Looking out for themselves; how few Dems will back president on trade?

DUCKWORTH: A 'no' for Obama policy

It may turn out to be ugly on Friday for President Barack Obama when the Trade Promotion Authority measure comes up for a vote in the House of Representatives.

Many Democrats are making it clear they’re not backing the president on this measure. And while it is the kind of business-oriented measure that Republicans usually like to back, I’d wonder how many of the GOP-leaning House members will let their personal political distaste for Obama guide their votes.

WILL ANYBODY BE willing to back Obama on the measure that alters the amount of oversight that Congress would have over foreign trade agreements. Supposedly, less oversight will boost business interests overseas.

Organized labor, however, is concerned that less oversight will let those business interests run amok over the concerns of working people.

Since many of the Democratic caucus members in Congress give lip service to the idea of backing “working people” and rely on those labor union political action committees for their financial support come Election Day, it shouldn’t be a shock that many are saying they’ll vote “no.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who’s trying to bolster her image so she becomes the front-runner in the 2016 campaign for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, issued a statement Thursday saying she’s voting against Obama on this issue.

“TRADE AGREEMENTS NEED tough, enforceable rules,” she said. “Right now, Congress is failing to demand standards to hold other countries accountable.

“That’s especially true for currency manipulation,” said Duckworth.

KIRK: He votes 'aye,' she votes 'no'

She’s not alone. The Washington Post had a field day on Thursday with a story pointing out the fact that the congressmen from Chicago can’t stand the idea either. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., seems to be the only local congressman willing to consider voting for the idea, according to a commentary he wrote for the Chicago Tribune.

Even that is more motivated by the fear of being the lone vote that causes an Obama desire to fail passage, although he wrote in the Tribune that the president should have this great authority to set trade policy like past presidents have had.

BUT THOSE OFFICIALS who want to garner future political support for themselves don’t seem as concerned.

Duckworth’s opposition to the idea seems predictable, since in her statement she makes a point of saying that Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., voted for the idea when it came up for consideration last month by the Senate.

OBAMA: Will anybody back him?

I’m sure Duckworth thinks anything that makes her different from the man she’s challenging in next year’s election cycle is a plus for her.

The idea did pass in the Senate, but mostly with Republican votes. For the record, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., voted “no” for the idea, but told the Washington Post that he did so largely because he felt the measure had enough votes to pass without his support.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE always sensed the House of Representatives is more capable of playing the partisan political game on Capitol Hill. I’m wondering how close we’ll come to seeing the equivalent of that measure in the Illinois House that failed without anybody voting “aye” for it.

They probably won’t want Obama to be able to take credit for an idea they’d rather have a future Republican president have as part of his legacy.

So I’m curious about Duckworth’s statement, particularly because she set up her mass e-mail message to not only make it easy for recipients to send messages to other Democrats telling them to vote “no,” while also making financial contributions to her campaign.

Raising those bucks that allow her to run credibly against Andrea Zopp and any other Democrat who talks of running for the Senate in ’16 may be her primary purpose – and for other Democrats who oppose Obama – in voting the way they do.

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Referenda are what an election’s about

A part of me has always thought referenda were the unappreciated part of an Election Day’s activities.

While it is usually the “top of the ticket” that dominates the public’s attention when it comes to casting a ballot, I always get a kick out of seeing just what types of issues (rather than candidates) wind up making it onto the ballot.

IT IS ALL about a question, to which the people get to say “yes” or “no.” Sometimes, our vote gives us the ability to play God. We can literally send a cause to its demise with our “no” vote.

And if we choose to vote “yes,” we can force elected officials to take actions that they wouldn’t dream of doing under any other circumstances.

This time around, voters in parts of Cook County are being asked to consider 49 differing questions. That doesn’t mean 49 different issues, since some issues are being asked of voters in differing parts of the county.

But it is a chance for the voter to take a stand and know that collectively, we can force people to be heard.

SOME OF THESE issues are purely local.

Take Park Ridge, where officials want to build a new police station. At a cost of just over $16 million, they need local voters to approve the use of tax dollars for the construction to take place.

A similar situation exists in Kenilworth, where local voters along the North Shore will get to decide whether tax dollars, a private foundation, or no one, should pay for the renovation of a local athletic field that would include installation of artificial turf.

What about in Berwyn, where local voters are being asked whether there ought to be restrictions against medical clinics being located too close to residential neighborhoods in that west suburban town.

OR TAKE SCHILLER Park, where local voters are being asked questions about two issues that intrigue me. One is whether that suburb near O’Hare International Airport should try to crack down on the number of taverns it has with liquor licenses allowing them to stay open until 4 a.m.

