Is Kennedy for governor campaign trying to follow family history?

One of the big disappointments of the upcoming election cycle – at least as far as some political observers are concerned – is just how weak and pathetic has been the campaign of Chris Kennedy for Illinois governor.

Jesus Garcia offers his support to Chris Kennedy's gubernatorial dreams. Will that make a difference?

There were those people who went into this campaigning thinking that Election ’18 would be a brawl between the big family money of J.B. Pritzker, versus the Kennedy family legacy backing Chris – who is the Chicago-area’s Kennedy connection (for years, he ran the family-owned Merchandise Mart).

BUT KENNEDY’S CAMPAIGNING has been weak, particularly in the area of raising finances. Kennedy has name recognition (sort of), but it would seem that unless Chris can get a jolt in coming weeks, it will be the other fringe political challengers who will offer the Pritzker people their political fight.

Just where that jolt could come from got political people to speculating that it could be the growing Latino population (29.7 percent of Chicago’s populace, and now larger than the city’s African-American population) that could be what revives the chances of Chris Kennedy becoming the first Kennedy to get elected in Illinois (his cousins have been elected to office in various other states).

Could the Latino people of Illinois seriously wind up banding together to give Chris Kennedy enough political support to win the Democratic primary to be held March 20?

Bobby Kennedy and Cesar Chavez, back in the day

Such talk got goosed up last week when Jesus Garcia, the one-time alderman and state senator who now serves on the Cook County Board and who unsuccessfully challenged Rahm Emanuel for mayor two years ago, endorsed Chris Kennedy for governor.

SPECULATION AMONGST SOME is that Garcia has enough influence amongst the Mexican-American community in Chicago, along with other Latino ethnicities, that they will turn out for Kennedy.

Which would give the Kennedy campaign at least one group willing to publicly support him. When one considers the half-dozen or so Democratic gubernatorial dreamers, it is likely the primary winner will NOT top 50 percent. It won’t be a majority, but last year’s political victory by Donald J. Trump showed us a majority isn’t required to win.

JFK seeks Mexican-American votes back in '60 bid

Could Latino backing be enough to win a primary?

Could it cause the Latino public officials (including Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza) who have already come out in favor of J.B. Pritzker to think they have to figure out a way to change sides, or else wind up looking like a vendido – selling out the interests of their community?

WHAT IS INTRIGUING is that if such a strategy works, it would merely mean that Kennedy followed in the family tradition. Chris is the son of one-time Attorney General, senator and presidential dreamer Bobby Kennedy, and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy AND former Sen. Ted Kennedy – the long-time senator from Massachusetts.

All of whom had their own sense of Latino ties to bolster their chances of winning, with some using the label of “first Latino senator” to describe his Uncle Teddy.

A younger Jesus Garcia supportive of Harold Washington and Teddy Kennedy

Chris Kennedy himself, in announcing the Garcia endorsement, made a point of reminding people of his father’s ties to United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez. Bobby Kennedy included in his own presidential campaigning appearances with Chavez. Chris himself once joined with Chavez back in 1988 and fasted with him for three days when Cesar did a 36-day fast to highlight the impact of pesticides on the farm hands working the fields.

Could Chris Kennedy have 21st Century take on Viva ?

But if you go back to 1960 presidential campaign, the one that Mayor Richard J. Daley allegedly stole for JFK right here in Chicago, one could also make an argument that it was victories in California and Texas that put Kennedy in the White House.

MUCH OF THOSE state victories were due to the “Viva Kennedy” Club efforts – by which Mexican-American people were a focus on the Kennedy campaign, and their 10-1 voter support for JFK over Richard Nixon were considered significant elements of those victories.

Those “Viva Kennedy” club efforts were one of the first ever by a national political campaign to reach out to Latino voters – previously, such voters were ignored.

In Illinois, Chris Kennedy has developed a reputation as a guy who likes to talk about running for office, but doesn’t have the political will to follow through a campaign to its finish. Some political observers are convinced that Chris still doesn’t have what it takes, and will drop out before the primary.

Could it be that the lesson for Kennedy to figure how to get through an entire political campaign is to follow the examples of “Dad” and “Uncle Jack” and reach out to the group in Chicago that actually is on the rise? Although I doubt anybody will someday do songs in tribute to Chris the way Chicano activist/singer Lalo Guerrero did for his dad, Bobby.

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When it comes to govt. shutdown, some (political) people just never learn

The new Republican majority that will control Congress is already plotting its retaliation should President Barack Obama proceed with plans to use his ‘executive order’ powers to push through portions of immigration reform.

Republican congressional leaders are going about saying they would consider government shutdowns if Obama were to proceed with what they want to describe as an illegal/immoral act.

