Encore, encore?!?

Did Marie Newman really behave in such a tacky, offensive manner on primary Election Night 2018 that she has killed off any future chances she has to win electoral office?

It certainly seems that Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., and his backers are counting on such a strategy in order to win office again. Which makes us wonder – did Newman really misbehave? Or is Lipinski truly fearful of the candidate whom he barely beat last year?

FOR THOSE OF you with short attention spans, Newman was the suburban woman who challenged Lipinski on the notion that he’s too conservative on social issues to be allowed to think of himself as a Democrat in good standing.

Lipinski managed to prevail in the Democratic primary – winning 51 percent to 49 percent. Largely because the Illinois 3^rd Congressional district consists largely of Chicago’s Southwest Side neighborhoods, where many voters look upon it as a plus that Lipinski’s father is former Congressman and Alderman Bill Lipinski.

He also represents that segment of the populace that thinks Democrats ought to be a blue-collar political party that ought not be too concerned with the social issues such as abortion (of which Lipinski is solidly in opposition).

There were those people who think that’s not what the Democrats ought to be about any longer, and they did try to use Newman to dump Dan from office – falling just short of a primary victory.

NEWMAN APPARENTLY IS thinking along the lines of, “I came close to winning last time, this time will be the charm.”

NEWMAN: Trying again in 2020

That led her to saying on Tuesday she’s running again for Congress. She’ll challenge Lipinski once again – and hopes she can find another 2 percent of voter support to give her a victory this time. While another person, Abe Matthew of Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, says he’ll also run – thereby clogging up the political mechanisms.

Personally, I always get skeptical of candidates who come close to winning, but fail. Political history is filled with many such tales of people who tried again – only to wind up falling short by nowhere near as small a voter margin as they lost by the first time.

LIPINSKI: Can he fight her off again?

Remember H. Ross Perot – who in 1992 ran an independent political campaign that managed to take 19 percent of the overall vote and was a factor in incumbent President George Bush’s failure to beat Democrat Bill Clinton?

THAT LED THE Texas billionaire to think he had potential for a significant political movement, and he tried again in 1996. Only to fall so far short (8 percent overall) that I suspect most people these days have forgotten he ever existed politically.

Could Newman wind up embarrassing herself in a similar manner?

Lipinski himself told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I would be surprised if Marie Newman runs again after her angry, mean-spirited speech on TV on Election Night.” Looking around the Internet, various people commented she was “downright bitter” and “didn’t concede with any class.”

Did Newman really manage to create a lasting image at the end of her last campaign that kills off any hopes for a political future? Or is this merely wishful thinking on the part of Lipinski that he won’t have to seriously campaign for re-election in 2020?

MY OWN CHECK of the Internet for Election Night video unveiled a snippet of Newman saying, “I would like for Mr. Lipinski to have a very painful evening,” while refusing to admit political defeat. While Rich Miller of the Capitol Fax newsletter said of Newman’s behavior, “I’ve seen much worse.”

PEROT '96: A long-forgotten campaign

It probably helps that many have let the Lipinski/Newman primary slip into the crevasses of their minds – remembering more clearly the general election campaign against Art Jones – a political activist with past ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations.

Which meant the Republican Party had to go out of its way to dissociate themselves from him. The real question for 2020 may be to see if the Illinois GOP remains so weak and unorganized that it won’t be able to put up a legitimate challenger to Lipinski as what happened in 2018?

As opposed to whether Newman can hold together all the people eager to see a less-ideologically-motivated person than Lipinski represent them in Congress – while figuring out a way to get 2 percent more voter support for herself.

  -30-

EXTRA: How many would vote for Hitler? Maybe now we know for sure

Call it a tacky joke, if you will.

JONES: Returning to political obscurity

But I can remember newsroom humor on Election Days of the past when particularly ideologically-conservative candidate would run.

WE'D TAKE A look at the number of votes they'd get, and say, "Now we know how many people would vote for Hitler, if he were on the ballot."

Which is the thought that popped into my head Tuesday night when I saw just how many people thought Art Jones was worthy of their vote for a seat in Congress -- the Illinois 3rd district seat, to be exact.

Jones is the long-time white supremacist who managed to get himself the Republican nomination to run for Congress earlier this year. Which means he was up for election on Tuesday. He lost to Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., who will return to Congress representing Chicago's Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs.

