EXTRA: Illinois not among those out to plot for Trump’s removal from ballot

It seems that our Republican establishment in Illinois is inclined to go along with the notion of Donald Trump as the GOP nominee for president come the November elections.

RAUNER: Not putting self into Trump trap

Either that, or we have a governor whose idea of “vision” doesn’t extend beyond the notion of undermining organized labor!

FOR BRUCE RAUNER told reporter-types on Monday that he’s inclined to accept whomever the Republican nominating process picks to run for president. The Chicago Sun-Times got Illinois House Minority Leader James Durkin, R-Western Springs, to say the same thing.

Which goes along with Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who may be a party renegade for suggesting that his Senate colleagues be fair in considering Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for the post. But he’s not about to be a part of a plot to undermine Trump’s chances of winning the presidential nomination at the party’s nominating convention to be held in Cleveland.

It seems the only person in a political leadership position amongst the Republicans who’s not surrendering to the inevitability of Trump as the GOP candidate is state Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont.

Officially, she backs the idea of Ohio Gov. John Kasich as the next U.S. president.

ALTHOUGH I FIND it intriguing that Kasich himself is nowhere as accepting.

Go listen to the recordings available on the Internet for the “Meet the Press” program on NBC, where Kasich on Sunday said there’s no way that Trump gets the nomination.

For Donald Trump to lose nomination now ...

He seems to believe there are too many people who despise the idea of the New York real estate developer using the political party to appease his political ego by running for president. He seems to think the Republican strategy of undermining Trump’s political desires will succeed.

It’s not clear if Kasich thinks he’s going to be the Republican nominee, or if someone else will be.

ALL I KNOW is that if Trump fails now after having prevailed this far, it would be the ultimate in political collapses. Perhaps somewhere up there with the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies team that blew a 6 ½ game lead with only 12 games left in the season.

It certainly seems that Illinois Republicans won’t be a part of any such revolt against Trump.

... would be as weak as '64 Phlllies loss

Perhaps it’s just that Trump managed to win the Republican primary held last week in Illinois – even though he failed to take a true majority. He still got more political support than any of the other candidates with presidential dreams.

Rauner and other Republicans already are in a precarious-enough position in this state. Anything that would stir up resentments that would fracture their supporters is something they most definitely do NOT want to endure.

PARTICULARLY if one is most primarily concerned with getting themselves re-elected, and the presidential post (while most important to some) is nothing more than a political catfight for a level of government outside of their realm of interest.

It may be that the legislators are most concerned with seeing that their GOP caucuses don’t shrink even lower than their current levels – ones that already see them on the wrong end of the “veto proof” majority.

Letting the Trump spat drag them to further levels of irrelevance is the ultimate nightmare come true.

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Enjoy it while it lasts, for Illinois becomes irrelevant again after Tuesday

At least insofar as the presidential campaign is concerned – because those of us who live here know we’re the crown jewel of the Great Lakes states. Where else would you find a hot dog stand paying "tribute" to a presidential candidate by offering 3-inch-long wieners?

From the 'inevitable' image Hillary wants to create for herself, ...

But let’s be real. The presidential campaigns have been operating for months in distant places, barely giving us a thought.

... to a leader who tells everybody 'You're Fired" ...

AT LEAST UNTIL Wednesday night, which is when it seemed the candidates started sticking themselves in our faces to try to gain our attention long enough for us to consider actually casting ballots for them.

That activity seemed to peak on Friday when multiple presidential dreamers insisted on cluttering up our personal presence. Even Donald Trump – who with his University of Illinois at Chicago rally has many of the activists all riled up. So many, in fact, that Trump wound up cancelling the event at the last minute -- citing security concerns.

... many political hopefuls are here ...

Admittedly, some people engaged in petition drives to have Trump banned from the near West Side campus. Which was a nonsense attitude to take.

The real way to deal with a political knucklehead is to let him say something stupid so we see what a knucklehead he truly is. Get in his face, so to speak.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt that the security types Trump had on hand were all geared up and ready to deal with anyone they even remotely thought was troublesome – particularly if that person had an excess of melanin showing up in their skin complexions.

... to try to win our votes.

Now I’m sure the Trump backers think they’re sticking up for themselves and their candidate when (in other cities) they have beaten those protesters. Although I’d argue all they’re really doing is showing that Trump is the knucklehead candidate who attracts nitwit supporters.

In the end, the Trump presence could be nothing more than a very vocal minority that only wins if the real majority decides to sit on its duff and do nothing come Election Day.

