Sangamon County Democratic Party Chair
Tim Timoney had a tough row to hoe as Sangamon county Democratic chair. Democrats expected Blagojevich to fire Republicans in state government en masse and give the jobs to Democrats the same way Republicans have done in the past. Instead, thousands of state jobs moved out of Springfield and Republicans are still in management positions all over the bureaucracy.
Resentment over that, along with the horrible mismanagement of state government, are why Blagojevich earned only 20% in Sangamon county. Meanwhile, Republicans managed to keep their patronage machine going with jobs at the county and other local bodies they control.
Timoney has had many challenges but it's still disappointing that in the year Barack Obama won Sangamon county, Democrats didn't pick up a single county-wide office or county board seat. That was their best chance in decades. Most of the recent winners in the party like Mike Ziri, Dave Kamper, and Sam Cahnman, weren't recruited to run by Timoney.
I wish I had finished this post before Schoenburg's column came out because it's no surprise that he mentions Billy Earl and Neil Calderon as potential replacements. They've both been doing the kind of party building work that one expects from a chairman.
Earl has been active in the party longer, has helped many, many candidates over the years, and knows how patronage is used to build a party structure. Calderon has a campaign fund he uses to help local candidates and helped organize several Obama events. It seems like Timoney's main focus has been on city elections so it's not surprising to hear him name Jim Donelan as a potential replacement.
All county parties have to decide if they're going to be an issue-based party, a patronage-based party, or some combination of the two. Both local parties have built themselves up around patronage for decades. I believe those days are numbered but I doubt some party leaders will realize it until indictments start happening at the local level (besides Cellini).
Earl, Calderon and Donelan are all well liked so it will be interesting to see if some of the committeemen come back to the party once we have a new chairman.