Have gift cards replaced turkeys as 21st Century preference for buying a vote?

It’s one of the oldest tactics for political people representing less-than-middle-class voters to try to get their electoral support – an aldermanic “gift” whose appreciation is expected to be repaid in the future with a “vote.”

Oftentimes, that gift was a turkey or something else that could be the main course for an upcoming holiday meal. To this day, there are political people who make a point of getting turkeys they can give away to their constituents – in hopes that they get the public recognition of their “generosity.”

SO HAVE ALL those political people been behaving in a criminal manner?

Perhaps, if we’re to take the outrage being expressed against 5^th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston these days, it is.

For Hairston is the alderman who WFLD-TV reports tried encouraging people to show up to vote for the upcoming Election Day by offering up raffle tickets – the prizes for which included gift cards to area businesses.

For all we know, some of those tickets could have been used at area grocery stores to buy items for the holiday meal (Thanksgiving isn’t that far off in the future).

ALTHOUGH THE RAFFLE is on hold, and probably now won’t happen because of the negative publicity Hairston would get – the exact opposite of her intentions.

She tried using a Facebook page promoting herself to tell people how she’d give them a raffle ticket if they showed up at the polling place. WIN A PRIZE FOR YOUR VOTE!!!!! was the theme she was trying to push.

She seems to have thought it would be perceived as Hairston trying to encourage people to do their civic duty and vote on Election Day.

Instead, it seems that people of a certain mindset took it as something amounting to a bribe – as if the raffle ticket was a bribe (or is that BRIBE!!!?!) in exchange for a vote.

ALTHOUGH IT SHOULD be noted that nowhere in the raffle announcement on Facebook were people being told exactly how they should vote. I’m presuming that Hairston figured people living in the South Side’s fifth ward would have enough sense to disregard any consideration for candidates who have an “R” associated with their names.

But the fact that she didn’t try to specifically sway someone to vote for a particular candidate may be the reason she evades some sort of criminal prosecution – although the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that the Cook County state’s attorney’s office is looking into the whole matter.

The state election code is going to be up for interpretation in coming weeks.

Personally, I’m not bothered as much by her raffle tickets to encourage voting as I am by her attitude since then. When the matter became public, Hairston took the raffle ticket offer off her Facebook page.

IT SEEMS TO be invalid now. And Hairston is telling reporter-type people that she doesn’t want to talk about the issue any more. As though she can make it go away just because she stopped doing it before any serious damage may, or may not, have been done.

Even though I’m fairly sure that law enforcement types aren’t going to be too concerned about the after-effect. It’s the initial act itself that will get them all worked up.

So we’ll have to see in coming months if the state’s attorney winds up concluding that this matter is worth the time, effort and cost it would take to prosecute someone for the act.

Although I’d wonder if the real “offense” is that an alderman thought she could “buy off” votes for the cost of a Walgreen’s gift card. Which shows as little respect for the voter (how cheaply they can be bought) as the turkey-bearing politicos of old.

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EXTRA: Promontory Point – the ‘third rail’ of Democratic slating session?

What Hyde Parkers dream about having with 'the Point.' Photograph by Inetours.com

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. – Anti-labor proposals. Abortion. Gay marriage. Foreign aid to countries like Israel.

All were among the issues that were brought up Saturday when Democrats tried unsuccessfully to come up with a single candidate for next year’s special elections to fill the vacancy created when Jesse Jackson, Jr., resigned from Congress.

YET WHAT WAS the issue that wound up creating the biggest stink, and may well have been the “kiss of death” for at least one Congressional dreamer?

Promontory Point!

Yes, I’m referring to that man-made place that juts out into Lake Michigan at 55^th Street in the Hyde Park neighborhood, and that offers up some of the most unique views of the lake and of the downtown skyline. It is a place that every Chicagoan ought to check out (I’ve only been there once in my life), yet many don’t even realize exists.

And it was the issue that 5^th Ward Committeeman Leslie Hairston turned into her ultimate weapon against the candidates who partook in the slating session held Saturday in the south suburbs.

FOR HAIRSTON DEMANDED that all 16 of those who wished to be slated give her an answer as to what kind of help the candidate would offer from Congress for the restoration of Promontory Point – which has been a hot-button issue in Hyde Park for the past decade.

It didn’t matter where in the 2^nd Congressional District (it stretches as far south as the Kankakee/Iroquois County border) one came from. She demanded an answer.

HAIRSTON: All had to answer about "the Point"

“If these people want to represent my community, I want to know where they stand on an issue of concern to us,” she said.

For his part, would-be Congressional candidate Donne Trotter (the state senator who once lived in Hyde Park) describes the point as, “the place where we went to have fun when we were young,” with a wicked laugh as he said it.

FOR THE RECORD, Hairston said she thinks Jackson was negligent in doing anything about the issue during his time in Congress. She also wants the Point rebuilt with limestone – as opposed to those people who would prefer a cheaper alternative such as concrete.

“Limestone” became the magic word. Anybody who wouldn’t say they would support rebuilding with it was dead in the water, as far as Hairston was concerned.

It almost became humorous at times, such as when would-be Congressional candidate Joyce Washington guessed “limestone. I got it right?,” she said, while people watching the slating hearing applauded.

And when former state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood tried saying he would “support what the people want” without being specific, she ultimately pressured him into saying, “limestone.”

“GOOD CHOICE,” HAIRSTON told him.

Did 'Point' kill Williams?

This issue may also have become the death of perennial candidate Rev. Anthony Williams, who admitted he wasn’t familiar with the issue, and refused to take a guess at what it was that Hairston wanted to hear. “I don’t have a position,” he said.

 

Although for others, his comment against building an airport in Peotone and spending the money to revitalize such southern suburbs as Dixmoor, Harvey and Dolton was likely the kiss of death. Of a new Chicago-area airport near Peotone, Williams said, "Gary/Chicago is your third airport."

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