I wish we could have dug an alligator-filled moat Monday around Daley Plaza

I’m sure in the minds of the conservative ideologues of the world, they took a stab at the political heart of true-blue (as in Election Night map-leaning) Chicago.

Daley Plaza wasn't so cheery Monday



Although to my mindset, what the ideologues (just over 100 of them, who looked so few and lonely in the grand space that is Daley Plaza) managed to do on Monday was turn themselves into a dinky little island – isolated from the masses who have better things to do than spend a lunch hour spewing ever-so-much trash talk.

STANDING IN THE shadow of the Picasso statue with their crudely-made picket signs that allege Barack Obama to be a socialist/communist/whatever phrase was most alliterative with the rest of their insult, it almost seemed like the lady was shuddering in disgust at the sight of so many people in her presence with nothing better to do at mid-day.

Or maybe she was just shuddering from being exposed to the 26-mph winds that gave the Loop a mid-Monday chill?

Either way, it was a pathetic sight to see so many people trying to pretend that it was still 2010 and that their “Tea Party” movement was still relevant (one woman literally crossed the “2010” off her old picket sign and replaced it with “2012” – as though nothing else had changed.

About the only thing that was reassuring about the spectacle is that “real people” of Chicago could be seen walking past the mid-day rally without giving it a second thought.

IT REALLY WAS like there was a separation between the ideologues who are letting their own hang-ups about modern-day life dictate their policies, and those rest of us who live in the real world and have our own problems to deal with.

There just isn’t any time to deal with the kind of nonsense-talk that was spewed on Monday, or that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is likely to spew when he visits Springfield, Ill., on Tuesday.

Not even the “laundry list” of Illinois political officials ranging from Gov. Pat Quinn to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, to Mayor Rahm Emanuel whose character was insulted by Danielle Rowe, a failed candidate for an Illinois House seat from the northwest suburbs who is trying to make sure we haven’t forgotten her.

Although I suspect the majority of us never knew her to begin with.

THEN AGAIN, I think people who use the Gadsden flag (a symbol of U.S. independence) to try to give their own ideological leanings some merit are being disrespectful – particularly when they use those flags as shawls to keep themselves warm.

KLEEFISCH: Touring the Midwest for Walker

Personally, I found it amusing to learn that Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch had nothing better to do that she could spare the time to be in Chicago to rant and rage about how unfair it is that anyone would think of having a recall election for her running-mate – Walker himself.

You’d think she’d be in her home state – either tending to her government post or trying to appeal to people who actually care about Wisconsin and are capable of voting there in the upcoming special election (scheduled for June 5).

Then again, she is a lieutenant governor. She probably had nothing better to do with her time than make a visit to Chicago (and St. Louis, too). It is the eternal truth of state politics everywhere that lieutenant governors only need to have a pulse – just in case the inevitable happens.

EITHER THROUGH MORTALITY or impeachment – which we in Illinois learned three years ago is a very real possibility.

So I couldn’t help but be amused when Kleefisch insisted on claiming the whole “recall election” movement in Wisconsin is, “about Big Union power. The Big Union bosses siphon dues from their union members, even the ones who don’t agree with them.”

That’s pretty tough talk. Although it comes across as whining, particularly since the whole reason this partisan fight in Wisconsin started is that Walker was the one who provoked the unions with his attempt to mess with Collective Bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers.

Of course the opposition will fight back. This kind of rhetoric makes Walker seem like the schoolyard bully who thinks he’s entitled to pick on everybody – and who thinks the person who slugs him back and blackens his eye is the bad guy!

PERSONALLY, I THINK Kleefisch does Walker more harm with rhetoric like she spewed in Chicago. Although I also think that we have enough loopy loons for political officials from Illinois.

Do we really need to be importing political trash-talkers from other states to tell us a batch of nonsense?

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