C’mon,
this was an ad to bolster Mayor Davlin’s own image with his constituents rather than a legitimate appeal to the governor. Davlin, unlike, say, the media, surely has access to the governor.
SPRINGFIELD -- The mayor of the capital city scolded Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a newspaper ad Sunday for trying to move more than 100 Department of Transportation jobs to southern Illinois.
Tim Davlin, a Democrat who has had friendly relations with the governor, argued the transfer would hit Springfield the same way a mine closing would harm southern Illinois or a factory closing would affect Rockford.
“Since the seat of government was moved to Springfield in 1839, government has been the industry of our city. It pays the bills, feeds the kids, puts roofs over the heads of our citizens,” Davlin said in the ad in The State
Journal-Register.
Money for the ad came from the Springfield chamber of commerce and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, among other groups.
Blagojevich’s press office didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the ad.
Look, I’ve said all along that the “these are our jobs, dammit!” line of argument isn’t going to garner any support outside of Sangamon County. The fact that the ad was in the SJ-R (and to my knowledge, only the SJ-R), says to me Davlin is simply playing to the local audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but this ad does nothing toward advancing the cause of keeping the IDOT jobs here, but does put Davlin on the right side of the issue in the community.
In the end, this move will only be stopped if it proves to be a money waster and otherwise logistically difficult. In other words, on the merits (or lack thereof) not by virtue of Springfield’s claim to all post-1839 government industry.
2 comments:
===The fact that the ad was in the SJ-R (and to my knowledge, only the SJ-R), says to me Davlin is simply playing to the local audience.===
Agreed. He should've taken out an ad on my blog.
Just saying.
No one was expecting the Republicans to do as well as they did, in the April 2007 elections... Just last night, I spoke to someone who mentioned that if they had known, more focus might have been given to the mayoral election, and trying to defeat Davlin. (A lot of people - including Democrats - have been unhappy with our mayor, but Alderman Strom was always so far behind... that race was written off.)
It's great that the Mayor is under check though, with all of his lockstep supporters on the City Council having been defeated.
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