For the record, Jones had a preliminary vote tally of 53,415 -- which was about one-quarter of the total ballots cast. About the usual percentage for a losing candidate.

THAT WOULD MEAN a certain number were willing to put aside Jones' racist rants and hateful rhetoric (and one-time membership in the American National Socialist Workers Party) about Jewish people and merely regard him as just another Republican.

And yes, "national socialist" is what Na-zi is short for.

  -30-

How weak is the so-called “Party of Lincoln” in the “Land of Lincoln?”

What's the point of Party of Rauner?

It really shouldn’t be a wonder that Gov. Bruce Rauner isn’t willing to publicly denounce Republican congressional candidate Art Jones – a white supremacist who literally used to run around wearing Swastika armbands and pledging “Heil!” to Adolf Hitler.

Jones, who managed to win the Republican primary to run for Congress from the 3^rd Illinois district (Chicago's Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs) because no one else tried seeking the GOP nomination, is a political embarrassment.

What would Lincoln think of GOP?

NOT ONLY TO Chicago’s Southwest Side (he’s a reminder of those days of about four decades ago when the area around the city’s Marquette Park was home to many willing to see a role model in Hitler to try to scare off black people from moving anywhere near their neighborhood) or to Illinois.

But to the Republican Party themselves. Which is why Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas who made his own presidential bid two years ago and whom some consider somewhat of an embarrassment himself, came out recently with his cry denouncing Jones’ presence on his political party’s ballot.

If Rauner was competent, neither Jones ...

He came out and called Jones’ presence “horrific,” and said people should vote come Nov. 6 either to re-elect Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., or no one. Zero votes for Jones, is his goal.

Rauner’s response this week was something along the lines of telling Cruz to mind his own business. Personally, I have no problem with telling a Texan to, “Butt out!”

BUT I DON’T think it’s because Rauner really thinks people will pay that much attention to Cruz. Most likely, it’s because Cruz is scoring political points for himself by drawing direct attention to just how weak the Republican Party is in Illinois.

… nor McCann would be on ballot

It’s a party that literally couldn’t find a token candidate to bear the GOP banner back in March, and also couldn’t get itself organized enough to challenge the ballot status of Jones – who based on his past attempts at running for government office has a fringe campaign that isn’t capable of running a serious effort to win office.

But no matter how incompetent Team Jones IS this time around, it would seem that Team Rauner is even worse off.

Yes, I think it accurate to call the Illinois Republicans Team Rauner, largely because the only reason there is a Republican Party in our state is because of all his own money the governor has thrown in to prop up GOP candidates.

MOSTLY BECAUSE HE wants to have political allies to support his ideals for government. Yet what he has is a state Legislature solidly in opposition to him – one where as little as we think of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, we think even less of “Governor Bruce.”

Which is why many of the would-be Republican partisans are thinking of shifting over to a third-party political candidate for governor – that of the newly-created Conservative Party that plans to run state Sen. Sam McCann, R-Plainview, for governor.

CRUZ: For once, Texas has a point

Considering how difficult it is for an outside entity to get itself on the ballot (there are too many political tricks that can kick political dreamers away), it ought to be considered further evidence of Illinois Republican ineptitude that McCann WILL challenge Rauner, along with Democrat J.B. Pritzker and Libertarian Kash Jackson.

It actually is sad that in Illinois, a place that likes to think it was influential (because of Lincoln) in creating the Republican Party, the GOP has become so inconsequential. To the point where outspoken Chicago Republican William Kelly, it could be said, wouldn't be any more inept if he ever were elected to office.

BUT THAT IS the status of our political scene, where it seems we have a Democratic Party that represents the two-thirds of the state population that views itself as urban, and another third that is rural and, in its isolation, seems quite confused.

KELLY: Would he be any worse than Rauner?

The “Party of Rauner” is one that doesn’t seem capable of accomplishing the tasks that, quite honestly, are a political party’s only reason for existing.

It makes me wonder what Rauner really thinks he has accomplished during his three years in office, and why he thinks anything would be significantly different for Illinois if he were to somehow miraculously be elected to a second term in office.

Unless, that is, if he can somehow write off all the money he put into Republican political candidates as a financial loss. Which would be exactly the kind of action I would expect from our federal government during this Age of Trump we’re now in.

  -30-

The resurrection of Adolf Hitler; or are Nazi Nut-zis on the loose?

