Who will prevail March 20, Nov. 6? How long ‘til we speculate about ’19?

We’re now in the new year, and the election cycles that seem to have been ongoing forever have actually now begun.

Will it be Rauner who fades into obscurity ...

Yet as far as who’s going to prevail come the March 20 primary, along with the general election come Nov. 6? That’s a crapshoot. I’m sure everybody amongst the occupants of political geekdom is convinced their side will prevail.

BECAUSE HOW COULD anybody with any common sense possibly side with the opposition? Are they mad!!!

... or will Pritzker wind up ultimate '18 failure

There are those who are convinced that the public’s regard for Donald Trump is so low that they will cast their ballots in ways meant to take out their hostility for the president on anybody perceived to be his ally.

Then again, the people who were inclined to support Trump back when he won the presidency in 2016 are most likely enjoying the fact that the people who oppose Trump are so infuriated by his presence. That thought may motivate them to turn out in great numbers to vote so as to ensure the Trump critics don’t make any political gains.

For the record, the Gallup Organization had Trump at a 40 percent approval rating as of Sunday – which is fairly stable for him. A solid majority of our society (or at least those who were actually contacted by Gallup) does not think much of this Age of Trump in which our society is now engaged.

Trump enjoys thought '18 will be all about him

WHICH MAY BE why Gov. Bruce Rauner is engaged in a battle royale for his own political fate – he desperately wants to distance himself from Trump’s most nonsensical acts.

Yet the fact that he won’t develop a tight bond with the president is considered one of the reasons why the conservative element of Illinois’ population is speaking out against him, and why the Republican primary campaign of Jeanne Ives isn’t being totally dismissed.

Could Rauner wind up being the equivalent of Dan Walker – that 1970’s era governor who in 1976 couldn’t even win his party’s nomination for re-election? Yes, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley despised Walker to the point where he backed -then Secretary of State Michael J. Howlett against him.

One lesson to Republican partisans who are inclined to back Ives/dump Rauner (however they choose to view it); the split amongst Democrats that year resulted in James R. Thompson winning the general election – and was the beginning of a 26-year run of Republican governors.

Will Rauner be compared to '76 Walker?

WHICH MEANS THE GOP may be wary of provoking a similar streak against themselves and may wind up holding their noses in voting for Bruce.

What actually makes me not totally disregard the chances of a second term of “Gov. Rauner” is the fact that I question the Democratic candidates. Thus far, it seems J.B, Pritzker of the incredibly-wealthy and politically-connected Pritzker family is the favorite to win the nomination come March.

But I don’t get any sense that his candidacy is beloved by anybody. It seems more a matter of people accepting the inevitability of a Pritzker win, rather than thinking he has any ideas that capture their fancy.

This could really wind up being the year that two self-funding billionaires blow their family fortunes to win election to a post that pays a salary of just over $177,000 – along with access to a mansion in Springfield that (by all accounts) is in serious need of repair.

IT MAY WIND up being that whichever candidate winds up taking the oath of office as Illinois governor come January 2019 will be taking on a massive headache, with the financial compensation hardly seeming worth the hassle.

Then again, it’s all about the ego for some people. Perhaps it is rewarding, in and of itself, to be able to walk around calling oneself “governor” and occasionally have commentaries written about speculation that you could someday become president.

Once Rauner/Pritzker is history, it'll be all about Rahm

Then again, it’s not like Trump ever went through the hassle of running for a government post to gain experience for a presidential run – and an experience that likely has three years remaining.

2018 has arrived, and about the only thing we can say for certain is that a year from now, either Pritzker or Rauner will be history. That, and we’ll be asked almost immediately whether we want Rahm Emanuel for a third term as the city’s “Man on Five.”

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Will ideologues ruin Preckwinkle reputation the way they did Ogilvie?

Presuming that Cook County Commissioner John Daley and three others who indicated last week they changed their minds about the pop tax keep to their word, it would seem the tax meant to ensure the county can cover its financial obligations for health care services and other expenses will wither away.