Wishing he could join our party!

In which case, the idea of a “President Trump” would be exactly the punishment they would deserve for not voting!

BUT IT WASN’T just Trump who felt the need to be in Illinois in hopes of getting our state’s delegates and (ultimately) our Electoral College votes. We do, after all, have more of those to offer than any other Midwestern state – largely because of the presence of Chicago and all its population.

We had Ted Cruz on Friday in the northwest suburbs, while Hillary Clinton was out there on Thursday, and Hillary will be back in the state on Monday in Springfield. While husband Bill on Friday was in Peoria to support his wife’s political aspirations, after making a similar appearance in Evanston.
 

Is the former president that eager to once again live in the White House and enjoy all of its life perks?

We even had John Kasich in our state, with his aides saying the Ohio governor is counting on his home state and ours to keep alive his desire to call himself a presidential candidate.

WE ILLINOISANS COULD become the people who kill off his dreams – thereby making the idea of candidate Trump a reality. That is a goal we ought desperately to do everything we can to avoid achieving. We don’t deserve to be blamed for that; do we?

Lest I forget, even Bernie Sanders made appearances in the area, including a Friday night appearance in suburban Summit at Argo High School – the alma mater of one-time White Sox slugger Ted Kluszewski. Somehow, I think the locals will take greater pride in “Big Klu” than they will  the presence of “the Bern.” Although his appearance Saturday with Rev. Jesse Jackson may get him more favorable attention. 

Personally, I'll take a Big Klu over all of them

In fact, about the only presidential hopeful we’re not going to see in coming days is Marco Rubio – whose own chances for political survival are so tied to the Florida primary on Tuesday he can’t afford to leave the state. So much for any personal contact with the man the Chicago Tribune seriously believes ought to be our nation’s 45^th president.

There is one thing to keep in mind – this personal attention is fleeting. Come Wednesday, the candidates will have moved on to thinking about Arizona, Idaho and Utah; the states whose primaries come a week later on March 22. And in their dreams, they’ll be focused on the days before March 26 – when they can think about staging a campaign event or two in Hawaii to try to gain that state’s voters.

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What gives; Jeb Bush and Ben Carson think they’re too good for Chicago?

The presidential dreamers will gather once again on Tuesday in Milwaukee for yet another presidential debate and a chance to convince the voting public that their dreams deserve a chance to become reality.

KASICH: A Billy Goat burger?

Yet for two of the candidates, the warm-up act on Monday was in Illinois. Ohio Gov. John Kasich literally was in Chicago, trying to persuade voters within the media market (those within the city proper are going overwhelmingly for whoever wins the Democratic nomination) to take him seriously.

CONSIDERING THE MEDIA market accounts for about three-quarters of Illinois’ population, it is a significant (and long-overdue) campaign stop.

While New York real estate developer Donald Trump made his visit to Springfield – which, for what it’s worth, was the same place where Barack Obama began his serious presidential campaigning in the ’08 election cycle.

But while Obama used the old state capitol building that Abraham Lincoln would have known and walked the halls of (the current capitol building dates to the 1870s), Trump wanted a differing image.

The local political bigwigs arranged for the Prairie Capital Convention Center, which is an arena that has been used for inauguration ceremonies in the past – in addition to other sports (the Urbana and Springfield campuses of the University of Illinois played basketball there against each other Sunday) and large-scale events.

TRUMP WANTED THE sight and sound of stands packed to capacity chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump” as he walked across a stage and made his usual vapid remarks with regards to why his personal wealth somehow qualified him to be president of the United States.

Yes, I wrote this copy prior to the event, because the actual happenings of the event were so predictable. Tickets for the Springfield, Ill.-based rally were given away free, first-come, first-served. They went quick.

TRUMP: Trying a horseshoe?

The spectacle was destined to be packed with true believers – or at the very least a crowd lacking of individuals who’d have been inclined to say anything negative about the man who’d likely look at the Springfield skyline and have as his initial reaction how lame it looks without some gaudy tower bearing his name.

Considering that Springfield’s only significant tall structures are the current Capitol and the tower-like Hilton Hotel, it might be one place where he wouldn’t be blatantly wrong.

THEN, WE CAME to Chicago, where Kasich spent the day in the city with awe-inspiring architecture and a definitely-mediocre building named for Trump.

BUSH: Beat Kasich to Billy Goat

Kasich’s campaign activity centered around an afternoon rally held in the shadow of tower Trump – Chicago-style. Below ground, actually.

