JBT and Edgar share a tender moment.

The Republican crowd was far smaller than the Democratic crowd, but they didn’t bus any ringers in, either.

Shiny, happy people.

Cute photo, cute kid.

Hey, wait a minute… that’s not me.

       

27 Comments - Master of the Obvious - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 9:31 am: Looked like a slew of Shiny, Happy, White people, to me…But of course, you might have a photo of one person of color there at the event…don’t you? Just one? - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 9:33 am: Looks like Topinka took my advice and ponied up for a professional haircut and make-up job. Looks like she’s still buying her clothes at the Salvation Army though. - Staunchier Dem - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:05 am: Wednesday I burned a day’s vacation time, arose early, and endured a long bus ride to Springfield. Does all that make me a “ringer,” Rich? - Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:11 am: Absolutely not, Staunchier, but you gotta admit that there were a TON of ringers there Wednesday. - Anon - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:12 am: And all those people in yellow were at Democrat Day as well. They are advocating for people with disabilities. - (618) Democrat - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:14 am: If you want to come to Governors day and support the Democratic ticket but can’t afford to drive and you are offered a chance to ride a bus and you take that offer that makes you a ringer? If every bus was full that would be 2400 people that means 1600 people made their way on their own to Democrat day, four times as many people who were at Republican day. - Justice - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:20 am: Nice pictures!! Everyone looked upbeat and GLAD to be there. Regarding people of color….I was there but I’m not in the picture. Never gave it a second thought. - Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:20 am: 618, come on. If you can’t admit there were tons of ringers at the event then you are either allowing your party loyalty to blind you or you are just flat-out a dishonest person. - anon - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:21 am: It’s no wonder the Repub Day was a bust..The candidates are weak and people do not want to invest time or money in them. As for unity?? I’d say it would be easy to have a united party with so little diversity but the conservatives have been shut out. I am also tired of Edgar (of MSI fame) being parading around. Judy was a failure as party chair and has been even more dismal as a candidate. - Lovie's Leather - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:34 am: Repub day a bust?! Hah! I was there!!! It was a hell of a time. You can just feel the momentum pick up for the ticket. Topinka and Radongo are going to win. That is where the support is strongest. Unfortunately, Jesse White is too well liked for Rutherford to make it. Pankau and Umholtz are already dead. But if you wre there, you could feel the, to paraphrase Downstate, the Topinka express gaining momentum. And it doesn’t matter if you are sick of Edgar… I bet you would be sick of Edgar, because he is the most popular Illinois governor in recent history. It is easy to understand why you wouldn’t want him around anymore…. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:36 am: Why does JBT ALWAYS have a cup in her hand. Someone pointed it out to me and I have since noticed it in every TV shot and many photo’s. What’s she drinking??? - (618) Democrat - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:41 am: Rich: I don’t pretend to know peoples motives, or question their honesty, but if you think most of the people who rode the buses were ringers, your words not mine, fine. - Walking Wounded - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 10:59 am: Lovie, Don’t count Dan out yet. He’s got a lot of energy and has a crack team behind him. Yeah, call me delusional, but I think Rutherford would make a great change for the Secretary of State’s office. Everyone’s got to ask themselves, do you want someone to run the office and get the job done or someone who’s such a swell guy who gives convicted felons a second chance? - Lovie's Leather - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 11:05 am: You are right Walking Wounded, Dan would make a better SOS. But Jesse is just too well liked. Plain and simple. He is a mediocre administrator but has Obama like fan-fare. - Ashur Odishoo - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 11:22 am: JBT is a coffee fiend. You will rarely see her without a huge cup of coffee. She is always joking about coffee or caffeine, but I wonder if it has also become a comfortable posture/position. Many candidates stand on stage with their hands folded over their crotch like fig leaves. I prefer her holding a cup of coffee than