EXTRA: Obama says we shouldn’t want to “relive the past” on economic issues

Obama: Gets to sleep in his own bed tonight

To listen to President Barack Obama in speaking Saturday to a rally of about 35,000 people spread across the Midway Plaissance, Republican partisans drove the nation’s economy into a ditch, left it to Democrats to push the wreckage of the economy out of that ditch, and now are demanding to have the keys back so they can resume driving.

“We need to tell them, ‘you can’t have the keys back. You don’t know how to drive’,” Obama said. It was that kind of night at the southern edge of the Hyde Park neighborhood, as faint echoes of the old “Oh-Bah-Mah!” chant could be heard around the Midway (although a part of me wonders if those people earlier Saturday in Grant Park who partook in the Chicago offshoot of the Jon Stewart-inspired D.C. "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" had more fun than the Midway crowd).

OBAMA – WHO EARLIER in the day used his regular weekend radio address to say that Democrats and Republicans will have to work together to end the economic struggles facing our nation – insisted that GOP people have been unwilling to do so, purely as a political calculation geared toward the elections to be held Tuesday.

“Their strategy seems to be that all of you will get amnesia,” Obama said, making several references (among them, 4 million jobs lost in the six-month time period before he took the oath of office as president in January of 2009) to the fact that the economic recession began during the presidency of George W. Bush.

“We need to make sure we don’t turn the keys (of control) back to the special interests of Washington,” Obama said.

Even Mayor Richard M. Daley, who served as a warm-up act for the president, played along with that theme, citing “health care,” “jobs” and “economic development” as areas where Obama has had success.

“WE SHOULD THANK him for all the things he has done in less than two years,” the retiring mayor said. “That is a difficult job, but he is up to it. He has the leadership ability, and we should support him,” by voting for his political allies.

Of course, the evening wasn’t all about Republican-bashing. It also was about encouraging the thousands to make sure they cast ballots in Tuesday’s election, and Obama ran through the laundry list of politicos running for office who were present.

They included Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias and lieutenant governor nominee Sheila Simon, just to name a few. Although in what may be surprising to some, he gave a plug to soon-to-be former Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. “If everybody who showed up in 2008 to vote does so again, we’ll win this election,” Obama said.

“If you’re willing to step up, if you’re willing to try, … we will restore our economy, rebuild the middle class, and re-claim the American dream for another generation,” he said.

BUT AS A sign that Obama does understand the priorities of the Chicago political mindset, he did make sure to give prominent mention to Toni Preckwinkle, not so much because she’s running for Cook County Board president, but because she is the alderman in whose ward they were all gathered.

“She’s my alderman,” Obama said.

  -30-

Will Cook County Democrats do to Brady what they did to O’Malley back in ‘96?

Various polls coming out in recent days show that the campaign for Illinois governor has suddenly become a close race. All those people who want to think that Pat Quinn was political pulp are now anxiously wondering if he has a chance to win come Nov. 2.

Gov. Pat Quinn

Quinn himself issued a statement that tells us how Republican opponent William Brady’s early lead has “evaporated,” because people are learning that “Senator Brady is not on their side.” Depending on which poll one wants to believe, Quinn and Brady are either virtually tied, or the governor is actually slightly ahead.

NOW I’M NOT about to get into the merits of debating which pollsters know what they’re talking about and which ones are so tainted by ideology that no one of sense should trust a word they say.

All that is really happening, and since so many different poll-takers are coming up with similar results I am inclined to trust them, is that Chicago is asserting itself. The real question is whether or not the city will assert itself enough come Election Day for Quinn to actually win.

That is something we won’t find out until the early hours of Nov. 3.

It is no surprise to me that polls show Brady to be the overwhelming favorite of voters who live in the parts of Illinois that lie outside of the Chicago metropolitan area. For them, this election cycle is about dumping any government official who has ties to the Chicago area – which is why state Senator Brady of Bloomington does well, and the ideologues of the GOP privately wish they weren’t stuck with Mark Kirk of the North Shore or Judy Baar Topinka of Riverside.

