Everyone You Forgot, Everything That You Need, Everybody's Gonna Make it to the Cemetary

3/3/09...Square Root Day and more importantly the special primary election in the race to replace Rahm here in IL-5. Essentially this was the entire race -- the 6th place finisher in the Dem primary had as many votes as the total Republican turnout, and the Green Party winner came up with less than 2 bills to win his JV division. Quigley and the Dems should wreck house in April's actual election.

Rick and I headed up to Charlie Wheelan's election night party at Goose Island for a couple of reasons 1) no on wants to have a party and not have people show up; 2) we liked pretty much everything this political outsider had to say during the campaign.



February's champion 3rd wheel of EBONY, Adam, joined us yet again and would provide the stupidest line I heard all day. Yes, he managed to overshadow the election judge in my precinct who didn't know the alphabet and looked for my last name, beginning with "Mc", in the A-L binder. Yes, he also managed to top the person in line at the Goose Island buffet behind me who saw the beer list and said, "I can't believe that! Why would they name a beer India Pale Ale? The water quality in India is horrible." So what then did Adam say? You would think that after visiting doubledigit bars with us last month he'd have a pretty good idea of our likes/dislikes. Adam's winning entry, coming during a quiet moment at Goose Island, "so, do you guys watch One Tree Hill?"

Anyway, Charlie didn't win, which in the end is okay. He was grateful to his volunteers & supporters and mentioned had he not been running that eventual winner Mike Quigley would've gotten his vote. Coincidentally...Quigley's party was 2 doors down at Red Ivy. We stopped over there for drinks and Rick ended up involved in confrontations about visibly supporting candidates other than the one throwing the party...which led to some interesting discussions with Quigley supporters about public service, volunteering, and something apparently called "election sex".



Overall turnout was predictably low -- and seriously Chicago: Our governor was impeached, we just elected a President that many people hope will maintain a level of transparency in goverment, our Mayor is involved in daily corruption whispers, our junior senator has been asked to resign due to allegations surrounding his appointment, and our county board president is a worthless product of nepotism. So what do we do during an important election that gives us a say in our future, and allows us an opportunity to participate in the democracy that makes our country great? What do we do? We fail to show up. Looks like interest in politics is confined to one polarizing office. Lets do better, people.

Switching from the very important to the frivolous, our Facebook group is up to 98 members! Almost as many as voted for Green Party Primary Winner Matt Reichel. Lets see if we can get more members than he got votes (roughly 160ish) before the actual election in April. Get on it, STREET TEAM!

The EBONY February Recap will be up one of these days...