AS IN GOVERNMENT agencies would be shuttered. No services would be performed. Those in the public who depend heavily on such services would suffer.

And the public would place the blame on Obama for their losses. Actually, if history is any indication, no they won’t!

They sure didn’t back in the mid-1990s when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich thought his “Contract with America” type of ideologues could bully then-President Bill Clinton into going along with their wishes.

Gingrich & Co. wound up having to back down when the public saw the tactic as cheap politicking by the Republicans that put the people at risk.

WHENEVER REPUBLICANS HAVE threatened Obama’s presidency with a government shutdown, the public has taken the same attitude. In short, Republican officials are the types who are willing to harm what the public needs in order to try to get their way.

I’m convinced the same thing will happen if the GOP tries another government shutdown. If anything, it would help reinforce Obama’s standing with Latino voters – who admittedly are less-than-enthused about the president these days.

Obama has refused to use his influence to push for serious immigration reform; in large part because he has feared antagonizing the conservative ideologues on other issues. The problem with his concern is that those ideologues already are fully stirred-up about Obama, and aren’t going to do anything to help him no matter what he does.

Latino activists who have a special interest in immigration reform realize it is those ideologues who are the real problem. But they see Obama as being too weak to stand up to them and back the promises he made on the issue in past campaigns.

SO PEOPLE ARE waiting to see if Obama keeps his most recent promises – that he would pass some sort of order that implemented partial immigration reforms. The Washington Post has reported recently it might be an order that prevents non-citizens from being deported IF their children are U.S. citizens.

Action could come before year’s end. Although the GOP officials are making it clear they don’t want Obama to do anything on the issue.

I don’t doubt they will get petty in their retaliation. Immigration reform truly is the issue that brings out the worst in these ideologues – particularly since so many of their hang-ups are racially- and ethnically-motivated.

It’s too bad these ideologues don’t realize how much they’d be doing themselves harm politically by taking such actions. All those Latinos who now are wondering if an Obama vote was a mistake would be reminded why they voted against the Republican presidential candidates in the first place – and why they ought to do so again come 2016.

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS reported this week how Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is being urged by some Latino activists to consider a presidential run himself because of this issue.

Some are comparing such a potential bid to the one that the Rev. Jesse Jackson made back in 1984 – he didn’t come close to winning, but did draw attention to political concerns of the African-American electorate.

Although I think one has to go back another two decades to see the likely outcome for immigration reform.

It ties back to the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who was sympathetic to the civil rights movement but was unwilling to fully back it out of fear of antagonizing those southern political people who were Democrats and expected federal government to support the segregationist way of life that existed then.

IT ULTIMATELY TOOK the hard-core political skills of Kennedy’s successor – Lyndon B. Johnson – to get enough votes in Congress to overcome the segregationist segment and push the Civil Rights Act into law.

There are those who think Obama inspired us to want to do better as a society, similar to the days of Kennedy.

Does this mean that the way to finally resolve the issue of eliminating the bureaucratic mess that is our current national immigration policy is not to follow the lead of Newt, but instead to find ourselves the next LBJ?!?

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Putting limits on ‘term limit’ talk?

Part of the reason I don’t think it’s such a big deal that Gov. Pat Quinn has that “26 percent” approval rating that some people like to toss out over-and-over is that the reality is that most people don’t think much of anybody in our state government.

MADIGAN: Truly the exception

The contempt isn’t solely for Quinn. There’s the recent Gallup Organization poll that showed, among other things, only 28 percent of people approve of the way Illinois’ state government works over all. Both Republican and Democrat.

AND I STILL recall that Chicago Tribune poll that had Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, with only a 13 percent approval rating.

So I wasn’t surprised to learn of the study released this week by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute – 79.5 percent of those surveyed either strongly or somewhat favor term limits for legislators. And 82.7 percent would support the idea of limiting how long someone could serve as a legislative leader.

It’s just the usual contempt some people feel for government when they don’t comprehend its actions. Although much of what I see and hear anecdotally indicates that what most people feel is that they want their officials to remain – and everybody else’s to go away – so that their views will prevail!

I also sense that many are amazed at the concept of Michael Madigan being in charge for as long as he has (a member of the Illinois House from the Clearing neighborhood since 1971, who became House speaker in 1983 and has been in charge ever since – except for that two-year period when we experienced the concept of “Illinois House Speaker Lee Daniels, R-Elmhurst”). Their overwhelming support for the idea is a gut reaction to that.

DANIELS: Did 'speakership' really happen?

YET THAT IS the very reason why I’m skeptical of term limits. That, and the fact that Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner seems to want to use this concept to build traction for his own campaign against Quinn.