THEIR COOK COUNTY roots are too close to Chicago for ideological comfort.

But I have always believed that if Chicago and the inner suburbs turn out in strength on Election Day, it won’t matter how large a voter margin Brady gets over Quinn in places like McLean, Macoupin or McDonough counties.



state Sen. William Brady



It is that we have a knee-jerk Democrat reaction here in Cook County – the county that comprises about 45 percent of Illinois’ population. If we turn out, our preferred candidate will win. If we don’t turn out, then our candidate loses – and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

It was a lesson I learned back in 1996 from, of all things, the campaign for State’s Attorney of Cook County. In that election cycle, the incumbent was Republican Jack O’Malley, who really hadn’t done anything to infuriate the people of Cook.

I REMEMBER EVERY single poll all the way down to the wire showed O’Malley with a lead over the Democratic challenger, a long-time Daley family loyalist named Richard Devine – who at the time was running the Chicago Park District board.

Devine was portrayed in that first election as some sort of Daley lackey who was mere ballot filler to run a token campaign against the lone Republican who held elective office in Cook County government.

Yet come that Election Day when Bill Clinton easily defeated Bob Dole for president, so many people gave their knee-jerk vote for a Democratic candidate that Devine actually beat O’Malley by a sizable margin. What happened was that many of our local voters who likely had nothing against O’Malley personally and told polls of that fact wound up voting for the Democrat, just because that’s the way things are done in Chicago.

I realize that this is not a presidential election year to help lure people to the polling places. By and large, Quinn himself has to be the attraction for the Democratic candidates. Which means that not only does he need to give us the "scare tactics" against Brady, he also has to give us a good reason why we should vote for him.

BUT IT MAKES me wonder if we’re going to see people doing the exact same thing – telling poll-takers one thing for all these months, but then showing up at the voter booths to automatically vote “Democratic.”

For those people who will try to argue that this is a sad phenomenon, I’d say it is no different than the many people from outside of Chicago who give the same knee-jerk reaction in favor of anything associated with “Republican.”
 

It means those polls of the past that would have you think this was going to be a loss for Quinn of historic proportions were some downstater’s wildest fantasy. They never had any basis in reality. That is what is being reflected in the current round of polls.

This state is heavily influenced by Chicago and its suburbs (which comprise about two-thirds of the overall population). Which means those people who think this is going to be a political revolution led by people in Chebanse, Towanda and Versailles are a little off.

IF ANYTHING CAUGHT my attention out of the polls, it was the one done for the Chicago Tribune that says Quinn has totally wiped out the lead that Brady once held in the outer suburbs of places like DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties.

I’m not sure I believe that fact (a part of me suspects those people who live on the fringes of metro Chicago would be most likely to side with their rural Illinois counterparts in voting against anything Chicago-oriented).

But if it is true, then perhaps we do have a chance to see Sheila Simon become the first daughter of an Illinois lieutenant governor to become lieutenant governor herself.

  -30-

What’s to become of lt. gov?

My initial reaction to learning that several members of the Democratic Party’s state central committee sent a letter to Illinois House Speaker/state Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, complaining of the way he took it upon himself to sponsor a proposed constitutional amendment doing away with the position of lieutenant governor was to feel a sense of local pleasure.

That letter was signed by seven of the 38 members of the party’s central committee, including both of the people who were elected from my home district – the Illinois First Congressional.

SO THAT MEANS both Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and state Rep. Connie Howard, D-Chicago, are in line with my thoughts on the issue – which are that the people who are eager to abolish the position are being a bit short-sighted in the way they think.

I have written previously that I like the idea of knowing exactly who will be first-in-line to take over state government in the event that some calamity befalls the governor. I like the idea of it being someone who was elected for that specific purpose, rather than someone who moves up the line of succession after being elected for another government post.

