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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Whose Elections are Crazier - Israel's or Illinois'?

Updated - see below

I think they're both crazy. The politics of both entities with the abbreviation "IL" can make a person ill if he/she pays too much attention to it.

Last night, Illinois had a primary election. The senator races were decided pretty early into the night, but both the governor races were too close to call.

In the Democratic side, both candidates for governor (current Governor Pat Quinn, who took over for the disgraced Blago, and Comptroller Dan Hynes) were at about 50%, but Dan Hynes did not concede even though he was down by about 7000 votes. This race included a TV ad which brought back the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington badmouthing Quinn, regretting ever hiring him. This race was particularly bloody.

On the Republican side, there was a 7-person race, and in the end, State Senator Bill Brady is only up by 700 votes over Republican Obama-supporter State Senator Kirk Dillard (while according to Dillard, it's only 100 votes). Brady, from downstate, basically came out of nowhere to win this, at least according to Chicagoans. This morning, the Republicans had a "Republican Unity Breakfast" where they were supposed to unite behind one candidate. Party Chairman Patrick Brady had this to say:
Congratulations to all the candidates — those who won, those who didn’t and those who don’t know yet.


Recounts may occur for both races.

As interesting as this was, it doesn't beat 2006 where Tony Peraica, in a losing bid for Cook County Board President, stormed the County Building at midnight with camera crews abound, demanding all votes be counted. That was just nutty.

In Israel, elections have a different feel to them - voter turnout is high because people care and because under a parliamentary system, more than one person/party can be the winner. In a country of 5.5 million Jews plus 1.5 million Arabs, there are bound to be at least 10 million opinions out there. And because a higher percentage of people care, tensions run very high, and craziness prevails. If only there were an Orthodox Jewish Unity Breakfast post-elections...

Update
Surprise! Quinn's newly elected running-mate with a Jewish last name, who just became the Democratic nominee for lieutenant-governor, had an arrest in 2005 for domestic battery which nobody knew about until the day after the election. No one really expected him to win so no one really checked into his background, I guess. Quinn asked him to step down for the good of the party's ticket if he cannot explain himself. He refused. Never a dull moment in Illinois politics.

4 Comments:

At Thu Feb 04, 05:54:00 PM 2010, Blogger Neshama said...

Well, we're getting another blizzard and this one they're calling "paralyzing". And some more lined up in the Pacific runway of earth's airport.

Which makka is this?
:-)

 
At Thu Feb 04, 05:55:00 PM 2010, Blogger Neshama said...

PS: How'd the political storm work out?

 
At Thu Feb 04, 06:02:00 PM 2010, Blogger yaak said...

Barad, Hoshech, I don't know. Take your pick.

As far as the politics in Illinois, it gets worse.

 
At Fri Feb 05, 02:33:00 PM 2010, Blogger Neshama said...

This does look like a vengeful storm; from Illinois to DC.

 

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