Analysis for Magazine Feature

In Mary Delach Leonards article, Are Illinois Voters too Turned of to Vote, she discuss the political environment in the state of Illinois. Leonard talks about how voters in Illinois have become frustrated with negative and pointless attacks, and how they desperately want reform within the voting arena.She points out that voters in Illinois have become increasingly cynical when it comes to politicians and their real goals. Leonards provides much detail and statistics on the subject. The statistics that she provided shows that people in Illinois really would like some kind of political reform. In addition to the growing cynicism voters are feeling, many of them just flat out do not trust Illinois politicians. She interviewed quite a few people to get the story. She interviewed Cindi Canary, who is the director for the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Canary provided insight on just how nasty and negative political ads have become. As an example, she used that Governors race between Pat Quinn and Bill Brady and how they basically took turns trying to connect Rod  Blagojevich to the other person. Canary points out that they did this so much that in the end, it may not matter who was more connected with him and the Blagojevich factor my be completely irrelevant as well.  Canary also points out the theory that voters in Illinois may have to end up choosing between the lesser of two evils since it has become apparent that most candidates in the major races in Illinois are corrupt in one way or another.By getting Canary's comments added to the story Leonard was able to bring more detail to the story. Leonard brought out another very interesting point in the article which is the fact that while many people want political change, very few are actually willing to do anything about it. She interviewed John Jackson to help illustrate this point. John Jackson, who is a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, says that basically voters find  its much  easier to take a poll and answer the phone, than it is to actually vote. Leonards article also talks about  how some of the blame for the distrust of politicians among voters comes from Blagjevich. However, Andrew Theising is hesitant to place the blame on Blagojevich alone. Theising, who is a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, suggest that most of the blame for voter skepticism is is a mixture of laziness combined with a history of corruption in Illinois among both Democrats and Republicans. He also points out that negative ads actually work and the politicians do this type of advertising on purpose to sway voters attention from real and important issues. Theising admits that there is an anti-incumbent mood right now, but that is to be expected in midterm elections. He also points out that even though people are tired of same negativity and tired of the same politicians with their empty promises, not much will change since voters seem to enjoy complaining more than voting for the change they so desperately  claim they want. So in essence, even though there is a powerful anti-incumbent mood in Illinois, most incumbents will likely remain in office, as history has shown.
The article was well written and did a good job at keeping the attention of the reader. The comments made by other people such as John Thising and Cindi Canary gave the article strength and validity.