Thursday, December 09, 2004

Updated on December 9, 2004 at 12:30 am.
***************************
No muss, No fuss and No more Republican primaries. The New and Improved Republican Party: The Republican “Leaders” will select the Republican Candidates.

***************************
Tom Roeser: What about Judy Baar Topinka?

Steve McGlynn: Listen, I love Judy. I think she’s great.

Roeser: Would you support her for Governor?

McGlynn: I will support whoever the Party nominates and I will not endorse somebody ahead of time.

Jeff Berkowitz: You mean before the Primary you are not going to endorse somebody.

McGlynn: Before the Primary-- I think we should put together a Unity slate. I really do.

Roeser: But when you say put together a unity slate, does that sort of preclude a primary, or what?

McGlynn: Yeah, that means going into the Primary that the State [Republican] Party and leaders in the Republican Party have all said, “We have all met, we have worked together, we have hashed it out, we have arm wrestled, we have cajoled, we have done all kinds of things- we have decided that these individuals represent our best, our best—

Roeser: Now, that is a startling departure from the past because what you are talking about is pre-primary endorsement—

McGlynn: That’s correct.

Berkowitz: That sounds like Democratic [Party] slatemaking.

Roeser: And when you do that, you run the risk of Bossism, don’t you. People say that—

McGlynn: Tom, Tom. Tom. I am, I am just—I am simple riverfolk down here.

I am just a—

Berkowitz: Just a country lawyer, right?

McGlynn: I am not a boss. And, believe me—the people that I will be listening to, the rank and file people-- They are not the bosses that run the City of Chicago. They are the people in Illinois that have to work here and send their kids to school here. I think that’s who is going to make the decisions.

Berkowitz: Steve, excuse me-- that sounds like the old way of doing things. Look, let me get right to the point--

McGlynn: No, no, no.

Berkowitz: Steve, you can’t filibuster here. Tom’s not going to allow it. I might but he is not going to. Pat O’Malley has talked about a schism in the Party. But, not the Pro-Life, Pro-Choice schism. He says, more importantly, it is between the reformers and the non-reformers.

McGlynn: Well, I am a reformer. And, Pat O’Malley told me before he would love to see me as Chairman of the Party.

Berkowitz: Yeah, well, maybe. But, I don’t know if you told him you were going to make a slate. And, you are going to endorse people and support people [before the Primary], and if people don’t like that slate they are not going to have a shot at running.
**********************************
Political Shoot-out, WLS radio, 890–AM, 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm, December 5, 2004, with host Tom Roeser and guest Jeff Berkowitz in the studio and candidate for State GOP Chairman Steve McGlynn on the phone from Belleville.
**********************************