 

Madigan is the exception to the rule. Just about everyone else who has ever been a legislative leader in Illinois hasn’t come close to the amount of time served that would limit them out of the post. Should we really want to make long-term changes to our laws because of the exception that may never occur again?

In part, because Rauner thinks if he can’t beat his opponents in a head-to-head fight, he’ll just try to eliminate the opposition altogether. Which, to me, is as cynical a reason to do it as any in politics. As bad as those who use redistricting processes to limit the ability of people to challenge incumbent candidates.

What else is notable these days on the southwestern shores of the thawing-out Lake Michigan, where our residents fear that fully shaking off winter coping mechanisms will result in bad karma and us getting hit with one more winter snowstorm?

78 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR: Gov. Pat Quinn wants to make sure he takes the vote of the female segment of the electorate come Nov. 4.

Quinn trying to be Kennedy-esque?

Or maybe that’s just a cynical way to interpret the event he held Tuesday to show he supports the concept of equal pay for women. It turns out that it was Equal Pay Day across Illinois, even though I suspect most people didn’t have a clue.

“Here we are in 2014, 51 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, and women on average still don’t earn as much as their male counterparts in the workplace,” Quinn said. “We won’t be satisfied until all workers are equally compensated for the same work, regardless of their gender.”

He also pointed out that during the past decade, the state’s Equal Pay law has resulted in 709 complaints about unequal pay for women, and the resulting investigations have resulted in $690,000 in back wages being paid.

3-4 & 2-4 – 25 MORE WEEKS TO GO:  Those are the won-loss records for Chicago’s two baseball clubs, following the first week of play. It’s early, but it seems neither the White Sox nor Cubs are going to be pennant contenders.



This season's highlight?

Thus far, the one-time Cuban beisbol sensation Jose Abreu has shown some ability. I still am impressed with that three-run triple he hit against the Minnesota Twins – except that the White Sox seemed determined to blow that ballgame.

How long Abreu can keep it up will be intriguing. He could be legitimate. Although that aforementioned game may wind up being typical of the season – losing despite themselves.

As for the Cubs, it’s going to be another lame year. Fans will turn out to play along with the whole “Century of Wrigley Field” celebration, where they will fondly reminisce about all the past losers they rooted for – while trying to ignore the current incarnation of the “lovable losers.”

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Does BHO have the same aura as JFK?

Barack Obama would like to use the Brandenburg Gate, built originally as a monument to peace, for an address that would have his presidency work to bring the world together as one. Could such noble rhetoric be beyond Obama's political skills? Photograph provided by http://www.berlin101.com/

At what point do we start lambasting likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama for relying too heavily on the imagery of John F. Kennedy for the background of his presidential campaign?

To me, that point was reached when Obama made it known he wants to make an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin – which brings to mind two of the classic U.S. presidential sound bites of the past 50 years.

NOW I KNOW there are the people who insist that John F. Kennedy’s sense of the German language was flawed when he tried to identify spiritually with the Berlin people then living under the heavy hand of Communism, causing him to refer to himself as a “jelly-filled doughnut.”

Also, Kennedy technically spoke that classic “ich bin ein Berliner” line at a different location in West Berlin, before visiting the gate that overlooked the infamous (and now non-existent Berlin Wall), separating west Berlin from east, and capitalism from Communism.

But in the way that people tend to lose track of details and rewrite history to tell a better story, Kennedy had the gate’s chariot of victory looming over his shoulder when he spoke his line.

That line, along with his inaugural address plea to, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” are likely the most memorable sound bites from the mouth of JFK.

OBAMA WOULD LOVE to be able to play off the imagery to give his presidential campaign its own memorable moment. The problem is that it is starting to seem like overkill, the way that so many Kennedy/Obama allusions can be drawn.

First and foremost is the fact that the Kennedy family survivors are backing Barack – from “Uncle Ted” to JFK daughter Caroline Schlossberg. He’s even got California first lady Maria Schriver (the niece of JFK, although her husband, Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger, is backing McCain) on his side.

Former first daughter Caroline will have her own lasting influence on an Obama administration, as she is helping to go through the records of prospective running mates to find the perfect political companion to Obama as vice president. It probably is her Kennedy heritage that has kept her from the abusive rhetoric Republican activists have come up with for all the other people who are helping to “vet” V-P’s. Aside from the Kennedy relatives, Obama plans to stage his speech in August accepting the Democratic nomination for president from a massive football stadium (Invesco Field in Denver), similar to how Kennedy took the 1960 nomination during a rally at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

EVEN SOME OF Barack’s rhetoric is Kennedy-esque, in large part because of the presence of Theodore Sorensen, the JFK speechwriter who has become an adviser to the Barack Obama campaign.

