Illinois celebrates the "important" president's day on Friday

Friday marks the day when it has been 201 years since the birth of Abraham Lincoln. It also marks the one-week point since the first official celebration of the birthday anniversary of Adlai E Stevenson II (who if still somehow magically living would now be 110).
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How long until we someday have people trying to claim that the birthday anniversary of Barack Obama (Aug,. 4, 1961) is worth celebrating? And does it say something that none of these men identified with Illinois were actually born in Illinois? Kentucky, California and Hawaii, are the states where they were respectively born -- to be exact.
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Honoring Stevenson II in Ill.

Part of it was rhetoric. Part of it was pure idealism that didn’t reflect reality.

After all, Adlai E. Stevenson II was a man who got his start in politics because of his ability to make amends with the Chicago Machine of old (when the local officials weren’t the least bit ashamed of what they did in the name of “the people’s business”). He wouldn’t have had that term as Illinois governor (1949-53) without the support of Jake Arvey and Chicago ward organizations helping to turn out the vote for their own self-interests (he made them look good by association, without them having to do anything good in return).

BUT THERE ARE people of a certain generation to whom the name “Stevenson” stands for a willingness to think big and work toward the betterment of our society. Heck, there are those who consider the Barack Obama of 2008 to be a mere “copy” of Adlai – losing something when compared to the “original.”

Of course, there also are those who will want to merely think of Adlai II as the guy who twice got beat by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns. Political partisanship will always be with us.

Yet the fact remains that even now, some 45 years after his death, Stevenson remains a figure still remembered by many. How many people seriously remember either who preceded or succeeded Stevenson in his role as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations – a post where he served an integral role in helping the United States “stare down” the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So perhaps it is all the more appropriate that beginning Friday we now have “Adlai E. Stevenson Day” in Illinois – which this year is the 110th anniversary of his birth.

IT’S NOT AN official state holiday. Nobody gets the day off from work or school. But now we get a moment to reflect upon a prominent official who, like Abraham Lincoln (whose own birthday Feb. 12 is coming up soon), may have been born elsewhere, but lived a signficant chunk of his life in our fair state.

Stevenson II (the grandfather for whom he was named was himself a U.S. vice president) was born Feb. 5, 1900 in Los Angeles, but was raised with the rest of the family in their historic home in Bloomington, Ill., although his adult life when not serving in political posts was spent at the family “estate” in what was then rural Lake County (now very much suburban and congested Libertyville).

Despite his association with the Chicago Democratic organization of old, he himself was never hit by scandal (unless you want to assume decades-old morals and think it outrageous that he was a divorced man). That ultimately is an accomplishment, in and of itself.

Which is why I got my kick out of a story published recently by the Pioneer Press newspapers in the northern suburbs (http://www.pioneerlocal.com/lincolnshire/news/2025366,lincolnshire-stevensonday-020210-s1.article) telling of the new Stevenson Day.

OFFICIALS IN LINCOLNSHIRE (located next to Libertyville) named their then “new” high school for Stevenson, despite objections from some because he was still alive. It was only when he died during the development process that the idea of honoring Adlai took hold.

What was their objection to Adlai at the time?

As reported by the Lincolnshire Review newspaper, it was that some officials feared that he would become involved in a scandal late in life that would besmirch the school’s reputation. His death brought an end to that possibility.

It might be a very real concern in Illinois (this is a warning to anyone so eager to name anything for Obama). But it didn’t happen. It still hasn’t. Stevenson has that squeaky clean reputation that time has scrubbed so much that we now are tempted to think of him as a political saint, rather than a one-time living, breathing human being.

IF ANYTHING, STEVENSON set an example that a politician could be human as well as have some idealism to him. For those who look at the lists of elected officials who later were carted off to prison and want to assume that politics corrupts, I’d disagree.

Some people are just more taintable than others. Today, we celebrate someone who got through a political life without the taint.

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Go watch Obama in action while political payback takes place at City Hall

Barack Obama is truly like Adlai Stevenson in one respect. The regular Democratic organization that dominates Chicago’s politics wants us to pay attention to their do-gooder with national interests, rather than to the activity that takes place at City Hall.

Hence, reporter-types are getting lots of leaks informing them of the many politicos coming and going from the federal building complex in the South Loop from which Obama is running his transition team.

FAKE INDIGNATION THAT the people found out about Obama’s meeting with Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton is tossed about, and we’re also allowed to learn of just about every other bigwig who is traipsing through the Second City – in hopes of gaining a prominent job within the Obama administration.

In a sense, Chicago is now the axis upon which the world of U.S. government rotates. But that shouldn’t be mistaken for Chicago politics itself.

