EXTRA: Politics ain’t beanbag; or is it?

I’m not quite sure what to think of former President Barack Obama’s comments during his eulogy Saturday for late Sen. John McCain.

Difference between toughness and political bluster?

Both Obama and former President George W. Bush (the men who defeated McCain’s own presidential aspirations in 2008 and 2000, respectively) were a part of the program put together to pay tribute to the Arizona senator on Saturday at the National Cathedral, one day before his burial on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

MUCH WAS MADE of the fact that McCain, before he died a week ago at age 81, asked Obama and Bush to speak in tribute, whereas incumbent President Donald Trump wasn’t even invited.

Obama was willing to go along with the theme of challenging the political style of Trump – which seems determined to challenge the styles of everyone who came before him as somehow being illegitimate.

As Obama put it, “So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear.”

But that shouldn’t mean that political activity is meant to be for the meek at heart – for people who can’t handle a punch or two.

REMEMBER BACK TO Peter Finley Dunne’s “Mr. Dooley” character, the 19^th Century Chicago Sout’ Side bartender who told us, “politics ain’t beanbag.”

Meaning it was played for keeps, with the people succeeding the most being the ones capable of fighting it out. Which is what I’m sure Trump thinks he’s doing every time he concocts another insipid tweet on his Twitter account to try to motivate the segment of the masses who actually enjoy this Age of Trump we now live in.

Should we fight back against Trump?

Could it be the difference between Trump and a legitimate political leader is that the former president had ideas – or in the case of Bush knew when to trust more knowledgeable people and defer to their better judgment. Would Mr. Dooley today think our problem is that we need to aggressively fight back against The Donald?

As opposed to the current chief executive who seems determined to have our society think he’s a one-man governmental show; which to my mindset is about as legitimate as a one-man band is to music – usually a whole lot of noise that’s ridiculously out-of-tune.

OF COURSE, I suspect most people will little remember anything either Bush or Obama said. The “quote” of the day seems to come from McCain’s daughter, Meghan, when she said, “the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”

Either that, or perhaps they will focus their attention on another former president. Bill Clinton, along with former first lady, senator, secretary of state AND presidential hopeful Hillary, were at the funeral services in Detroit held for legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin.

That might seem like the more significant event, compared to the McCain services that I’m sure the Trump fanatics will be determined to think of as a gathering of people out-of-touch with the common man.

Will Meghan get more support now from fans of The View?

Truly evidence that the Trump-types are off living in their own world, and who want the rest of us to be forced to live in it with them while in a subservient position.

  -30-

EXTRA: McCain immigration stance ‘flip’ cost him dearly a decade ago

John McCain may wind up going into the political history books as the ultimate evidence of what happens to a candidate who suddenly tries to alter his stance on an issue just to appease the hardline ideologues amongst us.

Can the next McCain lead GOP back to sense?

McCain died Saturday at age 81 – just days after publicly saying he was giving up on treatments for brain cancer – which means he managed to live for an extra decade of life beyond the political defeat that some will forevermore remember him.

AS IN THAT 2008 loss in the presidential election cycle to Barack Obama. McCain is the long-time senator from Arizona whom the ideologues will always want to badmouth for losing to the bi-racial Obama.

In fact, it was because of McCain’s desire to gain the votes of more socially conservative-leaning people amongst Republican voters that the senator went through a campaign strategy of trying to cover up what could have been his strong point in attracting voters from amongst Democrats to the GOP.

I’m talking about immigration – as in a serious effort to undergo the comprehensive reform of federal immigration policy so as to erase the bureaucratic mess that it has evolved into.

Of course, there are those amongst us who, back then and even moreso now today, think immigration “reform” ought to consist solely of an increase in the number of people of non-Anglo ethnic origins who ought to face deportation from the United States.

THOSE ARE THE people most giving aid and comfort to this Age of Trump we’re now in.

But back in the early 2000s, there was the effort to try to push for serious immigration reform – with McCain being the leader amongst Republicans working with then-Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts to push for such an initiative.

That effort failed, and when then-President George W. Bush expressed support for it, that was the beginning of his own demise in the polls. As though Republican voters viewed any support as a treasonous act.

Which is why when McCain made his second all-in attempt to become president (remember he lost the 2000 GOP primary to Bush), he had to figure out how to overcome his support for the issue. He didn’t want to be D.O.A. at the beginning of his campaign activity.

THAT LED TO him making public statements early on about how he was no longer pushing for such initiatives. How he would now become inclined to tout Republican-friendly thoughts when it came to “dose damned foreigners,” which is how many of the ideologues think about this issue. He took up the talk of “securing the borders” while backing off the rhetoric about increased opportunity for people to become U.S. citizens.