I know that a part of Lisa Madigan would like to be governor of Illinois someday, but I’d rather see her get the post because she ran a statewide campaign for it, rather than being bumped up from attorney general because something happened to Pat Quinn.

Madigan’s father, the aforementioned House speaker/state party chairman (who in the Chicago-centric world of Illinois politics is less important than the party chairman for Cook County), appears to be willing to have that scenario, even though the constitutional amendment he proposed that would have to be voted on by the General Assembly and by voters statewide would not take effect until 2015.

WHICH MEANS THE Democratic Party still needs to find a replacement for Scott Lee Cohen, whose letter formally declining the party’s nomination for the post officially was received Tuesday by the State Board of Elections, for the Nov. 2 general election, where the yet-to-be-chosen nominee will run against the 27-year-old GOP nominee with what appears to be an incredibly inflated resume.

The letter sent to Madigan this week said there should be a “uniform, comprehensive and transparent” process by which a lieutenant governor nominee should be picked by the party. Even the party insiders see that what is happening here is they ultimately will be pressured to pick whomever Madigan (as in Michael) wants for the post.

And if Madigan’s past electoral record is any indication, it is obvious that the lieutenant governor nominee ultimately will be someone whose appearance on the ballot does not hurt the chances of getting people to vote for a Democrat to represent them in the Illinois House of Representatives.

Forget about whether the person would be fit to govern Illinois if something bad happened to Quinn, or if they bolster the regional or ethnic diversity of the Democratic ticket for state constitutional offices.

THOSE COMMITTEEMEN IN their letter said they think the party’s officials should have been consulted about something as serious as abolishing the lieutenant governor’s post, although Madigan’s aides responded by telling reporter-types that it is absurd to think an individual legislator has to consult with the party bigwigs before he can introduce a bill for the Legislature’s consideration.

I’d take that argument much more seriously if Madigan were just another political schnook. If he were some freshman legislator serving his first term, or someone who came from a part of the state with little political clout, it would make sense that he could do what he wanted, and the people would be free to ignore his desire if they so wished.

But the reality is that anything with the Mike Madigan name on it is going to get high profile just because of its sponsor. Any Democratic legislator who dares to vote against this proposed amendment can probably count on his/her political career withering away into dust.

I remember one time back during the 1990s when Mayor Richard M. Daley reached an agreement with certain legislative leaders to advance a measure the city desired, only for it to die in the Illinois House just after Madigan himself said it was not wise to exclude him from the pre-vote negotiations.

ENVISION THOSE OLD “Chiffon” margarine commercials from the 1970s where “Mother Nature” unleashes lightning bolts because she was “fooled” into thinking that margarine was really butter. Only set them in the House chambers in Springfield.

My point is that you don’t mess with Madigan. He doesn’t even have to say anything intimidating to get support for his measures.

Once it gets to the general public, it becomes a different matter. Will people see this as a “good government” move to abolish an electoral office? Or will it be seen as an attempt by the speaker/party leader to dictate policy to the people.

Which is why I’m glad to learn that some of the state central committeemen (including, among others, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., whom some speculate would like to see his wife, Sandi, currently a Chicago alderman, get the post) is willing to go on record in writing that maybe Madigan is wrong.

AND THE FACT that both Rush and Howard were willing to put their names on this letter makes me feel a bit better about the fact that I voted for them for those central committeeman posts in recent elections.

At least two votes I cast were for people who occasionally can say the right thing.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: African-American members of the Democratic State Central committee that ostensibly will pick (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-lt-gov-madigan-0216-20100216,0,5895822.story) the new lieutenant governor nominee have their problems with actions that make it seem that Mike Madigan will single-handedly make the choice himself.

Jason Plummer sounds like someone with a bright future. Perhaps he should be the Republican nominee (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/02/pawnbrokers-withdrawal-official-for-democrats-gop-governor-race-still-counting.html) for governor in 2024 (rather than for lieutenant governor this year) once his real life catches up with his resume.

