July 2, 2006 Mexicans will be going to the poll to elected a new President. The race pits candidates from five different parties against each other. Current polls have conservative candidate Felipe Calderon of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in a dead heat. Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Roberto Madrazo lags behind in third place in the polls. Patricia Mercado of Alternative Social Democrat and Campesina Party (PASC); and Roberto Campa (New Alliance Party) are the other two candidates.

Mexican's Conservative Catholics are following the lead of American's Conservative Christians as portraying leftist candidates as anti-family, pro-abortion, and wanted to banning religion.

The backbone of all Political Machines are city jobs. Mayor Richard M. Daley former patronage chief Robert Sorich and three other city officials are currently on trial. People with city clout, political groups, Aldermen and union officials went to Robert Sorich in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs when they wanted city jobs. The Chicago city officials allegedly fixed the results of job tests, regularly manipulated the interview and selection process for certain city jobs by conducting bogus interviews, falsely increase interview scores, and otherwise guaranteeing that certain pre-selected candidates who were favored by high-ranking city officials.

...which is illegal.

Illinois campaign law requires that election campaign ads such as robocalls that target specific politicians must identify the source, which mean attack ads can not be anonymous. The Illinois Republican party defended breaking campaign laws by claiming they did not break campaign laws only after they got caught - conservative logic at its best.

An Illinois Republican leader insisted Tuesday that the party's anonymous, automated phone campaign assailing Democratic legislators was about policy, not politics, and so isn't covered by a law prohibiting anonymous political attacks.

If it was about policy why use anonymous robocalls?

The winner of the March 21 Republican primary for 8th Congressional District of Illinois will face U.S. Congresswoman Melissa Bean (D). In total they are six Republicans running in the primary; David McSweeney, Kathy Salvi, Robert Churchill, Ken Arnold, Aaron Lincoln and Jim Mitchell. Lets take a closer look at the top three Republican candidates.

Kathy Salvi

We cannot let the voice of women and the American family be hung under the anti-family banner. We need someone who will be a tax fighter, a spending cutter and a family defender in Congress. That's what I'm in this race to be.

You can trust me to always work for our families and our Illinois values.

Kathy Salvi and her husband Al Salvi are partners with Tom Delay clone Republican Peter Roskam, who is running in Sixth Congressional District of Illinois, in the law firm of Salvi, Roskam & Maher. Kathy Salvi signed the Grover Norquist Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

In 2006, The Republican Party will use their standard tactic of fear with a dose of `Democrats have no ideas' to rally support for there corrupt and conservative majorities in Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says that Republicans will fight the 2006 campaign by combining 2002-style attacks on Democrats as "weak on security," 2004-ish attacks on "obstructionism" and a new line of argument that "Democrats have no ideas."

To counter this talking points Democrat do not need Frank Luntz to make old ideas sound popular and new. They can turn to the states where progressive ideas are becoming legislation to better improved people lives. The first state they can turn too is Illinois. Nathan Newman has the impressive run down of what a Democratic Governor and Democratic controlled Congress can do.

Matthew Yglesias point out the problems of the Republican philosophy of government-by-lobbyist, the practice of selling public policy to the highest bidder leads to awful policy and the inability to fix lobbyist written policy for the public good.

The Medicare Bill is so bad because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't make student loans more affordable because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't stop transferring huge sums of money to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't reorient military spending toward transnational threats because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't have Internet access as fast as Koreans and Japanese have because lobbyists run the Republican Party. You can't get the ABC Family Channel without paying for ESPN Classic (or vice versa) because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't adopt a simple method for slowing the growth of Medicare spending without cutting benefits because lobbyists run the Republican Party. We can't make the tax code fairer and simpler because lobbyists run the Republican Party.

As Josh Marshall point out if you want a clean up the neighborhood, you need get actual criminals off the streets. If you want better public policy for people, you need to get Republicans out of congress.

Republican leader Tom Delay step down as majority leader to `reclaiming' his seat on the Appropriations Committee. The Republican party is replacing Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham a criminal by appointing a big crook Tom Delay to the Appropriations Committee.

As Republican Rep. Roy Blunt and John Boehner wrestle to replace Tom Delay as House majority leader, Is Dennis Hastert safe in this leadership position as speaker of the House?

In the first sign that even Hastert could be in trouble, Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) said Republicans should consider whether to replace the speaker. "The time is right for us to do some soul-searching and have an open dialogue about the direction of the House."

The Illinois Republicans are getting serious in there pursuit of the Governorship. Republican candidates are choosing to run as teams through the primaries, rather than waiting until the nomination is secured and having the nominee then pick his lieutenant governor.

Turnaround Team: Gidwitz, Rauschenberger join forces

Calling themselves the Illinois GOP's "Turnaround Team," Ron Gidwitz and Steve Rauschenberger join forces against the frontrunner, Judy Baar Topinka.

Gidwitz is a moderate republican businessman with tons of money but not much political savvy. Steve Rauschenberger is a conservative republican state senator with tons of political experience but no money. Alone, they're both miles behind the GOP leader Judy Baar Topinka in the latest polls. Together, they hope to change that.

Rauschenberger is giving up his gubernatorial campaign to run for lieutenant governor on a ticket headed by Gidwitz.

Topinka picks Birkett to be her running mate