It may have led to him getting the Republican nomination in ’08, but killed off any chance of him winning the general election – even though in the beginning Obama wasn’t exactly viewed as the favorite of people to whom immigration reform was a priority.

Perhaps sticking to his guns could have led McCain to having a chance of succeeding that year. Particularly since many of the ideologue types ultimately were only swayed over to McCain when he picked former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running-mate. They really liked her more than they ever cared for John.

To the point where McCain after his presidential defeat was able to switch back to stances on immigration more in line with his previous actions. A large part of why the Trump types looked for every chance they could find to demean the senator.

IT WAS JUST this spring that McCain went about saying that Republicans were on “the wrong side” of the immigration debate, and wrote in his memoir “The Restless Wave” that, “it’s something this country needs to do now, in this political moment, as old fears and animosities that have blighted our history appear to be on the rise again, exploited by opportunists who won’t trouble their careers or their consciences with scruples about honesty or compassion for their fellow man.”

It’s too bad that he didn’t stick to that stance when it could have counted. But it also means that we as a society have lost a voice desperately needed at a time when some of us want to think of Trump as credible for all the nativist nonsense he spews on a regular basis.

These are the thoughts that pop through my head upon learning of McCain’s passing, and while I’m not trying to diminish those who want to emphasize the Vietnam War vet and one-time Prisoner of War inmate, we should keep these in mind.

Because it could be said that if there’s a chance for our political system to ever achieve a sense of bipartisan cooperation on issues, we’re going to have to hope the one-time Party of Lincoln is capable of finding the next John McCain amongst its ranks to help lead us all out of the nonsense that Donald Trump has dragged all of us into.

  -30-

Now we see why Trump was so eager to have Moore vote in the U.S. Senate

John McCain, the senator from Arizona who tried challenging Barack Obama nearly a decade ago for the presidency, is about to demonize himself yet again amongst the ideologues of our society.

McCAIN: Taking an early holiday break

McCain has been in poor health, having dealt with brain cancer for the past year and currently undergoing treatment for a viral infection. Which means he’s gone home. He’s called an early beginning to his Christmas holiday. Which, for his own sake, is good.

YET IT MEANS he’s not on Capitol Hill at a time when Congress is supposed to be considering the tax bill that President Donald J. Trump has referred to as his “Christmas gift” to the American people.

Although about the only ones who will benefit are those who are in the same tax bracket as The Donald himself. Which means there is a great mass of our society that would love to see this plan collapse.

They’d thoroughly enjoy having the Democratic minority caucuses in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, including Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, unite to kill the tax plan – and ensure that Trump’s first full year as president was one of complete failure. As in being unable to get anything he desired passed by Congress.

Of course, it is the Republicans who control both congressional chambers. But in the Senate, it is such a slim margin of majority for the GOP. Meaning that McCain’s absence will be noticed. And that the people who are desperate for Trump to have his first political victory will be looking for someone to blame.

TRUMP: Still looking for first political victory

I HAVE NO doubt that they will be more than willing to accept McCain as their “fall guy” should the tax bill fail to get approved by the Senate when it is scheduled to come up for a vote Wednesday. That is, of course presuming the House of Representatives passes it first on Tuesday.

For a political party that wants to think it is all powerful and that the opposition ought to just “Shut up!” and learn to do what it’s told, you’d think one lone vote due to illness wouldn’t be missed.

If the Republican Party were truly as significant as it likes to think it is, it wouldn’t be missed.

But there is the fact that it technically has a 52-48 margin over the Democrats in the Senate. One that will become 51-49 when Doug Jones takes his seat from Alabama in the Senate early next year.

MOORE: His loss hurts Trump

JUST LAST WEEK, McCain and Thad Cochran of Mississippi were absent due to health reasons. The Associated Press has reported that Cochran plans to show up on Wednesday for the tax plan vote.

But who’s to say that someone else will be unable to make it for the session. Or for that matter, that the upcoming year won’t include many times when Trump wants Congress to put its stamp of approval on his many goofy whims and desires.

But won’t be able to because of the numbers game.

Illinois on proper side of tax issue ...

It becomes all the more apparent why Trump would be willing to put aside his own concerns (if any) he might have had about the personal character of Roy Moore in Alabama. For a president who doesn’t have any real political skills to get things done, he’s not capable of swaying over the opposition to his desires.

IN FACT, THE whole concept of this Age of Trump is telling the opposition to “Stuff it!”