Another is whether they should participate in efforts to reduce the amount of freight train traffic that passes through their town. As one who has lived in places where the railroad crossings were the great unknown factor in trying to decide how long it would take to get from “Point A” to “Point B” (it depended on whether you got stuck by a train), that would strike me as an absolute “yes” vote.

But I don’t live in Schiller Park, so ultimately I don’t have a say. This will be one of those cases left to the locals who have to live with all those freight trains passing through their town and inconveniencing the locals with their noise and disruption of automobile and pedestrian traffic flow.

Then, there are issues where certain people with causes are trying to stir up the locals.

HOW ELSE TO explain the referenda questions for voters in Barrington, Hanover and Palatine townships (far northwest suburban Cook County)? Those people are being asked whether their home communities should “disconnect” from Cook County.

People who support this idea usually like the idea of breaking off to become their own separate county, even if they would be a small, rather insignificant county on their own – rather than a part of the largest county in the Midwest (not just Illinois).

What I couldn’t help but notice is that they’re no longer using the word “secession” to describe what it is they want to do. I guess they have come to realize that the word gives off some sort of Southern rebel overtone that makes them seem like would-be traitors to the greater cause.

Instead, they come off as people with way too much free time on their hands to be thinking of such concepts as disconnection (which sounds more like something that happens when you don’t pay your phone bill on time).

THEN, THERE’S THE referendum question being asked of voters in 14 of the 30 townships of suburban Cook County – one that presumes it can make a powerful political statement because I expect just about everybody to blindly vote “yes” regardless of what would really happen if the implied action were taken.

The referendum in question informs people that a 1 percent hike in the county’s portion of sales taxes has been in effect for one year. Voters in all parts of Cook County are asked to say “yes” or “no” to whether the increase should continue to be collected.

How many people would be willing to allow the services they receive as a result of county government to be slashed if the county’s revenue were to suddenly decline due to a tax reduction?

With such potential for action turning up on the ballots being used in Tuesday’s elections, does anyone really believe the most interesting thing that will occur is soon-to-be-former Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley beating up on la Latina loca Rosanna Pulido to finish off the congressional term of Rahm Emanuel in the U.S. House of Representatives?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Cook County clerk’s office makes this list available of all the (http://www.voterinfonet.com/sub/view_all_referenda.asp) referenda on Tuesday’s ballots.

EXTRA: Pulido will confound people

It’s very likely that a month from now, we will officially proclaim the newest member of Congress to be Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., as that is how thoroughly the Chicago portion of the Illinois 5th Congressional District dominates the suburban portion.

Yet the month-long campaign has the potential to be interesting (in a stupid, trivial sort of way) because of the person whom Republicans have chosen to nominate.

IT APPEARS THAT Rosanna Pulido will be the GOP nominee. I’m sure someone is going to try to make an argument that this is evidence of the Republicans being a true “big tent” political party – after all, she’s Latina.

But Pulido is one of those people who would take great offense at being called a Latina, because it dumps her in with a mass of people she considers to be rabble-rousers. She is head of the Illinois Minuteman Project, and she is the one that a reporter-type can turn to if they want a Hispanic person to go on a tirade about “all those illegals” coming up from Mexico.

A lot of people who like to put political types in simple little boxes won’t know what to think of Pulido. She doesn’t fit into their way of viewing electoral politics.

Actually, she’s not all that difficult to figure out. There are Latinos who don’t like being viewed as “minorities,” in large part because they think it means they will forevermore be excluded from the majority such as what has happened with many black people.

IN FACT, THE reason that some people were convinced to the very end that John McCain had a chance to win a significant chunk of the Latino vote in the 2008 presidential election is because they spent too much time listening to people like Pulido – instead of trying to get to the truth about the diverse thought that exists within the fastest growing chunk of the U.S. population.

So how do I – a person with interest in increased political empowerment for Latinos – view Pulido? Despite the fact that she got about one-quarter of the GOP ballots cast while running against five more conventional-looking Republicans, she barely got 1,000 votes.

That puts her at about the same level of actual support as Paul Bryar (whom nobody thinks did well on Tuesday). But she did do better than the just over 700 votes received by Frank Annunzio (son of the long-time Chicago politico of the same name).

In short, she belongs with the fringe candidates. She’s going to get her clock cleaned come April 7. Quigley will dominate her, although she might be able to beat up on whichever “no name” actually prevails in the Green Party primary.