If anything, Obama and his goo-goo nature (with just enough pragmatism to know when to get real and compromise) is supported by the Chicago Democrats because he distracts attention from the funky business at City Hall, similar to how Adlai Stevenson’s gubernatorial and presidential aspirations reflected well upon the Chicago political people of 60 years ago (thereby allowing them to go about their local business unwatched).

That lesson got reinforced in my mind when I read about the City Council’s activity this week. Or actually, I should say their lack of activity. For in the end, the measure that caught my eye was something they didn’t do.

LONG-TIME ALDERMAN Bernard Stone (who represents the far northern tip of Chicago up by Evanston) wants to know where the city’s inspector general gets the nerve to go investigating anything connected to his office.

Stone tried to amend the city budget proposal by deleting all money set aside for maintenance of the inspector general’s office – which is the entity that investigates claims of government corruption.

It is meant to be an internal investigator that puts up the image of Chicago government not tolerating illegal activity.

Yet to Stone, the inspector general’s office exists purely to investigate the executive branch of Chicago government (ie., Mayor Richard M. Daley and the city government agencies to which he appoints directors).

STONE SEEMS TO think the City Council (the legislative branch of Chicago government) is off-limits to any such investigator.

It seems that Stone, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is still upset that the inspector general’s office did an investigation of absentee ballot fraud that wound up focusing on a superintendent of the alderman’s ward.

That superintendent has since been indicted on criminal charges related to claims by prosecutors that residents of Indian and Pakistani descent were being pushed to fill out absentee ballots in ways meant to benefit the alderman back when he last sought re-election in 2007.

Prosecutors say the superintendent used his credentials from his job with the Streets and Sanitation Department to intimidate some of those people into going along with the absentee ballot actions.

STONE BARELY WON that election, which is embarrassing for him considering he’s been in the City Council since 1973 and is the second-longest serving incumbent alderman.

So now, it was political payback for having to campaign harder than he would have liked for re-election. It’s not like Stone feels any shame about this approach, telling the Sun-Times, “he’s come after me, so I’m going after him. That’s the way the game is played.”

That payback, in Stone’s mind, would have been to shut down the inspector general’s office by depriving it of $5.8 million set aside for its operations in the city’s upcoming fiscal year.

Fortunately for the public good, the members of the council’s budget committee were not inclined to go along with their colleague. They didn’t exactly vote against him. They just refused to support the concept of letting his resolution come up for a vote at all, tabling it for future consideration.

SO IN THEORY, it still exists. But it is highly unlikely that Stone will ever get anyone to publicly support shutting down a government investigative agency because it tried to do its job.

I’d like to think that the council’s budget committee is showing a new way of thinking about city government. Perhaps the aura of Obama is spreading, and our city officials will start thinking about public service in a high-minded manner that will soon start to reflect the public good. Then I realize that such a thought makes it sound like I’ve been sniffing too much glue lately.

“High-minded” is far from the intent of many of our city officials. “Practical politics” is what they consider important – measures that impact a person’s life (even if just for a short-term gain while suffering a long-term loss). For I know that the Stone mentality is imbedded in the City Hall character. Mind one’s own business. Investigate somebody else (you’ll probably find something just as funky over there).

That story probably says more about Chicago’s political character than any trivial tidbits that were picked up by reporter-types who hung out at the federal building that same day while Obama met with former general election opponent John McCain.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Chicago’s inspector general once offered to take a pay cut in order to help ease (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1284132,stone-cut-inspector-general-budget-111808.article) the city’s finances. The City Council rejected the offer.

Public servant Bernard L. Stone is hard at work (http://www.goodforthe50th.com/) for the people who live on Chicago’s far northern edge.

Will Todd Stroger get I-57 some day?

For those who are curious about every form of trivia, the namesakes of Chicago’s expressways are as follows:

Jane Addams – First U.S. woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and founder (left) of Chicago’s Hull House, the site of which takes up land that the University of Illinois at Chicago wishes it could change into something more commercial, but doesn’t dare.

William G. Edens – A banker who sponsored Illinois’ first highway bond issue in 1918. Without him, we might still be driving around on dirt or gravel roads.

Dwight Eisenhower – The former general who “won” the Second World War and the president who signed into law the measure creating all interstate highways, which means he had to get something named after him.

Bishop L.F. Ford – Former presiding bishop (left) of the Church of God in Christ on the South Side. With more than 8.5 million members, he qualifies for membership in the Road Namesake Club.

