowers. YDI provided volunteers who walked some 5,000 pieces of lit for the County Board slate (along with Linda Holmes's and Frank Craig's and Gov. Blagojevich's) the last weekend before the election.
In the future, be careful what you repeat - anonymously - before you know the facts.
That's all from me. You can slice and dice my words however you wish, but I am comfortable in knowing that because of my longtime friendship with Martin, I was simply launched as a freelancer.
Great post... close but no cigar Tom Brophy will not respond because he can't. The man is afraid of the truth. Must be scary to run through life telling lies and being afraid that the vail of truth will shine on you...
Let me tell you smthing "Summer" these ass wipes have called in the troups to try to gain control of Yorkville City council.Let me predict their results, just like always their asses will be handed to them.I am starting to think Burtch and Feeley are closet repugs!They dumped all they had into JL so they try to reduce their goals( They cant compete on a National or State stage) F. Stain
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