Which is why it would be perfect if Trump himself were to be told the equivalent of “Stuff it!” by the American people with regards to his tax plan – which truly is meant to benefit only a tiny segment of our society. Whom I’m sure that Trump believes are the only people in our society who matter.

... with Durbin and Duckworth

Now as much as I’d like to see a political defeat on this issue, I’m not getting my hopes up. My own sense from having observed government and politics throughout the years is that officials only occasionally do the “right thing.” We may have seen our share of the “right thing” with Jones’ electoral victory last week.

So when it comes to the $1.5 trillion tax cut that likely won’t benefit the majority of us, the only real question I have is how will the slim Republican majority manage to pass this in a way that will let them deny responsibility for the harm it could cause us all? Because that’s the most likely outcome.

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McCain, Rauner taking opposite ends on Trump ties – who will prevail?

Who’s to say just what is the appropriate tie that a political person ought to maintain to the doofus whom we, the people of this nation, have given the title of president and commander-in-chief of our military forces?
 

TRUMP: Political millstone, or savior?

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is getting his share of praise these days for being one of a few Republican political people who voted “no” to the latest crazy scheme by which President Donald J. Trump wanted to do away with the health care reform proposal whose biggest drawback was that it was an accomplishment of former President Barack Obama.

YET JUST AS some political operatives are wanting to say that Republicans will now start distancing themselves from the president (the Chicago Tribune went with a front-page story Sunday headlined Republicans rethink their reticence to resist Trump), there are those political people who seem to be making their moves to a hard-right in hopes of ensuring their political future.

Take Gov. Bruce Rauner, whose hard-lined ideologue moves are managing to offend the large segment of Illinois’ voters who live in or near Chicago.

Rauner in recent weeks (ever since losing his two-year fight to pressure the Democrat-led General Assembly into backing his anti-organized labor desires) has canned many of his gubernatorial staffers.

In many cases, they were replaced by people who had spent the past couple of years working for the Illinois Policy Institute – a conservative activist group that was about the only portion of the Illinois electorate who thinks Rauner was being responsible in putting state government on hold just to try to score a partisan victory.

RAUNER: Soon to engage in Trump talk?

MANY OF THESE Institute types are from the segment of Illinois that gave its support in the 2016 election cycle to Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton for U.S. president. I have no doubt it means many of the people who now will be the basis of Rauner’s voter support for re-election come 2018 will be the kind of people who want to see Rauner move closer to Trump on various points.

Which is a radical change, since Rauner during his two years as governor has gone out of his way to distance himself from the president. He doesn’t come out and criticize him, or praise him, on anything!

Even when Illinois-based interests come out and criticize Trump for his latest nonsensities, Rauner maintains silence – almost like a submarine in wartime goes quiet so as to try to avoid being detected by the enemy's sonar equipment.

McCAIN: Voting his conscience?

But it could turn out that with the Chicago metro population (about two-thirds of the state’s people) potentially turning more and more hostile to Rauner, he’s going to need all the ideologue Trump-ites he can find so as to avoid an Election Day blowout come next November.

WHICH COULD BE just the opposite of McCain, who is now getting the praise of many people who were eager to lambast him back in 2008 when he ran unsuccessfully for president against Obama.

Back in that campaign, McCain made the hard-right adjustments so as to try to get the votes of the conservative ideologues. Particularly with regards to immigration, where he had been a GOP supporter in the past of some serious reform measures but in that campaign backed away from his past talk on those issues.

Now, he’s willing to express some support for serious immigration reform (which excludes anything whose prime focus is to increase the number of deportations from this nation). And he went ahead and took the vote last week that keeps some people (possibly even myself) remaining with some form of health insurance.

There are those who say that the bout of cancer that McCain is coping with these days (he made a special trip to Capitol Hill to be on hand for the negative – from Trump’s perspective – vote) gives the senator the ability to vote his conscience on the issue.

WHILE IT ALSO is leading to many snide comments on the Internet from people whose idea of a sense of humor is to say that McCain can’t die fast enough – on account of him selling out the ideologues on this particular issue. I’m not about to become a McCain apologist. I was offended enough by his reversal back in ’08 on immigration reform that I will forevermore be convinced I made the right choice in backing Obama.

OBAMA: Trump trying to erase his memory

But it was impressive to see that some people were capable of putting aside their politically partisan ties to vote in a way that the bulk of the people wanted. Only the ideologues are all that worked up about repealing the Affordable Care Act.

After all, if it has its flaws, they’re mostly because of the ideologues who have spent years trying to thwart its implementation and who probably deserve the blame for not trying to revamp it into a more formidable policy.

