Revisiting Junior

It was toward the end of last week that I felt compelled to publish a commentary here saying that I didn’t care what Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s political predicaments were – I was unimpressed enough with the field of opposing candidates to think that any of them could amount to anything come Nov. 6.

JACKSON: Still likely a winner?

So naturally, the very next day reports started coming out of Washington about an FBI investigation that has nothing to do with any of the allegations that the Jackson critics have been spouting off about in recent months.

BUT IT IS “suspicious activity” (as described by the Chicago Sun-Times) relating to the Jackson congressional finances and the way he spends his money.

Enhancing the nasty spin of this was a report by NBC News last week that contends attorneys for Jackson actually met with federal prosecutors in Washington to urge them to hold off on any indictment of the Congressman until after Election Day.

That really has the critics going to the point where we have to wonder if it can actually snowball into something of significance – even though we really don’t know much in the way of specifics about what it was that Jackson is supposed to have done that a federal prosecutor would want to file criminal charges against him.

WOODWORTH: Following in Flanagan's footsteps?

All it takes is the word “indictment” and people will screech and scream.

BUT I STILL remain convinced that the motley crew of opponents to the Jackson campaign this year will be incapable of taking advantage of the situation.

When the most intriguing personality of the batch is the guy who couldn’t even get on a ballot and is going via the write-in route, it makes me wonder if the Jackson critics will be more upset about Jackson’s alleged activities, or the fact that the Republican political structure around here is so weak that it couldn’t come up with a real nominee.



Brian Woodworth, who gave up his professorial post to campaign against Jackson, is just too low-key to command attention.

WILLIAMS: Attempt Number 6?



And the Rev. Anthony Williams will be entertaining to listen to. But I don’t think his write-in bid this year will be any more successful than the bids he ran against Jackson in past years as a Republican, a Green Party member, a Libertarian, an independent and even once as a Democrat.

I SUSPECT THERE are those people who are thinking back to 1994 when an indicted Dan Rostenkowski tried to get himself re-elected to another term in Congress.

Ultimately, Rostenkowski admitted that the indictment just placed too much of an obstacle in front of him – enabling the political no-name Michael P. Flanagan to actually win that election cycle (only to lose to Rod Blagojevich come the 1996 cycle).

Is Brian Woodworth the next Mike Flanagan?

I just don’t see it, particularly since there were other circumstances that made that ’94 election cycle one likely to favor Republican candidates (and create the first GOP congressman from Chicago since the late 1960s).

BY COMPARISON, THIS year’s election cycle is shaping up in ways that Barack Obama will continue to be a strong influence in Illinois – we love him here in ways that the rest of the nation does not, particularly when you get into the Chicago area.

Which works to his advantage.

I have amongst my collection of campaign trinkets throughout the years a mailing that Jackson sent to people in the Illinois Second Congressional district back in 2004 – one advising him of his support for this “Obama” guy for the U.S. Senate.

Jackson support helped Obama emerge from the pack of candidates to win that cycle.

FLANAGAN: Chicago's last GOP congressman



This year, Obama returns the political favor by stirring up enough district voters to ensure that the Kankakee County part of the district will not generate enough votes to oppose Jr.

WHICH IS WHY I still see a Jackson victory – no matter how much anyone wants to believe that these latest reports are the political “kiss of death” for the son of the civil rights leader.

I suspect many people in the Illinois Second Congressional District will cast their ballots for “Democrat,” thereby placing their faith in the party structure to pick a congressional replacement should circumstances wind up that Jackson does have to depart.

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Jesse, Jr., coming back. Or is he?

Some political observers are getting all worked up over the situation affecting Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., who may well go through the campaign cycle without making a single appearance.

JACKSON: Should he stay, or go?



His aides say he “sounds fine” when they talk to him via telephone from Chicago to his house in the District of Columbia – where he has been staying since his release from the Mayo Clinic.

BUT WE DON’T really know anything firsthand – as in any observations we could make for ourselves or any words from his own mouth.

It has some people claiming he ought to resign. It has others saying we ought to give serious thought to voting for any of the three people wishing to challenge him in the Nov. 6 elections (although one of those people is not actually on the ballot – fans of the Rev. Anthony Williams will have to write him in).

We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric about how some sort of scam is being pulled on the public – either in the form of putting a member of Congress in place who isn’t capable of serving, OR setting up some sort of bait-and-switch in which the political powers-that-be will replace Jackson AFTER Election Day!

Anything is possible in the political world.

BUT I HAVE to confess that my reaction to the rhetoric being spewed is to wonder why people are getting so worked up. They’re going to stress themselves out over something that they really can’t impact.

Perhaps if they had put such effort into the primary election cycle, they might have been able to give some support to Debbie Halvorson – the former member of Congress who wanted to have a political comeback by challenging Jackson.

HALVORSON: We took a pass



She could have been a credible alternative – unlike any of the people now facing Jackson on a general election ballot.

I wonder if we’d be worse off if we had a “Rep. Anthony Williams,” a member of Congress who has run a half-dozen campaigns under every political party viable – and is now a write-in largely because no party really wants much to do with him.