John F. Kennedy – The former U.S. president who conservatives are still convinced only won because Mayor Richard J. Daley turned out the vote in Chicago’s “river precincts.”

Ronald Reagan – Former U.S. president who was born in Dixon, Ill., and attended college in Eureka, before ditching Illinois for a life in California.

Dan Ryan – Former president of the Cook County Board. I wonder what current president Todd Stroger will get named for him someday – we still have the Chicago portion of I-57 nameless.

Adlai E. Stevenson II – The attorney from Bloomington (right) who served as Illinois’ governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but is mostly remembered for getting his butt kicked twice by Ike.

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When does Obama cease to be a Chicagoan?

Barack Obama may be Chicago’s “hometown politico” in whom we show some pride for making a serious run for president, but I wonder how much longer we can seriously think of him as being one of our own – or if he’s even still “ours” right now?

Obama has made his move into the realm of national and foreign affairs and is unlikely to ever be professionally satisfied again in the world of Chicago politics, where officials are parochial enough to get obsessed with the number of sanitation workers on the municipal payroll.

WHAT MADE ME consider this was a recent item on another weblog (one published by former state Rep. Cal Skinner) where he suggests that Obama someday have his presidential library and museum erected in DeKalb, Ill., as a tribute to the five students who were slain there on Valentine’s Day.

Skinner, who points out that Obama bothered to show up at memorial services for the five deceased Northern Illinois University students, says we should not automatically assume that a presidential library would be destined for Chicago.

In a sense, Skinner is right (although the “gentleman from McHenry” is a bit cracked if he seriously thinks Northern Illinois University is a suitable place for such a facility). Obama has become bigger than the neighborhood mentality that so defines Chicago politics and its sister political culture – that of the Statehouse in “Springpatch.”

My memories of being a Statehouse reporter who covered Obama as a state legislator (our career paths overlapped for three years in the late 1990s) recall a person who even then was viewed by some of his legislative colleagues as being out of his element in Springfield.

A COMBINATION OF an Ivy League education and mentality of a one-time community organizer meant that he looked at public service as benefiting the public good in a way that didn’t fit in with the political mentality that allowed some people to building lasting careers in Illinois government.

That is not an insult to Obama. It compliments him for not truly fitting in with a collection of politicos to whom “pork-barrel spending” is not an obscenity. Even for those whose priority does not focus on bringing back projects to the home district, the key to getting ahead in Springfield or at City Hall is to have the ability to deliberately avoid looking at the big picture on issues.

It may very well be Obama’s ability to see beyond Chicago that makes him a viable presidential candidate (and possibly the first Chicagoan – albeit an adopted one – to win the presidency).

The other two presidents with Illinois ties both had their connections to the state's rural portion, although it was the growing Chicago Republicans of the mid-19th century who were influential in pushing the concept of Abraham Lincoln as a presidential candidate, then getting their counterparts from across the country to accept the idea and vote for him in 1860.

IN THE CASE of Ronald Reagan, he left Illinois early in life. It was his California connections that boosted him into politics.

So how much do we really get to brag about Barack Obama being “our” guy just because we’re Chicagoans? At what point will it make us seem overly parochial to be noting that he is one of our two officials in the U.S. Senate – at least for the rest of this year.

Even though he did not on Tuesday bury the presidential dreams of challenger Hillary R. Clinton, we have to wonder with his significant lead in the delegate count, has Obama now reached the status of Adlai Stevenson?

Adlai (the Second, that is) was an Illinoisan who had his alliances with the “Chicago Machine” that enabled him to win a term as Illinois governor, and appoint future Mayor Richard J. Daley to be his state Revenue Department director.

BUT HIS TERM in the Executive Mansion in Springfield, a post which Stevenson himself always viewed with pride, is a footnote to the big picture.

To get at the significance of Stevenson II in our political history, we need to focus on his unsuccessful presidential races and his stint as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where he played a key role in helping the United States gain the moral high ground among the nations of the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Not even the mentions of Obama during likely testimony in the upcoming political corruption trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko will be enough to taint Barack as a Chicago political hack. In fact, the trial has the potential to show just how far removed from the Chicago Machine mentality Obama truly is – even if he still does owe Rezko a favor or two.

So people ought to really forget the talk that Obama will someday return to Chicago to run for mayor, or Illinois governor. His future is on the D.C. Scene. If he ever tried to return to City Hall, the political powers that be would see it as an invasion of their “turf” and would go out of their way to take Obama down in ways that would make the Hillary Clinton campaign seem like a smooch-fest.

