Wow. In a big comeback, Laurel Prussing looks to have topped Mayor Tod Satterthwaite in the Democratic primary by 250 votes. Here is the Champaign County Clerk's latest returns.
Laurel Prussing was one of the first politicians I ever interviewed as a reporter for the Daily Illini. She was a newly-elected state representative in 1992, and in 1994 lost in the GOP landslide to Rick Winkel (now State Senator Rick Winkel).
She tried some comebacks for state, and then federal office, before finding the Urbana mayoral primary a better fit.
She represents the liberal wing of the Democratic Party while Mayor Sattherthwaite represents the moderate wing.
Apparently the entire Urbana City Council will be new.
I think an untapped resource for progressives to develop innovative policy are municipalities. Maybe Urbana will become more of a laboratory, which would be great.
In Cicero, challenger Larry Dominick has edged out the incumbent. Maybe some reform away from old-school patronage and skimming off the commonwealth is coming to Cicero. That town has always been the soft underbelly of the Cook County Republican Party's call for reform, as they have tolerated the graft and patronage for years, since that's one of the few machines that votes for Republicans. Maybe that's about to change. It depends how honest President Larry Dominick is. And since clean-government conservative Dan Proft was a Dominick consultant, I'm guessing the odds the Cicero is going to get a-scrubbing are better than 50-50. Which is great.
2 comments:
How did a nice Winnetka boy get interested in Cicero politics? I understand a nice affluent north shore biy being interested in Cicero the philosopher, not the town.
Alright Chris Rhodes, Big Ups to Richard Irvin. . .. for winning the right to lose the April election to Tom Weisner. I must say I do admire your efforts to get your state party invested in municipal races. I think my party is pretty invested in Rockford, but apparently, not so much in Decatur. I'll link to Decatur Democrat as well. Didn't mean to exclude probably the leading municipal progressive in Central Illinois, Danielle Chynoweth. Instant runoff voting would solve the 'dumb primary' problem. It's HB 834.
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