Illinois Primary Moved To Feb 5

The Illinois legislature and Gov. Blagojevich have succeeded in moving up the state's primary election from March to February 5th next year. And they did so rather quickly I thought.

For starters, I don't have any problem with an earlier primary. In the past, it seems that the primaries are over by the time it gets around to Illinois having their say. But I am bothered by two things with this issue.

While it is the right thing to do, it is being done for the wrong reasons. The main reason the legislature acted on this was to help Obama have a better chance of winning the Democratic nomination for president. To let Illinois have a better say in the primaries was only a secondary reason. It would be interesting to know if this action would have taken place, say a strong Republican contender from Illinois was running, despite a strong Democratic presence in our government.

The second and biggest thing that bothers me about this is that the state has no budget in place for next year, for which time is running out. Shouldn't our elected officials be working on that instead of setting a new date for a primary election? We still have high electricity prices with no resolution in sight. The governor is hellbent on providing health care for everyone using a large raise in taxes and has lost all sense of reality. The only other item the legislature can agree on is to initiate smoking bans everywhere, but casinos. It's no wonder why this state is so screwed up when its leadership has a wrong list of priorities.

Common Sense of it All: This state has many other larger problems to worry about than what day the primary should take place.