Progress Illinois

The eight interstate highways that intersect in the middle of Indiana earned it the state motto "The Crossroads of America." Forty years ago, Democratic hopefuls Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and favorite son Gov. Roger Branigan criss-crossed those highways, meeting voters and giving speeches in hopes of securing their party's presidential nomination. Since then, the Republican stronghold has only served as a pit stop for candidates en route to adjacent states with more influential primary schedules.

But 2008 is not an ordinary election year. As the primary battle between Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stretches into its fourth month, the Hoosier state -- with its May 6 primary --is arguably the most crucial contest remaining. Indeed, it is the last delegate-heavy contest where neither candidate holds overwhelming built-in advantages. Clinton herself contends that Indiana Democrats are "going to get to pick the next president of the United States." That sentiment begs the question: who will our neighbors to the east choose?

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In 2005, Chicago resident Kimberly took out a payday loan to cover some bills. She says the process was easy, after signing a few forms she walked away with the cash. The lenders would simply withdraw her loan payments from her checking account. Little did she know she was entering into a cycle of debt and intimidation that continues to this day.

"In order to maintain your bills and try to pay these people off you're coming up short,” Kimberly (who did not want her last name used) told me recently. “So you […] turn around and take out another loan to cover that [first] one. It's just a domino effect to where you've got five, six, seven loans out, and you're just able to pay the interest and they just keep taking."

That’s when the phone calls begin. Payday lenders are notorious for using tactics that skirt or, in some cases, cross the line of legality.

“I’ve been threatened with lawsuits. I’ve been threatened with being arrested. Any type of threat you can think of, I’ve heard it,” Kimberly said. “They know that they’re dealing with low income people, because that’s why they go to them in the first place. They can manipulate them and intimidate them. They know they don’t have money to go get some attorney.”

But finding an attorney is exactly what Kimberly did. After years of paying interest rates that would make a loan shark blush, she sought help at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. There she met the group’s deputy director, Alan Alop.

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It’s never a good idea to "vote early and often," but there’s nothing wrong with just voting early, right?

In fact, some in Illinois are starting to rethink early voting. For many, the problem is as simple as the unpredictability of campaigns. In the Illinois primary this year, those Democrats who cast ballots for John Edwards no longer had a candidate come Election Day. Some experts also say early voting is driving up campaign costs, making it more difficult for grassroots candidates to compete against big-money campaigns.

So, should progressive voters take another look at early voting?

On its face, it sounds like an indecent proposal. There is ample evidence that early voting increases participation. It was born out of a progressive call for reform after the Florida 2000 debacle. Some of that reform effort, such as the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), took place at a national level. Other reforms, like early voting, happened state-by-state. Many state-level policymakers celebrated early voting as a way of increasing enfranchisement. Today, 31 states have embraced the process.

But regardless of reformers' best intentions, there have been some complications along the way.

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After picking up 33 House seats on election night 2006, knocking off 22 Republican incumbents, and capturing nine open Republican-held races along the way, Democrats across America rejoiced. But for Illinois Democrat Dan Seals, the 2006 election was bittersweet. Although the first-time candidate assembled 2,600 volunteers and $2 million in contributions—with virtually no backing from the national party—and exceeded expectations by garnering an impressive 47 percent of the vote, he still fell short in his challenge to Republican Mark Kirk in Illinois’ 10th Congressional District. For the insurgent Seals, however, 2006 was just the first step. After an overwhelming win in what some projected to be a competitive primary, Seals again has his eyes on Kirk’s job. And this time, he’s confident that history won’t repeat itself.

A 36 year-old business consultant and son of a former Chicago Bears football player, Seals owes part of his success to the netroots, who heavily supported his campaign two years ago. Why grassroots activists were taken with the progressive Seals is no mystery. He’s consistently called for troop withdrawal in Iraq, he supports a national program of health insurance on both moral and economic grounds, he’s pro-choice, and he has advocated for federal funding to clean and protect the environment.

(More after the jump ...)

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