A lot of people like to take their pot-shots at our nation’s current president by making comparisons to Adolf Hitler, although I am fairly sure that the people really inclined to “pledge allegiance” to the one-time German Fuhrer think Donald Trump is as much a loony as the rest of us.

JONES: Finally making it to general election

The kind of people who really think something noble occurred during that era some 80 years ago probably think Trump is all talk, without the nerve to really act.

BUT’S LET NOT dispute the notion that there are people inclined to think that fascism or a police state would have benefits for our society – particularly if it allowed for the eliminate in some form or another of less-than-desirable people.

There was one news report out of suburban Riverside about the man now facing criminal charges because he approached three girls – ages 12 to 14 – to tell them of the evils of miscegenation and how they ought to study history to learn that Hitler was not as evil as often portrayed.

For what it’s worth, the girls took a picture of the man, told their parents, who then contacted police – where authorities actually recognized him from a previous arrest.

The man, a Berwyn resident, now faces disorderly conduct charges, although the Chicago Sun-Times reported that police said the man admits to his actions, but doesn’t believe he did anything illegal.

NOT THAT IT’S just a guy hanging around the candy store (literally, in this case) looking to talk to young girls. There also were the reports about Art Jones, who in political circles is known as the Nazi perpetual candidate.

He appears to have got himself on the ballot for this year’s election cycle as the token Republican who will challenge the winner of the Dan Lipinski/Marie Newman Democratic primary fight that most likely determine the actual election winner.

For Jones is running in the March 20 primary unopposed. And Jones is a guy who once was an activist-type whose political philosophy included wearing the swastika and touting Hitler as an example of what our society should espouse.

Nazi 'menace' arrested in Riverside

Now I know Jones has long ago quit being that extreme. I remember once interviewing him many years ago (back when I was a kid reporter with the old City News Bureau) and he said he quit being a Nazi because they were too ineffectual – not capable of getting anything done.

NOT THAT HE is apologetic in any way for his own beliefs, which include rhetoric about how the holocaust of the Nazi era in Germany is exaggerated, if not an outright falsehood.

It’s at the point where Illinois Republican Chairman Timothy Schneider and Gov. Bruce Rauner both have felt compelled to denounce Jones’ campaign and claim it doesn’t represent the modern-day GOP.

Although I find it interesting that Republican gubernatorial challenger Jeanne Ives – who wants to be thought of as an extreme conservative candidate, won’t go anywhere near Jones and his rhetoric.

I have no doubt that many Democratic candidates will find ways of bringing up Jones’ congressional bid during their own campaigns. They’ll try to tout the whole Party of Lincoln as being that way.

I’M NOT WILLING to go that far.

I’m sure that most of us will see how pathetic it is that the Republican Party couldn’t come up with a credible candidate in Illinois’ 3^rd Congressional District – the Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs of Chicago.

So the idea that a Holocaust denier (the way Jones was described in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times) is running for Congress, and that men are approaching young girls to tout their Nazi ideals, is a rise in fascism, is not evidence of a rise in right-wing extremism.

It just means the Nut-zis are on the loose. The bottom line? They’ll give us a good laugh with their nonsense.

  -30-

Hoosier politico mingles with “Ill. Nazis”

When it comes to Chicago and the Nazi Party, some people will remember the existence of Frank Collin – the self-styled fuhrer who wanted to intimidate Jewish Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill., but turned out to have Jewish parents.

To other people, the concept of “Illinois Nazis” is a cinematic punch-line, dating back 28 years to the release of “The Blues Brothers,” when Jake Blues (John Belushi), halted in traffic by a Nazi rally in Jackson Park, tells us, “I hate Illinois Nazis.”

HIS BROTHER, ELWOOD (Dan Ackroyd), then drove his former Mount Prospect police car directly into the rally, causing a batch of would-be brown shirts to dive for safety off the Music Court Bridge.

Yet when Indiana attorney Tony Zirkle sees Illinois Nazis, he sees a batch of potential voters – even though he is running for a political post in another state, so most likely, none of the people he spoke to could vote for him.

Specifically, Zirkle is a candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress from the northwestern Indiana district that stretches from Valparaiso to South Bend. He spent his Sunday speaking at a celebration hosted by the American National Socialist Workers Party in our very own otherwise wonderful city.

The group gathered in Chicago to celebrate with cake and martial music the 119th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler – the founder of National Socialism and the man who turned the swastika from a symbol of life, strength and good luck to one of racial and religious hatred the world over.

