Northfield Democrats: No IL-10 Endorsement

UPDATE: In the comments from Carl Nyberg:

Committeeman Mike Kreloff wrote the following to me in an email about the Supreme Court endorsement, "Near the end of the meeting, I asked for a motion to endorse all the uncontested candidates along with an endorsement of Justice Theis by acclamation. The motion was seconded and passed (by acclamation)." 

So, NTDO has in fact officially endorsed Justice Theis.

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Today I attended the Northfield Township Democratic Organization endorsement session. The session lasted almost 5 hours and was difficult. In the end, however, I believe the organization did the right thing as relates to the Illinois Tenth District Congressional race. But, before I get to that, let's go back.

Judges
I met a whole lot of people running for Cook County Judge. Since I was inundated at the door, and live in Lake County, I'm not going to go into all the candidates. However, it should be noted that there might have been a mistake in the endorsement on the Supreme Court race. Mary Jane Theis spoke. Aurelia Pucinski was expected, but didn't make it to the meeting (I do not know what held her up), so the NTDO held up the endorsement vote for her. But after the long day, the organization apparently failed to endorse. I'm not sure what happened. Did I miss something? Did they forget?

In any event, Theis talked about wanting to provide more help to unrepresented defendants, but firmly stated that she did not feel the state could provide the representation. She touted greater participation in pro bono work since attorneys have to state their pro bono hours on their registration forms, a rule on which she personally worked. Frankly, I'd credit the bad job market for young attorneys and large law firm layoffs for the increase in pro bono work, but I have no statistics.

I do like Theis' background as a public defender and I'm glad she's interested in working on fairness in the system.

Water Reclamation
I really like Debra Shore and so does NTDO. She was endorsed with a healthy vote, as was her slate. I learned that the reason for the slate is to try to get Shore elected President of the Board. I think she'd make a good choice. Her slate includes Kari Steele, a chemist, and Patrick Daley Thompson (yes, I hear related to Richard J. and Richard M. Daley).

The group endorsed Kari Steele and I'm glad they did. I've heard some claim that she's not qualified. Her pitch is a bit cute, but I've looked at her credentials and believe she is qualified. She has a Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry. She works professionally as a formulating chemist for L'Oreal. It's a problem solving job that takes scientific skill, business acumen and creativity. She's also done a stint at the District itself, albeit short. I do wonder if a bit of sexism in the sciences is at work among people who dismiss her candidacy.

Thompson discussed his experience from the real estate law perspective. Having done a lot of that myself, I agree that there are a lot of conservation and environmental issues that he must have dealt with over the years. However, he became passionate only when he started talking about his work to keep Illinois from adopting conceal carry. I'm not so sure Patrick is all that interested in sewage. But, he can carry on a credible discussion about MWRD funding.

Clerk of the Court
The group endorsed Rick Munoz, a few people expressing concerns about Clerk Brown's political history. Munoz is running on the slow implementation of electronic filing. I'm torn by this race. I use the clerks office frequently. I find it much better than what it was years ago with the staff far more polite and helpful. However, we still have to go down the the Daley Center for most filing and file review. The clerks computer system is cumbersome and difficult to use. I'm just not sure Brown is the problem or that Munoz will be able to make the reforms he seeks. There are a lot of other factors in the Clerks office including funding and state Supreme Court control over local county clerks. I'd like Munoz to give some data showing where he thinks Brown has gone wrong and how he can do better.

Illinois State Senate District 29: Both NTDO and my endorsement
Susan Garrett and her Grover Norquist no tax increase pledge are retiring from office, leaving the state senate district seat open. The best known candidate is the W. Deerfield Township Supervisor, Julie Morrison. She's endorsed by most of the local Democratic politicos and I have to say she'd done a pretty good job at W. Deerfield. Her credentials include her budgeting acumen, her keeping the tax rate down, and her added responsibilities as caseworker on the social services end of township business. Not said on her behalf in the meeting is that she works for the food pantry all the time, has obtained a significant amount of grant money for social services and has done good work for the disabled of the township. She's a solid candidate and she made a strong speech.

However, I also found her opponent, Milton Sumption, appealing. Sumption is a true outsider which is an intriguing idea for Springfield, so mired in budget problems caused by business as usual. Sumption has a business and finance background. Too many answers to his IVI-IPO questionnaire essay questions state that he wants to study the issue more, which may be honest, but doesn't say much about his candidacy. His IVI-IPO answer on pension reform was very general--fairness and sustainability. However, at the NTDO meeting, he rejected the idea of cutting off teacher's pensions as one member of the audience suggested. One of his IVI-IPO answers did cause me to pause as it shows his connection to the financial industry. He does not want to regulate bank and credit card fees and sees the "free market" as the best regulator. Since when, Milton?

As NTDO, I go with Julie here because I know her and know she is good at working with numbers and with people in need. Julie's background is working with children in juvenile court. She's pretty much a lifelong public servant, in some not-so-glamorous jobs. Sumption's  resistance to consumer protection reforms gives me pause. However, I like Sumption and hope he stays active with the Democrats and decides to become one very soon.

Ilinois 9th CD
Jan Schakowsky, one of the best in the House if not the best.

She has a primary opponent, Simon Ribeiro. He's a teacher and he's running to be Jan, but more.  He has a point on health care when Jan decided to leave the single payer cause to support whatever the Obama Administration came up with.