EXTRA: Preckwinkle wants women’s vote

Toni Preckwinkle, the Chicago alderman who’d like to run on what’s left of Barack Obama’s coattails for the presidency of Cook County Board, is counting on getting a significant share of the women’s vote if her campaign is to succeed come Feb. 2.

Preckwinkle is the African-American candidate whom some pundits say is the one black person that African-American voters want nothing to do with.

SHE’S A PRODUCT of the same Hyde Park neighborhood that gave us Obama (he used to represent the area at the Statehouse in Springfield, compared to Preckwinkle making the trip downtown to City Hall).

But while the African-American vote, some polls indicate, seems to center around city Treasurer Dorothy Brown and incumbent President Todd Stroger (not everybody thinks he’s a goober), Preckwinkle is the one who ran in second place in a recent Chicago Tribune poll, behind Brown but ahead of Stroger and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District head Terry O’Brien (a.k.a., the white guy).

It was with that in mind that Preckwinkle made public on Monday a list of groups that endorsed her – including Planned Parenthood of Illinois (the first time that group has ever bothered to get involved in a county board campaign).

The group cites the fact that they long supported her as an alderman and that she was a backer of the Bubble Zone Ordinance – the measure that prevents anyone from getting within eight feet of a woman trying to enter a clinic where abortions are offered.

SHE ALSO GOT the support of Democratic organizations in Chicago’s 49th Ward (the far north side), along with Evanston, Northfield and New Trier townships (the far northern suburbs of Cook County), and with Citizen Action/Illiinois – a good government type group.

In short, it looks (http://www.tonipreckwinkle.org/page/22) like the same kind of white people who had no problem voting for Obama for president are the ones most inclined to prefer Preckwinkle for county board president.

Which makes me wonder if we ought to quit paying much attention to O’Brien, who was only being taken seriously on the mistaken grounds that white people would mass around his campaign.

-30-

Will it matter that Quinn is now the officially preferred gubernatorial candidate of the Cook County Democratic Party?

There’s only one statement I can positively make. The attention span of Chicagoans on Friday was focused on a Springfield. Of course, I suspect more cared about the Massachusetts version of the city rather than the central Illinois version.

I’m realistic enough to know that more people were probably intrigued by the hoopla surrounding the Basketball Hall of Fame – which on Friday officially recognized Chicago Bulls immortal Michael Jordan as one of the all-time athletic greats – than they gave any consideration about who should become this state’s next governor.

BUT THE POWERS-that-be of the Cook County Democratic Organization held their slating sessions in recent days, and on Friday made the announcement that they are backing Pat Quinn’s campaign for election to his own full term, instead of picking the son of longtime Chicago politico Tom Hynes – who also wants to run for that office.

There is a part of me that finds such action ironic.

For these slating sessions are the 21st Century version of the old “smoke-filled rooms” of party hacks who would decide among themselves who the candidates should be that “the people” will elect to government office in upcoming elections.

Pat Quinn has always tried to be the ultimate good government type – the “goo goo” who rails against the indecency of having Democratic Party hacks having any say in terms of who gets to run in a primary election.

YET HE SURE didn’t do anything to reject such slating. It will enhance the political rhetoric when Republican opponents try to label Quinn as just another Chicago political hack.

Of course, the modern-day GOP always tries to label any Democrat in this state as a Chicago political hack – even if they have no connection to Chicago. So Quinn might as well take the ceremonial rhetoric that comes along with being the officially slated candidate for governor in the Feb. 2, 2010 primary.

The real question is whether people will care about who gets slated for governor.

Could this be an election where all those Democrats who throughout the years were dumped on by Quinn and his good government antics will be willing to openly ignore the decision of the Cook County Democratic organization and vote for Dan Hynes – who in many ways fits the image of what a 21st Century Chicago Democrat is about.