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Tuesday’s primary elections will not live up to national political hype

I don’t have a clue who is going to prevail in the special primary elections to be held Tuesday that will allow residents of Northwest Side neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs to start the process of replacing former Rep. Rahm Emanuel.

The Illinois 5th Congressional District has sat vacant for the past two months while Emanuel has served as White House chief of staff. That has caused the nation’s political geeks to focus so much attention on our city to figure out who gets to be Rahm’s successor in Congress.

YET I CAN’T help but wonder if this is a campaign where there will be more people paying attention outside the district, than within it.

Chicago Board of Election Commissioners officials won’t offer predictions about voter turnout, but the Cook County clerk’s office (which will oversee election operations in the small suburban sliver of the district) notes that only about 300 people bothered to use the early voter centers to cast their ballots prior to Election Day.

That doesn’t exactly sound like a campaign that is getting the populace all worked up. It is a far cry from last year’s general election for president, where there was evidence that many people who used the early voter centers did so because they were excited about the chance to vote for (or against) Obama.
For everybody outside these boundaries, Tuesday is just another weekday. Map provided by http://www.nationalatlas.gov/.

There’s a good chance that Tuesday will come and go, and many people living in the Illinois 5th will not even realize that they should have bothered to go to the polling place to cast a ballot.

NOW I’M NOT about to start berating the potential electorate. After all, this is a special election – one that couldn’t even be held in conjunction with the standard primary election day (which for every other elective office up for grabs in the area was Tuesday of last week).

At least the general election for the Illinois 5th will be held on the same day as all the other general elections. Perhaps that could help bolster voter turnout.

Then again, since the winner of Tuesday’s special Democratic primary is the odds-on favorite to win the general election, maybe it won’t – particularly since there truly is so little difference between the dozen Democrats who dream of winning the political lottery (a seat in the House of Representatives) that there shouldn’t be much difficulty in getting the various factions to unite behind Tuesday night’s winner.

But who that winner will be, I don’t know. It truly is going to center on how many (really, how few) people bother to show up at the polling places.

LOW VOTER TURNOUT means that fewer votes will be needed in order to win. And considering that there are so many candidates in each of the three primaries being held Tuesday, that means the percentage needed to win could be potentially low.

We could literally get the sight on Tuesday of a Democratic nominee for Congress who wins with about 15 percent of the total vote.

With that factor, a lot of the conventional wisdom about this campaign deserves to get flushed down the toilet.

How relevant is it that the remains of Chicago’s once-strong Polish community is concentrated in this congressional district? If it is, then no-name Victor Forys (and his strong ethnic-influenced campaign tactics) could very well have a chance.

BUT WHAT IF the women band together? Then we could get state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz on her way from Springfield to Washington.

Want this to become a battle of political regulars? Then state Rep. John Fritchey, Cook County Board member Mike Quigley or Ald. Patrick O’Connor could stand a chance.

Or perhaps there’s a chance that all five of these people could wind up splitting the vote so thoroughly that labor attorney Tom Geoghegan stands a chance of getting a large enough share of the vote to win a Democratic primary.

Or maybe there will be some cosmic fluke (like in 1986 when Aurelia Pucinski and George Sangmeister lost to Janice Hart and Mark Fairchild) of politics that results in someone else having a chance.

IN FACT, ABOUT the only prediction I feel confident making about Tuesday’s elections is that whoever wins the Green Party primary won’t matter in the least come April 7.

Part of the problem in getting people interested enough to care about this election is that it is a “special” election being held on a separate date from other political activity. I’m not surprised that real people feel they have more important things to worry about than every attack ad issued by Feigenholtz or Fritchey or whoever.

In fact, part of the reason I am bothered by the people who are determined to dump Roland Burris and have a special election this year to pick a new U.S. senator from Illinois is that I can see the exact same result occurring.

The “special” nature of the election could confuse people and diminish its interest. I would not want anyone getting the advantage of incumbency because they were able to win a political crapshoot – particularly since the real election for that particular office will be held as soon as next year.

BUT HAVING SOMEONE pick a replacement for Rahm is not an option. Only statewide offices come to the attention of the governor – largely because trying to coordinate special elections for all 102 Illinois counties would be a headache.

So on Tuesday, a few people in neighborhoods such as Lake View, Roscoe Village and Sauganash, along with some select suburbs like Schiller Park and River Grove, will turn out to cast ballots to see who gets to stay in the race to represent the Illinois 5th Congressional District.

The end result will be that in just over a month, there will be a new member of Congress who likely will have the dubious distinction of saying that fewer than 20 percent of the primary voters of his/her district truly cared enough to vote for them.

