MakeThemAccountable.com letter to ABC THIS WEEK on Duckworth

[papau]

To: David Westin, President of ABC News

Mr. Westin,

At the close of the This Week show this past Sunday, George Stephanopolous announced that he will air an interview this coming Sunday with Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq veteran who lost both legs in service to her country, and who is being urged by Stephanopolous' old friend and fellow former Clinton White House staffer Rahm Emanuel, to run for Congress from an Illinois district in 2006. I called the show Monday and confirmed that the interview is scheduled for next Sunday.

Emanuel has been encouraging Duckworth to run for Congress in Illinois' 6th District, which is the seat being vacated by Henry Hyde. Emanuel has refused to support the candidate who may well be the reason Hyde decided to retire. With only $100,000 in donations, and in what has been an overwhelmingly Republican district, Christine Cegelis got 44% of the vote against Hyde in 2004. She is running again in 2006, but instead of helping Cegelis, Emanuel has done everything he can to stop her.

It seems to me the story in the Illinois 6th is that an unknown with a small budget may have caused the formidable Henry Hyde to retire.

It seems to me that ABC should not allow itself to be used as an ole boy network for former Clinton staffers.

And it really seems to me that if Stephanopolous airs an interview with Duckworth, he should give equal time to Christine Cegelis.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Chicago, IL

Please join me in protesting this kind of favoritism at ABC:

President of ABC News: David Westin ([e-mail])
This Week email address: [e-mail]
ABC address and phone number:
ABC Television
77 W 66th St
New York, NY 10023
212-456-7777

[mopinko]

1. smellier and smellier

is all i can say.

[billyf65]

2. Wow

Cegelis made Henry Hyde old and sick? That is something.

[mopinko]

3. he admitted that he was retiring rather than face cegalis

it was in the papers.

[wndycty]

5. Link please. . .

:kick:

[wndycty]

4. Oh my. . .

From today's http://thecapitolfaxblog.com:

-snip-
* Just 28 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in her district knew who Christine Cegelis was. Remember, this is after her high-profile race against Hyde and a strong effort to keep her campaign going in the months since then. Cegelis has burned through a bunch of money in the past year to keep her name out there, but just over a quarter of Democratic primary voters recognized her name in August.

* 48 percent of those same likely Dem primary voters knew who Peter O’Malley was, even though he had never run for office before. O’Malley dropped out of the Democratic primary race a couple of months after the poll was taken (the poll was not conducted by or for O’Malley’s campaign).

* Before he dropped out, the poll showed that O’Malley was leading Cegelis 26-19 (or 22-16 excluding “leaners”) in the primary. Even with that high margin of error, a seven-point lead is still pretty solid - about an 86 percent probability that O’Malley was ahead and the result wasn’t due to sampling error.

* Just 15 percent had a favorable view of Cegelis, while 5 percent had an unfavorable view. That’s bad news for someone who thinks that her last race will propel her to victory in the next contest.
-snip-

http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2005/12/20/cegelis-poll/#comments

Say what you want, but Cegelis was trailing in the polls behind someone who eventually dropped out. This is not to attack Cegelis, but to show that Duckworth is not really ruining what many claim to be a viable campaign.

[madfloridian]

6. See my rebuttal to this flawed poll and skewing of it in GDP

.

[mopinko]

8. please post a link, mad

there is another well known o'malley, whose name also begins with p. in this area. this name recognition crap means NOTHING!

[mopinko]

7. oh, please, irish surnames and name recognition

don't try to tell me that you do not know what this means. everybody knows an o'malley in policics, and everybody likes irish people. why do you think judicial candidates change their name to o'malley, fitzgerald, etc. if they were so informed about o'malley, why didn't they know he had dropped out?
another load of horseshit.

[madrchsod]

9. now i get it

cindy get 44% against henry and now she`s not fit to run against who? how could i be so dumb to think she has a chance in hell to beat who? oh well, i saw them in dixon ignore zamora because they did`nt want anyone to really run against him.
out here in the corn and bean fields ya do`nt need a weatherman to tell ya where the pig shit smell is coming from...

oh yes fat denny just pissed off alot of farmers out here on the drought relief bill now that would be a nice issue but hey it`s a waste of money to unseat him.

[dogman]

10. Zamora has to win the Primary first.

He may not even be the Dem candidate.

[mopinko]

11. yeah, they found a real hot shot to run in that district

a former kucinich campaign aide. any sacrificial lamb can run, since hastert is the guy that rahm wants to win. see how that works?

[dogman]

12. A few facts.

Zamora was a Kucinich campaign worker also, at the state level. I thought you were all about grassroots, that's what these guys are. John Laesch, who found himself just like Ruben, also worked on David Gill's last campaign. I don't believe Rahm wants Hastert but I don't doubt Daley and a few others are content with him.

[mopinko]

13. this is all complicated, ain't it

i am about grass roots. i wish my party supported them. i hope that they get out there and support the winner. i wish i thought either of them had a prayer.
look, i think the party ought to recruit good candidates. my primary bitch about the cegalis race is not so much what they did as how they did it, and are doing it. rahm ought to be holding big bucks meet and greets, and getting tv time and ink for ALL the dems on the ballot. and he ought not to be running people down in the media. you have to admit that having the chairman calling you a bad candidate in the papers is just not right, even if you are. but christine is NOT.
we have to figure out how to do this democratically, fairly. we should be supporting the primary process. period.

[dogman]

14. I agree with a lot of what you say and feel.

I have a real fear that we will have Hillary shoved down our throat for '08. The people should have more say but until we get true campaign finance reform we are screwed. I heard Sirota speaking to this fact last week when Maddow hosted for Franken. Until there is equal public financing with caps on spending and controls on advocate groups, money will rule and the people will suffer the consequences.

[mopinko]

16. meh

i do not think it is that simple, myself. power is it's own reward. human animals are hierarchical by nature. if it's not money, sex will do. or just bragging rights. i am always amazed at the puny bits of "territory" people will fight over. in fact, i think the smaller the hill, the bloodier the battle.
that's why democracy is such an amazing invention, but why it is so unstable.

[madrchsod]

15. i know that

in fact i really no nothing about the other guy. my point is that the democrats really did`t want him to win and from what i saw really did`t give him any support. will they give anyone support in this district?
out here the support for zamora was grassroots house parties,beer and chicken at walton,and other "high profile" venues. what i see is that the democrats are missing a golden opportunity to get the latin american vote into the democratic party.in the next few years they will be an economic and political force that could change this district to democratic control and i see zamora as the ideal candidate to do this. he received about 33-35% of the vote and with a solid latin american vote and discontented moderates republicans the tables may be turned on the republican stranglehold in this district..no matter who wins the primary the we democrats out here in the corn and bean fields will do everything we can to win.