As you may or may not know, the Illinois primary is coming up very soon--and this will be your chance to talk to candidate
Edwin Eisendrath, who will be checking for your questions and comments! I will be posting a diary at
9:00PM CST tomorrow,
which Mr. Eisendrath himself will be commenting on and answering your questions.
As a disclaimer, your own thereisnospoon does not work or volunteer for Mr. Eisendrath's campaign in any capacity. In fact, as some of you may know, I live in Los Angeles, far removed from Illinois politics. The reason I am doing this is because I truly believe that Mr. Eisendrath is exactly the kind of candidate that the netroots should be promoting--and because incumbent Rod Blagojevich is exactly the kind of corrupt, clueless albatross Democrat that we cannot use right now in our fight against the "Culture of Corruption" GOP.
Mr. Eisendrath recently obtained his dKos account, but is unable to post a diary within enough time to make any difference before the actual primary; he can, however, comment and respond to your questions. And because I believe fervently in this candidate, therefore, I agreed to write this diary--and tomorrow's--as a means for Kossacks from Illinois and all across America to get to know Mr. Eisendrath and talk to him.
Why should you care? Because the Democratic incumbent, Rod Blagojevich, is a corrupt and out-of-touch stain on Illinois and the Democratic party in general. And because Edwin Eisendrath is the REAL DEAL.
Fellow Kossacks Reality Bites Back, hekebolos and I had a private conference call with Mr. Eisendrath a little over a week ago--and we were extremely impressed with everything that we heard. Reality Bites Back wrote an excellent diary shortly after the conference call which I highly recommend reading, but which unfortunately scrolled down the list rather quickly at the time.
This is a candidate with outstanding progressive credentials:
1) he was against the war in Iraq from the very beginning, while his incumbent opponent Blagojevich supported it;
2) He was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be Midwest Regional Director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he oversaw the task of cleaning up the corrupted Chicago Housing Authority. By the time Eisendrath was finished, the Chicago Housing Authority received its first "clean audit" in more a decade.
3) He now works in the education field, and actually has a coherent and progressive education plan for Illinois.
Incumbent Rod Blagojevich, meanwhile, is
1) currently under investigation from Patrick Fitzgerald for multiple conflict-of-interest scandals;
2) Has failed to balance the Illinois budget, despite the relative ease of doing so;
3)Has allowed Illinois' economic development to fall to 38th in the entire U.S., behind many far poorer "red states";
4) Has failed to gain the endorsement of the previous governor Daley, or any of the biggest players in Illinois politics--including Barack Obama; and
5) Raided the state employee pension funds
6) Is so out-of-touch that he went on the Daily Show without even knowing what it was, and looked over during the show, asking "Is this guy for real?"
We cannot hope to countervail against the incompetent, clueless, and corrupt GOP without fielding progressive, honest, and capable candidates. And that's why I think it's important that Mr. Eisendrath prevail in his primary against Gov. Blagojevich--and why I have agreed to do him this service on Kos.
So come one, come all--especially if you are from Illinois--to Daily Kos at 9pm CST tomorrow for a Q&A session with Mr. Eisendrath!