BECAUSE THE REALITY is that the only people who care about who gets slated by the party for political office are the party regulars – the ones who are in government because it is their employer or they support some interest group.

How many local Democratic voters with ties to the labor unions that have endorsed Hynes will decide that their union, and not their party, got it right in the pick for governor?

The ones who are “into” politics because of ideology aren’t going to care who gets slated. If anything, they may be the ones who will wonder if this means that Pat Quinn has now “sold out” his soul in order to get himself elected to his own four-year term as governor come the November 2010 general election.

There was a part of me that thought the Democratic organization types who gathered at the hotel Chicago insiders will always think of as the Bismarck Hotel would decide to slate no one.

TAKE NO STAND.

It may sound cowardly to some, but it is a way of saying that the party faithful are so split that no one should be able to go through a campaign season calling themselves the officially preferred choice of the Democratic Party.

That is what the Cook County Dems did for lieutenant governor and for county board President. Despite the pleas of Todd Stroger that his incumbency status warranted some special consideration, the party is doing nothing – thereby leaving him on an equal playing field with the other four candidates who wish to replace him at the head of county government.

But when one thinks about it rationally, I can understand why Quinn got the slating.

HE IS THE incumbent. After going through a 26-year time period in Illinois with Republicans as governor of the state, I’m sure one of the last things that Democrats here want is to lose this office to a candidate of the GOP.

I’m sure there is a part of the Democratic Party that would like it if Hynes were to back down so that more attention could be spent focusing on keeping the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in the hands of a Democratic candidate.

There is the fact that the older party types can remember 1976, when incumbent Gov. Dan Walker was dumped in a primary fight led by Chicago politicos who were disgusted by him. The winner of that primary – Michael Howlett – wound up so weak that he lost to James R. Thompson (the man who began that 26-year GOP streak).

It ultimately is because of this factor that Lisa Madigan backed away from her preferred goal of running for governor and decided to try to keep her current post of state attorney general – why run for governor if there’s no chance you get slated and your candidacy gets viewed in some segments of Illinois political society as a spoiler.

NOW, IT IS Hynes who has the potential to fulfill that role. And it is Quinn who gets to fill a niche I’m sure he never would have envisioned for himself eight years ago – the officially slated choice for governor by the Cook County Democrats.

What next; Michael Jordan returns to the NBA? Then again, the idea of Quinn as an establishment Democrat is about as absurd as that stint Jordan did with the Washington Wizards.

-30-

Democrat “youth movement” to counter likely Blagojevich rants from GOP?

It strikes me as humorous that Lisa Madigan could wind up being the “old girl” among the Democrats wishing to run for statewide office in the 2010 elections.

Madigan is 44, and part of the reason she has promising political prospects is because of her age – she’s young enough that she doesn’t have to push for something next year. She has time to run for higher office in future elections.

SO SHE CAN get away with running for another term as state attorney general.

But when one considers the chance that she could soon be outranked by officials who are only 41 and 33, I can’t help but wonder if Madigan risks becoming the “past” of the Democratic party without ever having been its “present.”

For one of the people who has decided he is going to seek the post that it is believed Madigan really wanted to run for (and may very well seek in some future election) is Dan Hynes.

The three-term Illinois comptroller has decided he doesn’t want that office anymore. He wants to be governor, and he is willing to do what Madigan did not – he is willing to challenge incumbent Pat Quinn in a primary election.

ON THE SURFACE, Hynes (the 41-year-old who won his first election to a statewide office when he was 30) has one significant advantage over Quinn – money.

While there is evidence that Quinn’s past problems with raising campaign contributions will not be quite so severe this time around (he has the benefit of incumbency for governor, so some people will give him money just to hedge their bets), Hynes is doing well when it comes to putting together a campaign fund.

Recent disclosure reports indicated Hynes had about $3.5 million on hand, compared to just over $700,000 for Quinn.

So Hynes has the chance to put together a professional campaign operation that could quash Quinn early on and make it difficult for the incumbent governor to compete with the family advantages Hynes has always held (his father is the former Cook County assessor and Illinois Senate president).

