With the GOP primary and news coverage of my home state of IL taking the center ring in the circus, I thought I'd toss some of my thoughts about my home state into one of the other rings.
So. Illinois. Land of Lincoln. And we will never let anyone forget it. Never mind that he was born in Kentucky. That is manifestly unimportant. He was a lawyer in Springfield and we have the monuments to prove it! He was reared in Central IL and we have Lincoln Log Cabin to show for it! And sure, we actually voted against him in that Senate race, but so what? We were just saving our powder for the Presidential races. If ole Abe wins the Senate, why all we'd have is speeches left over.
Join me after the Midway line orange blob, won't you?
Now the state of IL was established in 1818 for very important reasons, no, not to balance slave states; to be a government body able to float bonds. And those bonds? For the critical infrastructure project, the I & M Canal. Which was madecompletely superfluous by the railroad. It did, however, provide for some wonderful nature parks and a nice bike path. Seriously, take a ride on it sometime. You'll be provided with some excellent natural scenery. OK, so like other IL government decisions, the I&M canal wasn't quite as good a deal as they thought and it went bankrupt.
Illinois was settled, believe it or not, from south to north. Seems McCormick's steel plough made that old prairie land something attractive. Today, the population density is in the north and east of the state. Chicago managed to do a slow turnaround from being a rust belt city to being a modern metropolis, to say nothing of being a transportation and communication hub for the U.S. Downstate, as the natives call the southern (and unfortunately, the western and central parts of the state as well) a part of the state is composed of a lot of real estate but considerably fewer people than it was 50 years ago. Not surprising as the multiple whammy of factors hit the region including: the mechanizing of farm labor, such that very few agricultural workers are actually needed to farm vast acreage; the closing up shop of small manufacturing plants, both before NAFTA and after;and, the emphasis on knowledge workers and the need for youth to get a college education. As they used to say, how are you going to keep them on the farm after they've seen Paris. Well, it's hard to keep them in the small towns after they've received a job offer from a metropolitan area.
Our politics are at least entertaining, if seldom edifying. We are equal opportunity having sent both our recent GOP governor (Ryan) and our recent DEM governor (Blagojevich) to prison. Apparently you can't take bribes or do obvious shakedowns for political contributions. Well, really, who knew?
We no longer have the death penalty. Gov Ryan (yes, I mentioned him earlier--prison), noting that a number of people actually not guilty of the crime for which they were scheduled to die, stoppered the system. He couldn't actually do anything about the sentences passed by judges without going through the legislature, so he simply stopped the executions. Blagojevich (again, prison) continued the moratorium. And our own Pat Quinn (D-accidental governor) actually signed legislation to end them officially. Because of the possibility of killing innocent people? Well, sure, that but really all the talk was about the cost of having the death penalty.
Back to Quinn. I called him the accidental governor. He's frequently called a gadfly. You see, he's more often been a political reformer, most famous for spearheading the cutback amendment. IL's leg used to be composed of 3 member districts. 1 GOP, 1 DEM and 1 at large. Quinn thought that wasteful and won his case with the public so now we have 1 member districts. On the bright side, that move alone probably reduced the corruption charges by up to 2/3! He has also been associated with CUB (the citizens utility board). Anyway, we have this governor who has usually been on the outside throwing rocks, now residing in the governor's mansion. At least he resides there more often that Blagojevich. The fact that Blago did not keep his undergarments at the Governor's mansion in Springfield was horribly disturbing to the residents thereof. They didn't like him and they wanted to see more of him.
Quinn ascended to the governorship after the impeachment of Blagojevich in 2009. In 2010 (the GOP when they were in the ascendancy saw which way the wind was blowing and pushed the statewide office elections to the offyear cycle. It worked, for a while) he had to run for his seat. However, Quinn must be beloved of the angels or something because when the dust had settled from the GOP primary, he drew a deep red candidate Bill Brady who thought it wise electoral strategy to pretend that Cook County (roughly 1/3 of the population lives here) did not exist. Brady also had voted for legislation allowing the use of the gas chamber to kill unwanted dogs in shelters. Quinn won in a squeaker. He really does an OK job. I think most folks just don't expect a lot out of him and he hasn't disappointed thus far.
So who will IL go for? I predict President Obama but if you are asking about the GOP, I'm going to go with the safe bet and say Romney. I think DuPage, Cook, Winnebago, Lake, Will, St. Clair, and Champaign counties will be pretty heavily tilted in Romney's favor. I think Santorum has a better chance in the southern half of the state. Grundy, Iriquois and Coles could go either way.