EXTRA: If Kennedy, other Dems, really want to be called “governor,” maybe they should move to England

Chris Kennedy, the son of a former presidential hopeful and nephew to a president and a long-time senator, has taken the step he has never been willing to in his past political fantasies – he declared a candidacy Wednesday for Illinois governor.
 

A Kennedy joining the gubernatorial rat-race

Kennedy, the son of Bobby and himself the long-time manager of the formerly Kennedy family-owned Merchandise Mart property, says he’ll seek the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination for the 2018 election cycle.

WHICH PUTS HIM on a lengthy list of people who have allowed their names to be thrown into the mix; some of whom likely just enjoy the idea of having such speculation being bandied about when people discuss them.

For what it’s worth, that list right now includes:

·        Amaya Pawar, a Chicago alderman,

·        Robin Kelly, in whose congressional district I currently reside,
·        Kwame Raoul, a state senator from President Barack Obama’s neighborhood in Chicago,
·        Michael Frerichs, the Illinois treasurer,
·        Daniel Biss, a state senator,
·        Cheri Bustos, a member of Congress from the Quad Cities,
·        J.B. Pritzker, the financially well-off man (the Hyatt Hotels fortune) who could potentially make incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner look like a pauper,
·        Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who has long been rumored to have gubernatorial fantasies, and
·        Pat Quinn, the former governor who has never let being a political long-shot stop him from running for a government office.

Will people feel the same way about his son?

Needless to say, it’s highly unlikely we will have a 10-candidate ballot to choose from in the Democratic primary to be held in March 2018. This list will winnow down considerably, and it may be possible that the person who winds up on top is someone who hasn’t come forth yet.

ALL OF WHICH is to say I don’t have a clue who will be the challenger to Rauner when he seeks another term as Illinois governor.

As for whether any of these people can actually beat the millions of his own dollars that Rauner has already committed to spending to get himself re-elected along with a General Assembly more sympathetic to his anti-organized labor political agenda, that remains to be seen.

Will Caroline draw more attention to her candidacy

About the only thing I do know for sure is that having to think about this election cycle more than a year before the actual primary gives me a sense of nausea.

And as for the Kennedy name, we’ll get to see whether the multi-generational political family (supposedly, JFK daughter Caroline is contemplating a bid for office in New York, and there are countless Kennedy cousins throughout the years who have succeeded) can add Illinois to the list of states and cities where voters chose to elect one of their members to handle the duties of governing themselves.

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