Recommitting to the Blog - Update

So this was the second long term, unplanned, hiatus I've taken. I hope it will not happen again (but it will). I got behind updating my candidate evals and then the race was over very quickly after that. I've since moved to the South Loop and work had me out of town for two months which made things very busy. Ultimately I ranked my final choice of candidates as follows:

#1 Wheelan

#2 Quigley

#3 Fritchey

But I really, REALLY preferred the top 2 over Fritchey. But I'd like to see Jan Donatelli keep at it and run for an office in the future when she is more prepared. So all in all, a good result and I'm really glad Mike Quigley is the US representative from my former district.

What made me update with a post was a Facebook comment a friend made. It was right up the alley of what I wanted to do with this blog. Everyone seems to hate Daley, why? I have to admit, I don't have many concrete reasons - certainly not enough that justify my conviction that this city would be better off without him. So to get back into the swing of things I am going to to try to answer the question of whether Daley is good or bad. This is remarkably vague and subjective so I will try to apply a framework to my evaluation. This will also be a large undertaking but ultimately will be worth it. It will also likely not have a nice neat ending to it. Daley's in office, month to month, year to year, a cost-benefit analysis of his administration may result in conflicting results.

Candidate Evals- Fritchey, Quigley, Wheelan, Forys (D)

Everyone in this eval is a, So Far So Good

John Fritchey

John Fritchey is state senator.  I've liked him for a while.  I have reservations that he might be churchy but I ca nevaluate that in greater detail later.  I like that he has a blog and while he doesn't update it quite as much as I might like, he's trying.  And he's had the blog for a while so it's not like he just started it for this election.  I was also able to find some news stories of where he inserted himself into some local issues rather than standing back like it's not his job.  At the forum I will ask to see if he followed up on those programs he enacted and ask for metrics on how he knew it worked/ helped.

Mike Quigley

Mike Quigley is a county commisioner.  I think if this wasn't such a democratic area, he might be a republican.  But his thing is waste elimination and efficiency.  I haven't made it through his authored report from 2002 but I have started it.  People who really want to change stuff issue reports and solicit feedback.  I think this guy is in it for the right reasons.  I haven't seen anyhting to counter that yet.

Charlie Wheelan

Charlie Wheelan is a lecturer at the University of Chicago.  The last one of those we had from Illinois became the president.  Just putting it out there.  I like that he's an economist, he's clearly very smart, he's not a politician, and he's a public policy expert.  Of the non-politiicans (and maybe the politicians as well) he's probably the most knowledgeable about the issueas and solutions that the country faces.  Which is good for a US representative.  

Viktor Forys

Viktor Forys is a physician.  He's donated a lot of time to charity and a clinic he founded.  Think of all the reasons you might want Paul Bryar in office and Viktor seems to be a mirror of that.  I get less of a "R in D clothing" vibe from him.  But as this round of evalutions is only skin deep, a cursory glance reveals a citizen interested in public service with a track record of giving back that will be very qualified on one of the very important upcomeing issues (healthcare).