Enjoy her while she lasts; we won’t see much of Hillary after Wednesday?

Then again, I’m sure there are some people to whom that headline is cause for huzzahs and hurrahs; as in the less we see of that dame, the better off we all are.

 

Could Clinton come to Old Capitol on Wednesday?

The point is that while we are approaching the point in time when the serious campaigning will kick into gear between Hillary Clinton and her likely Republican challenger Donald Trump, the campaign season might as well be over with for us Illinoisans.

THE HOOSIERS WILL probably get more love from the candidates than we will!

It all comes down to the fact that Illinois’ electoral population is pretty well dominated by the Chicago interests organized by the Democratic Party. The other 96 counties of Illinois may well lean Republican, but it won’t be enough to matter.

Illinois’ Electoral College votes will wind up in the Clinton campaign following the Nov. 8 Election Day. And I don’t care how much bluster Trump tosses out about how he’s going to win Illinois.

He’s not. His statements are just evidence that he’s spewing a load of nonsense. Seriously, I’d give Trump a greater chance of winning the Latino vote across the country (a Latino Decisions poll released Monday says Trump only gets 16 percent support from likely Latino voters) than I do in thinking he’ll take any significant support in the Land of Lincoln.

WHO I HONESTLY think if he were alive today would be leading the effort to dump the Republican Party for a new alternative. Seriously, he dumped the Whigs to become a GOPer when he was alive. Lincoln certainly had that fighting spirit in his personality.

So what’s the point of Hillary Clinton coming to Illinois on Wednesday for the first time since our state’s primary elections (which she won, albeit narrowly, over Bernie Sanders) back in March?

She’ll get her state Capitol appearance, quite possibly on the steps of the Old Capitol Building with all its historic Lincoln ties and also to remember the way in which the Barack Obama presidential campaign (which beat up on her back in ’08) managed to use to its success.

 

Has Trump given Ind. a second thought since selling casino?

Based on the Chicago Sun-Times, Clinton may also include an evening appearance that day at a private fundraiser along the North Shore suburbs. Which is where she’ll get what her campaign really wants – more money!

THE MORE CAMPAIGN cash she has on hand, the more she can emphasize the fact that she’s running a structured campaign while Trump is putting together something completely off the seat of his pants that seems to be undermined every time his ego runs amok.

Hillary has the potential to get what she needs from Illinois right now, making it highly unlikely we’ll get to see much more of her. Our political geeks will have to satisfy themselves with the Kirk/Duckworth U.S. Senate seat fight, along with all the people who desperately will smear the reputation of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, in hopes it will somehow benefit their own campaigns’ chances!

We may have to pay attention to our neighbor to the east if we want to see campaign activity, particularly if Gov. Mike Pence does somehow wind up being the one that Trump picks to be his vice presidential running mate.

Because Trump himself has identified Indiana as one of the states that he seriously intends to compete in for the upcoming election cycle. He’s counting on keeping Indiana’s Electoral College votes in his camp. Besides, Trump still remembers the hostile reaction he got the last time he set foot in Chicago! I'm sure he'll have extra security in place for the fundraiser he has planned for Tuesday -- one for which the "Dump Trump" activists already have their pickets planned for outside the Trump Tower along the Chicago River.

The new Chicago "White House?"

IF CLINTON COULD somehow use the northwest portion of the state (the part that is an extension of the Chicago area) to her advantage, it could make the state that bills itself the “Crossroads of America” a part of the Democratic column of presidential electors – just as Obama did back in 2008.

Heck, it could be the Hoosiers who save us all from the fate of a man whose idea of “making America great” is to create a whole batch of people just like himself.

Saving us from having an orange president who looks like he ought to be the chief executive of Oompa-Loompa Land is something that ought to make us all eternally grateful to Indiana residents – at least enough to lay off the Hoosier jokes for a day or so!

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Back to the (Spring)Patch!

Barack Obama hopes to return to the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., for a Saturday campaign rally. Photograph provided by state of Illinois.

I have heard some people of the Illinois Democratic Party persuasion claim that if Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he’d be a Democrat.

I don’t know if I believe that. But I’m starting to wonder if Barack Obama does.

OBAMA IS GETTING his schedule ready for a series of public events during the upcoming week that are meant to lead him directly to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

One of those events is a rally outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, which is the building that Lincoln knew as the Illinois Statehouse (the current building dates back to 1877).

Some people want to believe that Obama is going to use the site where he began actively campaigning for president to announce his choice for a vice presidential running mate. I’m not sure I believe that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Illinois got its first look at the Obama/__________ ticket in Springfield on Saturday.

What makes it strange is that Springfield likes to think of itself as the quintessential Republican city. Since it can literally claim that Lincoln walked/slept/worked/ate here, it finds political people of the Democratic persuasion to be a strange breed.

YET NOW IT is a Democrat (and one from Chicago, at that) who is giving the Illinois capital city its moments of national glory.

And Saturday will likely be the last chance anybody in this state will have to actually see Obama prior to his late August trip to Denver – after which the campaign season kicks into high gear (as if it hasn’t been intense enough already).

For what it’s worth about Lincoln, I can’t help but think he would be disgusted with the “state’s rights” attitude that has taken over the Republican Party in recent years. But I’m not convinced he’d have looked to the Democrats as an alternative.

Lincoln in his lifetime was the man who gave up on the Whig Party to have a hand in creating the GOP. Who’s to say that if he were alive today, he wouldn’t have felt the need to create a third political party to take on the existing party hacks.

AND MAYBE, JUST maybe, that would have made him feel comfortable with Obama’s talk during this campaign season of government reform.

Although I’m sure he would have been the first to crack down on Barack if his actions fell short of his words.

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