Ill. '18 gubernatorial dreamer pool starting to winnow itself down to size

Cheri Bustos, the member of Congress from the Illinois part of the Quad Cities, has let it be known she is not going to be a candidate for governor come next year’s election cycle.
 

BUSTOS: Out, w/o ever being in

An announcement, I’m sure, that elicited a whole lot of yawns from political geeks, particularly those from the Chicago area, who probably figured that a Bustos candidacy wouldn’t have had a chance of succeeding anyway.

THEN AGAIN, I’M figuring there are probably many people who live in the other third of Illinois (a.k.a., downstate) who are thinking it equally ridiculous that 47^th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar has delusions of someday being allowed to live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield.

PAWAR: Can he gain political traction?

Yet Pawar was the first person to declare himself an actual candidate – a status that Bustos never made it to. Even though there were some who figured that she had a chance to gain some votes just because she would have been the only significant candidate for governor from outside of the Chicago metro area.

Except that I think the kind of people who are inclined to want to vote in elections for someone from outside of Chicago are exactly the kind of people who will unite in 2018 behind Bruce Rauner’s re-election dreams.

Because his “Dump Madigan” strategy is really one that will only appeal to non-Chicago people. Those of us more urban voters will see the strategy for the nonsense that it is – because we know our local political officials aren’t nearly as united behind anybody, particularly the Illinois House speaker, as they want to believe.

Are we really destined for a Kennedy ...

IF IT TURNS out that Rauner dominates the rural Illinois vote, there might not be enough non-Chicago voters left for any other campaign to gain significant political support from.

The real significance of Bustos’ announcement that she prefers to run for another term in Congress is that the gubernatorial field is starting to shrink – even though we have just over a year before any votes are cast in that particular primary election.

Although it may still be a few months before the candidate field winnows down to where we can say who is actually running. And I still won’t be surprised if there’s at least one person who winds up running a serious campaign whose name hasn’t emerged yet.

... vs. Pritzker brawl to see who wins ...

I know some political observers are determined to view this upcoming election cycle as the Chris Kennedy vs. J.B. Pritzker primary. Although I’m pretty sure there are others of the Democratic persuasion who would wretch at the very thought.

THE IDEA OF the politically-top heavy family taking on the family with enough cash that they could afford to match the millions of his own money that Rauner says he will spend to try to get himself re-elected ALONG WITH a Legislature more to his liking than the incumbents.

They may think that a Democratic version of Rauner (ie., a rich guy) is the last thing the party needs, just like some Dems are going to forevermore be convinced that we’d be spared the thought of a “President Donald J. Trump” if only voters last year had dumped Hillary Clinton and gone with Bernie Sanders instead.

But then again, I wonder how many people aren’t going to be enthused about the notion of Illinois getting its very own Kennedy. The family has had members run for political posts in so many states, but our own local Kennedy tales focus on how Chicago supposedly “won” the 1960 presidential election for Chris’ “Uncle Jack.”

I don’t doubt that many voters will be desperately scouring all the other names in search of somebody, anybody, else whose candidacy they can latch onto in their desire to beat Bruce Rauner.

... the right to challenge Rauner come Nov. '18?

BECAUSE THEY FIGURE the absolute last thing Illinois needs is to have eight years without a budget. Yes, political people really are capable of being that stubborn, unless voters themselves take matters into their own hands at the ballot box.

I really do believe that Rauner is vulnerable because of the inability of state government to operate the way it’s supposed to. While some will be willing to blame Madigan, this is still an urban-leaning state politically.

But the inability to pick a credible candidate to challenge Rauner is most definitely why no one should write off his chances of getting “four more years” and giving us voters more partisan agonies to endure.

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

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

A Kennedy joining the gubernatorial rat-race

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

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

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

·        Amaya Pawar, a Chicago alderman,

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

Will people feel the same way about his son?

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

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

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

Will Caroline draw more attention to her candidacy

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

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

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There’s no accounting for taste; why would people pay for political time?

I spend a lot of my work time associating with political-type people, what with trying to learn more about their ways so I can write more intelligently about them.

It doesn’t mean I necessarily want to associate with them on my free time. Which is why I find it confounding to think that certain people are willing to pay significant sums of their own money in order to be with them.

PERSONALLY, I’D JUST as soon keep my cash, or try to find some worthy charitable cause to donate to, rather than give it to a political person’s campaign fund.

Because that is what ultimately becomes of the money spent in ways such as reported on recently by the Washington Post. It seems that when singer Taylor Swift appears in concert in Washington in July, there are going to be several members of Congress in attendance.

Including Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., of our very own state’s delegation. Although she’s not a Chicago-area type, she’s from the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River.

What caught the Post’s attention, and later the Chicago Sun-Times’, is that those members of Congress have blocks of tickets that they’re selling to people who want to go to the concert with them.

I’M SURE CHERI Bustos is a nice person. But I can’t say that the idea of spending an evening with her at a concert with anyone is my idea of a thrilling experience.