Those ideologues will have to settle for the electoral chances of Rauner in Illinois – who could always wind up victorious if problems arise amongst his Democrat challengers. We’ll have to see whether backing, or backing away from, Trump is the appropriate stance for the future.

  -30-

Election Day won't bring to an end our national partisan political stalemate

There’s nothing terribly surprising about failed presidential candidate John McCain talking about how his Republican counterparts in Congress are prepared to be obstructionists with regards to any effort by a “President Hillary Clinton” to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States.
 

McCAIN: Senator says 'no judges' for Hillary

Obstructionism has been the ways and means of operating our federal government for the past six years that Congress has been in the hands of Republicans who don’t want President Barack Obama to have any lasting effect on the nation.

SO IT WOULD seem that obstructionism will be the way they will deal with a second coming of the Clinton family to the White House.

There’s still that vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the death of Antonin Scalia early this year. Any hope that the passing of Election Day in a few more weeks will result in a return to normalcy is just a dream.

Either that, or obstructionism has become the new normal.

In some ways, hearing that Senate Republicans would be inclined to refuse to confirm any Clinton appointment to the nation’s high court may be the most sensible thing we’re hearing these days.

AFTER ALL, IT would mean that Republican opponents of a President Clinton would be staying within the process created for our government’s operations. Not that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned government officials would be petty enough to resort to such tactics.

Then again, maybe petty has become the new normal.

Hearing that the Senate would refuse to confirm a Supreme Court nominee sounds more sane than those people who talk of a coup d’ tat within our government – so as to keep “that broad” (they probably use much harsher terms to describe her) from taking office.

 

TRUMP: His followers prepared to wreck havoc

There’s even one website now (usuncut.com) with a video snippet of somebody saying he’s prepared to kill Hillary Clinton should she manage to be able to win the presidential election – which various polls and studies are indicating is somewhere in the vicinity of a 90 percent certainty.

AT THE VERY least, there are those who take Donald Trump’s “stupid speak” of Clinton being prosecuted and incarcerated if he were to win the just a tad too seriously. Let’s only hope that Trump himself has never engaged in a business deal that could be construed by a prosecutor as criminal in nature.

Although I’m sure the Trump-types would dismiss his future indictment as some sort of conspiracy by Clinton to cover up her own wrong-doings.

All of this is relevant because of the likelihood that Republican interests will hold on to their control of Congress. I know many of the e-mail missives I receive from Democratic interests these days always make the point of how we have to dump the GOP control of Congress if a “President Clinton” is to be capable of achieving anything.

Some go right out and try to scare me by saying it is inevitable UNLESS Democratic candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives win – which usually means more campaign cash. Which really means they want me to kick in money, and they’re trying to make me feel guilty because I haven’t contributed a dime to any candidate.

NOT NOW. NOT ever, actually.

 

CLINTON: Is she really such a shoo-in to win?

Although I don’t doubt the truthfulness of an obstructionist Congress. It may well be McCain speaking the blunt truth when he talks about an ongoing effort to keep the Supreme Court short-staffed – unless conservative ideologues get to pick one of their own to replace Scalia (and any other judge who retires or dies in the near future).

All of which means we’re not going to get radical change in the way our government operates these days. Which is sad, because radical change is what we desperately need. And NO, Donald Trump is as far removed from “radical change” as we could get.

It is sad that we have a political mindset by which people can only work with themselves and are incapable of working with others. The only way our government gets anything accomplished is if the “game” is rigged in someone’s favor – and bipartisanship becomes the ultimate vulgar expression.

  -30-

Which of these politico pendejos will Latinos actually vote for in November?

I find it amusing these days to see that just about every presidential dreamer thinks they have achieved the key to being the preferred presidential choice of that segment of the electorate that is Latino.

 

We're voting against Trump

Particularly since I don’t think any of them have a clue as to what Latino voters are thinking, or how to really reach out to them.

OTHER THAN SAYING a majority of Latino voters will ultimately pick the Democratic nominee for president, nobody knows what will happen.

And quite frankly, that prediction doesn’t mean much. Let’s not forget that back in 2004, Democrat John Kerry took 56 percent of the Latino vote. Yet the real story is that Republican opponent George W. Bush allegedly got 44 percent of the Latino vote – a record high and a significant factor in his re-election victory that year.

Republicans don’t have to win the Latino vote to win presidential elections. In fact, I believe the last thing any of them would want to do is to appeal to a majority of Latino voters.

It would mean Latinos would expect things from them in return, and that would invariably offend their voter base of those white people who WANT to have a presidential candidate who will neglect the Latino segment of our society.

