Can the votes of a handful of Chicago and Cook County residents change Illinois? We are about to find out.

Winning 22 percent of the vote is not usually considered an overwhelming mandate, but winners write the history books. And Democrat Mike Quigley's congressional-primary victory last week is already being touted as an occasion worthy of at least a chapter.

Cook County Commissioner Quigley defeated 11 candidates, including two state legislators, to win the Fifth Congressional District special primary election last Tuesday with 12,100 votes. His smart, well-managed campaign was vastly outspent by his top two opponents.

Quigley successfully tapped into rising voter anger in the wake of Rod Blagojevich's arrest, Roland Burris' U.S. Senate appointment and, most importantly, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's tax hikes and innumerable missteps.

The Davenport Promise Referendum was defeated by voters 61% to 39% at the polls, Tuesday March 3, 2009.

The Promise program was modeled after the pilot program started in Kalamazoo, MI. Organizers wished to reallcoate 30% of the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) from the capital improvements fund to a new scholarship fund as an economic incentive for families to move to Davenport. The fund would be used to pay for up to $20K in college tuition for students that lived in Davenport and went to high-school in Davenport 9-12 grades.

The program in Kalamzoo was funded by private donations. The Davenport Promise, as proposed, would have been funded by a portion of the LOST.



Opponents of the Davenport Promise rallied around a new PAC formed by Mark Nelson, called Opt4Better. Opt4Better produced detailed financial analysis refuting the proponents proposed benefits. Opt4Better hosted several news conferences, launched a website www.nomorepromises.com, produced a slide show, recorded presentations, and engaged in a Quad City Times sponsored debate. The over arching theme of Opt4Better's counter campaign was that the proponents over estimated the benefits and underestimated the risks to taxpayers.

The Opt4Better volunteers gathered at downtown Dvenport's Front Street Brewery to watch the election returns. KWQC's Erika Cervantes interviewed Mark Nelson live for the 10 o'clock news cycle.

The Quad-City Times' management, most especially the disgraced editors, get to evaluate whether their decision to smear local appraiser Mark Nelson was worth what it has cost them -- the last vestige of credibility they had in the community as reliable news providers. In what it tried to pass as a news story in its print edition on Tuesday, March 3, the Times disparaged Nelson with myriad unsubstantiated claims about an alleged cover letter he sent with an appraisal that discouraged Royal Banks of Missouri from approving a loan to Amy and Amrit Gill of Restoration St. Louis for the redevelopment of the Blackhawk Hotel as a boutique hotel.

March 2, 2009 Kirwan Cox and a crew from EyeSteel Films (www.eyesteelfilms.com) visited Hunter's Club in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. The Canadians were here to film a portion of a documentary they are producing for the Canadian version of History Channel about John Vincent Atanasoff. Atanasoff testified in the seminal 1970's Rand Sperry patent trial over the rights to the fundamental elements of modern computing. Atanasoff, a mathematician professor from Iowa State in Ames testified that he conceived of the four principles of the modern calculator as it was known at the time.