Connecticut blogger Jonathan Pelto has breaking news that Bridgeport’s embattled superintendent of schools, Paul Vallas, is leaving Bridgeport to become Illinois Governor Quinn’s running mate.
Newsflash: Illinois Gov. Quinn taps Paul Vallas for running mate
“Gov. Pat Quinn apparently has made an unexpected choice for his running mate for lieutenant governor: Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools chief and an ex-candidate for governor himself.”
More at Jonathan Pelto’s Wait, What? website: http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/11/08/newsflash-illinois-gov-quinn-taps-paul-vallas-running-mate/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You can’t fix stupid …
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Are there no true blue Democrats left??? The media paints the GOP as splitting apart at the seams, but the Democratic Party seems to have abandoned its core mission of public benefit for the many… in a most shameful way….
I’m as proud a progressive Dem as they come, but to see the party disintegrate before Wall Street gods is an absolute disgrace, and it’s quite unamerican…
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Disgrace is right, Alex, but can I pls suggest that the last time the Dem Party did something progressive was the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Dems abandoned McGovern for Pres in ’72, were saved by Watergate debacle which breathed life into them enough to elect a Southern Conservative Jimmy Carter(member of the Trilateral Comm with Henry Kissinger)who refused to finance such forward-looking items as the Mahonig Valley Coalition in 78 which wanted loan guarantees to buy abandoned steel mills near Youngstown and run them as community/church/labor enterprises…I could go on but waiting for the Dems to fight for a progressive America is not going to happen, not with Obama now or Hillary next.
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Is this the same Ill. Governor who gave Karen Lewis a gracious intro when she spoke to the Chicago City Club 15 months ago, calling her “the best we have” and someone who must be listened to, or was that a different person?
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“. . . or was that a different person?”
No, just a politician!
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He has also been doing his best to decimate the teacher pension system. It’s those damn lazy, greedy teachers again. Paul Vallas will be a great addition to the war on teachers. Fortunately, lieutenant governors are kind of like first runners up. They don’t do anything until the governor gets sent to prison.
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Vallas might get there first…poor choice or stupid Governor.
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Damn that means he would be way to close to the Show Me State for my comfort!!
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No matter what people like Vallas do, or how much destruction he rains upon cities and states and foreign countries, someone will snatch him up to ruin another district. It is disgraceful. They don’t care about students, they care about exploiting for their own political careers.
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Governor Quinn has been pushing the Illinois legislature to diminish the pension benefits of retired teachers, even though the state constitution prohibits it. Now he teams up with one of the figureheads of failed “education reform.”
The governor’s most promising primary rivals have either not shown up (Lisa Madigan) or have dropped out (Bill Daley). So now it looks like we’re stuck with a weak Democratic governor who is no friend of teachers. He has hinted that once the legislature guts public pensions, tax breaks may be available for Archer Daniels Midland, which is considering leaving the state. This is the same state that has never funded its pensions as agreed (though teachers have paid their full share every single month of their careers).
Who is calling the shots?
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When I say “promising,” I don’t mean that I want to vote for either Daley or Madigan. It’s just that now I’m planning to campaign against Quinn. I hope that a genuine and viable Democrat will show up and challenge him.
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Gov Quinn is making a BIG mistake. Paul Vallas will drag him down. Mr. Vallas is not well loved in Illinois.
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Read the Axlerod tweet. These guys are seriously out of touch. Vallas IS the kiss of death.
@davidaxelrod: IL’a Capitol Fax reporting that Gov. Quinn will name fmr Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas as his LG running mate. Surprising, strong move.
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This is an Onion headline… right?
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Obama takes Duncan to DC and Quinn brings Vallas BACK to Illinois? Is Quinn so completely out of touch that he doesn’t realize he just lost the election by choosing Vallas? Is he really just completely unaware of Vallas’ record of failure and corrupt practices in CT and elsewhere?
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I’m from a long line of Chicago teachers and they would turn over in their graves were they to know of Vallas as an “educator.” Meanwhile here in Bridgeport the search for an educator superintendent can now begin with not even Mayor Finch able to retain his secretly acquired buddy.
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This will cost Quinn his re-election bid. Four years ago, he won election by winning two or three counties (out of 101 in Illinois). That was based on the teacher vote, particularly in Chicago. Nothing anyone can say or do will get the majority of teachers I know to vote for a “Quinn/Vallas” ticket.
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Although it is thrilling to see the back of Paul Vallas, I cannot imagine what possessed an incumbent governor to tap Vallas for Lt. Governor. We know that Vallas has served his paymasters well when they go to such lengths to rescue him from his much-anticipated defeat and imminent firing in Bridgeport. The vigilant grassroots effort that has come together in Bridgeport in order to put an end to his career wrecking school districts should be a beacon to activists, opt-out proponents, the labor movement, and especially to the teachers who have been so consistently denigrated throughout the ed. reform movement. I also think George Schmidt must take some credit for his relentless exposure of Vallas’s fraudulent “reforms,” although the people of Illinois hardly deserve to have Vallas back in any form.
Let’s hope a vigorous third party challenge will meet and defeat the Quinn/Vallas ticket; or that a more progressive challenger will demand a primary.
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Lord help us. Then we will get Bruce Rauner!
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I agree, George!
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Here’s the irony, probably one of many. Vallas has just experienced a defacto eviction from Connecticut due to poor and corrupt job performance. So where does he go? Illinois, where his history of failure here and elsewhere is well known. Since when did jumping from frying pan to frying pan become a good career move? It’s hard to say just who is more delusional, Quinn or Vallas or the yes man underlings who kow towed and said “what a great idea”. I wonder if Axelrod is ever going to figure out what a bad idea this is. Welcome to hell’s echo chamber.