WHEN I SEE how close Obama is to getting the presidential nomination, I have two emotions. One is to kick myself for not developing some stronger personal tie during those early legislative years. The other is to realize that this is the closest I will ever come to being able to say I knew a president back when he was a nobody.

I can’t envision any of the other political people I have encountered having sufficient ambition or drive to want to work in Washington – not even some of the politicos I covered as a reporter who went on to serve in Congress.

To me, the most ridiculous thing I ever heard about Gov. Rod Blagojevich is that the man used to have serious ambitions to want to be president himself. Does anyone who seriously has what it takes to be president put together a staff that sends out $1 million checks to the wrong group?

The role just doesn’t mesh with the image of the man I picked up back when I was a Statehouse reporter and he was a legislator who focused his attention on his home Lincoln Square and Ravenswood neighborhoods. Even after moving “up and out” of the Illinois Legislature to Congress, he only lasted six years in the District of Columbia before returning to Chicago to run for governor.

SO AS MUCH as Cal Skinner would like to have that presidential library somewhere in rural Illinois, to me the idea makes as much sense as the concept that Cal will be the second politico I know to make a serious run for president. Perhaps we could put the Skinner Library and Museum at NIU? Or perhaps Whattsamatta U.?

Besides, on the couple of occasions when I have speculated about where a presidential museum could be located (admittedly, such talk is ridiculously premature to take seriously), I always find myself envisioning Obama and potential first lady Michelle retiring to Hawaii.

He was born there, spent much of his childhood there, and his grandmother and a sister still live in Honolulu. I also understand a Hawaii vacation was an Obama family tradition until last year, when the demands of an active presidential campaign caused him to cancel the trip.

I COULD EASILY see the Obamas spending his retiring years lapping up the Polynesian lifestyle and ample sunshine, with a presidential museum becoming yet another attraction for local tourism for those rare moments when one doesn't want to be on the beach.

And for those who say that thinking of having Obama leave Chicago is somehow disrespectful to the Second City, I disagree. It would probably make him the ultimate Chicagoan.

Just think of how many lifelong residents decided upon retirement to leave to “get away from the weather” and go live somewhere where it is unnaturally nice and pleasant.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Former Illinois legislator Cal Skinner’s speculation about a presidential museum (http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/2008/03/how-about-putting-barack-obama.html) for Barack Obama is what motivated me down the path of idle speculation that you just endured.

Consider for a moment what life would become like for the White House press corps if Obama had some sort of Hawaii residence. Following eight years of traipsing after George W. Bush when he would spend his downtime at his home in isolated Crawford, Texas (http://crawford-texas.org/), they’d have to get used to “enduring” an existence with Obama in Honolulu. Instead, they will learn the ins and outs of being Chicagoans.

How ignorant was I (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-meant-for-bigger-playing-fields.html) of how big Barack would become? Very!

Adlai 'successor' may be Hillary, not Obama

It has become a stock column for political pundits to grind out if they are in a pinch for some copy – Barack Obama is too intellectual to be president and is a modern-day equivalent of Adlai E. Stevenson II.

But after observing the Democratic presidential primaries to date, I’m starting to wonder if Hillary R. Clinton is the politico who ultimately will fill the Stevenson niche.

It’s not a perfect match of stories. After all, Stevenson twice won the Democratic nomination to run for president – losing both general elections to Dwight Eisenhower.

By comparison, Hillary may fail to even get her political party’s presidential nomination, as Obama is turning out to be a much more competitive campaigner than she originally anticipated.

Both Clinton and Stevenson are lawyers who come from political families. Hillary is a former first lady of both the United States and of Arkansas, and some people say she was the intellectual support system for her husband, Bill, when he held those elective posts. Stevenson is the grandson of the original Adlai E. Stevenson – who served as vice president during the second presidential term of Grover Cleveland.

Not enough people were willing to reject the ideals of Herbert Hoover to take a chance on Adlai E. Stevenson II as president.

Hillary is using her husband’s knowledge and experience in the ways of campaigning to boost her campaign, and much of the support she gets is from people who are hoping that a second Clinton as president will help rehabilitate the way history remembers the first Clinton.

Adlai II also had help in getting ahead politically, although he didn’t use just his grandfather’s knowledge. Living in what was then the rural community of Libertyville (it’s now ridiculously suburban in character), Stevenson was a product of the regular Democratic organization in Cook County (the dreaded “Chicago Machine” that plays a significant role in the nightmares of many a Republican).

Back in the 1940s, Stevenson was a Chicago attorney with political aspirations who ultimately got ahead in local politics because, despite his liberal convictions on many social issues, he was willing to go along with the Chicago Democratic politicos.

