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romad1

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8 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Best line I've seen about this race: "Chicago police are going to have to throw away their Let's Go Brandon stickers now." 

Would be curious to see if our resident Chicago expert makes an appearance, but from the outside looking in, we really have this split between what Twitter/Reddit/etc. think is going to happen (ie. Vallas has a ceiling, Johnson will win the lion share of the other candidates vote) and what is more likely to happen in this case (ie. voters are complicated, some subset of Chuy/Lori actually will vote for Vallas over Johnson). 

If Vallas had won between 25-30% of the vote, the split is maybe more difficult for Vallas... but at 34% in the first round, I just see a lot of people overestimating how much it's going to take for him to win.... he really doesn't have to pick off that much to get to 50%+1. And for better or worse, his base of voters actually shows up at every election.

Edited by mtutiger
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Paul Vallas is a newly-minted cop-sniffer who is thisclose to going full MAGA. He has had to run ads defending the idea he is still a Democrat. I can see Fox News falling all over themselves over the next six weeks talking him up as The Great White Hope of Chicago.

 

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At the risk of getting too far out of my lane, Paul Vallas, at least in the reporting that I have seen, has never been a registered Republican. Was even a Democratic Candidate for Illinois LG during the 2014 cycle.

Whether he holds the right views or not is another matter, but I dont see the lie in saying that Vallas has always been a Democrat.

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33 minutes ago, oblong said:

Does party matter in local elections?

It doesn't in most cities as races are non-partisan... in a city like Chicago, it also doesn't matter in the sense that a member of the GOP hasn't won a Mayoral election in over 100 years.

In general, in one party states/cities, its more about ideological wings at this point... it's no different than what you would find in California and Hawaii or other states... the vast majority may be all of one party, but the views and issues of emphasis are not at all uniform.

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57 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

It doesn't in most cities as races are non-partisan... in a city like Chicago, it also doesn't matter in the sense that a member of the GOP hasn't won a Mayoral election in over 100 years.

In general, in one party states/cities, its more about ideological wings at this point... it's no different than what you would find in California and Hawaii or other states... the vast majority may be all of one party, but the views and issues of emphasis are not at all uniform.

What I mean is the issues that traditionally define you as a partisan don’t really come up much locally. His views on abortion or immigration policy or the death penalty….  I guess it could matter in that fox would referring to crimes in Chicago going forward. 

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39 minutes ago, oblong said:

What I mean is the issues that traditionally define you as a partisan don’t really come up much locally. His views on abortion or immigration policy or the death penalty….  I guess it could matter in that fox would referring to crimes in Chicago going forward. 

Gotcha... yeah, I don't think abortion matters much in a local election in Chicago, particularly given the city is in Illinois and not Texas

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12 hours ago, mtutiger said:

At the risk of getting too far out of my lane, Paul Vallas, at least in the reporting that I have seen, has never been a registered Republican. Was even a Democratic Candidate for Illinois LG during the 2014 cycle.

Whether he holds the right views or not is another matter, but I dont see the lie in saying that Vallas has always been a Democrat.

That’s fine, you don’t have to believe his direct quote here actually happened. I can’t confirm that Paul Vallas is fire, but he sure is a lot of smoke.

Chicago is chartered to have a strong council and a weak mayor, although it has evolved across the decades into a strong mayor-weak council system in practice, in part because they can draw up the budget. Vallas also has the endorsement of the cop union, which to me is very different from being pro-safety. It suggests that he is going to try to redirect dollars from social services to recruiting thousands of fresh cops, which sounds good until they start dropping the standards so they can get more dues-paying FOP members on board quickly and easily. Many head crackers had fled the force after all the pressure departments across the country were receiving due to public pressure after the rash of incidents the past few years. It now looks like Vallas wants to go back, and Catanzara could not be more thrilled.

Looks like interesting times the next six weeks here in Big Shoulders.

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19 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

This does not sound like a bad idea but I don't know the catch. I feel like it would be used to try to further restrict abortion. 

 

Vance obtained his seat in the absolute most craven means possible and is misguided in a lot of ways (especially on FP), but this proposal is in keeping with the persona he cultivated before his Senate run / during the "Hillbilly Elegy" days.

The issue is that, like with Hawley, all the economic populism has just been talk and the culture war is ultimately center stage.

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On 3/4/2023 at 2:08 PM, Motown Bombers said:

This does not sound like a bad idea but I don't know the catch. I feel like it would be used to try to further restrict abortion. 

 

I guess the big question is what happens after birth. Post natal care. Nutrition help for families. Significant help for new parents in early Pre K learning. All those things and more seem to fall thru the cracks. Especially in both urban and rural areas where you literally have children raising children.

What does Vance and company (including Democrats) plan to address the post birth needs.

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2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I guess the big question is what happens after birth. Post natal care. Nutrition help for families. Significant help for new parents in early Pre K learning. All those things and more seem to fall thru the cracks. Especially in both urban and rural areas where you literally have children raising children.

What does Vance and company (including Democrats) plan to address the post birth needs.

Nothing. Baby born, life wins, the end.

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38 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

I remember the days of a different minimum wage for minors than for adults. I'd be willing to wage they would also end the restrictions on kids under 18 working "hazardous" jobs...

My son is 14 and bales hay and detassles corn. He has done it for the last 2 summers I would consider that hazerdous but the farmer he works for takes good care of all the kids that work for him. It's all paid under the table of course. This might be a way to protect kids like this or just collect taxes.

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I remember when I was 14, 15 or so my dad had a landscaping business in conjunction to the small nursery and florist business he ran. I would go out during the Summer. OSHA laws prohibited me from running the mower or power tools. I was regulated to cleaning up after the bush trimming and pulling weeds.

I had a couple of friends who lived on a farm and would help out during hay season. We weren't allowed to drive the tractor but I could see no issue loading bales on the wagon. (This was long before I discovered round bales😉)

I also remember restrictions when I was an ast mgr at an Arby's. You had to be over 16 (???) to run the slicer and strain fry grease. 
 

 

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1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

My son is 14 and bales hay and detassles corn. He has done it for the last 2 summers I would consider that hazerdous but the farmer he works for takes good care of all the kids that work for him. It's all paid under the table of course. This might be a way to protect kids like this or just collect taxes.

And he's probably done it for years. The question is what happens if someone got hurt?

My bigger concern here would be to larger companies who would tend to use underage kids in places where they don't belong, factories and such. If I remember correctly a work permit was not that difficult to get. It does put restrictions on number of hours and length of "shift" an under age person could work.

I once hired a 16 year old kid at a radio station where I was the program director. He was great for the overnight shift. I just needed to have someone relieve him at 4 AM to comply with regs 

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