NOW LET ME make one point very clear (I don’t want an attorney thinking he can successfully sue me). I am not claiming Zirkle is a Nazi, a Neo-Nazi, a nutsie, a white supremacist, a Holocaust denier or any other blatant kind of bigot.

I’m willing to take him at his word that he saw the event as just another chance to talk to people who were willing to listen to him. “I’ll speak before any group that invites me,” Zirkle was quoted as saying by the Munster, Ind.-based Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper.

Of course, he went on to elaborate that he would speak to “anyone” by saying he also had been interviewed by African-American-oriented radio stations in Atlanta, Ga., as though black people and Nazi sympathizers are somehow equally out of the mainstream of the United States culture.

It just makes me question his political judgment that he literally sees no difference between the two groups. This moment truly puts him into the category of fringe candidates.

NOW I’M NOT saying that candidates seeking office ought to be snobbish about where they appear to try to get votes. Any worthwhile political candidate is going to encounter groups of people who appear (to him) to be odd. The true political professional realizes that not everybody is like him (or her).

I still recall a Dave Barry-written column about a wacky event he once attended and where former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar also appeared, mistakenly thinking it was some sort of civic group gathering. As Barry put it, Edgar was in danger at one point of having his photograph taken with a man wearing a helmet with a rubber sex toy protruding from its head.

Edgar got out. Why Zirkle couldn’t take one look at the swastika banners and photographs of Hitler hanging from the walls and realize how despicable he would look having his picture taken at a podium with a photograph of der fuhrer watching over his shoulder is a mystery.

The cake was particularly “cute,” with the icing spelling out “seig heil” and Hitler’s picture in icing looking up at people.

IT’S A GOOD thing that Zirkle is most likely a fringe candidate in this race, since the reason the white supremacist group wanted Zirkle to speak before them was because of his interest in the issue of white women being used for pornography and prostitution (as though other women being used for such purposes is not a problem).

He tried running for Congress two years ago, and actually got 30 percent of the vote in the Republican primary against the guy who eventually went on to lose the general election to Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

But Zirkle tells reporter-types that his goal in running for office is to “educate and inform,” even though his past comments have included statements calling the United States’ attempts at desegregation a failure.

Most of the time, however, Zirkle focuses his attention on pornography, getting worked up over sexual images that he fears are dragging this country into a cultural pit.

IT REALLY IS hard for me to understand why Zirkle would cross State Line Road to solicit votes for a northwest Indiana congressional campaign (the primary is in less than two weeks). Some of the members might live there, but I would guess they are a batch scattered from across the Midwestern U.S., and a National Socialist-affiliated website described the gathering as 56 people from the Chicago area.

Even so, it is not like the National Socialist lobby has been an effective voter bloc.

I still remember the countless campaigns of Art Jones, the white racialist activist who as a youth wore the swastika armband and proclaimed himself to be a Nazi, and in fact was also in attendance at the same Hitler birthday bash for which Zirkle is being derided.

EVEN JONES (WHO himself ran a failed campaign for an Illinois congressional district in the Feb. 5 primary) has given up on Nazis, but not because his views on supremacy of white people have changed through the years.

Back when I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, I once asked Jones point blank if he was still affiliated with the Nazis. “No,” Jones told me then. “Those people are idiots who can’t get themselves organized to do anything right.”

Jones “got it” decades ago. I wonder if Zirkle will “get it” any time soon, or if he’s going to go on a rant about “the media” being biased against him?

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: This Crown Point, Ind., attorney helped a batch of “Illinois Nazis” celebrate the 119th anniversary of der Fuhrer’s birth (http://www.tonyzirkle.com/CAMPAIGN/), thinking it would help promote his congressional campaign. I couldn’t help but notice he did NOT include the appearance on his published schedule of campaign-related activities.

Apparently, Tony Zirkle never learned that “Nazi” is the acronym in German (http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=12532) for “National Socialist.”

Shredding Marilyn Monroe in all her glory? Zirkle thinks he is promoting the concept (http://www.takingdownwords.com/taking_down_words/2006/04/tony_zirkle_no_.html) of men having sex with their wives.

Art Jones of Chicago may not be a Nazi any longer. But his campaign rhetoric (http://www.arthurjonesforcongress.com/) still manages to offend many of the people who find white supremacy most objectionable, particularly when it comes to immigration reform.