[Peace-discuss] No contest in IL-15 CD

[C. G. Estabrook]

Here's how the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette reported the local 
Congressional election:

     "Solid re-election win has Johnson upbeat
     Thu, 11/04/2010 - 9:00am | Tom Kacich 

"URBANA – Tuesday was a tough day for some incumbent congressmen, but 
not five-term Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana.

"He won re-election with 64.3 percent of the vote to 35.7 percent for 
Democrat David Gill of Bloomington. It was Johnson's best showing since 
2002, when he got 65.2 percent of the vote against Democrat Josh Hartke 
and Green Party candidate Carl Estabrook.

"Johnson, 64, won all 22 counties in the district on Tuesday and got nearly 
56 percent in Champaign County. That was an improvement over the 52.6 
percent he got in the county in the last midterm election in 2006, also 
against Gill..."

Full article at <http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-
government/2010-11-04/solid-re-election-win-has-johnson-upbeat.html>

Tom Kacich doesn't mention - there was no occasion to - that the 
Democratic candidate in 2002 was a place-holder.  The Democratic party was 
not planning to run anyone at all against incumbent Tim Johnson that year.  
Then the local Green party gathered the large number of signatures 
necessary to get a candidate on the ballot - and the Democrats were afraid 
that in a two-way race the Greens might get up to  a third of the vote and 
establish regular  access to the ballot - and more importantly become 
better-known in the district.  The two-party agreement to restrict ballot 
access kicked in, and the Democrats recruited a young non-politician to take 
the Democratic line. He received most  of the votes of those who usually 
vote Democratic in the 15th IL CD.

But this year's election was a non-contest for  another reason: the 
Democratic candidate decided to run his campaign on personality instead of 
issues. 

But wait, you cry: isn't  that the way it's done in modern American politics? 
Aren't candidates for office marketed like toothpaste?

Yes, of course. We live in a country where the high-point of political 
expression is energized masses herded into stadiums to shout inanities like 
"Yes we can!" - where people vote for a peace candidate who immediately 
escalates a foreign war - where the "party of the common man" secures the 
super-profits of the very rich while doing less than the Hoover 
administration did on jobs and foreclosures...

But on the local scene, there was a possibility for a real debate on the 
issues, first the war - killing people is obviously the most  important thing 
the federal government does - but also the economy.  Johnson, the 
incumbent Republican, had voted for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq 
(although incidentally he was told not to, in the 2002 campaign). But he later 
said he was wrong to  do so - and promised to vote against any more 
funding for US war in the Middle East, one of the very few Congressional 
representatives to take that position.

His Democratic opponent took a variety of positions on  the war but would 
not make a similar promise. When Johnson voted, as he said he would, 
against a bill that provided a billion dollars for military construction in 
Afghanistan, his opponent attacked him for the vote - on the grounds that 
the bill also provided veterans' benefits! The oldest, lying Bush defense of the 
war - "Support our troops!" - rode again.

So no honest debate on the war, with an incumbent voting firmly against it, 
and a challenger (apparently) supporting the administration's position.  
(Obama is surely "against the war" - in that he wants to win and get out.) But 
no honest debate on the economy either, where the Republican incumbent 
embraces the completely untenable fear of deficits, but his Democratic 
opponent refused to condemn the administration's pandering to the banks 
and insurance companies, while it did nothing on jobs and foreclosures.   

In the News-Gazette's principal coverage of the Gill/Johnson election, the war  
wasn't mentioned, and a false picture of the economic situation was 
presented by the candidates. 

Is it any surprise that the small group that wants to "take the country back" - 
i.e., re-establish the situation that obtained a generation ago - jobs and 
housing that could be counted on - has a growing following, when an 
election is a district that should have produced a real debate about 
government policy, notably failed to do so?

--CGE