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Vallas knows he will be evicted from Connecticut, so it’s more than likely that he reached out to his deformer friend Quinn for a financial life line. Quinn will fail as a result of his dysfunctional relationship with Vallas and other corporate profiteers. File open records requests in Illinois and Connecticut. Then, use social media to defeat Quinn/Vallas. Follow the money!
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Follow Duncan, Vallas and the money trail to Haiti, etc.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/11/duncans-expensive-haiti-trip-to-prop-up.html
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Vallas must run independently of Quinn in the primary. If he does not win the primary he is not the candidate for Lt. Governor. Anyone want to run for Lt. Governor?
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Perhaps Scott Cohen could run again! He ran as Lt.Gov independently several years ago & unexpectedly won, irritating many, many Demoncrats in IL! Many of us found it rather amusing.
(His brothers run a pawn shop made famous on the Tru TV series–I think it’s called”Hard Core Pawn, Chicago.” They are hilarious!) Anyway, the Demoncrats talked him into resigning (he had steadfastly resolved not to do it.) Quite honestly, methinks his election and retention would have been far, far from the worst thing that has ever happened in the bizarro state of ILLAnnoy politics.
Perhaps it might have turned out to be the best?
After all, things here can’t get much worse!
(If Quinn does wind up losing, will Paul get him a job as an education head honcho in some other state? Watch out, the rest of you–you may be next!)
Hey. maybe that’s why Duncan went to check up on Haiti–they can exile all the deposed ed.heads & public officials over there!
Don’t you think that’s a great idea?!
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wouldn’t it be ‘sweet’ for a state wide coalition of parent, educators and their allies organize against these ‘reformers’ i mean REALLY unite and make a difference in what seems to be a pre-ordained race. Lord know, there is so much existing information to be exploited, It would, of course, be a wonder of wonders if an alliance could hit the streets and make their wishes known. Passivity will get not wash. Neither will a hand wringing , wo ist mir approach. The citizenry won’t be able to claim the “we didn’t know” denial.
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Why isn’t Vallas in jail?
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Because he’s rich. And he’s a good servant to the even richer.
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Like Arne Duncan.
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Here’s the other angle on Quinn choosing Vallas. Deformers are dropping big money on elections at all levels and Quinn knows he will be targeted with that spending so by choosing Vallas he defuses that somewhat and may in fact get some or a lot of the money being carpet bombed on elections. This also diffuses any claim from the right that Quinn is soft on school deform, making it a question of who is more deformy. Vallas, being one of the ‘original gangsters’ of deform can really tamp that down and is good enough at double speak to fool a lot of parents and tax payers intop keeping Quinn.
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I already posted most of what follows on the “Get Well, Diane…” comment thread, but I’m sharing it here, too, because we are going to have fun elaborating about the latest wrinkle in Illinois (and Chicago) politics.
BELOW FOLLOWS WHAT I POSTED ELSEWHERE EARLIER THIS MORNING:
This is for Diane, and the whole enormous thread on this general topic.
In addition to the thousands of Get Well wishes from Chicago, there are groans of sadness that you will be missing the chance to be here in Chicago Wednesday to partake in our latest Chicago-style Theater of the Absurd. As most people reading this know, our indumbent (that’s not a typo) Governor, Pat Quinn, took the opportunity, less that three weeks after he stood on stage with the Chicago Teachers Union’s President Karen Lewis, to name Paul Vallas as his “running mate.” Under Illinois law, a candidate for governor has to appear on the ballot along with the name of his (or her) candidate for lieutenant governor. So the buttons will read “Quinn/Vallas” (unless Vallas gets to design them, in which case they will read “VALLAS!!! and quinn…”).
On October 25, more than 2,000 Chicago teachers and others filled the vast auditorium at the Plumbers Union hall in Chicago for the annual CTU LEAD Dinner (Legislators Educators Appreciation Dinner). The governor was there, and got his photograph taken numerous times with Karen Lewis and other union leaders.
Then he went out and insulted just about everyone by announcing, without even a courtesy phone call, that his “running mate” was going to be Paul G. Vallas.
So… It looks like the Illinois governor has decided to commit political hari kari — without even the courage to use a sword. The Vallas choice, coming the week of Vallas’s Bridgeport defeat, insults just about everyone
— teachers (we elected Quinn four years ago; without the “teacher vote” he would have lost Illinois; he only carried three counties out of 101 and we were the decisive piece in his victory)…
— All minorities… (there were several highly qualified minority officials on Quinn’s list of possible candidates)
— Women… (Vallas is replacing Sheila Simon as Quinn’s lieutenant governor…)
— most unions and union families (led by the largest union local in Chicago, the Chicago Teachers Union, with nearly 30,000 members and joined by another 21,000 retired teachers who pay attention on these things…
So it would have been fun, for all of us and for Diane, to be here in Chicago to do the Wednesday evening book signing and event sponsored by Women and Children First (a bookstore) and others, and for all the other possibilities.
And fun is always one way to recover from an illness. But getting to Chicago would have been no fun, and you need to be near your primary care doctors and at home.
So…
We’ll keep everyone informed about the latest crazy corporate school reform stuff from the city that birthed a lot of this stuff, and hope that when Diane is fully recovered Chicago can return to her list of friends to visit.
Meanwhile, a group of Chicago teachers and others are studying “Reign of Error” this Tuesday and next (the 19th) after school at the “Richard M. Daley Library” branch out in Chicago’s West Side community. We can continue learning from the book while the author keeps the chicken soup warm…
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