For the Kasich people, who in Illinois include a significant segment of the Republican political establishment, were at the Billy Goat Tavern for a send-off rally to make the governor feel more peppy about doing verbal battle with the just over a dozen presidential dreamers that the GOP side has given us.

No word on whether Kasich actually consumed one of those cheeseburgers the bar cooks up to try to absorb all the alcohol that is otherwise consumed by customers on the premises.

ALTHOUGH IT REMINDS me of an event some decades ago when then-President George Bush (the elder) decided to try to appear to be a regular-guy Chicagoan by making a Billy Goat appearance – one that legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko mocked by saying he didn’t go because he’d rather watch the cable TV news (one of those ‘90s ‘Crime of the Century’-type trials was taking place).

I doubt that Kasich’s play-acting at being a regular guy was any more legit than that of Bush.

RAUNER: Not taking sides?

It also intrigued me to see Gov. Bruce Rauner’s public schedule for Monday – no events whatsoever. What does it say for the GOP candidates that the Republican governor felt no need to advertise his presence at their events?

And when will the other Republican presidential dreamers feel compelled to visit us in Chicago to make the long-shot attempt at courting our votes?

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Could Illinois be the example of rational political thought after all?

All of the cheap rhetoric about the presidential campaigns has had one thing in common – it hasn’t involved anyone from Illinois.

BUSH: Land of Lincoln's front-runner?

It has been a whole lot of stupid talk doing their nonsense elsewhere. We don’t have any local angle on it.

PERSONALLY, I’M GLAD. I’d like to believe it is the evidence that it is the rest of the nation that is absurd, and that we in Illinois aren’t the ones who elevated anyone as vapid as Donald Trump to the ranks of a political front-runner.

Considering that it will be later this week (Thursday, to be exact) that presidential candidates can begin circulating the nominating petitions that ultimately will get them a spot on the ballots come the March 15 primary elections.

Candidates will have until mid-December to gather their signatures of support, and I don’t doubt that the likes of Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson can come up with people in Illinois who will work on their behalf to gather the support that gets them on the ballot.

But it says something that of the 15 or so candidates wishing to run for the Republican nomination for president in next year’s election cycle, the only ones that have the operations in place already are the candidates most detested by the ideologues who are jumping on board the Trump and Carson campaigns – and to a lesser degree, that of Fiorina.

COULD IT BE that we in Illinois have a lesser tolerance for nonsense talk and are more interested in officials who are capable of getting things done? Perhaps the reason why Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, still has his supporters for his refusal to give in to the trash talk of organized labor being spewed by Gov. Bruce Rauner?

KASICH: Backing a Great Lakes guv?

Or maybe it means Illinois Republicans had enough sense to realize that most of the 15 GOP presidential dreamers had no business being on the ballot, and are waiting for the field to boil down before committing to anyone.

Which is why Jeb Bush (who will be in suburban Geneva on Thursday and Chicago proper Friday morning for political fundraiser events), Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and John Kasich are about the only ones that seem to have anything resembling campaign operations in Illinois to get themselves on the ballot.

Candidates can trash-talk all they want. But unless someone does the work of circulating petitions to show support, no one will be able to vote for them.

WHICH MAY BE for the best for society if come March, Trump’s name doesn’t even turn up on the ballot. Particularly since assorted polls show he’s not as dominant as he was a month ago.

RUBIO: Ill. preferred Latino pol (not Ted Cruz)

It’s just a matter of time before Trump’s ego no longer gets fed enough by the thought of running for president that he decides to go back to being just a real estate developer who builds really tacky-looking structures.

It would seem that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother and son of former presidents, is the Illinois favorite, with former Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross leading up his effort.

The late state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka’s former chief of staff is heading up Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential dreams, while state Sen. Michael Connelly, R-Lisle, is in charge of the Marco Rubio operation.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, state Sen. (and constant political dreamer) James Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove, is also a backer of the guy whom Trump thinks of as a kid too young to take seriously as a presidential candidate.

TRUMP: Withering away to irrelevance?

Even though there are those of us who think that Trump himself is too old and foolish to have any credibility in electoral politics.

Not that I’m inclined to back anyone amongst Bush, Kasich or Rubio. Then again, I think the Democratic presidential field is filled with mediocrities – I haven’t found anyone I think is worthy of replacing Barack Obama come early 2017.

But it is reassuring to know that the Illinois primary election season is likely to be a little more logical than it has been thus far, or likely will be in other states.

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