One of the first things handicappers use as they compare notes on viable candidates is the question: Can he raise dough? Up to now the answer on Bill Brady the all-but-declared-victor of the Republican gubernatorial nomination is decidedly no. All his primary campaigns were run on shoe-string budgets and this is no different from others. I’m not even sure he had a campaign manager during the primary although reportedly he has one now.
This is an important disadvantage for Brady. One of the first things that seasoned handicappers liked about Kirk Dillard was he can raise dough…not in the lavish amounts Andy McKenna, Jr. did through his old man’s deep pockets and bottomless contacts but satisfactorily enough to get through a general election. To be successful for governor a candidate should have $10 million either on hand or available for the scooping into his cache.
Of course idealistic right-to-lifers…some of whom endorsed Brady…think of nothing else but a 100% voting record aren’t interested in the ability to raise campaign money, essential to win elections. Not for them. Their scratch sheets showing 100% pro-life voting record is sufficient. For them big dough is what they shell out at a silent pro-life auctions in church basements: $50.
Let’s be polite and say that Brady is not nearly even in the distant neighborhood of collecting a couple million today--while Pat Quinn has coffers full from Big Labor and other liberal interests. For which we can all say: Thanks, Jim Ryan and Andy McKenna for your unpredictable entry into the primary which put us in this spot when without your entry there was a distinctly good chance Republicans could capture the governorship.
Theatre Helped Democrats.
Independents and the mainstream media want to show what they feel is “transparency” and “bipartisanship” which will enable them to feel that Barack Obama is making a good-will effort to work with Republicans…and on TV. But the real game was revealed just before the end of the 7-1/2 hours when Obama said that in the last analysis he will not tolerate “baby steps” and that if passage depends on just Democrats, so be it. Following the Blair House session, David Axelrod, the Obama courtier appeared on TV saying that the American people want a straight vote up or down on the issue. All of which means that there will indeed be a Herculean effort at “reconciliation”—the jam-through of a procedural vote to obviate the filibuster, starting with the House.
But House Democrats really don’t have the votes to pass it.
From the image standpoint, the Democrats helped themselves with independents and shored up their base. But whether they changed any votes to pass health care is undeterminable. Republicans showed up well, particularly Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin…showing that they are not members of the “party of `no’” but have cogent ideas. In essence, both parties helped themselves but whether or not the Dems switched votes can’t be determined.
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*: St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria [AD 328]. He is chiefly celebrated for the strong resistance he showed to the Arian Heresy, propagated by one Arius, a presbyter, who maintained that Christ was not the Son of God, that He was just another creature and that He was capable of sinning. Priests questioned Arius at several sessions. After the first one, Arius was excommunicated.
Then Alexander summoned Arius to a council and he appeared before an assembly of clergy in Alexandria. The demeanor of Alexander was so impassive and even-handed that for a time he faced severe criticism—but Arius was again excommunicated. Finally Constantine I called the first Council of Nicea to question Arius. Alexander traveled there and performed as the finest prosecutor of heresy, winning plaudits after the session which excommunicated Arius, causing the Emperor to banish him to Illyricum, a district in the Balkan peninsula.
In retrospect Alexander’s calmness and objectivity carried the day, his demeanor making his scholarly words appear more effective rather than railing and losing his temper as some prelates had done.
After this triumph, Alexander returned to Alexandria where he died two years later, having named St. Ananasius as his successor.
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