BUT I CAN’T help but remember 2004 when Hynes decided it was time for him to move up to be a U.S. senator. The early predictions by political pundits all figured Hynes had the advantages of family that would help him get the money necessary to run a competitive campaign.

It didn’t happen.

That was the primary where business executive Blair Hull wanted to become a politician and thought he could spend his own money to do so. For awhile, it looked like it would work – until we heard the allegations about the way in which Hull treated his ex-wife (look it up, if you want to know what he actually did to her).

Hynes turned out to be such a lackluster campaigner (in part because of his youthful age) that he was unable to take advantage of the Hull collapse. Hence, it wound up being fringe candidate Barack Obama who wound up winning that primary – beginning his trek to national fame and the White House four years later.

HAS AGE AND maturity taught Hynes anything that he can get his act together for what will be an ugly primary against Quinn (who isn’t just going to lie back and surrender)? We will have to see in coming months.

That is not quite the case for Alexi Giannoulias. He is only 33, but has decided that one term as Illinois treasurer is enough. He wants to be the U.S. senator from Illinois.

Even though Obama has made it clear he does not plan to actively campaign for anyone running in Illinois next year, Giannoulias is betting on the fact that he can claim to be Obama’s basketball buddy (when both were at the University of Chicago). He wants the Obama aura to rub off on him and take him to the upper chamber of Capitol Hill.

He’s already going so far as to denounce possible Republican opponent Mark Kirk as being part of the “old guard” of Washington politics. Heck, Kirk, the Congressman from the North Shore suburbs, is only 49.

THERE ARE SOME who would think he is part of the younger generation that could offer change to politics, instead of being a GOP party hack.

But I can’t help but wonder if this is the strategy for the Democrats, who know that every single Republican running anywhere in Illinois is going to keep bringing up the name “Blagojevich” every single chance they get.

Guilt by association. Hope that the mood of the state against Milorod remains so negative that people will vote for anyone BUT a Democrat when it comes time to cast a ballot in the general election to be held next November.

But if the Democrats come up with a ticket of kids so youthful that they can’t claim much of a tie to Blagojevich (in short, if Lisa Madigan literally becomes the Grande Old Dame of Democratic Party politics), it could be a strategy that could help neuter some of the nasty rhetoric we’re bound to hear next year.

AND BEFORE YOU start flooding my e-mail with messages telling me I’m forgetting about Jesse White, who at age 75 is running for re-election as Illinois secretary of state, I didn’t.

It’s just that White has taken on such a “nice guy” persona within Illinois government that he may be the one guy who doesn’t get burdened with much of the ridiculous political rhetoric that other Democrats will face.

After all, the man once played baseball in the Chicago Cubs organization. That has to be enough suffering and agony for any one human being.

-30-

Blagojevich Dems? Don’t make me laugh

This has been battering about in my mind since Monday night, when I heard long-time WBBM-TV political reporter Mike Flannery end his report about the beginning of impeachment proceedings with the phrase “Blagojevich Democrats.”

Flannery’s point was to tell us viewers how Republicans were planning to use Blagojevich’s political plight to try to taint all Democrats with regard to future elections.

THEY’RE GOING TO claim that the governor is the prototypical Democrat. If they can imply that all Democrats probably have done something in their careers that would be worthy of indictment (if only the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago had time to investigate all of them), perhaps they think they can win back some significant control within state government in the 2010 elections.

To go bilingual for a moment, the concept of Democrats as clones of Rod Blagojevich is caca.

The thing that is most absurd whenever Republicans (or anyone from outside of Chicago) tries to talk about Chicago’s political culture is that they can’t seem to comprehend the degree to which it is a batch of differing factions that can’t stand each other, but tolerate each other to try to advance their political interests. This turn-of-the-century postcard of the Illinois Statehouse may accurately depict the current attitude toward Rod Blagojevich.

