The final gasps of the 2008 election are coming. That would be the decision by Democratic Party officials on the replacement for 5^th Congressional District Representative Mike Quigley as he resigns his post as Cook County Commissioner. During the long aggregate two blogs showed up, both new, that hold the promise of watching Cook County closer than any newspaper.

 

I've come to believe that the hierarchy of news is failing to cover the middle area between the neighborhoods and the larger world. The 5^th Congressional District and Cook County Government are both examples of that foggy area that are lost. I imagine the issue exists everywhere. For example how are the deliberations of the Douglas County government covered? Does Lake County have good local coverage by a blog or a newspaper?

 

In fact, in Douglas, a small rural county in Central Illinois, there is no apparent on-line coverage of any government functions that are tracked by Google blogs or news. Zero.

 

Why should we care? It has always been a failure of newspapers that they do not cover everything. They simply can not do it and have never been able to do it. I imagine that county government, with its ability to raise your taxes, fix the roads and police the area, is as much a concern for the people of Douglas as to the over-taxed residents of Lakeview. For those people and the people of the surrounding counties, they need something. A blog would be a good start. But, I wouldn't look to Lee Enterprises, which has papers in Mattoon, Charleston and Decatur, nor the News-Gazette in Champaign for coverage. It hasn't happened and probably never will happen.

 

However, a blog demands cheap access to the web. And I'm willing to wager that web penetration of this largely rural area, with a large population of Amish to boot, is low. Hmmph. Maybe a twitter blog would help. But the point remains that newspapers have not covered this area on line and blogs haven't yet either.

 

The story in Lake, a suburban county that borders Wisconsin, is better. 890 mentions in Google news. I notice that the Waukegan Sun and the Daily Herald are among the papers covering the area. You would expect that with a dedicated newspaper, the Sun, and strong community papers distributing into the county, such as the Northwest Herald and the Daily Herald, as well as the Pioneer Press papers, that there would be more entries. Nope. Just 890.

 

Fortunately what appears to be a nice blog, Keeping an Eye on Lake County Illinois has posted 58 entries as of this morning. That's a nice start.

 

So what is happening in the largest county in the state? Having watched the disappointing coverage of the Congressional Special Election, I can already predict that the coverage of county government is going to be spotty. Let's face it, Tod “Tax” Stroger is going to be covered relentlessly by main stream media. There were 283 entries in the Chicago Tribune alone for “Cook County government” this morning. There were another 14 just for “Tax” Stroger. Remember these searches are just cover the past few days at the Tribune. So, that's pretty good coverage. As a result, blogs are going to have to dig deep and write well to get peoples attention.

 

Here are two blogs currently writing on Cook County that came to my attention. Perhaps they'll dig deep enough. The League of Women Voters started a blog in January. Although it only has 15 entries, as of this morning, its entries are detailed. They are not currently covering the replacement of Quigley. However, they give excellent background on the issues that the county government are facing.

 

The second blog is Mike Quigleys Replacement/ Cook County Board. This blog has a flair for the misogynistic developments to be sure. I didn't know that candidate Kimberly Walz, the chief of staff for Mike Quigley, had fessed up to a horrible date on line. I'm not sure if I care either, but there it is. And the ethics surrounding candidate Bridget Gainer and Democratic Committeeman Carol Ronen make them sound as if they would actually feel right at home working with “Tax” Stroger.

 

It's all there, and more in this blog by Danny Fernandez. He's snarky and I hope he continues to look at county government. According to Fernandez, the decision will be made today. Here is his summary of the voters on the Democratic Committee with their telephone numbers:

 

(44)- Ald. Tom Tunney 773-472-0444 - 20.54%

(48)- Sen. Carol Ronen 773-726-0480 - 19.94% (19.94%)

(46)- Committeeman Tom Sharpe 773-327-4646 (19.10%)

(43)- Committeeman Michelle Smith 773-661-2133 (17.15%)

(40)- Ald. Patrick O'Connor 773-769-1140 - (8.79%)

(39)- Committeeman Randy Barnette 773-736-5594 - (5.77%)

(50)- Sen. Ira Silverstein - 773-761-0050 (3.79%)

(49)- Committeeman David Fagus – 773- 973-4949 - (2.33%)

(32)- Rep. John Fritchey 773-871-4000 (1.9%)

(41)- Committeeman Mary O'Connor 312-208-0821 (.33%)

(45)- Ald. Pat Levar 773-283-8594 (0.33%)