that position. And I just have to say this - Edgar is the man!! Ashur Odishoo Candidate State Representative 11th District - Cuppa Joe - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 11:49 am: The reason Judy constantly has a cup in her hand is that she has chronic back pain, has for years, and the meds she takes for it give her dry mouth as a side effect. As a politician, she needs to do lots of talking all day, which you can’t do with a dry mouth so it’s water or coffee, which is also a mild analgesic, as well as giving one the strength to face a day full of the madness that is the blago administration. Frankly, I admire her gumption to “play thru the pain”, instead of taking life easy. She’s a trouper. At this stage of her life and career, she has nothing to prove to anyone and could have walked away from this Governor’s Race, but she’s running because the need for better leadership is so great. I’ll take a lady with a bad back over a guy with no spine for governor, any day. - Codger - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 11:57 am: Back in the days when we all wore an onion on our belts, the train tracks ran from Chicago all the way onto the grounds of the State Fair itself, and for Governor’s Day and non-ruling party day, the Chicago organizers would pack long trains full of the party faithful, stopping to pick up more along the way, to come down to the fair fer the day of speechifyin’ and showing unity. Pictures from that era would put both Blago’s and Judy’s PR organizers to shame: not some dinky stage on the tiny Director’s Lawn, but the grandstand itself, packed FULL. For hours of speeches. And the four corners area of Mainstreet, a sea of people in every direction. - Tom DeLay's Mom - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 12:06 pm: Hey Ashur Odishoo…if you’re really a candidate for state representative, what the heck are you doing sitting on this d*mned Blog all-day long? Memo to Odishoo: 81 days until the General Election and, guess what, your voters aren’t reading this Blog. I find it somewhat ironic that you fashion yourself as a political insider - happy to dish-out political advice and musings, yet you’re spending your days on the Internet when you ought to be out walking precincts. Silly candidates… - B Hicks - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 12:08 pm: 618- You can rest assured that if Judy’s campaign could afford to have 60 buses haul people to the fair, she’d do it. However, she’d have a tough time filling them up. Of course, there were only ringers at D-day, none yesterday. - Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 12:18 pm: Nobody said there were no ringers yesterday, just that there were a ton of them Wednesday. - Jeffrey - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 1:13 pm: IN the Dem’s defense (which I rarely ever take), Bill Brady loaded buses last year and brought them to the state fair. I don’t know if he had buses from upstate, but he definitely had a bus in Southern Illinois picking people (maybe ringers?) up. - Jeffrey - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 1:19 pm: I am guessing this may only buy 1 bus: Illini Tours $588.58 8/11/2005 Expenditure Citizens for Bill Brady Bus Charter He also had this bus expense: Vandalia Bus Lines $812.60 8/15/2005 Expenditure Citizens for Bill Brady Bus Charter Now, I don’t know if these buses were used to bus people to and from campaign events, but what else would they be used for? Looking through his report, it’s outrageous: $31k on polling before 2006? Near 50k in donations returned? WHAT?!?! - Anon - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 2:01 pm: Dan Rutherford has a great chance at winning against Tom Begnigno, this State’s real SOS. Dirty laundry all the way around. - Anonymous - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 4:13 pm: Define ringer? If Stauncher doesn’t qualify who does? I don’t understand how you differentiate between someone who came to partake who’s a northender and walked across the street from their house to the fairgrounds from someone who lives in Rockford and got on a bus. - Disgusted - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 6:37 pm: I think everyone understand that the governor’s sweep at the last election was helped along by big help from downstate Illinois. Then he promptly ignored, ridiculed and forgot us. I guess he had to bring in the folks from above I-80 because he couldn’t count on a big crowd of us disgruntled and disillusioned downstaters. What goes around, comes around, Milarod. - Jacques Strappe - Friday, Aug 18, 06 @ 11:20 pm: I think the pic of Not-Miller and Kjellander should be the new caption contest. - Link - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 12:53 pm: Of course the crowd was smaller…Republicans work for a living, can’t just leave for the day. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.