IN SHORT, SOMEONE like Donald Trump who kicked off his campaign with offensive remarks about Mexican people and recently stepped up the rhetoric by complaining about the federal judge who is presiding over a trial related to a lawsuit against his Trump University programs that defrauded their students.

Trump claims that because the judge is of Mexican ethnic origins (actually a native of East Chicago, Ind. – that community just across the state line with a 52 percent Latino majority population) he naturally can’t be trusted to be fair to Trump.

 

We're not likely to support Sanders

Yet Trump has also spewed nonsense rhetoric about how he can take enough of the Latino vote to cut into any voter support that a Democratic challenger would be counting on.

It’s true that some Latinos will vote for Donald, or any other Republican. Largely because they’re so eager to be thought of as “white” (or more accurately, not thought of as “black”) that they will tolerate whatever hostile rhetoric that GOP officials spew about them.

BUT TRUMP HAS a serious chance of sinking below the 27 percent of the Latino vote that Republican Mitt Romney took the last election – one in which Barack Obama got that overwhelming 72 percent of the Latino vote.

 

Likely to continue trend of voting Dem by default

Not because we really thought that highly of Obama – all the rhetoric about him being the “deporter in chief” existed back then too. It’s that we thought even less of the guy with the delusions about “self-deportation.” We knew who was more hostile toward us, and we voted against him in great numbers.

Just as will happen to Trump come November. We will vote against “el Donaldo” at a record-setting rate. We'll react like Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas, the Congressman who told Trump to stick his talk of a U.S./Mexico border wall up his culo come Election Day.

But who do we vote for? That remains to be seen.

IT WAS INTERESTING to see the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday that went solidly for Hillary Clinton. How many Puerto Ricans on the mainland will follow the lead of their country cousins?

Got Latino vote because we despised McCain/Romney

There’s also the California primary scheduled for Tuesday, where news reports indicate that long-shot challenger Bernie Sanders thinks that younger Latino voters will split from their elders and support him – thereby making it possible for him to win that state’s primary.

That would be a blow to Clinton’s image of being able to unify Democratic voters. But Hillary is still so far ahead in the delegate count that she likely still wins the delegate count – and the presidential nomination.

Also, quite possibly, a majority of the Latino vote; unless we decide to collectively fall asleep while wearing a sombrero, take a siesta and miss Election Day altogether – which probably is the Trump campaign’s great fantasy. And also Trump’s only chance en infierno of not getting his clock cleaned by Latino voters.

  -30-

Trump trumps Rauner when it comes to being wealthy fool full of himself

Anytime those of us in Illinois think our governor excels in the arrogance department with the way he equally refuses to compromise toward a new state budget, all we have to do to get a jolt of reality is take a look at Donald Trump.

Does Trump need boot in behind to shrink ego?

The New York real estate developer who thinks his wealth is evidence of his genius has managed to tick off so many people with his recent views on Mexicans. Now, he’s ticking off people who probably want to believe Trump knows exactly what he’s talking about on that issue.

FOR NOW, TRUMP is going after military veterans – specifically Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose public image relies heavily on the fact that he served during the Vietnam War and did a lengthy stretch as a prisoner of war.

There are those who give McCain so much credit for the fact that he was incarcerated by the North Vietnamese faction and endured more than his share of torture.

Trump recently went out of his way to mock McCain, saying he deserves no real praise for his military record. Although I suspect his real criticism is the fact that Trump donated money to McCain’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid.

Which means he wasn’t able to “buy” the ability to tell the president what to do. That is really what interest the overly-wealthy corporate types have in electoral politics – they want to have their business interests reinforced!

OF COURSE, IN the case of Trump, he has a decades-old track record of having an over-bloated ego and sense of self-importance – the motivation for his latest bid for the Republican nomination for president in next year’s election cycle.

McCAIN: How heroic is he?

Just as Rauner got tired of trying to buy political influence through campaign contributions and went ahead and got himself elected to a political post, Trump is trying to do the same.

Yet I don’t think Rauner has the nerve to pull off the trash-talk that Trump has given us; nor would he then follow it up by spewing stupid-talk about how others ought to apologize to him for having the nerve to think that he is wrong to begin with.

That is what we have got from Trump – he thinks people critical of his Mexico rhetoric have done him wrong, and now he thinks those upset with his criticism of McCain ought to bow down and beg forgiveness for having the nerve to say he’s wrong.

RAUNER: What does he think of The Donald?

