Dan Hynes refused to be specific, at his news conference, this morning (Wednesday, September 2, 2009), about what he would do about the hundreds of grants to religious organizations that are contained in the Capital Bill and that amount to tens of millions of dollars.
State Comptroller Dan Hynes, at his campaign kickoff news conference at the Sheraton Hotel at Columbus Drive and the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, on September 2, 2009. Photo by Rob Sherman.
Hynes announced that one of the key planks in his campaign platform was to eliminate 625 million dollars of discretionary grants, each year. See Page 9 of his campaign platform.
I asked Hynes if the cuts would include the blatantly unconstitutional grants to houses of worship, parochial schools and religious ministries that have made the Capital Bill "Pilgrim Baptist on steroids."
Hynes answer was vague and evasive. He said that he has identified over a billion dollars of grants that he would cut, but refused to say which grants those were or if the Capital Bill grants to religious organizations were included.
When I asked Hynes what he would do while still Comptroller for the next sixteen months, if he was asked to pay out on any of the grants to religious organizations, Hyne was again vague and unspecific.
Hynes said, "If a request to make a payment on any of those grants to religious organizations was presented to my office, I would review each one individually."
When I got back to the office, this afternoon, I called Green Party candidate for Governor Richard Whitney and asked him the same question about what he would do about the unconstitutional grants to houses of worship, parochial schools and religious ministries.
Whitney had no problem showing leadership on this issue by providing a direct, specific, sensible answer.
Green Party candidate for Governor Richard Whitney, at a news conference at the Amtrak Center in Champaign, Illinois, in July, 2009. Photo by Rob Sherman
Whitney said, "Inasmuch as I have a duty to defend the State and Federal Constitutions, any attempt to give money to religious organizations that violates the Constitution must be stricken, so I would use the line item veto to get rid of these grants."
Hynes talked at length, today, about leadership. Hynes concluded his remarks by trying to smear Pat Quinn with this line: "Our budget deficit is a product of our leadership deficit. And I'm running for Governor to fill it."
Governor Pat Quinn, at a news conference on clean water at the Jim Thompson Center in downtown Chicago, in August, 2009. Photo by Rob Sherman.
However, by being vague and evasive and ducking and dodging specifics in his answers to all of the reporters' questions, not just mine, Hynes showed that it is he who fails the leadership test.
I've been to several news conferences by Pat Quinn and several by Rich Whitney. At each and every one of those news conferences, Pat and Rich have had the courage to take a stand on the tough questions that have been asked of them. I didn't agree with the some of the answers that I heard from Pat and from Rich, but at least those two know the meaning of the word, "Leadership," by providing reliable, specific answers that people can act upon regarding the hot social and political issues of the day.
It would certainly be better to have a Governor who is willing to take a stand on tough issues, rather than somebody slippery like Dan Hynes who has mastered the art of hiding when the going gets tough.
If Dan Hynes wants to find out what leadership is all about, he could start by asking Pat Quinn and Rich Whitney.
I went to Dan's news conference as a "friendly," with every intention of finding something, anything, to spin Dan Hynes' appearance in a positive way because Dan has been helpful with regards to not paying on the Pilgrim Baptist million dollar grant. Dan could even be a great governor, some day, but his performance, today, was just awful.
It's early in the campaign. Maybe he'll do better, next time. However, the first thing that Dan needs to do is free himself from his handlers, if they are the ones who are telling him that the way to succeed in politics is to attack your opponent, not provide specific answers about anything and then, after a short Q&A with reporters, flee the room without taking any more questions and disappear into another conference room, the way Dan did, to hide from any further reporters' questions. That's not leadership, Dan.
That's the Karl Rove fear-and-smear, hit-and-run way of doing things. It's the way in which the Republican Party has mastered the art of losing elections.
It also doesn't work when you're campaign theme is "leadership," and you are competing against two real leaders like Pat Quinn and Rich Whitney, not to mention real leaders on the Republican side like Matt Murphy.
You're not fooling anybody, Dan.
Please leave a comment, below, to let me know what you think, and tell your friends about this.
I look forward to your comments on this one, especially if you want the next Governor of Illinois to be somebody who takes a specific stand on tough issues and, in particular, you want a Governor who will Just Say No to unconstitutional grants to religious organizations, without saying, well, maybe, I dunno, could be, we'll see.
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5 Comments
jackspatafora said:
Rob, I respect the passion with which you pursue your strict interpretation of the Constitution...how terrific it would be if that same passion were channeled and sublimated into a vigorous respect for the efficacy of religion in the lives of the people... as the saying goes, man does not live by bread (aka, laws) alone.. and while you may consider religion foolish, can you at the same time dismiss it as useless?
Rationalist said:
jackspatafora: Yes, religion and other types of superstition are largely useless, even harmful if only to the extent that it makes people less aware of reality. Please provide evidence for your claim that religion is beneficial overall. Don't forget to account for the mountains of death and suffering caused due to religion.
Now try to imagine how beneficial it would be if our society revered rational thought free of dogma or ideology as much as it does superstition.
Moreover, saying something is useful is not an argument for ignoring the Constitution and its legal interpretation.
jackspatafora said:
Rationalist, you say it all by your name alone.... rationalism postulates human reason is the existential force-source to our lives...thereby automatically insisting the non and/or trans-rational (eg. faith, epiphanies, visions, liturgies etc) have no role...what that does is hubristically (1) ignore the personal insights from religious teachings (2)ignore the historic ways the barbarity of our species has been continually ameliorated by 5000 years of the Judaic-Christian ethos of love, respect, dignity, morality, ethics, and art.
Sadly, you're right about the evils religion has sometimes wrought, however that comes not from USING but MIS-USING the tents of its various founders...would you dump the service of the police force or the Coast Guard simply because some of its ranks fell short....?
gr8hands said:
jackspatafora, your religion is like wearing seat belts made of tissue paper -- they may bring you emotional comfort, or have some self-created "role" . . . but they are useless and they do NOT make you safer.
You are sadly mistaken about history, and the "judaic-christian ethos" which have clearly been full of hate, disrespect, indignity, immorality, lack of ethics, and artistic censorship. Not from "mis-using" anything, but directly from the so-called mouth of god.
jackspatafora said:
Gr8hands, I hear you! Actually,dismissing the "emotional comfort" of religion has becomes fashionable ever since the Age of Science&Enlightenment swept into the West. Of course the only legitimate place to test this "comfort" is not in the safety of a polite debate, but perhaps at the deathbed of a loved one or in one's own personal moment of despair. The "safety" of the rational (ideas, logic, laws) almost always pales by comparison to the trans-rational (faith, religion,fellow-believers). But, then, that's always going to be a personal call when the time comes!
As for the judaic-christian ethos being so wanting, that's like damning the surgeon because he knew what to do but he and his colleagues couldn't bring it off. I suspect the world's great religions have always known what to do; only their members sometimes just can't bring it off. But we try -- and the trying is called life.
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