If signs like this really stirred up anti-pop tax attitudes, will their hostility carry over to hurt Toni Preckwinkle come 2018 Election Day? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

It creates the potential vote by the Cook County Board later this week of 12-5 (or maybe 13-4) in favor of an ordinance to rescind the penny-per-ounce on pop and other sweetened beverages. Which county board President Toni Preckwinkle will veto – but is a strong-enough vote to over-ride her – if it holds fast.

NOW SOME PEOPLE are not considering this sufficient suffering for Preckwinkle. They’re determined to stir up resentment at the polling place – getting enough people to vote against her re-election bid next year because she had the nerve to realize that the county has financial obligations that must be met.

PRECKWINKLE: Remains firm on pop tax

People in the real world don’t get to tell bill collectors we don’t have the money so we’re not paying. In reality, we have to come up with the finances to meet our obligations. We need to pay up!

Which is why I have consistently thought (and still believe) that this pop tax that adds about 20 cents to the bottle of Coca-Cola I occasionally buy is something we all have to pay – if we really need to have those carbonated beverages in supply.

It also is why I’m not terribly sympathetic to the lobbying efforts of the American Beverage Association – which represents the pop manufacturers who probably don’t want anyone else managing to get a larger cut of the money paid by people when they feel the need to buy pop.

THEY WANT IT for themselves. Understandably, but not a high-minded cause by any means.

OGILVIE: Insisted Ill. needed income tax

The trick is to see how, in coming months, this issue plays out. Will people really hold a grudge against Preckwinkle – and carry out their revenge on Nov. 6, 2018 by voting ABP?

The one thing that Toni has going in her favor is that as of now, the Anybody But Preckwinkle vote literally has nobody else to pick. People who were contemplating seeking the Democratic nomination for Cook County Board president have decided not to do so. As for the Republicans, their political party may get bogged down in the mass of anti-Trump and anti-Rauner rhetoric to put up a serious challenger.

But there are those people who can manage to get worked up at the “T” word just as much as many ideologue-minded Republicans will get worked up at the “A” word tying the governor to abortion.

Is there a 'Dan Walker' type for county?

I’M SURE THERE are those looking back to the 1972 election cycle – the one in which incumbent Gov. Dick Ogilvie lost to Democrat Dan Walker; in large part because one of the major accomplishments of Ogilvie’s one term in office was that Illinois implemented its original state tax on residents’ incomes.

Ogilvie (himself a former Cook County Board president who used that post as a springboard to the Statehouse Scene) argued that the state’s finances had become so unstable that the tax was necessary. Financial experts will argue that the tax turned out to be essential.

Yet there were enough people who voted against Ogilvie because of that tax that he wound up losing re-election.

Could governmental history repeat itself by stirring up enough people p-o’ed by the thought of paying a few more pennies each time they buy pop (which is expected to add up to a few million dollars to balance out the county budget)?

Daley name still influences our government

OGILVIE WASN’T HELPED by the fact that Dan Walker and his walk across Illinois caught the imagination of many as a viable alternative (although I know many of the same ideologues who still denounce Ogilvie’s income tax view Walker as an even worse choice).

As I already stated, as of yet, there is not really a credible challenger to Preckwinkle – although it’s always possible that there’s somebody currently out there passing about nominating petitions to try to get on the ballot for the March 20 primary.

But could she wind up going into our local political history as the woman who pushed for a tax to ensure that Cook County met its expenses – only to be penalized at the polling place?

In a world that could seriously elect Donald J. Trump as president with only 46 percent voter support, anything is possible.

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EXTRA: Could Hastert make a trio of people convicted post-politically?

Politically-aware people got their shock Thursday when federal prosecutors let it be known that former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert now faces criminal charges.

HASTERT: Not in line for peaceful retirement

If he winds up cutting a plea deal, or going to trial and being found guilty, the “Hastert” name will wind up going on the list many people rattle off of Illinois political officials who ended up with criminal records.

ALTHOUGH IT SHOULD be noted that the indictment, which is written in legalese meant to be even more vague than usual as to what exactly the wrongdoing was, indicates the alleged illegal activity took place AFTER Hastert retired from political office.

It also seems to indicate the actions that inspired the allegedly illegal activity may have took place back before Hastert became a government official. Back in the days when he was a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville – which used to be much more rural in character than the over-glorified Chicago suburb it has become.