When piled on to that mound of Kennedys, a trip to Brandenburg Gate seems like overkill. While Obama would love to be able to play off the imagery to give his presidential campaign an international affairs boost, I can’t help but wonder if he will get more criticism than praise for relying so heavily on a JFK-influenced moment.

The Berlin trip is expected July 24, and is part of an tour that will take him through Europe and the Middle East (including Iraq) to try to create the notion that he fully understands international affairs – one area where some would-be U.S. voters think the junior senator from Illinois is lacking.

I say “some” because “international experience” is defined differently by different people.

A POLL COMMISSIONED last month by the Associated Press showed that 61 percent of people surveyed thought McCain would make a better military leader than Obama (who had the backing of 27 percent).

But that same poll showed 43 percent of those surveyed thought the U.S. perception around the world would improve with a “President Obama,” compared to 33 percent who think the world would regard the United States more highly with a “President McCain.”

It all comes down to how significant one thinks the role of a U.S. senator is. Does McCain have more experience because he has been a senator for decades, compared to the man who has four years in the Senate, nearly eight years in the Illinois Senate and a couple decades of experience as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side?

The reality is that any member of the U.S. Senate is a “follower” when it comes to international experience. They get special briefings and the chance to take trips to the world’s “hot spots,” but ultimately do nothing more than vote on proposals put together by experts in world affairs. Neither Republican McCain nor Democrat Obama has an innate understanding of the world that gives either a true advantage.

THERE'S JUST ONE aspect of the use of the Brandenburg Gate (which has some German officials concerned that they would be perceived as taking sides in a U.S. presidential election) that I find ironic.

Some of the news coverage I have read of Obama’s desire to campaign there barely mentions Kennedy. Some (likely written by a younger generation of reporters) ignores him altogether.

For the gate was also the proper site of one of former President Ronald Reagan’s great rhetorical moments, when in the mid-1980s he urged the Soviet Union to apply political pressure to the Communist government of East Germany to end their isolation from the rest of the world, particularly through demolition of the Berlin Wall.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall,” coming from the mouth of Reagan is one of those moments that, to a younger generation, sticks in their minds more than old archival video of John F. Kennedy, particularly if those individuals are clueless in their knowledge of history.

OBAMA LIKELY IS hoping that the older generation (many of whom were devoted to the presidential aspirations of Hillary R. Clinton during the primary season) will think of Kennedy (and not Reagan) when he makes his appearance.

The problem is that truly memorable political moments cannot be staged. They happen by capturing the public imagination. It is impossible to predict what will be historic and what will be remembered.

It is very possible that Obama will flop while standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate. If he does not say something particularly inspiring, his reputation will be matched up with that of Kennedy and Reagan and he will come off as falling short by comparison.

It also is true that even people with great rhetorical skills have only one or two truly great moments in their professional lives. Obama may have used his moment up in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention when he told the crowd of John Kerry supporters, “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Theodore Sorensen recalls his former boss and the similarities to his (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/25/obamathenextjfk) current boss.

Barack Obama is including a Berlin visit during his European/Middle East tour this summer (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25428793/) that is meant to bolster his knowledge of world events.

Is the Brandenburg Gate more reminiscent of John F. Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2270372/Barack-Obama-to-be-granted-JFK-moment-with-Brandenburg-Gate-speech.html)?

Will Todd Stroger get I-57 some day?

For those who are curious about every form of trivia, the namesakes of Chicago’s expressways are as follows:

Jane Addams – First U.S. woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and founder (left) of Chicago’s Hull House, the site of which takes up land that the University of Illinois at Chicago wishes it could change into something more commercial, but doesn’t dare.

William G. Edens – A banker who sponsored Illinois’ first highway bond issue in 1918. Without him, we might still be driving around on dirt or gravel roads.

Dwight Eisenhower – The former general who “won” the Second World War and the president who signed into law the measure creating all interstate highways, which means he had to get something named after him.

Bishop L.F. Ford – Former presiding bishop (left) of the Church of God in Christ on the South Side. With more than 8.5 million members, he qualifies for membership in the Road Namesake Club.

John F. Kennedy – The former U.S. president who conservatives are still convinced only won because Mayor Richard J. Daley turned out the vote in Chicago’s “river precincts.”

Ronald Reagan – Former U.S. president who was born in Dixon, Ill., and attended college in Eureka, before ditching Illinois for a life in California.

Dan Ryan – Former president of the Cook County Board. I wonder what current president Todd Stroger will get named for him someday – we still have the Chicago portion of I-57 nameless.

Adlai E. Stevenson II – The attorney from Bloomington (right) who served as Illinois’ governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but is mostly remembered for getting his butt kicked twice by Ike.

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