Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Anita Alvarez Wins Democratic Nomination for State's Attorney!!!

The Insider projects that career prosecutor Anita Alvarez will win the Democratic nomination for Cook County State's Attorney. She makes history as the first woman and first Hispanic to caption the nomination. She should crush Republican candidate Tony Peraica in the November general election. Congratulations Anita Alvarez!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now it looks more likely than ever that Tony Peraica won't likely parade to 69 W.Washington to make a jackass of himself & cry sour grapes over the results with his torchlight mob. He LOST his golden opportunity last night when the other candidate Brookins lost badly & went to fourth place. The major newspapers are HIGHLY UNLIKELY to endorse the spoiled sport Peraica over Alvarez. His embarassing & ludacrious midnight antics, Vulgar political volunteer incident will help him about as much as Alaska becoming 110 F in January. If the results turn out to be as lackluster for him as expected this November, He can kiss his 2010 quest for the County Board Presidency & EVEN his re-election as county commisioner GOOOODBYE!!!!!!!.

Anonymous said...

I will not vote for her even though I am a democrat. In this case, Peraica is the better candidate, so he has my vote.

Anonymous said...

Peraica needs to rethink approach

February 10, 2008
CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com
Anita Alvarez, I learned at a 7 a.m. breakfast a couple of months ago, isn't much of a morning person. Nor does she drink coffee, preferring hot chocolate. Neither fact should lull her November opponent into the belief that she is either soft or unready for the battle ahead.

Alvarez is the 48-year-old career county prosecutor who made history Feb. 5 by becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic to win a primary for Cook County state's attorney. She beat five guys who were seasoned veterans of past political races. But that primary, however heated it got, was political patty-cake compared to what's to come when Alvarez faces off against Republican Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica in November. Consider what the Sun-Times' Steve Patterson reported after her victory:

"A day after Alvarez shocked the county by claiming the Democratic nomination, her bare-knuckles brawling Republican challenger came out in his usual swinging style -- questioning her intelligence, accusing her of being a political hack, saying she has yet to be taken seriously, calling her a legal novice, while adding that she's hardly the 'darling' of Latino voters."

Moderating his political message has never been one of Peraica's long suits. Neither time nor adversity has mellowed him. Not his crushing defeat for County Board president in 2006 to Democrat Todd Stroger. Nor the near-losses that same year of his County Board seat and his Lyons Township Republican committeeman post.

"All my races have been brutal," Peraica told me last week.

I called him on Super Tuesday well before it was clear Alvarez was going to become his next opponent, wondering if he has rethought his style, his approach to the upcoming race.

After all, it has been an ugly political season for Peraica. Despite his considerable talents as a lawyer and his uncompromising candor on behalf of reforming a bloated county government, he has been hit on all sides lately.

In November, Commissioner William Beavers, the self-professed "hog with the big nuts" of county government, attacked him for opposing Stroger's proposed tax increases. Peraica, Beavers outrageously roared, "hates everybody who's black."

Commissioner Liz Gorman, the county chairwoman of Peraica's own Republican Party, poured even more gasoline on the fire by calling him "a weasel," "loser" and a "pathetic, pathological liar."

Peraica, who has left many a patch of scorched earth himself, fired back at Beavers and told Gorman she had "no self-respect" and that her attacks were "despicable."

Though Republicans have won races for Cook County state's attorney in years past -- Bernie Carey in the '70s, Jack O'Malley in the '90s -- this isn't shaping up to be such a hot year for Republicans. Not when you consider voters in the heavily Republican collar counties are pulling record-breaking numbers of Democratic ballots. And certainly not in Cook County, a Democratic stronghold, where Latinos and women made a dramatic difference this time around. That included Cicero, a big part of Peraica's territory.

Peraica, a Croatian orphan, has his own powerful immigrant story to rival the Mexican-American journey of Alvarez's family. Plus, he has a reform record to run on. And he can justifiably demand to know why, in Alvarez's 21 years in the state's attorneys office, so few voices, including her own, were not heard weighing in more forcefully on the notorious torture scandal involving former police Cmdr. Jon Burge. And why that office, including Alvarez's retiring boss, Dick Devine, continues to this day to fight the civil claims of defendants whose confessions were tortured out of them. It's something even the City of Chicago finally acknowledged and for the most part settled.

But Alvarez is neither a hack nor a legal novice. Right now, this race is hers to lose.

And Peraica cannot, will not, should not win it without ramping down his bomb-throwing rhetoric and carefully rewriting his message.

Anonymous said...

Now the office will loaded with mexicans. Black lawyers look out you won't get hired.

Anonymous said...

I'd vote for Donald Duck over that sore freaking loser Tony Peraica. Anybody with half a brain would think Peraica is NO panacea & Only a spoiled sport want-it-all bufoon. Stroger's a moron, But Tony Peraica??????, GIMME A FREAKING BREAK!!!!!!. Good luck in your re-election effort for County Commisioner in 2010, If you decide to seek re-election, LOL!!!!!!.