Does this mean that Hastert was not a corrupt politician of any type? That he operated honestly in government, but did improper things in his life before and after his public service?

I’m hearing some sleazy stories about what that activity could have been, but I don’t quite trust the people I’m hearing from. I suspect they’re too eager to make this worse than it really is, and are hoping that some reporter-type will be too eager for a salacious story rather than what really happened.

SO ALL I have to go by is the indictment, which says that back in 2010, Hastert met with someone he has known for many years, “discussed past misconduct… that had occurred years earlier,” and then began making payments to the person.

WALKER: Technically NOT a corrupt pol

Hastert faces charges of structuring currency transactions to evade reports, along with making false statements to the FBI, because the indictment says the former speaker deliberately made bank withdrawals of under $10,000 – the amount at which banks are required to inform the government!

Some $952,000 was withdrawn in such a manner, and some $1.7 million was paid by the congressman (it was supposed to be $3.5 million in total), according to investigators. It seems like someone was blackmailing the former House speaker, but we don’t quite know yet what for.

Like I already wrote, it seems this was outside of his government activity. Which makes me think he belongs in a category with people like former Gov. Dan Walker and former 10^th Ward Alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak.

Vrdolyak also prosecuted after his era

VRDOLYAK was long out of the City Council and was reduced to the level of being a political consultant in select suburbs when he was prosecuted and wound up serving a 10-month prison term for supposedly handling real estate transactions and receiving part of the sales price as his fee.

While Walker, who popped back into our public consciousness when he died earlier this month, was prosecuted a decade after he left office. He became a business executive found guilty of bank fraud for trying to cut corners in the way he tried to accumulate personal wealth.

Of course, we think of them as “corrupt” politicians and play up the stories of their legal predicaments because that adds a jolt of “juice” to their tales.

That could become the same for Hastert – who had quite a stint in Congress and was one of only three Illinoisans ever to rise through the ranks to become House speaker back in the days of George W. Bush as president.

SINCE I DOUBT we’d care one bit if an ordinary schmoe were to make payments to try to cover up something that may have happened three or more decades earlier.

How many of us have actions from our younger days that we wish we hadn’t done, and where our initial reaction to being confronted with the past might be to try to cover things up?

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Quinn wants the Latino vote come November. Who will he honor to get it?

I’m starting to wonder if Gov. Pat Quinn is mistaking March for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Searching for voters at the theater?

Either he is, or maybe he’s just that eager to have Latino voters think he’s aware of us to the point that we’ll contemplate giving him our votes come the Nov. 4 election for Illinois governor.

IT WAS JUST over a week ago that Quinn went so far as to declare the day Benito Juarez Day across Illinois. For the one-time president of Mexico who helped ensure that the nation remain an independent entity and U.S. ally – rather than a French colony that would have given aid and comfort to those forces that wanted to split the United States in two back in the mid-19^th Century.

Now, he’s made the declaration that makes Monday officially Cesar Chavez Day across the Land of Lincoln.

We’re not alone. This is actually the anniversary of the birth of the founder of the United Farm Workers labor union. He’d be 87 now, if he hadn’t have died at age 66 back in 1993. Many places with significant Latino populations (particularly in the southwestern U.S.) have made the same declaration.

Although it should be noted that Quinn made his declaration on Friday with a public appearance to add his praise to Chavez – who back in his own time would have had those who wanted to view him as a radical (just like Martin Luther King, Jr.). All because he touted the cause of people the establishment would have preferred to ignore.

BUT WHO NOW are much less venomous in their rhetoric – also just like King. Because they see now how ridiculous their rants were.

Of course, by doing his thing on Friday, Quinn got to get himself a plug on the same day that actor/director Diego Luna’s new film about the life of Chavez came out in movie theaters across the nation. It’s becoming his new tactic, just as he used to be the “Sunday press conference” man to ensure he’d get covered.

Which may mean all the people who felt compelled to see the film when it came out this weekend might be more inclined to think favorably upon the “Mighty Quinn.”

He wants to win

“Cesar Chavez organized the United Farm Workers to fight for fair wages, humane living conditions and basic dignity for some of the most oppressed workers on earth,” Quinn said, while also reminding us of the time he got to meet Chavez back in 1974 – back in the days when he was a low-level staffer in the administration of then-Gov. Dan Walker.