FORMER POLITICAL SCIENCE professor Brian Woodworth of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais may be more out-of-touch with the Far South Side that comprises the bulk of the Illinois Second Congressional District as the people who live down around Kankakee will claim that Jackson is with their home area.

And as for Marcus Lewis, a political independent? I wonder if he might be the only one worth taking seriously. He works for the U.S. Postal Service – which means he may have a clue on what a bungled bureaucratic mess our federal government is capable of being.

I can’t say that I think any of these people (even the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday couldn’t bring itself to endorse any of them) warrants a vote over Jackson – which may well be a matter of voting to let the Democratic Party organizations in Cook, Will and Kankakee counties decide who should represent the district in Congress until said date that a special election can be held.

A financial waste such an election would be, particularly since the congressional term is only two years. Come 2014, we’ll be picking yet again.

I’M NOT TRYING to be a Jackson apologist. I wish I had a better handle on what his condition truly is, and if he himself is capable of serving his own term.

JACKSON: The next Stroger, if not careful

I’d hope that the Jackson camp (which is rumored to be considering putting his wife, Sandi – the 7^th Ward alderman – in the post if Jesse, Jr., really steps down) recalls how badly such a maneuver backfired when Todd Stroger ascended to replace father John as president of the Cook County Board. Does Sandi want to be thought of as lowly as many of us regard Todd these days?

But I also keep in mind that much of the rhetoric we’re hearing being spewed these days is coming from people with their own partisan agendas. Remember early on the speculation that all this talk of Jackson being ill was really just a cover for him undergoing treatment for alcoholism or some sort of drug addiction – if not both?

The man who was diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar disorder may still be the target of a lot of political trash talk. Giving in to such trash winds up degrading us all.

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If Jackson was this open from beginning, it would have been non-issue

By pure chance, I encountered Brian Woodworth Friday morning.

WOODWORTH: Was he gaining traction?

For those of you who are scratching your heads and pondering “Who????,” he’s the guy who managed to win the Republican nomination back in March for the right to be the token challenger to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill.

I ASKED THE token question I usually ask a fringe candidate for elective office – “How’s the fundraising going?” Basically, I try to sense if ANYONE has been willing to give a dime of their cash to his political effort.

By his own admission, his fundraising was negligible until the whole fiasco arose concerning Jackson’s health and speculation about whether he was physically capable of serving any longer.

Woodworth seems to think this move gives his campaign new credibility, saying, “A lot of people were skeptical about the chances of any Republican until certain circumstances popped up,” he said, leaving those circumstances unnamed because we all know he was speaking of Jackson’s “mood disorder.”

Personally, I’d be inclined to think of Woodworth’s rhetoric as just cheap political talk. The kind of answers that one would expect a candidate to give to a reporter-type person.

EXCEPT THAT WHEN I learned that Jackson’s people were suddenly being more forthcoming with information about what ails him, it couldn’t help but make me think that maybe Woodworth was on to something.

Could it be that Jackson hopes a bit of honesty with the people of his South Side and surrounding suburban congressional district will be what overcomes the skepticism some people are developing about his physical fitness.

JACKSON: Finally, some detail

For what it is worth, the Chicago Sun-Times Friday afternoon reported that Jackson was transferred on Wednesday to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and that his wife, 7^th Ward Alderman Sandi Jackson was with him at the time.

No wonder she wasn’t present at the City Council meeting held that morning.

ADMISSION TO THAT clinic carries quite a bit more weight than the “unnamed clinic somewhere in Arizona” story that the Jackson camp had been trying to push for the past few weeks.

Later on Friday, the Associated Press moved one of their news blurbs that said doctors at the clinic said they were evaluating Jackson for depression, and the Chicago Tribune added gastrointestinal issues to the mix.

Could we really be getting this kind of detail now because on some level, Woodworth (who is like many other token political candidates in that he’s never held electoral office) was threatening to gain some traction.

Give out a dose of information now, and perhaps the Jackson people can said the attorney and professor at Olivet Nazarene University (the school known by most Chicagoans only because the Chicago Bears use the athletic facilities for their pre-season training camp) withers back into the anonymity.

I’M SURE BOTH Woodworth and Jackson would disagree with this characterization. He probably thinks he has some staying power, while Jackson probably wants to think he’s politically invincible, particularly after his solid defeat in March of Debbie Halvorson in the Democratic primary.

Then again, perhaps the thought that he could actually get beat in an election even though he has a congressional district drawn to order so that his South Side neighborhoods overwhelm the desires of the Will and Kankakee county residents at its far southern tip, perhaps that is what made Jackson depressed in the first place.

Now I don’t mean to demean the seriousness of Jackson’s physical or emotional health. He is in a stressful position, and I’m sure there are times when the hassles are hard to cope with. It just makes me wonder how less stressful this situation could have been for him in recent weeks if his camp had just come forth with some details up front.

Yes, the kind of people who want to believe that all this talk about depression is just cover for alcoholism would still have found something to obsess about. Yet it would have been so much easier to dismiss them as irrational if Jackson had been open.

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