That is why many Democrats are going to be the ones who most vehemently go after Blagojevich. It is a chance to take down someone they never liked much to begin with, and it means one less person they have to deal with in terms of trying to amass political influence. It is why the notion that Barack Obama himself is not tainted by Blagojevich's alleged actions is a very real possibility.

IT IS ALSO why the notion of a “Blagojevich Democrat” is ridiculous.

About the only person who truly falls into that category is retiring Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago. It was his control of the state Senate and his willingness to squash punitive measures designed by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, that helped keep some of the gubernatorial hostility in check.

Yet what is the point of deriving labels with which to lambast Jones? He is retiring from the Legislature following a 36-year career representing South Side interests at the Statehouse, and it would appear that any chance Blagojevich would appoint him to the U.S. Senate seat so as to maintain an ally in high political places has fizzled out.

Does anybody seriously think that Madigan is a “Blagojevich Democrat?”

THIS IS THE man whose opposition to the governor’s ways has been steadfast enough that the Legislature has gone into ridiculous overtime sessions the past two years. The reason there has been so much conflict in Illinois government that has prevented things from getting done is because many Democrats have been willing to say “no” to the governor – even though he is the first Illinois governor of their political party since the mid-1970s.

Madigan himself tries to take this point to an extreme, saying during a Monday night interview with WTTW-TV that Republicans led by Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, were, “the biggest enablers of Blagojevich over the last two years.”

He argues that Republicans, in an attempt to gain some influence against Democratic majorities in both the Illinois House and state Senate, sided with the governor on select issues – even though now, Cross is among Blagojevich’s most verbal critics.

But Madigan is such the opposite of a “Blagojevich Democrat” that he literally refuses to attend meetings with the governor to discuss state government business (instead, forcing House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, to attend in his place).

DOES ANYBODY BELIEVE that Mayor Richard M. Daley is a “Blagojevich Democrat?”

If anything, Blagojevich as governor has always been something of a rival to Daley for political control. Watching Blagojevich squirm has to be a boost for Daley and the City Hall crew – even if just for the reason that every moment spent by the FBI investigating the governor is one less moment spent paying attention to Chicago city government proper.

In fact, just who are these “Blagojevich Democrats?” I honestly can’t think of any. The Blagojevich era has reached its level of rancor because the man has managed to make political enemies on virtually all flanks (even though every Democrat in Chicago has his share of political enemies among his so-called colleagues).

Keep in mind that Chicago Tribune-commissioned poll people like to cite – the one that says Blagojevich only has a 13 percent approval rating (which may have dropped to 8 percent once details of last week’s criminal complaint became public knowledge).

THERE IS NO way that the governor could truly reach a level that low if there were any sizable number of “Blagojevich Democrats” in existence. Republicans in Illinois just don’t have the influence all by themselves to create an 87 percent majority of the public who do NOT approve of the governor’s performance on the job.

What this phrase amounts to is nothing more than cheap rhetoric meant to try to bolster the chances that a Republican or two can actually win a statewide office in the 2010 elections. Could it really be evidence of just how weak the pool of prospective candidates for those elections will be?

Remember that two-time statewide loser Joe Birkett (the DuPage County state’s attorney) is likely to be at the top of the GOP ticket. This is a party that needs a blow of historic proportions to hit the Democratic Party for them to have a chance to regain anything.

“Blagojevich Democrats” is nothing more than cheap rhetoric. I’d like to think Chicago and/or Illinois voters will have enough sense to see it for what little it is when it comes up in campaign speeches and television spots in upcoming months.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Democrats in Chicago have never learned to “play nice” with each other (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/is-city-halls-political-culture-to.html). That is what makes the idea of “Blagojevich Democrats” absurd. Where were these “Blagojevich Democrats” when the Legislature was stuck in a stalemate over the issue of (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/statehouse-could-pass-for-ricks-cafe.html) mass transit funding?