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“Childish brawl” campaign TV spot not worthy of legitimate Congressional bid

Insofar as political minutia is concerned, the Congressional bid of state Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago, has achieved something “significant” – it may have come up with the most memorable television spot for Campaign ’09.

Fritchey, who wants to replace Rahm Emanuel in representing the Northwest Side in Congress, has come up with what may be the most memorable television spot for Campaign ’09.

BUT IF THAT is the only thing one can say for Fritchey (who wants to replace Rahm Emanuel in representing the Northwest Side in Congress), that could become the reason he does not prevail in the special Democratic primary to be held next week.

For those of you who have watched Chicago-area television, you know what campaign ad I’m referring to.

It’s the one with two children yelling and screaming at each other, only to have Fritchey play the part of the responsible adult who tells the two to knock it off and quit acting like children.

Of course, those children are supposed to be portraying Fritchey’s most significant Democratic opponents – state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, and Cook County Board member Mike Quigley.

SO FRITCHEY KICKED off the broadcast portion of his congressional campaign by going on the attack against the two. He could have done something more positive, but decided it was more important to try to take his opponents down a notch or two.

Forget about emphasizing that he has some fairly significant endorsements thus far.

Although this ad ends with a graphic letting us know Fritchey is the Congressional preference of the Independent Voters of Illinois, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, it nearly gets lost in the shuffle of seeing two children scream and poke at each other.

I could understand Fritchey downplaying those endorsements if the Republican Party were strong enough to put up a serious candidate in the April 7 general election. But they’re not, so his support from factions of organized labor is not going to come back and bite him in the behind a month from now.

SERIOUSLY, IT IS bizarre to hear kids scream at each other over which one is more venal – the one who has worked with Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, or now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

It is even more odd to see the time and trouble that someone went to in order to do up the girl in the advertising spot with a hairdo nearly identical to the way Feigenholtz wears her own mane.

But the fact that Fritchey hired people and spent significant money (roughly $175,000) to go to such detail to prepare an attack ad that will air until Monday strikes me as vapid. It makes me all the more glad I no longer live in this Congressional district (as I did for one summer about 25 years ago) so I won’t have to pick between the two dozen or so mopes who want to move politically “up and out” to Capitol Hill.

I suppose those people who specialize in running electoral campaigns will tell me that I am underestimating this television spot. After all, it is the one spot of this year’s election cycle that sticks in my mind. It inspired me enough to feel the need to write a commentary on the matter.

IT’S NOT LIKE I noted anything memorable about the Feigenholtz television spot that promotes her interest in healthcare issues, or her mother’s experience practicing medicine in the immigrant neighborhoods of 20th Century Chicago.

It has planted the name “Fritchey” in my brain as ranking (in this one category) above all the others. I suppose for some people, when they walk into that polling place on March 3, this advertisement could be the factor that causes them to decide who to vote for.

Yet I can’t help but think that this trivial campaign spot will turn off as many voters as it turns on.

How many people will think (as I do) that it is pompous of Fritchey to appear in the ad, quoting President Barack Obama of all people, in saying, “it’s time to put aside childish things.”

AS SOME POLITICAL observers have noted, the “charges” in the ad that the boy playing Quigley makes against the girl playing Feigenholtz are not allegations put forth by the real Quigley. They’re really Fritchey’s talking points for the campaign trail.

Hence, Feigenholtz becomes the woman who tried to work with Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan (even though any state legislator is going to have to work with an incumbent governor to some degree), and Quigley is the guy who’s too chummy with Stroger (although what kind of county board member would Quigley be if there wasn’t some connection).

Of course, things could be worse this campaign season.

We could have more candidates in this race with big-enough campaign funds to pay for television airtime. We could be inundated with spots, although some of the lesser candidates have tried to prepare video segments that can be seen only on the Internet.

OR, WE COULD have some of the other elections for municipal office believing that they wee worthy of political television. Anyone who has been watching Campaign ’09 as a whole knows that two of the nastiest electoral situations have taken place in south suburban Calumet City and west suburban Cicero.

Incumbent officials tried to use their local electoral boards to kick any potential challengers off the ballot – thereby making Tuesday a routine primary election in those two municipalities. Ballots for Tuesday’s elections wound up having to be decided by the courts, and weren’t settled until last week.

They failed in Cicero (Mayor Larry Dominick will face a challenger), but were successful in Calumet City (Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush got rid of her opposition, and will have significant advantages against them when they try to run write-in campaigns, both on Tuesday and on April 7).

Just think if these nasty brawls had worked their way onto our television screens? We’d have had to have a moratorium on television watching through early April.

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