“HIS MESSAGE OF juntos podemos (together, we can) has stayed with me to this day,” said Quinn. Is he trying to be like Barack Obama's 2008 usurping of "Yes, We Can?" Or just different from Republican challenger Bruce Rauner -- whose minority vote strategy seems to be discouraging African-American voters from bothering to vote at all!

It’s not often that a governor is able to use a major motion picture release to try to gain himself some public attention. I don’t even recall him trying to use the Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln” to get himself support.

Then again, that film came out during a presidential election year cycle, and not a gubernatorial one..

Now I suspect that much of the audience for this particular film is going to be an ethnic-inspired crowd. I couldn’t help but notice that the one movie theater near I live that is actually showing the film is making a point of devoting two screens to it – one for showings of the film proper, and another for showings of the film dubbed into Spanish.

I KNOW SOME people are going to think it odd that a film about a Mexican-American (he was born here, and served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War) needs to be dubbed into Spanish, as though it were one of those tacky Japanese films about Godzilla or Mothra.

Will Quinn seek support here too?

But this will be one of those films that will attract a larger-than-usual Latino film-goers crowd just because it will be one of the few films that depicts a Latino as something other than a drug-dealer or maid.

So Quinn trying to reach out to voters by giving days to people of Latin American ethnic origins could be part of the political strategy.

I’m just wondering if he has a list of possible people already prepared. If he turns out to be a big-enough bat for the Chicago White Sox, will we get Jose Abreu Day sometime between Monday’s Opening Day and season’s end?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I haven’t gone to see the Cesar Chavez film yet, just as I will not be at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday. I suspect if I wait a few days, I can catch the film with a smaller crowd on hand. Just as the White Sox will play 80 more home games following the opener for 2014.

When it comes to literary standards, will Milorod be a Walker or a Lewinsky?

Will Rod Blagojevich be the second coming of Dan Walker, or Jane Byrne? Or does he have it in him to become the future literary equivalent of Monica Lewinsky?

All three of those people took a crack at writing a book about their political experiences (just like Blagojevich will do later this year) once their days on the government payroll were over, to varying degrees of success.

WHILE HIS PROSE isn’t the cleanest of copy one will ever read, one-time Illinois governor Walker may have come up with one of the best political memoirs when it comes to one of our local government geeks – just because he was relatively straightforward and didn’t seem concerned with burnishing his image.

In the process, he may have done just that with his autobiography, “The Maverick and the Machine.”

When that book came out a few years ago, much of the public attention went to the passages where Walker detailed his life in a federal prison (having to listen and do nothing while another inmate was raped, being singled out for harassment by a warden determined to punish a “corrupt politician”).

But I found the portions of Walker recounting his days in and around Chicago government (“the machine,” a.k.a., the Chicago Democratic organization) and the amount of hostility he encountered as he tried to push for ideals that went against the business interest of establishment political people to be just as intriguing as any story about Walker and his special “governor’s stick” used to pick up trash around the prison grounds.

WALKER WAS EVEN willing to detail instances where he screwed things up. Self-serving pap, this book is not.

In a sense, former Alderman James Laski wrote a similar book. “My fall from grace,” was written by him during his time in prison, and it almost reads as a textbook into the ways that the City Council operates, putting personal interests ahead of public policy whenever the two conflict.

How little some things change from those days of the late 1960s to the mid-1970s (when Walker reigned) to the 1990s (when Laski was relevant).

It’s just a shame that Laski could never find a real publisher for his book, and had to go with one of those companies that enables people to self-publish books they have written.

THAT HURTS THE ability to distribute copies (although it really doesn’t take many copies sold these days to have a national best seller – 50,000 or so will do) and draw attention to the book.

He may well have produced a book that no one outside of Chicago will have ever heard of, and copies of it now sell in remainder bins for about $5 each (seriously, I saw one on Sunday for that price).

Can Blagojevich reach this level of literacy – writing a book that people with an interest in government will turn to for examples of the way things truly operate?

After listening to Blagojevich tell us about how he was impeached and removed from office by an Illinois General Assembly filled with drunks and adulterers (sadly enough, there are a few members who fit those categories), we might have hope that a book by the former governor would be willing to give up some good details.

IT’S NOT LIKE Blagojevich is bashful (he’s shown us during his national television appearances that he has no shame). If he were willing to sit down and seriously speculate about government operations and the reason they don’t work properly, it could be interesting reading.

In fact, it could turn out to be one of those seminal works that political scientists turn to for years to come. There is the potential for such a book about our local political scenes at City Hall and the Statehouse in Springpatch.

But I don’t know if the guy who used to go around boasting of his love for Elvis and the Chicago Cubs (there’s no accounting for taste) is capable of thinking in such a way. His book could turn out to be more like the tome fronted by former Major League Baseball player Jose Canseco – which told a sordid tale in such a tacky way that Canseco’s image is permanently tainted by the book, even though it appears to be truthful.

But when it comes to political people, I can’t help but wonder if comparison to Jane Byrne is more appropriate.

THE FIRST WOMAN to ever get herself elected as mayor of Chicago wrote “My Chicago,” which attempts to tell the story of the history of our home city and the role in which Byrne plays in that greater story.

That book seemed more about trying to turn Byrne into a historic figure to be remembered for the ages, and wound up being filled with a lot of generic passages of Chicago history that I could have found in many other places.

And the nearly 400-page book devoted only about 75 pages to the four years during which Byrne oversaw city government.

Either she should have devoted the book to her own story and focused intensively on her years (1979-83), or she should have reduced the portion about her mayoral stint significantly.

DOES ANYONE BELIEVE that one-fifth of a book about Chicago history should center around Jane Byrne? Or that only one-fifth of a book about Jane Byrne should focus on her mayoral years?

Will Milorod be capable of putting his own story into context? Or is he going to bloat the significance of himself way out of proportion? You take a guess.

Then, there’s always, “Monica’s Story,” which the one-time intern of the Clinton Administration cooperated with, so as to tell the tale of how a young girl was seduced by the power and influence of a president.

She was fairly graphic in the salacious details that many tacky people wanted to know. And that book did hit the Best-Seller charts – going straight to Number One in its first week.

BUT I REMEMBER that book almost immediately dropping off the charts (everybody who wanted a copy bought it immediately, and interest just declined). The story, on a certain level, was just too stupid to waste much time on. I remember buying my copy of that book about one month after it came out, and I got it in a remaindered book bin ($5.99, if I remember correctly). I can’t think of many other books that dropped to discount so quickly.

Could it be that when Blagojevich publishes his book (which may be released sometime later this year), we’re going to find out that Milorod has a bit of Monica in him – their books will share the same fate?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Could October of this year be notable in Chicago for both the release of a book by Rod Blagojevich (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blagojevich_book_deal03mar03,0,375224.story) AND the failure of the Chicago Cubs for the 64th straight season to make it to a World Series?

From pols to publishers, they all offer differing tales of federal prison life

Some people like to make jokes about “Club Fed” and life in prison as somehow being cushy. I’d like to think that those people are just being ridiculous, and not really so clueless.

But then I read about the conditions that one-time Chicago Sun-Times boss Conrad Black is enduring while serving a 6 ½-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida, and I have to wonder.

THE TORONTO STAR published an account Thursday that noted – among other things – that Black has made arrangements with prison officials so that his cellmate is assigned to work as Black’s butler, cleaner and all-around gofer while in prison.

Who says you can’t find good hired help?

The Star took its information from the British newspapers, which has long been far more interested in “Lord Black of Crossharbour” than we in Chicago ever were. To them, he’s a member of the House of Lords who got “busted.” To us, he’s just the cheap bum who gutted the Sun-Times to the point where it may be impossible for “the Bright One” to recover financially.

Considering that this account in the Chicago Argus is a rewrite of a Toronto Star account that is a rewrite of a story that appeared in the Daily Mail, it is possible that some aspect of truth has been lost in translation.

BUT OTHER TIDBITS about Black’s prison life include that he started his term with a job as a dishwasher, but has since been reassigned to the prison library – where he now has access to newspapers and e-mail.

He even was pictured in the newspaper wearing black t-shirts and gray sweat pants. The British press made a point of saying that such attire was far less dignified than the stylish, tailored suits he used to wear.

But I can’t help but note that they are a step up from the castoff military fatigues that are the standard issue attire of most inmates in facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Is Black getting a cushy prison stint because of his background? I don’t understand why he would, but it would appear that way.

AND THE ANSWER is “no,” I don’t have any evidence of payoffs by Black or his supporters. So don’t ask.

But what catches my attention is that his version of prison life seems so radically different from the politically prominent inmates from Chicago who are serving (or have served) time in federal prison facilities.

It is the same bureaucrats who are running the prisons, so it ought to be the same type of conditions for the inmates.

After all, Black’s old newspaper in Chicago on Thursday published an account giving several former government officials a chance to talk about what their life in prison was like.

FORMER GOV. GEORGE Ryan is now an inmate at the minimum-security work camp that is part of the maximum-security Terre Haute federal correctional center. His prison job these days is so depressing that his family doesn’t want to talk about it, although when he was an inmate at the minimum-security Oxford Correctional Center, his prison job was to work in the exercise room.

One of his duties was literally to wipe inmate sweat off the exercise equipment.

Former Alderman Ambrosio Medrano told the newspaper he literally used to clean toilets, while former Alderman Wallace Davis Jr. had to work in the prison kitchen for a time – which is ironic because he now owns a restaurant that peddles fried catfish.

Not that everybody had gross stories to tell.

THERE WAS ALWAYS the situation of former city Clerk Jim Laski, who says that after starting out working in the kitchen, he was transferred to a special unit where his job involved no actual work.

“It’s like the city jobs you hear about where people show up and do no actual work,” Laski told the Sun-Times. “They have those in prison too.”

Some public degredation is involved, as federal bureaucrats who like to think of themselves as “law and order” types don’t mind giving junk duty to inmates who were once prominent people.

Former Gov. Dan Walker has often told the story of how he suddenly got reassigned by a new warden to a job picking up trash, using a special spear emblazoned with the words “Governor’s Stick” to remind him of how far he had fallen.

PERHAPS THERE IS something similar in the fact that Ryan (according to former Illinois first lady Lura Lynn) once thought he would get a job working in a prison library, only to suddenly get the duties that are too shameful to be spoken of.

But then, there are the inmates who complain about their plight. It turns out Black is one of them.

Despite evidence that his time in prison is not as negative an experience as it is for many other individuals, “Lord Black” is displeased.

The Toronto Star quotes an official who says Black the inmate “remains very snobbish” and is astounded at the lack of education of most of his fellow inmates – many of whom are from non-Anglo racial or ethnic groups who never graduated from high school and are serving time for drug-related offenses.

BECAUSE THESE PARTICULAR inmates have not caused serious disciplinary problems while in prison, they have been moved to the same minimum-security facility as a one-time member of the British Parliament.

Another person who thinks she is a step above her fellow inmates is one-time Cicero Mayor Betty Loren Maltese – who has been assigned to a crew that serves food to other inmates with special dietary restrictions (mostly to accommodate religious beliefs).

As a result, Betty these days has to listen to other inmates complain about the low quality of “slop” they are expected to survive on.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Betty looks down on her fellow inmates (at least one of whom has complained about receiving smaller bananas than other inmates) while also complaining about the quality of food she is expected to eat.

THE NEWSPAPER NOTES she has complained to prison chaplains that the food is not cooked to her preferred specifications, and she also wants to know why she can’t be served items such as cheesecake on a regular basis.

Admittedly, there is a continent between the two (Maltese is doing her time in California, while Black is serving time at a prison near Orlando, Fla.), but it almost is a shame that Lord Black of Crossharbour can’t be paired up with Mayor Betty from Cicero.

With their combined reported gripes, they’d be the perfect prison couple.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Chicago pols have varying accounts of life in prison following (http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/1118867,CST-NWS-watchdog21.article0) convictions on charges related to political corruption, but not many politicos wold compare prison jobs to Chicago city jobs the way Jim Laski does.

A butler, gofer and cleaner? That is what former Hollinger bigwig Conrad Black has arranged for himself (http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/482704) in prison.