FOR THE RECORD, I’ll agree that McCain’s military record often gets exaggerated by political partisans who want to score political points on Election Day. They want to think every Republican official warrants praise, while also blasting any military veteran (remember John Kerry from ’04) who winds up becoming a Democrat.

But trying to trash McCain bolster his presidential dreams just comes across as tacky.

Because I always thought the fact that McCain endured the mental strain of incarceration in the service of his nation was worthy of some respect. I suspect that Trump – if he ever had been put in that situation – would have cracked within minutes.

The wimp!!!

I KNOW SOME people are eager to make much of this by saying it actually benefits Trump. After all, there are polls showing Trump doing well in Iowa and New Hanpshire (the first states to express themselves in the upcoming election cycle) and leading nationwide.

That nationwide lead is only 17 percent – or roughly one of every six people who think of themselves as Republican. That’s a lot of Republicans who don’t want Trump, along with all the people who don’t think of themselves as being a part of the GOP.

Many of those Republicans are going out of their way to avoid saying anything – they don’t want to give the Democrats they invariably will challenge any ammunition to be used against the Party of Lincoln.

Although it makes me wonder if, in his private moments when he’s in the Executive Mansion, Rauner’s shuddering in disgust is a combination of Trump’s latest ego-bloated statements AND the decaying condition of his official residence!

  -30-

Good, or bad, for Mitt-men? What does it say about us as an electorate?

A new poll released this week makes me feel both good, and bad, about our society these days.

ROMNEY: Not inspiring our awe



The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press says that a majority of those whom they questioned didn’t have the slightest idea what “Etch-a-Sketch” meant in conjunction with Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations.

I’M SURE ROMNEY is breathing a sigh of relief!

For while some want to believe that the view he will try to remake himself ideologically come the general election cycle (ie., September and October) from the would-be ideologue he is acting like now will doom his campaign, that poll found 55 percent of people had not heard a word about this controversy (sparked by an aide to Romney who said the candidate would redo his image just like a kid with an Etch-A-Sketch toy).

It could be that the numbskull remark that some people (including Romney challenger Rick Santorum himself) want to blow up into a controversy is just too trivial for “the American people” to pay any attention to.

That would be a plus. That would be a sign that we have a thinking electorate.

THEN AGAIN, THAT would be a big assumption in-and-of itself. It could be a flawed one, particularly based off of other portions of the same poll – which brought up various issues and tries to gauge how much people really care about them.

For it seems one of the things they really don’t care much about is the ongoing presidential election cycle.

OBAMA: Winner by default?



Because 58 percent of the people surveyed said they think the election cycle that officially began with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary (but which unofficially is more than a year old already) is “too long.”

Even among the Republicans who supposedly are being stirred up and motivated by the fact that their political party has a competitive primary – unlike the Democratic Party where the nomination convention to be held in Charlotte, N.C., will be nothing more than a coronation for Barack, the Second (as in term), 64 percent think the cycle is “too long.”

EVEN WORSE FOR Mitt?

Only 38 percent of people surveyed find it “interesting,” compared to 52 percent who think it “dull.” Even 42 percent of Republicans think the election cycle is “dull,” which is bad because a majority of everybody else (including 56 percent of the political independents who supposedly decide elections) are bored.

Part of it is because we have a short attention-span society. But what does it say about us that we can’t even fake some interest in the process by which our nation picks its new chief executive for the next four years?

Heck, the ongoing saga concerning the death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is being followed “most closely” by more people than those who want to know about the latest campaign activity.

THAT FIGURE REALLY spikes up among African-American people, where 52 percent of those questioned said Martin was the top story, compared to only 13 percent who think the election is a bigger deal.

Then again, there also were 6 percent of black people and 9 percent of white people who thought the “top story” was the New Orleans Saints and the punishments being received by certain team officials, including coach Sean Payton, for the thuggery on-field that was being disguised as aggressive athletic play.

So what does all this really say?

Romney’s supposed gaffe that would bring down his campaign has been largely ignored, because “the American people” could care less about the campaign cycle in general.

WHICH MAY BE the best news of all for Obama these days – who is having to cope with speculation that the health care reform measure riddled with political compromise is so flawed that the Supreme Court of the United States will strike it down.

McCAIN: Romney makes him look solid



Because if it seems that nobody cares about the election cycle these days, it is because Romney and the other dwarfs are not grabbing the attention of the public.

Which may well mean that the disgust that the ideological conservatives feel for Obama is such a small sentiment that enough people will vote for his re-election come Nov. 6.

And while a “win” may be a win regardless of how it is achieved, it would be such a far cry from the “hope” and “change” of 2008 if an Obama victory this time around came about due to a challenger who was even less awe-inspiring than John McCain was that year.