I'm not sure he has he messaging down and rambled a bit in his speech to NTDO, but I think with some experience, one day Simon will make a fine candidate. I hope he continues to work for progressive ideals.

Illinois 10th CD
For the record, I have decided to support John Tree.

Tree spoke first, well before the others, because he had to leave for another endorsement session downtown. He talked a bit about his background in the military and then went into his views on the gridlock in Congress and how to get the economy rolling. He was asked about Israel and answered with a brief description of his experience working with the Israeli military, his support for the country and his recognition for the need of a two state solution.

The rest of the IL-10 speeches were made at the end of the session. Vivek Bavda spoke first in the second round. Bavda's big idea is a lot of smaller ideas. He feels that congressional gridlock can be broken down one small jobs and infrastructure program at a time. He also discussed his experience in education through Teach for America. My only criticism of Bavda is that he probably needs to think bigger picture and show that he has a broader vision. He's a likeable guy.

Brad Schneider was up next. He made his pitch with a strong confident voice. He brought up his Mark Kirk contributions, probably because he knew it was coming. This time Schneider talked about Kirk's support for Israel and endorsements by several progressive organizations such as Planned Parenthood and Sierra Club. In short, he's back to having been duped. Questions from the audience pushed him further. There was clear anger in the room over his Mark Kirk support. As former blogger Kevin Roos aptly put it, how could the  group accept Brad's claim he has been duped by Kirk when so many of the activists in that room knew who and what Kirk was from the start?

Ilya Sheyman came out attempting to portray the nice guy, in an unusually small voice (did he have a cold?). He's not going to say anything bad about either candidate (because he was going to let his surrogates do it for him and they did--so much for his "high road"). Sheyman touted his work on health care (which I dispute) and his vast experience opening the Tenth Dems Community Connection, and his work for Senator Obama for a few months. The rest was the standard progressive pitch. He claimed that no one he's encountered in his campaign has questioned his age or experience. He seems to have forgotten about me.

My recollection of Sheyman's work for Community Connection is that he was there at the very beginning, and attended meetings and helped out, but the real work was done by others. The late and great Chuck Knight was the key person in its inception. Now, Laura Tomsky is doing the heavy lifting for the group as far as I know. I'd ask Ilya to describe what he did for Community Connection and tell us his actual dates of active work for the organization.

The questions pitched Ilya from the audience were personal endorsements from supporters disguised as questions. No one asked him the tough questions on Israel although I do not know why he should be given a pass on the issue as no one else was. Ilya seems to be blessed with softball questions from Democratic organizations, DFA, IVI-IPO too, so I'm not sure how he'll do when confronted by Bob Dold supporters. In fact, Ilya appears to still be at the stage where adults only compliment his work, the "good boy" stage of life where everything you do is cute or good. I'm not sure how Ilya will react when up against John Boehner and crew.

The group then settled into a sometimes tense (although not loud) battle between the Sheyman supporters upset with Schneider's Kirk support, AIPCA ties and financial sector business background, and the Schneider supporters claiming Ilya too young and too liberal for the district, and therefore unelectable. Had it been earlier in the day, had there been more chairs and more air in the room, and had the candidates brought rice cakes, low fat proteins, carrots and celery to much on instead of coffee and sugar, things might have gone better.

As cooler heads prevailed, people started to reconsider John Tree as a good fit for the district, a strong candidate with a leadership background. I spoke up about Tree's experience with environmental issues and strength on economic issues that I feel he will back up with action.

I can see John standing up to House Republicans far better than his opponents. Tree's only drawback is that his late entry in the race puts him behind on money and on the ground campaign workers, but that could be remedied with support from organizations like NTDO, couldn't it?

In the end, Mike Kreloff and Elaine Nekretz made a pitch for no endorsement. They pitched for unity and cautioned the group over the divisiveness in the Sheyman/Schneider battle. I appreciated their comments because had I titled my initial post about Sheyman (linked above), Not to be rushed into a decision. I think Sheyman's early support came from people anxious to find their candidate early to get a jump start on the competition and ultimately Bob Dold.

No endorsement won out, but not as a concept in and of itself. Sheyman drew the most votes--22, but not enough to meet the 60% requirement, Tree did better than expected with 12, but competed with No Endorsement at 13. Schneider felt the wrath of the progressive Democratic crowd frustrated by years of hard work against Schneider's selected candidate, Mark Kirk and got a surprisingly small number of endorsement votes.

Thoughts
I may be biased, but it's not a natural bias, just common sense that brought me to Tree weeks ago. It seems to me Tree won the day at NTDO because he's what all those undecided and hesitant Democratic voters are looking for, a strong economic and social progressive, with military and foreign policy credentials, and all sorts of business experience from large corporations to small mom and pop companies. More than that, Tree has seen good times, bad times, happiness and heartache, poverty and wealth. He's seen religious faith and secular need, and his experience with conservatism brought him to progressivism. He's had both success and failure, and pulled success out of failure, and strength out of hardship.

John Tree requires no division in our ranks and need not cause additional angst among Democrats sick of failure in this District and progressives sick of disloyal representation from Blue Dogs and fair weather friends. John Tree is a good candidate because he is truly representative of the New Tenth District. As he is representative, he can represent it well. I urge everyone to reconsider their early positions and consider John Tree for Congress IL-10.

The NTDO endorsement session was a process for IL-10 Democrats. I hope the entire District notes where that process led them.