Especially since the going rate seems to be $2,500 per ticket. That’s a lot of cash. There has to be more practical things the money could be used on.

Although the Post points out that Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, is offering tickets for $1,500 each, or $2,500 for a pair so you can bring a friend who can forevermore testify to the fact that you spent the night with Stivers while listening to Swift sing!

The very thought gives me some mental shivers. It’s not my idea of a good time. I just don’t comprehend the idea that we’re supposed to spend a lot of money so we can have a pretend personal experience with one of these political people.

WOULD THESE ELECTED officials even give us a second glance if we weren’t opening up our checkbooks (or offering up our credit card numbers) to make a donation to the funds that will pay for their re-election bids in the future?

I suppose they would if it were actually Election Day and they saw us within proximity of a polling place where we could go to actually cast a ballot on their behalf!

Otherwise, all of this just comes across to me as a phony attempt to create an experience.

If I were going to a Taylor Swift concert (and let it be known that I have never had any desire to do so), I think I’d rather go with people whom I really know and for whom a shared experience would mean something.

I JUST DON’T get the appeal of this event. It almost comes across as a bit too creepy, which is sort of how I remember a Chicago White Sox game I once attended more than a decade ago.

It was a mid-week day game on a day I had off from work, and I wound up discovering a large gathering of political people who had the same thought as I did. They were sitting one section away from me.

I still remember the site of a legislative chief of staff in a concessions stand line waiting to buy a round of beers for the group, and former Illinois Senate President Phil Rock wandering around the stands in mid-game. Then at game’s end while waiting in a restroom line to relieve myself, I happened to look up and see that I was sharing that experience with none other than the high-and-mighty powerful Speaker of the Illinois House himself.

If nothing else, I’d pay good money if I could forget that image!

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Will Election ’16 give us the “Battle of the War Stories” for U.S. Senate?

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., wants another term in the U.S. Senate. Whether he’s vulnerable to electoral defeat remains to be seen.

Yes, I’ll admit it is scary to be discussing this campaign now – considering there’s a year-and-10-months remaining until the November 2016 elections that will decide whether Republicans can keep the U.S. Senate seat that has flopped back and forth between the major political parties in recent years.

FROM CAROL MOSELEY Braun to Peter Fitzgerald to Barack Obama (with a combination of Roland Burris and Kirk completing the Obama term when he became president); is this seat bound to flop back to Dems?

The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper that focuses on Congress, wants to believe so.

They put together a list of 10 senators they believe are most vulnerable to being defeated in the 2016 elections. Kirk is Numero Uno on that list.

Kirk, even when he was in the House of Representatives representing the North Shore suburbs, was not amongst the hard-core conservative ideologues, and that is a fact that has those people less-than-enthused about six more years for the suburban Highland Park resident in Washington.

ALTHOUGH ANYBODY WHO thinks that will result in Kirk making up for lost ideologue votes by getting support from some Democrats who can back his stances on environmental issues and gay marriage ought to think back to 2002.

That was when incumbent Gov. George Ryan had supposedly taken a series of stances on social issues that offended his alleged Republican ideologue allies.

But Democrats were so eager to elect “one of their own” that there was no talk of crossover political support. Which is how we got the concept of six years of Rod Blagojevich as governor!

I can easily see the Democratic party people, including the party hacks, all eager to show that any Republican electoral success back in November was a mere fluke, and that the presence of Bruce Rauner ought not to be regarded as any kind of trend in Illinois.

I DID NOTE that The Hill tapped four potential challengers to Kirk; including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and representatives Tammy Duckworth, Cheri Bustos and Bill Foster.

I was thankful that they didn’t include the name “Pat Quinn” in their list – as some people are trying to believe that Quinn is concocting schemes to get himself elected to another political post following his gubernatorial defeat.

Particularly at his age (early 60s), Quinn has likely lost any momentum he ever had to win a statewide election. He’s back to the guy of the 1990s who ran unsuccessfully for Illinois secretary of state, lieutenant governor and the U.S. Senate – and whose electoral bids were treated as an excuse for laughter.

But I’m not writing off Kirk at this point – particularly because it’s so early in the electoral process that I feel appalled at myself for even contemplating this issue now. So much can change between now and November of 2016 that nobody’s going to remember that Kirk was ever considered vulnerable.

ALTHOUGH I HAVEN’T forgotten the fact that Kirk didn’t take a majority of the vote (only 48 percent) when he won in 2010. It was only the presence of Green and Libertarian party candidates on the ballot that kept Democratic challenger Alexi Giannoulias (remember him?) from prevailing.

Of the challengers, I find the idea of Duckworth to be the most intriguing. The woman has a significant record of military service that certainly would match up with the record Kirk claims (he served in the Naval Reserve for many years, and it was only the stroke he suffered in 2012 that ultimately caused him to retire his rank of Commander a year later).

Could it become the “War story” campaign of 2016 – with the two trying to show who was the bigger “war hero?” Which could make for some of the most outrageous rhetoric of Election ’16!

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