  -30-

Romney treats shots off the foul pole as tape-measure home run blasts!!!!!

Time magazine caught my attention – what with a cover showing a close-up of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s face and the headline, “So you like me now?”

Which struck me as downright absurd. There may be those political pundits who are trying to claim that the former Massachusetts governor is running away with the political battles that will get him the Republican presidential nomination for the Nov. 6 elections.

BUT REAL PEOPLE are more inclined to see what is happening and realize that no one is “pull(ing) ahead of the pack” – which is how Time chose to characterize Romney’s campaign performances in a subhead to the same magazine cover.

Maybe it’s because I see a candidate who took 25 percent support of the caucuses in Iowa and 39 percent of the voter support in the New Hampshire primary – and see a few states coming up where the conservative ideologues of the world typically do well in elections.

What I see is a candidate who had overwhelming majorities of voters wanting somebody else, ANYBODY ELSE, except for Mitt. That sentiment is running strong. If anything, IT is the dominant theme of Campaign ’12.

We have the ideologues who have had their hang-ups ever since Election Day 2008 who have been biding their time for the day when someone can come in and erase the memory of Barack Obama as president.

THOSE ARE NOT a compromising batch of people. The last thing they’re ever going to do is get excited about the thought of Mitt Romney.

That is why it did not shock me to learn that on Saturday in Texas, a group of ideologically-motivated political people came out in support of Rick Santorum. The one-time Pennsylvania senator who has a record of being more than willing to spew against people who aren’t just like himself may well be the kind of candidate they want.

In short, they’re trying to pressure all the other candidates who remain in the various elections to drop out. Because then, the ABM vote will combine into an overwhelming majority – instead of all those “Anybody But Mitt” votes being split among so many candidates that Romney’s quarter-of-the Republican electorate is large enough to “win” on the primary election days.

Of course, I don’t expect to see those other candidates drop out. They’re a stubborn batch who probably are convinced of their own moral superiority – even though when I look at them, I see a batch of blowhards (and no, I have never succumbed to the appeal of Ron Paul).

SO ROMNEY MAY well “win” these primaries and wind up getting the nomination to run against Obama. Although I’m not convinced of the line of rhetoric that claims he’s a political “moderate” who is the only GOPer who can possibly win the general election.

I just can’t help but see a candidate who creates a sense of apathy among the Republican faithful that will be more intense than what occurred in ’08 with John McCain.

And if, somehow, the GOP voters were to somehow nominate one of their ideologues as some sort of hard-line approach by which they take over and the rest of us have to shut up and like it, all I can say to that theory is that those ideologues must be using some pretty hard-core drugs in order to believe such nonsense.

I couldn’t help but notice a pair of reports from the Gallup Organization – which on Sunday had Barack Obama with a 46 percent “favorable” rating, compared to 48 percent “unfavorable.”

BUT A STUDY released late last week said that 46 percent of people surveyed want a federal government with Barack Obama to have more influence over its direction, compared to only 42 percent that would want a Republican Congress to set the tone of public policy.

The man holding the presidency is not as unpopular as the ideologues want to believe, and most people who are distrustful of Obama these days are distrustful of all political people in general – even the Republicans.

So I can’t help but laugh at the people who are trying to portray Mitt Romney as some sort of GOP steamroller and political force. It just isn’t so!

I can’t help but think we’re going to be getting a laugh out of that Time magazine cover come autumn, and Romney may wind up making the McCain campaign, in retrospect, look competitive by comparison.

IF ANYTHING, IT has me wondering if somewhere up in the cosmos, there is some force looking out for Obama.

For this is the guy who got elected to the Illinois state Senate by successfully knocking an incumbent opponent off the ballot, then went up to the U.S. Senate by seeing both his primary and general election opponents implode.

Seeing the possibility that history will record that Obama ran for president against two GOP nominees despised by their own party faithful just seems too ironic. For it has me wondering about those ideologues – some of whom go about thinking they’re spreading “God’s will” with their activism.

Maybe they are – if you believe that whatever Supreme being exists doesn’t object to “Four more years!!!” of Barack Obama and is using the ideologues to “take down” his challengers.

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Betting on the Senate campaign in Illinois is for suckers – Kirk is not the invincible man

To listen to the Republican rhetoric these days, some of which I receive directly from the party on a daily basis in my e-mail, Alexi Giannoulias is toast. As are his Democratic Party colleagues on the ballot with him for the Nov. 2 elections.