Machine pols supported Stevenson when he ran for Illinois governor in 1948 because his liberal talk on the electoral ticket made them look good. His credentials made it appear as though the organization cared about social issues and the welfare of the public, but he wasn’t so obnoxious as to push too hard to achieve liberal goals.

As an example, it’s not like Stevenson was willing to pressure Southern Democrats to end “Jim Crow” practices against African-American people. He took the line of many Northern Democrats (including Franklin D. Roosevelt) in accepting segregation as “the way things are” in the South.

Similar things can be said about Hillary, who talks liberal at times but is trying to downplay the liberal ties of her youth while portraying herself as the candidate of organized labor and rural Democrats who might not care much about the social issues.

Stevenson was a man with a liberal aura who was never able to translate it into electoral votes. He couldn’t win the vote majority in his home state of Illinois in either of his presidential campaigns.

Hillary is the woman who wants to be the first female president. But the liberal elements who would normally eat up such a storyline can’t get enthused about her campaign (largely because many of them are too busy chanting “Oh-bah-mah”).

Stevenson was the original politico for whom the phrase, “you’ll always be the future of the Democratic party,” was used. Hillary will be the latest.

I find it ironic that Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (Who can believe such a lovely woman can inspire such a vapid Neil Diamond pop song?) says Obama is the candidate who gives her a sense of inspiration in the same way an older generation has told her that her father, John F. Kennedy, inspired them in the early 1960s.

It was Caroline who swayed the Kennedy family (including all-powerful family head Uncle Teddy) to give the Obama campaign their support and a sense of historic aura that ’08 Obama may be the follow-up to ’60 Kennedy.

If Obama beats Clinton in the Democratic primaries, it will put to rest her dreams of being president – unless she becomes some sort of renegade candidate of the future who runs outspoken, token campaigns for the sake of slashing at front-runners.

It was also Kennedy with his inspiring aura that killed off once-and-for-all any dreams Stevenson had of someday becoming president of the United States.

In early 1960, Stevenson hedged his bets and did not actively campaign. However, he eventually changed his mind and for a time considered going to the Democratic convention in Los Angeles with hopes of swaying enough people to give him a third crack at running for president.

By then, the original Mayor Daley had given his support to fellow Irish-American Kennedy. Richard J. Daley let Stevenson know he would not get another presidential run, even though Daley was influential at getting Adlai a second crack at running for president in 1956 (Daley’s predecessors in the Chicago “machine” got Adlai his first nomination in 1952).

Should Obama manage to defeat Clinton, then go on to win the November general election, it would be wise for him to take a lesson from history and find a significant role for Hillary Clinton in his administration. I realize she will not be Obama’s nominee for vice president. But someone of her knowledge, skills and experience should be put to use.

Kennedy had enough sense to look past any previous confrontations between the two, and he made Stevenson his choice for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

It was in that role that the one-time Illinois governor had his greatest moment in public service, when he stood his ground with the Soviets and Cubans when the former tried in 1962 to install missiles on the Caribbean island nation just 120 miles from Miami and within reach of many U.S. cities.

It was because of Stevenson’s tough talk and determination that the United States gained the moral high ground among the nations of the world in what most of us now remember as the Cuban Missile Crisis – the closest our civilization to date has ever come to nuclear annihilation.

I can’t help but wonder if Hillary is destined for comparable greatness in some role of negotiating peace out of the bungled mess in the Middle East that has been exacerbated by the presidency of George Bush the younger.

There may even be one more parallel, although it will be years before we learn for sure whether there is a similarity.

Stevenson’s son, Adlai E. III, also went into politics, ultimately serving three six-year terms as a United States senator from Illinois, and coming incredibly close in 1982 to following in his father’s footsteps as governor.

Chelsea Clinton is still a bit young (she’s not yet 28) to be running for office. But she has always had a more serious demeanor that most people her age, even those who are related to political people. Can anyone seriously envision Chelsea doing anything comparable to Ron Reagan Jr. when he danced in his underwear on national television as a parody of Tom Cruise in “Risky Business?”

Chelsea in Congress some day could very well complete the political comparisons between Hillary and Adlai.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Here is just one of the 58,500 entries that turn up on Google (http://www.slate.com/id/2178075) when one searches for the phrase, “Barack Obama Adlai Stevenson.”

Obama is not opposed to citing the memory of his home state’s former (1949-52) governor (http://obama.senate.gov/speech/050411-opening_statement_of_senator_b/) when it serves his purposes.

Stevenson’s son, himself a former U.S. senator from Illinois, reminisces (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E7DD143BF934A35751C0A9659C8B63) about his father’s accomplishments.