TRACY: Vote for her, Dillard comes along |
We’re
155 days away from the March primary (less if you choose to use early voting).
It’s time for the candidates to start circulating the nominating petitions that
actually get them on the ballots for March 18.
WE’RE
GOING TO learn who the candidates for governor will choose to have as running
mates – although two of them have already let their choices out of the bag of
secrets, so to speak.
Kirk
Dillard of Hinsdale has chosen a state representative from Quincy – following the
concept of some sort of regional balance (suburbs and western Illinois) – to be
the Top of the Ticket for the Republicans.
Unless
the voters decide to choose the Dan Rutherford option. The Illinois treasurer
has let it be known that he wants Steven Kim, the would-be politico who four
years ago ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general.
Rutherford
is touting the idea of an ethnic balance, since Kim would be the first person
of Korean (or Asian, in general) ethnic background to get elected to a
statewide office – if the Rutherford/Kim ticket were to prevail in the primary
AND in the Nov. 4 general election.
NONE
OF THE other gubernatorial dreamers have come up with running mates – although they
are likely to do so in the near future. After all, if they’re going to run as a
pair, they have to submit nominating petitions identifying them as a pair.
And
if they’re starting to circulate them in coming days, they need to know in
coming days who they’re being paired up with.
I’ve
hinted before that this could be a significant factor in the gubernatorial race
because the actual candidates themselves aren’t the kind of people who can
inspire people to want to turn out and vote for them.
There
aren’t any “Barack Obama-like” candidates running for office in Illinois next
year.
I
REALLY DO believe this will be an election cycle in which (particularly for
governor) people will be voting against people. They’re going to make their
pick based on who they detest the least!
Voters
will walk into the booths at their polling place, see a batch of names whose
very existence annoys them to no end, and will cast their vote for whoever
happens to be left.
And
while I’ll be the first to admit that having an incumbent governor who has
generated approval ratings as low as 26 percent doesn’t make things look good,
I see all the other declared candidates for governor as having significant
segments of the populace who can’t stand the thought of them, either!
That
is why I go into this election cycle being completely unsure who should be
thought of as the favorite. Each of them will have their hard-core followers –
along with people who would symbolically slash their wrists at the very thought
of that person becoming the resident of the Executive Mansion in Springfield.
THIS
ELECTION CYCLE might be less annoying if there were another office up for grabs
that would have serious competition. But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is going
for his fourth term in the U.S. Senate being challenged by Doug Truax and Chad
Koppie.
FRERICHS: Wants to replace Rutherford |
Truax
has a military background, and is likely to try to appeal to the hard-core
ideologues of Illinois. Which might be a problem since those are the same
people that Koppie usually tries to appeal to during his perennial bids (all
unsuccessful) for elective office.
Which
is typical of all the other statewide offices within Illinois government that
are up for grabs in 2014 – the most competitive will be for Illinois treasurer,
where state Rep. Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and Bob Grogan of suburban DuPage County
both want to challenge state Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-Champaign, for the right
to replace Rutherford.
They
might all be hardworking, earnest public officials. But let’s be honest – none of
them are going to inspire Illinois to want to turn out to vote on March 18.
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