After all, Giannoulias is involved with a failing bank that did shady business dealings with corrupt people. Most people are going to hear that political trash talk, assume there might be a bit of truth to it, and will not bother to try to find out for themselves what the real story is.

BUT THEN, I listen to Giannoulias’ Republican opponent and realize that the GOP has its own problems, and that anybody who presumes that Democrat-leaning (because it’s so heavily Chicago-dominated) Illinois is going to see a massive electoral turnover is using some seriously illicit narcotics.

At least that is the impression I got after reading the reports that came out of Illinois’ capital city, where Kirk admits that his talk of wanting to repeal the health care reform proposal that is a significant part of President Barack Obama’s legacy is a whole lot of hooey.

Not that Kirk, currently a Congressman from the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, thinks much of the health care proposal. It’s just that he realizes that anyone who seriously uses their time and political clout to push for repeal is wasting their time – while also driving themselves closer to a nervous breakdown.

“We lost, and we don’t have the votes,” Kirk told reporter-types during a recent campaign appearance in Springfield.

ON A CERTAIN level, Kirk deserves to be commended. He was speaking honestly. He was speaking realistically. He was speaking truthfully. Yet that is about the last thing that anybody – particularly the ideological opponents of Barack Obama – wants to hear when it comes to health care reform.

The way that Kirk is going to get the hard-core ideologues whom the Republican Party is counting on to turn out in droves to seize back control of portions of Illinois state government is to continue the poltiical trash talk.

He’s going to have to get people stirred up into a frenzy into thinking that Democrats are the evil spawn created by the merger of Obama and Blagojevich. Kirk being the guy seeking federal office gets to dump on the Obama legacy, while gubernatorial hopeful William Brady and the other GOP candidates focus on Blagojevich.

If they don’t do this, they take the risk of turning off the hard-core elements of the Republican Party, which would depress the voter turnout and make it all the more likely that the hard-core voters of Chicago whom the Democratic Party counts on to be the base of its vote in Illinois will be sufficient to win many elections and keep significant control of Illinois government.

THE PROBLEM FOR Kirk, compared to his Republican colleagues running in many other states, is that Obama remains popular in his home state. While the Gallup Organization on Friday gave Obama a 50 percent “approval” rating (compared to 43 percent “disapprove”), various polls that break their results down by states show that Illinoisans generally support the president with approval ratings anywhere from 56 to 65 percent (depending on whose study one consults).

In short, using the hard-core rhetoric to trash-talk health care is not going to play in Illinois. It will only serve to drive voters away from Kirk, and from the rest of Republican candidates for 2010. Turning this election into a forum on health care reform would only serve to help Giannoulias because it would remind many Chicago-area voters that Kirk is somebody who is counting on political support from people whose interests go counter to so many of our (as in Chicago’s) own.

But if he doesn’t resort to some of the trash-talk (let me concede that every candidate for every political office engages in some trash talk) on health care, he’s also going to turn off his own political base. He has the potential to lose similar to John McCain for president in 2008 – many people may not have wanted an Obama victory, but they didn’t trush McCain to be any better for what they desire out of a public official.

It is why I honestly believe that in the campaign for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois being abandoned by Roland Burris, both candidates have sufficient weaknesses that virtually cancel each other out. It is why I think it is absurd for anyone to say they think they know who will win this particular election.

I CAN VERY easily envision the collective conservative nausea that will occur in January 2011 at the sight of U.S. Sen. Alexi Giannoulias, D-Ill. Then again, I’m not ruling out the possibility that Kirk will succeed in moving “up” from the House of Representatives to the Senate.

But I also think there’s a good chance that the Republican success in Illinois’ elections this year will be limited to smaller Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Illinois House, and the return of Judy Baar Topinka to a political post.

Not that I’m betting any money on that last statement. At this point, only a fool would do so.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Mark Kirk is backing away from his past political rhetoric about repealing the (http://nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/article_69cbfdb0-95f4-5912-a00c-a9a1d745d400.html) health care reform proposal signed into law recently by Barack Obama. Will this help him avoid irritating Obama’s Illinois (http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/89809667.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUec7PaP3E77K_0c::D3aDhUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU) fans, or will it tick off Obama’s Illinois critics?

Alexi Giannoulias is trying to score a few political points (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/2136609,CST-NWS-kirk02.article) off the fact that Kirk is speaking more realistically these days about the issue of health care.

Where have you gone, Paul Simon? Our state turns its lonely eyes to you. What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? The bow-tie man has left and gone away (http://senatorpaulsimon.org/). With apologies to Paul Simon, the singer and song-writer, the sentiment of who we’d really like to have as our state’s senator in Washington seems to fit.