Election Day is (finally) here!

When I take a walk later today to my neighborhood polling place to cast my ballot, I will be voting for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to have a third term, and also for Anita Alvarez to be the new state’s attorney for Cook County.

In the case of Durbin, he hasn’t offended me enough to want to dump him from public life, while Alvarez’ opponent strikes me as someone who’s more interested in using this campaign season to bolster his own professional status for future campaigns – rather than work toward the public good.

SO PERHAPS MY vote for a state’s attorney is more about voting against Tony Peraica than anything else, although I’m not convinced by those people who argue that Alvarez is just a political hack who never did anything in her two decades as a prosecutor to warrant being given the top post.

Insofar as the rest of my ballot is concerned, the votes are fairly straightforward. My state legislators are both Democrats who have only token Republican opposition, and I’ve made it clear in previous commentaries why I’m opposed to having another Constitutional Convention.

My member of Congress, Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., is running so far ahead of his GOP opponent, Cook County Jail guard Antoine Members, that it was only on Monday that Members got onto the airwaves. The spot I saw during the morning news on CNN was so absurd (featuring rough footage of Rush speaking that appeared as though Members himself shot it with a cellular telephone’s video camera) that it was laughable.

Now I’m not under some delusion that I think anybody particularly cares how I vote, or that anyone will be influenced enough by a Chicago Argus “endorsement” to change their ballot to reflect my preferences.

THIS COMMENTARY IS more about laying out my preferences, so as to give people a sense of my own biases with regard to my writing and reporting.

From the looks of my ballot, it will lean heavily Democrat – which is mostly because I have an urban perspective on life, and the modern-day Republican Party has focused itself on rural America.

But I realize that we all have our own differing opinions, and my respect ultimately goes to anyone who takes the time to cast a ballot – regardless of whom they vote for. The only people who deserve our ridicule are the ones who are too lazy to show up on Election Day. With absentee ballot or early voting options, there’s no legitimate reason to not vote.

Oh, by the way, I’ll also cast that ballot for Barack Obama, who has run what will be the most legitimate presidential campaign of any of the Chicago or Illinois political people whom I have covered during the past two decades of being a reporter-type person.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: My reasons for supporting the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama haven’t changed much (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/02/after-much-consideration-its-obama.html) since (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-meant-for-bigger-playing-fields.html) the Illinois primary in February.