EXTRA: If Kennedy, other Dems, really want to be called “governor,” maybe they should move to England

Chris Kennedy, the son of a former presidential hopeful and nephew to a president and a long-time senator, has taken the step he has never been willing to in his past political fantasies – he declared a candidacy Wednesday for Illinois governor.
 

A Kennedy joining the gubernatorial rat-race

Kennedy, the son of Bobby and himself the long-time manager of the formerly Kennedy family-owned Merchandise Mart property, says he’ll seek the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination for the 2018 election cycle.

WHICH PUTS HIM on a lengthy list of people who have allowed their names to be thrown into the mix; some of whom likely just enjoy the idea of having such speculation being bandied about when people discuss them.

For what it’s worth, that list right now includes:

·        Amaya Pawar, a Chicago alderman,

·        Robin Kelly, in whose congressional district I currently reside,
·        Kwame Raoul, a state senator from President Barack Obama’s neighborhood in Chicago,
·        Michael Frerichs, the Illinois treasurer,
·        Daniel Biss, a state senator,
·        Cheri Bustos, a member of Congress from the Quad Cities,
·        J.B. Pritzker, the financially well-off man (the Hyatt Hotels fortune) who could potentially make incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner look like a pauper,
·        Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who has long been rumored to have gubernatorial fantasies, and
·        Pat Quinn, the former governor who has never let being a political long-shot stop him from running for a government office.

Will people feel the same way about his son?

Needless to say, it’s highly unlikely we will have a 10-candidate ballot to choose from in the Democratic primary to be held in March 2018. This list will winnow down considerably, and it may be possible that the person who winds up on top is someone who hasn’t come forth yet.

ALL OF WHICH is to say I don’t have a clue who will be the challenger to Rauner when he seeks another term as Illinois governor.

As for whether any of these people can actually beat the millions of his own dollars that Rauner has already committed to spending to get himself re-elected along with a General Assembly more sympathetic to his anti-organized labor political agenda, that remains to be seen.

Will Caroline draw more attention to her candidacy

About the only thing I do know for sure is that having to think about this election cycle more than a year before the actual primary gives me a sense of nausea.

And as for the Kennedy name, we’ll get to see whether the multi-generational political family (supposedly, JFK daughter Caroline is contemplating a bid for office in New York, and there are countless Kennedy cousins throughout the years who have succeeded) can add Illinois to the list of states and cities where voters chose to elect one of their members to handle the duties of governing themselves.

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Who’s going to out-politick whom on fate of Illinois comptroller post?

Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner let it be known this week whom he plans to pick to replace the late Judy Baar Topinka to serve as Illinois comptroller. But that doesn’t make the future’s post any more secure.

For now that we know Leslie Munger is the new person in charge of making sure government bills get paid in a manner sort of resembling being timely, it seems Rauner is pushing for the post’s abolishment.

ACTUALLY, HE WANTS a merger of sorts between the comptroller and the Illinois treasurer – the office that oversees the state’s financial investments and other income.

It has been a long-running political debate over whether state government finances ought to be overseen by two officials who hold state constitutional officer titles. It seems that Rauner wants to use the Topinka death as momentum to push this issue now, when in the past it has always limped along and withered away.

Now I know there are those who think this appropriate – they say Topinka herself favored merging the two offices, and that this could be her legacy. But I can’t help but be skeptical.

Perhaps it’s because I know my local history and remember the name Orville Hodge (the one-time state financial official who wound up doing prison time for his government antics).

IT WAS WITH that in mind that when the state Constitution was last re-written in 1970, delegates decided to split the duties related to state government’s financial tasks.

In essence, one person is in charge of bringing in as much money as possible for the state to spend, with another person being in charge of signing off on the checks that are issued to pay the state’s bills.

It provides a sense of ‘check and balance’ that I actually find appropriate. I’m not sure what is really gained by wanting to have one person serve as an all-powerful treasurer.

Except that some people see the concept of having that all-powerful person and get greedy at the concept of having that official on their side in partisan political maneuvers. Just like the idea of having a lottery to break the tie on a political redistricting panel was supposed to scare people into being afraid their side would get nothing, but instead their greedy nature makes them enjoy the chance to get all – and totally screw over the opposition!

RAUNER MADE IT clear this week that his appointment of Munger was part of a larger effort to have voters decide in the 2016 elections whether the two posts would be merged into one.

