Talk:United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004

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This article has serious problems with WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, in that it overly focuses on Alan Keyes and the Keyes campaign, relative to Obama and the various other aspects of the campaign. Wasted Time R 23:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. Moreover, it is obviously written by a Keyes partisan. I would point out that Obama carried some counties which had last gone for a Democratic senatorial candidate when Stephen Douglas beat Abraham Lincoln in 1856. Jhobson1 23:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Did obama just sit back and ride his cool-guy image?? This article deserves to be blanked, for good. Or completely re-written, but I'm sure there is little information available other than election statistics. Seriously though, something should be done. This article is utterly disappointing. s. stallings 02:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but your solution - to remove large blocks of material regarding the Keyes campaign - has overdone it. Some of what you removed were highly publicized, well-documented moments in the overall election period that were important in giving Obama his huge win. Wasted Time R 21:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taking off neutrality flag

I see no reason to keep the neutrality flag on this article because

  1. The NPOV sweep I just did uncovered little that was non-neutral
  2. No effort has been made by the flagger to fix problems s/he has flagged.
  3. No suggestions have been made on the talk page to fix these alleged problems.

Unless I hear otherwise, I'm removing the neutrality flag. I'll give everyone two weeks.

JakeZ (talk) 07:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ben Wallace-Wells is not a reliable source

Rolling Stone contributing editor Ben Wallace-Wells' inaccurate, misleading, speculative second-hand account of a campaign he didn't cover in his April 1, 2007 New York Times Magazine profile[1] of David Axelrod is not a reliable source for this article:

David Mendell, the reporter who covered the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Democratic primary campaigns and then Obama's 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate general election campaign for the Chicago Tribune:

  • and: "revealed, near the bottom of a long profile of Hull, that during a divorce proceeding, Hull’s second wife filed for an order of protection."
  • and "later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."
  • devoted a dozen chapters (156 pages; pp. 147–302) in his 2007 biography of Obama to the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate campaign.
    • Mendell, David (August 14, 2007). Obama: From Promise to Power New York: Amistad/HarperCollins ISBN 0060858206 (hardcover):
    • Mendell, David (April 15, 2008). Obama: From Promise to Power New York: Amistad/HarperCollins ISBN 0060858214 (paperback):
      • including this paragraph on pages 212–3 of Chapter 15. Hull on Wheels:

        Nevertheless, Hull's ads were working. And when Hynes quick hit of television had no effect, the Hynes brain trust began worrying even more about Hull. Hynes's campaign spokesperson, Chris Mather, stepped up her phone calls to me and other reporters in hopes of slowing the Hull momentum. However, the intense lobbying effort actually had the opposite effect with me. Hynes's obvious fear gave Hull even more credibility. At about this time, I met with a Hynes operative for lunch. When I had gone to meet Mather earlier in the campaign season, we convened near Hynes's office. But this operative wanted to come to me, so we gathered at a North Michigan Avenue restaurant just a couple of doors from the Tribune Tower. Before I had taken a bite of my grilled chicken sandwich, I was handed a folder of opposition research on Hull. Among the papers was a copy of the outside sheet of the filing of one of Hull's two divorces in Illinois. Hull, in fact, had been divorced three times. He was married to his first wife for nearly thirty years, raising three children with her. After moving to Chicago, he then twice married and divorced the same woman. The rest of the divorce file had been sealed, and this vague court order was the only document publicly available. The order contained only one salient fact: Hull's second wife, Brenda Sexton, had once been granted an order of protection against him.

Newross (talk) 01:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added a second footnote to support what the NY Times Magazine reported.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing position

The cited source says: “Obama reversed his position on Republican rival Jack Ryan's divorce file Friday, calling on fellow Democrats to refrain from trying to inject it into the campaign.”

Therefore, it seems accurate to say that Obama changed his position on this. Is there any source to the contrary? It seems that, prior to the reversal, Obama declined to discourage fellow Democrats from injecting it into the campaign.Ferrylodge (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)