Your Representative on Afghanistan

Congressional Representatives weigh in on how they feel about President Obama's Afghanistan strategy. WBEZ has done all the work for you on their blog. They have embedded links to audio from each representative so you can easily compare their comments. Learning about how candidates (which many of these Representatives are) feel about one specific issue is valuable when considering who you want to support. We will be discussing how to create good issue related questions at our forum.

Gubernatorial Debate

http://www.cantv.org/

Above is a link to CAN TV which is broadcasting a gubernatorial debate between Pat Quinn and Dan Hynes on Sunday Dec 6 at 10:00. It will be interesting!

Issues for Candidate Forum

Looking forward to our Gubernatorial Candidate Forum on Dec 4 at Harper College. Here is a list of some of the issues that the candidates might talk about. Also, you might want to prepare a question about one of these issues; Quality Education, Budget/Taxes, and Corruption. One very local issue, The Thomson Center for Guantanamo Detainees is getting a lot of press lately. All of the candidates are on record about all of these issues. Many of the candidates have an 'issues' section on their websites where these issues are discussed.
Do you have another issue you think is important for the youth voice today?

Issue? -Community Colleges

Our Gubernatorial Candidate Forum is being held at Harper Community College. President Obama recently unveiled the American Graduation Initiative which puts stimulus money into community colleges. At the Republican debate, 2 of the candidates mentioned the importance of community colleges as part of their platform. Just wondering what the students thought about the importance of funding community colleges in this economy? Is it an issue that affects them directly?

Davis Running for Congressional Seat

Hot off the press, here's an article about Danny Davis's decision on which office to run for, Cook County Board President or the seat he currently holds, 7th Congressional.
Looks like he is staying where he is which makes the 7th race way different now. Proviso East, great opportunity for a discussion with your students about why he chose to run for his current seat?

Gubernatorial Debate at Hilton

Click here for a story about the debate. This was the first time all 7 candidates were together. I went to this event and visited with some of the same volunteers that were at the Kick-Off. It was very interesting to hear how the candidates were positioning themselves in this large field.

Are You in the 10th?

Elliot Richardson's site has a great tool. Scroll to the bottom of the page listed below and type in your address and find out if you live in the 10th district. Since this district is so spreadout and somewhat gerrymandered it is hard to tell what district you live in.
http://www.elliotforcongress.com/10thdistrict