Whether such a plan can gain traction will depend on how it is worded, and which position is perceived as being the one done away with.

Which is why I found it laughable that Illinois Treasurer-elect Michael Frerichs issued his own statement this week saying he favors doing away with the comptroller post in 2016 – as though that is a big conciliatory gesture!

For one thing, his proposal merely protects himself. I don’t think Republican political interests (including Rauner) will meekly go along with that.

PLUS, I THINK it shows Frerichs’ political cluelessness if he really believes that can happen.

For the voters back in November chose Topinka to serve a four-year term running from Monday through mid-January of 2019. Whether there has to be a special election in 2016 to pick someone to finish the last two years, or whether Munger gets to have a whole four-year term without being elected has to be decided.

But we’re going to have the two positions in place at least through then – there’s no getting around that! Whether some time in the 2020s the two posts can be combined is a different issue. But it’s not going to happen anytime before then.

There’s still time between now and then. Let’s hope sense prevails and we don’t get a restructuring of our government just because current officials have dreams of more power for their partisan side!

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Election cycle (ugh!) is now underway

With the Labor Day holiday now past us, we’re technically in the time period in which candidates for electoral office can be campaigning without appearing to be tacky or self-serving.

TRACY: Vote for her, Dillard comes along

We’re 155 days away from the March primary (less if you choose to use early voting). It’s time for the candidates to start circulating the nominating petitions that actually get them on the ballots for March 18.

WE’RE GOING TO learn who the candidates for governor will choose to have as running mates – although two of them have already let their choices out of the bag of secrets, so to speak.

Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale has chosen a state representative from Quincy – following the concept of some sort of regional balance (suburbs and western Illinois) – to be the Top of the Ticket for the Republicans.

Unless the voters decide to choose the Dan Rutherford option. The Illinois treasurer has let it be known that he wants Steven Kim, the would-be politico who four years ago ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general.

Rutherford is touting the idea of an ethnic balance, since Kim would be the first person of Korean (or Asian, in general) ethnic background to get elected to a statewide office – if the Rutherford/Kim ticket were to prevail in the primary AND in the Nov. 4 general election.

NONE OF THE other gubernatorial dreamers have come up with running mates – although they are likely to do so in the near future. After all, if they’re going to run as a pair, they have to submit nominating petitions identifying them as a pair.

And if they’re starting to circulate them in coming days, they need to know in coming days who they’re being paired up with.

I’ve hinted before that this could be a significant factor in the gubernatorial race because the actual candidates themselves aren’t the kind of people who can inspire people to want to turn out and vote for them.



Steve Kim (left) is going from a failed attorney general bid to a gubernatorial running-mate slot. No word on whether anyone thinks failed secretary of state candidate Robert Enriquez is beneficial to the GOP in 2014. Photograph provided by Steven Kim for Attorney General 2010

 

There aren’t any “Barack Obama-like” candidates running for office in Illinois next year.

I REALLY DO believe this will be an election cycle in which (particularly for governor) people will be voting against people. They’re going to make their pick based on who they detest the least!

Voters will walk into the booths at their polling place, see a batch of names whose very existence annoys them to no end, and will cast their vote for whoever happens to be left.

And while I’ll be the first to admit that having an incumbent governor who has generated approval ratings as low as 26 percent doesn’t make things look good, I see all the other declared candidates for governor as having significant segments of the populace who can’t stand the thought of them, either!

That is why I go into this election cycle being completely unsure who should be thought of as the favorite. Each of them will have their hard-core followers – along with people who would symbolically slash their wrists at the very thought of that person becoming the resident of the Executive Mansion in Springfield.

THIS ELECTION CYCLE might be less annoying if there were another office up for grabs that would have serious competition. But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is going for his fourth term in the U.S. Senate being challenged by Doug Truax and Chad Koppie.

FRERICHS: Wants to replace Rutherford

Truax has a military background, and is likely to try to appeal to the hard-core ideologues of Illinois. Which might be a problem since those are the same people that Koppie usually tries to appeal to during his perennial bids (all unsuccessful) for elective office.

Which is typical of all the other statewide offices within Illinois government that are up for grabs in 2014 – the most competitive will be for Illinois treasurer, where state Rep. Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and Bob Grogan of suburban DuPage County both want to challenge state Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-Champaign, for the right to replace Rutherford.

They might all be hardworking, earnest public officials. But let’s be honest – none of them are going to inspire Illinois to want to turn out to vote on March 18.

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