State

We only want good corporate citizens here! Good Riddance, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I voted for Mike Boland.

Dem Day itself, that is Wed., Aug 19, consists of two key events: the County Chair breakfast and then the rally later in the day on the Director's Lawn in the State Fair grounds proper.

The first photo is of Gov. Quinn addressing the attendees at the County Chair breakfast. The second photo is Sec. of State Jesse White speaking later on at the rally -- under a tent for fear of rain. Happily the rain seemed more than ready to accommodate Illinois Democrats -- waiting till the event was well over before breaking loose in torrents.

A couple of pictures of the festivities surrounding Dem Day at the State Fair. In this post, I have two photos from the night before, or in other words, Tuesday, Aug. 18.

The first shot is of Boone's Saloon (RIP). Alas! Despite the change in traditional venues -- and the fact that we're in an off-year, the Sangamon County Dems still drew a pretty good crowd for their annual meet-and-greet fundraiser (sorry, no photos).

From that Laboratory of Democracy...

So with term-limits, California's got revolving door politicians with no long-term commitment to (or working knowledge of) government institutions. With the 2/3's rule, they've got Republicans calling the shots on spending and taxation whether they're in power or not. With ballot initiatives, they've got impossibly complicated legislation being decided according to the budget of the various special interest media campaigns.

The benefits of ballot initiative:

The roots of California's inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.

Translation instructions: just replace all mentions of 'Gray Davis' with your favorite local Democratic candidate and every mention of "Republican" with 'ILGOP and the Chicago Tribune' (courtesy of Digby):

Dan Johnson Weinburger makes the case for a ConCon but I remain unconvinced. As he portrays it, it's all upside and no downside. If there are any doubts, Dan argues, it's ultimately "we the citizens" who are in the driver's seat.

What in the world is recall going to do when you can still contribute $100k to someone's campaign and then turn around and do business with that person once they're elected?

Recall is nothing but democracy by temper-tantrum. It'll undermine orderly government no matter who is in control.

The Sun-Times has it right:

We don't have weekly or monthly elections in Illinois for obvious reasons. In between, our preferred method for getting rid of bad apples, as Larry points out, is through a process called impeachment.

But none of this is good enough for the revolutionaries at the Chicago Tribune. They'd rather have a California-style Recall: