EXTRA: … and on a final note!

Illinois had the “blue wave” that some were predicting for the nation, although that isn’t as much of an achievement as it might sound. We already had a Democrat-leaning government. Now, it’s Democrat-dominated.

DONNELLY: He gone! from Indiana scene

But in other places across the country, it seems the status quo prevailed. Republicans in many states managed to hold on to what they had, and even gained a few spots.

THE U.S. SENATE seat from Indiana, for instance. Joe Donnelly will go down as a one-term fluke. Beating an anti-abortion extremist in 2012, he lost fairly early in the evening to Mike Braun. Although not quite as early as Bruce Rauner’s Illinois gubernatorial defeat, making his concessions call by 7:40 p.m. Which I'm sure Republican political operatives think is balanced out by Donnelly's defeat.

In Florida, where both governor and senator posts were up for grabs, Republicans were able to prevail with victories. In Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz managed to prevail with a narrow victory over Democrat Beto O'Rourke. The general overtone is that Congress will continue to be a Republican-leaning body, with not enough seats flipping for Donald Trump to face threats of power loss.

Which means I’m sure Trump will be declaring victory in the near future. Maybe he’ll even be denouncing Illinois, and Chicago in particular, as a place that can’t just get with the program of this Age of Trump we now live in.

Not a popular sentiment in some parts of U.S. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

All I know is that my gut feeling Tuesday night is similar to the one I felt on Election Night 2016 – elation that I lived in Illinois, a place that has become even more of an island of sense in a nation of ideological nonsense.

  -30-

Everybody freaking out during the final days of 2018 election cycle

I suppose it’s only natural; after devoting more than a full year of one’s life to trying to get elected to political office, the final days of the election cycle are going to bring out those last-minute jitters.

OBAMA: Returning home, or doing Dem duty?

Resulting in acts of desperation meant to ensure that nothing gets overlooked. After all, coming up a loser on Tuesday would merely mean the past year of a politico’s life amounts to nothing more than wasted time.

I COULDN’T HELP but interpret the actions of Bruce Rauner in such a manner when I saw his campaign try to make an issue of the fact that former President Barack Obama is going to be in the Chicago metro area on Sunday.

He’ll be in the city proper for an 3 p.m. event at the University of Illinois at Chicago (the same place where protesters once turned away Donald Trump himself). It will be a large-scale political rally where Obama will go out of his way to urge people to vote for Democrats come Tuesday.

He’ll be doing the same thing that same day in Gary, Ind., during a noon-hour rally at the Genesis Convention Center in the city's downtown.

Only there, instead of touting J.B. Pritzker for governor, he’ll be singing the praises of Joe Donnelly for re-election to the U.S. Senate.

BECAUSE IF DEMOCRATS are to have a chance of taking control of the Senate, keeping the seat from Indiana in their column is just as important as any of the places currently represented by Republicans that they dream of swiping.

PRITZKER: Getting Obama jolt prior to Tuesday

If anything, it may be more likely that Pritzker will put the Illinois governor post in the Democratic Party column than it will be that Donnelly will be able to prevent Hoosier ideologues from booting him from office in exchange for Republican Mike Braun.

Which is why Rauner is trying to make an issue of this. Why else, Bruce asks, would Obama feel compelled to visit Chicago unless Dems seriously feared a Rauner re-election.

Pure nonsense talk, if you think about it logically. But then again, political operatives of all persuasions rarely do – particularly when it gets to this point in the election season.

BUT THEN AGAIN, for Donnelly, an Obama visit may be a bigger deal – largely because the ideologues of Indiana always thought Joe got the Senate victory in 2012 largely on a fluke. Hence, they’re going all out to kick him out of office, and Donnelly may well feel the need to use all the weapons possible to get the Gary vote (one of the few parts of Indiana where Democrats prevail) to turn out to the max.

DONNELLY: Needs Obama jolt to win

Which then allows for Obama to be so close to his spiritual home (even if he now is a suburban D.C. guy, more than anything) that he can also make the two-days-before-Election Day appearance on behalf of Pritzker.

But it’s not just the Pritzker and Donnelly campaigns, along with that of Rauner, desperately looking to gain themselves attention.

For there’s also Toni Preckwinkle, whose campaign for Chicago mayor has until Feb. 26 to sway voters. Yet she’s trying to make people think it’s all important to turn out to vote on Tuesday to show support for her three months from now!

FOR PRECKWINKLE SAYS that a strong voter turnout for politically-progressive candidates on Tuesday will scare the opposition. “It’ll signal to our opponents that they need to spend as much money as possible to slow our movement down. We can’t let that happen,” she said.

PRECKWINKLE: She wants campaign cash!

Of course, Preckwinkle’s “solution” to this “problem?” Donate more money to her campaign, so she can fight back in next year’s election cycle. That’s literally the theme of her latest fundraising appeal.

Not that she’d be upset with having a larger campaign fund, since it seems some of her mayoral challengers (particularly William Daley, who already has come up with $1 million-plus for his political aspirations next year) have developed a large gap between her and the amount of cash she hopes to have on hand.

The jitters are fluttering about for political people. We literally don’t get a break between this election cycle, and the upcoming one.

  -30-

‘Justice Kavanaugh’ inevitable, if Age of Trump’s partisan trends prevail

I have had trouble getting all that interested in the political brawl taking place concerning the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice – largely because there has been no evidence to indicate this will be anything other than a partisan scuffle. Albeit one of great intensity!

KAVANAUGH: Future high court justice?

With Republicans in Congress controlling the process for confirmation and President Donald Trump having nominated Kavanaugh as part of a plan to reinforce his own image as being in control of federal government, it seems like a futile gesture to expect anything to happen to stop Kavanaugh from getting the post.

SO FOR THOSE people who are desperately hoping all the tales we’ve been hearing about what a drunken oaf Kavanaugh was as a young man (and one whose behavior toward women is despicable), I’d say, “Get a clue!”

Even with some Republican partisans on Friday indicating they’d like to see the FBI do a cursory investigation (which is all you’d get with a one-week delay), I suspect all they want is the appearance that they contemplated objectors.

In the end, they’ll vote to confirm Kavanaugh because they like the idea of a Supreme Court stacked in their favor – one that would gladly strike down all the ideas (abortion, gay rights, etc.) they find so morally reprehensible.

And all of those people wishing for something to happen to halt Kavanaugh, they’ll gain stories to tell of the tacky and irresponsible behavior by Congress that rivals the recklessness by which Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the high court back in 1991 – despite the tales of his own sexually-harassing behavior.

ALL OF THESE thoughts popped into my head Thursday night when I heard someone who watched that day’s confirmation hearings claim it didn’t matter what the U.S. Senate did – Kavanaugh was damaged goods.

He’d never be able to serve as a credible justice on the high court. He might as well drop out to show some sense of dignity.

To which I retort “Hah!”

TRUMP: Wants Kavanaugh 'win' badly

I’m sure the thoughts going through the minds of all the Kavanaugh backers is that Thomas got confirmed despite the trash talk about himself, and he now has nearly three full decades of service as a Supreme Court justice.

THEY’LL THINK THIS is something Kavanaugh can overcome, and they’re likely to use the happenings of this week as further evidence of how “out of touch” non-ideologue people truly are. Athough I see it as evidence of how out-of-touch with reality ideologues are if they can find anything acceptable with such conduct.

This really is going to become a hardline partisan vote. Even if Republican legislators have concerns about Kavanaugh’s character, they’ll see the opportunity to strengthen their hand for partisan political control.

All that speculation about women being disrespected? They probably agree with Trump, who earlier this week said he’s inclined to believe Kavanaugh because he thinks women tend to exaggerate this kind of stuff.

My own concerns got reinforced when I learned of Joe Donnelly. He’s the senator from Indiana who, as a Democrat, managed to win a seat held long-time by Republicans.

WHICH HAS REPUBLICAN operatives convinced that defeating him is a priority. They want to “take back” what they think he stole from them (although anybody who is serious realizes the Republican who Donnelly defeated in 2012 lost because of his own political ineptitude and disrespect for the female persuasion).

DONNELLY: Sticking by his party, not his state

Yet even with Donnelly receiving intense pressure to “go with the flow” and support Kavanaugh, he is saying he’s a “no” vote. Perhaps he realizes that backing Brett won’t gain him any partisan support – while costing him self-respect.

When it finally occurs, this is going to be a purely partisan vote. Republicans will prevail – they have the greater numbers politically. Which means this will become yet another bit of evidence as to why this Age of Trump we now live in is a reprehensible one.

And anybody who seriously thinks the Kavanaugh confirmation vote can be deferred until after Election Day to be decided by a Democratic-leaning Congress? That’s pure political fantasy, no matter how much many of us would desire it!

  -30-

Is Illiana going to be nothing more than a partisan tradeoff for Dems, GOP?

Both major political parties have their battle plans for the upcoming election cycle in place; mostly based of trying to connive just how many political posts they can manage to swipe away from each other.

Yet the reality is that there will be a certain amount of tradeoffs that will occur.

FOR EVERY SINGLE post that Democrats manage to swing away from the Republican column, there will be a few that manage to flip the other way.

And among the most likely flips that could take place as a result of Nov. 6 involves our very own top-ranking officials in Illinois and Indiana.

There are many political observers convinced that Bruce Rauner is likely to go following Election Day. We in Illinois will have a governor in the “Democrat” column largely by default – a majority of us feel that much contempt for the guy we’ve got now and aren’t willing to give him “four more years.”

While in Indiana, there’s the fight for a U.S. Senate seat currently held by Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from South Bend. A fact that bothers the Republican Party establishment that runs government throughout the Hoosier State.

RAUNER: Most unpopular gov seeking re-election

IS THE MIDWESTERN political scene one in which the Democrats will take a governor’s seat in Illinois, while the Republicans gain a Senate seat in Indiana?

Morning Consult has come out with various polls showing Rauner is the most unpopular governor seeking re-election this year, while Donnelly’s chances of getting re-elected are not overwhelming at this point in time.

The political party establishments in both states are inclined to think that such an outcome is appropriate, because they want to believe the fact that Rauner and Donnelly got elected in the first place is a total fluke.

They would think that picking J.B. Pritzker as Illinois governor and Mike Braun as U.S. Senator from Indiana would be a restoration of the natural order – as in the way things should be – in the two states.

DONNELLY: A big bullseye on his back?

LET’S NOT FORGET that Illinois has been a Democrat-controlled state for nearly the past two full decades, and that Rauner’s victory in the 2014 election cycle was more about apathy by the Dem establishment toward then-Gov. Pat Quinn. Rauner is the only guy who thinks he WON that election, rather than political apathy costing their candidate.

There’s no way that apathy will recur in 2018. Rauner has managed to tick off so many Democrats, and even a good-sized portion of the Republican establishment, that he has a mere 27 percent approval rating these days.

Donnelly faces similar circumstances, in that his 2012 election victory was equally fluky. He beat Richard Mourdock, the former state treasurer, because so many people became offended when Mourdock made comments during a debate about how women who become pregnant as a result of rape is “something that God intended.”

Would these two restore natural order …

That was his way of justifying not permitting abortion even in instances of sexual assault. Chances are good if Mourdock hadn’t been that dense (or if long-time Sen. Richard Lugar had won in the Republican primary), the Republican would have prevailed in the general election six years ago.

DOES ANYBODY THINK that Braun, an auto parts distribution business owner who’s wealthy enough to fund his own campaign, will be equally clueless? Donnelly would have to be the luckiest man alive to get another political break of the one that allowed him to slip past Mourdock.

… to politics in Illinois/Indiana?

Considering that Indiana has a governor with a 52 percent approval rating with Donnelly only 41 percent (with 34 percent disapproving and 25 percent of people who can’t make up their minds), it’s likely that many people are waiting for the chance to vote against the incumbent.

Donnelly could be the guy who winds up carrying nothing more of the vote than Gary on Election Day.

Many voters in both states might think it appropriate if the two major political parties did a swap that strengthened the overall majorities – what with President Donald Trump having 38 percent approval in Illinois, but 51 percent approval in Indiana. It also would reinforce the view each state has of the other -- that of a Bizarro-world version of itself.

  -30-

Trump leads GOP tripe talk in their fight against Donnelly for Senate

Let’s be honest – it’s likely the only reason that Joe Donnelly, the Democrat who has been a U.S. senator from Indiana the past six years won that post because his Republican opponent was (in the words of '70's TV ideologue Archie Bunker) a “meathead.”

DONNELLY: Can he win in '18?

I don’t doubt that GOP partisans are resentful of the fact Donnelly beat Richard Mourdock back in 2012 – even though one could say it was their own fault for beating up on the long-time, and legendary, Sen. Richard Lugar in their primary that year.

WHICH IS WHY Donnelly is going to get dumped all over for the next few months, particularly since Republicans decided this week in the Indiana primaries just who would be their nominee would be to challenge Donnelly in the Nov. 6 general elections.

One can say that Republicans didn’t make the mistake of picking the most outspoken ideologue of the three, which means they may have learned from their mistake of ’12 when Mourdock (a former state treasurer) wound up bringing national shame on himself and the political party with his rancid rhetoric about rape and abortion.

Remember he was that guy who said women who became pregnant as a result of rape should just accept that it was God’s will, of a sort, that they have the baby?

But it’s not like nominee Mike Braun needs to say crazy and inane things for this campaign cycle to get stupid. If anything, Braun has the head GOP nincompoop in his corner to spout out nonsense-talk.

BRAUN: Can he take back Lugar's seat?

I’M TALKING ABOUT President Donald J. Trump, who Thursday night ventured to Elkhart, Ind., for a campaign rally meant to appeal to the kind of people who will forevermore think The Donald is their kind of guy – no matter what he says or does.

Which meant Donnelly was his target of choice – even though I know of many Democrats who are distrustful of the senator from South Bend, Ind., because they think he’s handling his voting record on issues to avoid taking opposition to Trump.

Donnelly doesn’t want to give Trump types political ammunition in the form of votes against the ideas they hold most dearly.

TRUMP: Getting involved in Hoosier politics

Not that it matter much what Donnelly has actually done. For Trump (and GOP partisans) are determined to demonize him no matter what is really said or done.

FOR TRUMP ON Thursday pointed out that Donnelly didn’t support all of the president’s trash talk of the Affordable Care Act and opposed that measure of last year that Trump bills as significant tax cuts for the American people.

Even though Donnelly isn’t a reliable vote for Democratic partisan issues and proposals, Trump says that the first-term senator “will do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell him to do.

Trump claims Donnelly supports, “the radical, liberal agenda. It never, ever fails.”

Which is political trash talk of the most absurd. Donnelly’s voting record has been so unpredictable from the so-called progressive stance. The true hard-core liberals view someone like Donnelly as unreliable.

A QUICK REVIEW of his record includes only 60 percent support for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 58 percent support for the League of Conservation Voters, 35 percent backing for the American Civil Liberties Union, a grade of “D” for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and an “F” for the NIAC that lobbies on behalf of Iranian-Americans.

EMANUEL: Will he help prop up Donnelly again?

If anything, it might be said that Donnelly is a person who tries thinking for himself – rather than following a knee-jerk party line of any type. But that’s exactly what the Hoosier GOP wants for themselves and for all of us – thinking they can bad-mouth Illinois because we’re the exact opposite of their partisan leanings (and possible to reinforce that following our own election for governor).

It may be that Indiana winds up balancing out Illinois on the national scene, although my own thoughts about the Hoosier senator is that I still remember the first time I ever met him – at a fundraiser put together for him by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago.

It was Chicago campaign cash that helped him run for office in 2012. It may well be people determined to undermine Chicago’s political influence (and suck up to Trump) who will be the most outspoken critics of Donnelly come November.

  -30-

Does Illinois/Indiana border region personify our national partisan split?

I’m wondering if the politically partisan split our nation is currently engaged in during this Age of Trump can best be visualized by a very local place – that area at the city’s far southeast corner where Illinois and Indiana converge.
 

MADIGAN: Has Ill. backing DACA lawsuit

One venturing down to places like the East Side or Hegewisch neighborhoods might not think there’s anything special about State Line Road. Standing there, one might not think there’s anything terribly different about Chicago versus Hammond, Ind.

YET THE TWO states do take such differing approaches to the issues that confront our society these days. One almost has to feel sorry for someone with the misfortune to be born on the “wrong” side (based on their ideological leanings) of the street.

Illinois, because of Chicago’s dominance over the state, is solidly in the Democratic Party column. While Indiana’s major city (Indianapolis) doesn’t come close to outweighing the partisan interests of the rest of the state, allowing the Hoosier State to be solidly Republican.

Take the whole debate over immigration, particularly with whether President Donald J. Trump is in any way justified in wanting to do away with the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.

Illinois this week became one of 17 states to join in a federal lawsuit challenging the president’s authority to do away with the program that was created by former President Barack Obama as a reaction to Congress’ refusal to do anything to address immigration reform.

 

DONNELLY: Pressure to pick Trump over Dems

INDIANA CERTAINLY ISN’T amongst the states supporting this legal action, which our state’s governor, Bruce Rauner, also is questioning the legitimacy of.

But the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, is on board, thereby putting the official muscle of the state behind the legal action – of which none of the other so-called “Rust Belt” states are behind and only one other Midwestern state (Iowa) is supportive of.

Now before anybody argues that the Illinois House speaker’s daughter is overstepping her legal authority by getting Illinois involved in such a lawsuit, it should be noted the heavy share (nearly one-third) of Chicago that is Latino ethnic origins, and the heavy share of Chicago residents in general whose ethnic ties are to another nation and remain strong.

 

RAUNER: Theoretical stance misguided?

It could be said that Lisa Madigan would be behaving negligently if she didn’t get involved. The real question may be why Rauner won’t support her. His argument about immigration being federal would be stronger if Congress were actually willing to take on the issue.

NOW ONE FACTOR to consider is that the portions of Indiana just across the state line share the same heavy Latino and heavy immigrant characteristics of Chicago. But those people (who really ought to consider coming over to Illinois) are going to be aware of their political people not willing to fight for the issue.

One of their senators is Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from South Bend. Yet he is going to be solidly in the Trump-backing camp, regardless of what he may actually think about the issue.

The Washington Post on Thursday reported how Donnelly is one of a few Dem officials facing re-election in 2018 from Republican-leaning states who are getting local voter pressure to support Trump’s stances on issues.

Donnelly reportedly has been told by many constituents how they will turn on him should he not support the president (whom Illinois overwhelmingly rejected in 2016 but Indiana solidly supported in the Electoral College).

SO ANYBODY WHO’S perceiving Democratic Party plots to undermine the president must keep in mind that the Democratic Party itself won’t be fully united in its presidential opposition.

 

TRUMP: Giving rise to our national divisions

If activists backing immigration issues think this will be a key to a successful Trump Dump come the next election, it might not be as solid as they wish it to be.

I don’t doubt there is a segment of our society that views Trump’s ignorance on so many issues and views it as a plus because it matches up with their own level of vacuousness or bias on certain issues.

The sad part is that all we have to do to see this difference of opinion in action is to venture to our own city’s southeastern boundary – provided you can put up with the aroma from the nearby oil refinery in Whiting.

  -30-

Neither ‘Justice Gorsuch’ concept, nor Donnelly's Dem vote, a surprise

We’re in a particularly partisan era of our society politically. We have a federal government that is determined to impose its will upon us all, and let the opposition know its irrelevance!
 

DONNELLY: One of 3 Dems to back Gorsuch

So anybody who thought there was a chance that Neil Gorsuch would be denied the Supreme Court position to which President Donald J. Trump appointed him was seriously kidding themselves.

THE ONLY REASON that the federal healthcare reform program imposed during the presidency of Barack Obama remains in place is because of the incompetence politically and socially of the current government leadership in Washington, D.C.

The will to do away with the Affordable Care Act was just as intense as it was to approve Gorsuch’s appointment. In fact, if anything, the failure to successfully repeal Obama’s health care reform only strengthened the resolve to ensure that the Senate approved the appointment to the high court.

Republicans were sick and tired of looking inept and incapable of governing. After all, what’s the point of having the White House AND complete control of Congress if you can’t strong-arm issues into public policy?

So it was inevitable that the Senate leadership would use their “nuclear” option to eliminate the rules that allowed an outspoken minority from preventing a final vote on Gorsuch’s appointment. It was also a “done deal” that when the issue came up Friday for a vote, the Republican majority in the Senate would approve him.

DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION WOULDN’T matter in the least.

From the perspective of a political observer, the question I had was how many Democrats would wind up casting votes in favor of the appointment because they don’t want to give Republicans the opportunity to “tag” them as flaming liberals, subversives or whatever other cheap rhetoric the GOP dreams up for the 2018 election cycle.

It turns out three of the 46 Democrats wound up siding with the 51 Republicans who voted to approve Gorsuch (Johnny Isakson of Georgia was absent on Friday).

GORSUCH: That's 'Justice' Gorsuch now!!!

One of those three was Joseph Donnelly, a senator from Indiana (the South Bend area, specifically, and a guy who takes great pride in being a Notre Dame alumnus).

DONNELLY ISN’T EXACTLY a wild-eyed radical (although many GOPers do think that of everybody who isn’t in complete lock-step agreement with them). He’s certainly no Jan Schakowsky – as in the oft-outspoken Congresswoman from Evanston.

But he’s progressive enough on many issues, and he certainly has been willing to set foot in Chicago to take political support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and campaign contributions from many of the same people who fund the political aspirations of our own state’s Democratic leadership.

So is Donnelly a sell-out?

Or is he just someone who’s thinking strategically about his vote. Knowing there’s no way his own caucus is going to be able to kill the Gorsuch appointment, he wound up siding with it so that a “no” vote on his part couldn’t become an issue to be used against him when he seeks re-election in the 2018 cycle.

IN FACT, THE Reuters wire service pointed out in their story that all three of the Democratic senators who voted for Gorsuch are up for re-election next year and come from states (Indiana, West Virginia and North Dakota) where Trump won the Electoral College in 2016.

There are those who think this kind of strategic action rings false. Politicians should vote what they think (or what they think their constituents think), rather than what they think will help their preservation. But it does happen.

 

OBAMA: Acted similarly on select issues

Let’s not forget Barack Obama from back when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois – his voting record includes an “aye” vote for a measure related to supporting construction of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border. For that matter, so does the record of Hillary Clinton when she was the junior senator from New York.

Does anybody believe either of them is in agreement with Trump on that issue, or any other? Nor does it lessen the impact that Gorsuch (who at age 49 becomes the first Supreme Court justice younger than myself) can potentially have if he chooses to put the “Trump” brand on the court and so many aspects of our society.

  -30-

Obama arrival a plug for Gary airport?

It was amusing to see the arrival of President Barack Obama for a couple of days of activity this week in the Midwest.

 

The president will be in Princeton, Ind., at a steel mill on Friday, following a day of activity in Chicago and suburban Evanston in part to prop up the campaign of Gov. Pat Quinn.

 

YET ALL THIS began Wednesday night when Obama arrived on Air Force One at the airport in Gary, Ind. (which likes to give itself the impressive-sounding Gary/Chicago International Airport even though the number of flights operating there is miniscule).

 

Much has been made of the fact that the airport was used because of the fire at the FAA facility in Aurora that still causes disruptions at O’Hare International and Midway airports. The president didn’t want to cause anything that could be construed by the ideologues as more congestion at either of those airports.

 

So his flight landed at Gary, where he immediately got into a helicopter that wound up taking him into Chicago and transporting him for much of his trip in the metropolitan area.

 

Although the fact that he was only in Gary for a few minutes didn’t stop that city’s mayor, Karen Freeman-Wilson, and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., from greeting Obama at the Hoosier airport and acting as though this was a trip to Indiana rather than just a quick transfer point.

 

THE MAYOR MADE comments to the press about how it only makes sense for the president to use the Gary airport when traveling to Chicago, on account of the fact that it is our city’s third airport.

 

Even though some of us want to cling to the idea of a third airport being built in what is now farm field in rural Will County just north of Peotone, others of us would want to see a new airport built anywhere but south of the city, and still others of us would rather there be no new airport.

 

Either because they want a massive expansion of O’Hare International or because they’d rather just discourage more flights passing through the Chicago area – not realizing the degree to which that would devastate the metropolitan area and turn Chicago from something that can be talked about along with New York and Los Angeles to something that more resembles Indianapolis or Des Moines, Iowa.

 

Personally, I always thought an expansion of that Gary facility would have made sense. It is a shame that officials couldn’t reach some understanding a couple of decades ago to move in that direction when trying to figure out a site for a new Chicago-area airport.

 

BUT WAY TOO many political people felt like then-Secretary of State George Ryan, who came right out and said he could not, in good conscience, vote to support any new airport located in Indiana. Even though one can note that the New York metro area’s third airport is based out of Newark, N.J. – and no one seems bothered by that fact!

 

The end result is that the Gary facility kind of lingers in limbo. It seems like we’re always reading stories about cut-rate airlines operating a few flights out of the airport (remember Hooters Air?), only to shut them down a few months later when a lack of significant passengers develops for their use.

 

Who’s to say if Chicago ever will have a third airport? Will this issue linger for another few decades of inactivity?

 

Did the president wind up giving an inadvertent advertising plug for those people who promote the idea of Gary (designated as airport GYY) as a part of Chicago’s transportation infrastructure? Or was Wednesday just the moment Mayor Freeman got to shake hands with the president?

 

  -30-

EXTRA: Impeach Obama?!? I fully expect the effort, and a headache

As I write this, the sounds of Ray Charles are echoing throughout the McCormick Place convention center, and President Barack Obama is preparing to find the diplomatic way of giving a raspberry to the campaign of Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

OBAMA: Still the prez, w/ same enemies



But I’m also sure that there are other people who are preparing to make Obama’s political life miserable – perhaps they want him to regret that he ever had presidential aspirations.

FOR I DON’T doubt that some people in our society are p’o-ed at the idea that they voted against him in both 2008 and 2012 – and he still managed to win both election cycles.

It doesn’t help that the breakdown of our Congress won’t change. Democratic Party partisans will still control the U.S. Senate, while Republicans will keep the U.S. House of Representatives.

I never seriously thought we were going to get the return of “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,” but current House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made it clear he’s “not going to budge one inch” on issues.

Which means the second Obama presidential term has the potential to be just as much of a partisan pissing match as the past two years has been.

DESPITE THE FACT that we will now have Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., because his Republican opponent engaged in stupid talk when it came to talk about rape (while trying to appeal to the people who believe abortion ought to be a criminal act), the basic hostility of our political scene on the federal government level hasn’t really changed much!

So we’ll probably get the initiative in the House of Representatives to repeal health care reform, along with a lot of other partisan cheap shots.

I really believe the more hard-core of the ideologues will try to come up with grounds for impeachment hearings, although I’m not going to speculate what kind of partisan tripe they will claim the president did that would make his removal from office a necessity to preserve our republic.

They’ll probably go in the history books as being regarded about as ridiculous as the impeachment effort was against Bill Clinton some 14 years ago. But being ridiculous has never prevented political people from doing something in the past.

SO THE NEXT two years are likely to be more of the past two years.

Although the new line of rhetoric will focus on the popular vote. CBS News just went through a whole diatribe not long ago about how Romney at that moment was leading Obama by nearly 1 million votes (my mind imagines actor Mike Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character saying that figure), although later admitting that the gap was closing.

Will we get the rhetorical nonsense from conservative ideologues about how Obama doesn’t deserve to be president? Don’t bring up 2000 or George W. Bush. Consistency has never been important to political blow-hards.

So what thoughts do I have in these moments before Obama preaches to his choir at the McCormick Place?

TYLENOL. WE NEED to stock up on it in significant qualities for the next few years.

Because all the psycho-babble we’re going to hear emanating from Washington is going to give us a serious migraine headache!

  -30-

SMITH: Confident, for now



EDITOR’S NOTE: Just to give some of you more of a headache. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., got 63 percent of the vote – although if it had been up to the Kankakee County portion of the district, Brian Woodworth would have won (he took 61 percent of the vote there). And if that’s not enough mental pain, consider that Derrick Smith (the expelled state representative from the West Side) was leading with 62 percent of the vote. He’s back (at least until his indictment becomes a criminal conviction)!

What is it about ideologues and rape? Will it help or hurt Hoosier candidate

I’ll give Richard Mourdock, the Hoosier Republican who’s running for U.S. Senate, one bit of credit. He’s not offering up some phony-baloney non-apology for his comments concerning rape and pregnancy.

MOURDOCK: What was he thinking?



He’s standing solidly behind his statement that makes him sound like a buffoon.

THAT’S CALLED PRINCIPLES, I suppose. But at least the current Indiana state treasurer is not adding to the verbal trash that he initially spewed.

For it seems that the political people who want to appeal to conservative ideologues didn’t learn much of anything from the outcry that Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri caused when he referred to “legitimate rape.”

As though some acts of rape can be justified. A nonsense statement if ever there  was one.

Until Mourdock, the Republican with “Tea Party” alliances who knocked out long-time Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., in the May primary, came along.

WHAT BROUGHT UP the issue was a question about whether abortion should be restricted even in cases where a woman wants to end a pregnancy in a case involving a rape or incestuous conduct.

Even many Republicans who like to use the “pro-life” label and like to think they identify with the ranks of people who wish abortion were still considered a criminal act accept those areas as one where exceptions should be permitted.

Not Mourdock!

DONNELLY: Will he benefit?

As he put it, “I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

IS THAT REALLY how a rational human being thinks? God intends for some women to be raped? Perhaps Mourdock thinks that rape and pregnancy is “God’s way” of punishing the wicked! What hurts is that Mourdock’s attempts to clarify his meaning have been vague to the point of meaningless.

I really don’t know what to make of such a thought. Personally, I always thought of rape as another example of how some fairly crummy acts happen in life. The idea that there is some sort of thought process that can justify it is nothing more than absurd.

Yet this is the man whom Indiana Republicans picked to represent their political party in the Nov. 6 general elections, and for six years further should he manage to defeat Joe Donnelly – a South Bend attorney and member of the House of Representatives who has his own conservative ideological leanings.

But Donnelly gets Democratic backing – including some financial help in the way of fundraisers organized by Mayor Rahm Emanuel – because he will occasionally go along with President Barack Obama.

UNLIKE SOMEONE LIKE Mourdock, who seems to want to be a part of the faction that views itself as the “firewall” for society protecting us all from an Obama presidency.

The real question is how the Indiana residents (including those who live just across State Line Road from us) will react.

The Mitt Romney presidential campaign went so far as to issue a statement saying it “disagrees” with what Mourdock said, although later it came out with another statement clarifying that it still supported the Mourdock campaign. A part of me would not be surprised to learn that some Indiana residents react to that statement by dumping on Romney.

It might be construed as yet another example of how Romney isn’t really “one of them,” and how the party might have been better off with somebody like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum.

AS IT IS, various polls show the U.S. Senate from Indiana campaign to be a close one – so close that we don’t really know who’s leading (the dreaded statistical tie).

I don’t really know if this will weaken or strengthen Mourdock’s position. Among society as a whole, it hurts him.

But it becomes all too easy for the zealots to turn out in force and rely on the apathy of the masses to keep them at home on Election Day.

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EXTRA: Over the (Capitol) Hill club?

“Illiana,” it seems, has provided the charter members of a new caucus of Congress – veteran politicians who became too old to have the continued trust of their constituents.

MANZULLO: Veteran pol lost in March

Illinois’ primary back on March 20 provided the original House of Representatives member when long-time Rockford-area Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., lost a bid for re-election to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.

THE POLITICAL ANALYSIS and speculation in our state said that the two Republicans pitted against each other by Democrats who drew the political boundaries for the upcoming decade fought it out, with the voters ultimately deciding that they’d rather have freshman Congressman Kinzinger, who’s only 34, to represent them.

He was young and fresh and seemed like he could have a long political career ahead of him; as opposed to Manzullo – who will be remembered in the Rockford-area as a political legend.

But as someone who was only four days away from his 68^th birthday on Election Day in Illinois, he was seen as having his best days in the past, during his 20 years in Congress.

That same sentiment seems to have been expressed in Indiana, where that unique breed known as Hoosiers held their primary elections on Tuesday and decided to dump their long-standing, internationally-renowned member of the U.S. Senate.

RICHARD LUGAR, WHO turned 80 last month and had been in the Senate since 1977, lost to Richard Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer.

Mourdock is the guy who made his alliances with conservative ideologues who were desperate to dump Lugar, who wasn’t willing to play their partisan games to the degree that they wanted.

LUGAR: Followed Manzullo lead Tuesday



No rational person would have ever used the “liberal” label on Lugar. Then again, they spewed enough rancid rhetoric that it seems the people of Indiana were more than willing to back a younger man – even though at age 60, Mourdock isn’t the kid with the potential for a lengthy stint on Capitol Hill that Kinzinger offers.

But when going against one of the grand old men of the Senate (or at least as grand as any of them are, these days), it didn’t take much for people to be willing to dump a political legend (Lugar’s star was much bigger nationally than Manzullo’s, but both of them had strong admiration locally).

OF COURSE, BOTH of those politicos still have some time left. Their terms don’t run out until early January of 2013. We still have both Lugar and Manzullo serving in Washington for the rest of this year.

Although both now have the “Lame Duck” label dangling around them, and I’m sure the ideologues are now going to start up the chants at their first opportunity about how unjust it is that men who lost their most recent elections could still be in office for another eight months.

I’m not anxious to see either man leave, because their departure will mean yet another victory for the forces that want to play political partisanship games to the hilt.

For Kinzinger, his fate is secure. There is no Democrat challenging him come Nov. 6, and any independent candidacy that might crop up will be purely a token effort.

BUT IT HAS me wondering if, in Indiana, Democratic nominee Joe Donnelly (a congressman from the area around South Bend, Ind., and Notre Dame) has a chance to defeat Mourdock – particularly if the help he can get from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago political operatives extends beyond the fund-raiser they held for him in Chicago back in March.

Then again, maybe not.

For I suspect that the Republican operatives who are thoroughly ashamed that their state “went blue” (Electoral College votes going to Barack Obama for president instead of John McCain) in 2008 are going to pull out all the stops to switch the state back to the Republican column.

I doubt that those Chicago-oriented people of Hammond and Gary will be strong enough to overcome the rest of the state. If they were, perhaps Lugar would have prevailed on Tuesday.

AND WHEN THEY return to Washington for more work on Capitol Hill, perhaps Lugar and Manzullo can become a pairing; although not quite an Odd Couple.

They are the physical evidence that sometimes the voters can manage to overlook experience and first-hand knowledge in the ways of governing JUST to strike an ideological viewpoint.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Richard Lugar's concession speech, particularly his opening paragraph, doesn't strike me as the ramblings of a liberal, which is what his critics would have us believe.