How politically vulnerable will Underwood be come the '20 elections?

I have no doubt that Rep. Lauren Underwood, a Democrat from Naperville, is going to face one of the most aggressive political challenges when she seeks re-election in 2020.

UNDERWOOD: Already being challenged

She is, after all, a black woman Democrat who ran in last year’s elections for a Congressional seat representing one of the most intense Republican districts in Illinois. Meaning I expect GOP political operatives will think of her as THAT WOMAN who had the NERVE to take a seat away from their ranks.

TRYING TO REGAIN the Illinois 14^th congressional district post may well be one of the priorities for Republicans nationwide in the next election cycle.

Yet I can’t help but admit that I’m wondering if Republicans are going to be their worst enemies, and that they won’t be able to overcome the advantages of incumbency that Underwood will have as she seeks a second term in Congress.

As the Capitol Fax newsletter reported Monday, documents were filed with the Federal Elections Commission that would have state Sen. James Oberweis, D-Sugar Grove, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois.

Except that Oberweis has no intention of actually trying to depose Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, who would be running for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate come that election cycle.

Oberweis couldn't even win in '02 … 

IT SEEMS A campaign aide for Oberweis marked the wrong box in filing the forms for his boss. He’s going for the House of Representatives seat – making him one of three Republicans thus far with an interest in taking on Underwood.

Should we really think that highly of a candidate whose staffers are inept enough to misfile their candidate’s forms? They can’t even tell which office he wants to run for? Unless they’re really amongst the few deluded enough to think Oberweis is worthy of one of Illinois’ top political posts?

… against Durkin, how could he think … 

It’s certainly obvious enough that the voters don’t think much of him. He’s run for U.S. Senate and Illinois governor. In fact, he would have been the candidate who tried to take on Durbin way back in 2002 – except that Oberweis couldn’t even win the Republican primary that year.

It wound up being Jim Durkin (now the Illinois House Minority leader) who won that primary, only to get his behind whomped by Durbin’s desire for a second term in the U.S. Senate (he’s now on term four, and would be seeking a fifth if the 74-year-old Springfield resident actually makes it all the way through the process).

… of beating up on Durbin

MY POINT BEING that if Oberweis truly is the best the Republicans can come up with for the 2020 election cycle, they may well be handing Underwood a victory already.

Because despite his multiple election campaigns throughout the past three decades, the only post he’s ever been able to win is that Illinois Senate seat from DuPage County.

He may be just the local jamoke who’s incapable of taking on anybody bigger – particularly if the Democrats are able to build up Underwood’s national reputation to any degree.

Ocasio-Cortez younger by three years

Because she is the woman with a medical professional background who currently has the so-called title of the youngest African-American woman (age 32) to be elected to the House of Representatives.

SHE’D ACTUALLY BE the youngest woman ever if not for Alexandra Ocasio-Cortex from New York, whose victory last year came at age 29.

Admittedly, Underwood doesn’t have anywhere near the mouth that Ocasio does – the one that manages to offend Republican partisans so intensely that they usually wind up managing to put their feet in their own mouths whenever they try to attack her.

STAVA-MURRAY: Dem really faces tough times

But I have to admit, Underwood is going out of her way to respond to just about every issue and put herself in the mix of what is happening in D.C. I’ve literally lost count of the number of statements she has issued that wind up in my e-mail box.

And if it turns out that she has challengers as inept as Oberweis, she could wind up being the favorite – particularly since I get the impression that Naperville political operatives are going to be more focused on causing the political defeat of Anne Stava-Murray, the Democrat with a mouth who says SHE wants to take on Durbin come 2020.

  -30-

Freshman senator already declares candidacy for an Illinois top pol spot

I remember a time some two decades ago at the Statehouse in Springfield interviewing a legislator – Nancy Kaszak from Chicago’s Northwest Side.

STAVA-MURRAY: A freshman playing like powerhouse

What sticks in my mind about this interview was now unproductive it was. She wasn’t able to say much, ultimately explaining her ignorance on the issue by saying, “I’m a freshman” and that leadership hadn’t kept her fully appraised of this particular issue.

I COULDN’T HELP but think back to Kaszak when I heard this week about Anne Stava-Murray – a newly-elected Illinois House member from suburban Naperville. She hasn’t even taken office yet, but already has declared her political intentions for the 2020 election cycle.

She’s am ambitious sort, I’ll give her that. She’s going to run for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois that will be open next year. That, of course, is the seat currently held (and has been since 1996) by Richard Durbin.

Of course, the presumption is that Durbin will be seeking re-election. If he were going to try moving to another political post, the obvious shift would be to try becoming Illinois’ governor.

DURBIN: Does he have credible opponent?

But that would have entailed him being willing to give up his current Senate seat in order to run in last year’s election cycle – instead of becoming one of J.B. Pritzker’s political supporters. He wasn’t willing to risk his seat – and it may well be he enjoys being one of the Senate’s elder statesmen, with hopes his name will someday be held in the same regard as Everett McKinley Dirksen, who served in D.C. from 1933 until his death in 1969.

THE LONG-AGO Republican from Pekin who became among the GOP elder statemen with a reputation for being willing to work in a bipartisan political manner. A legend, of sorts, in the halls of Capitol Hill.

Except to people like Stava-Murray, who claims that if Durbin were serious, he’d have already formally declared his candidacy. Although I suspect he already has the beginnings of a re-election bid up and running in a low-key manner.

MADIGAN: Her 'real' opponent?

She’s already setting her sights on Durbin, which will have one political benefit for her.

It will help her erase the stink of being just a freshman representative in the Illinois House – one that she was definitely going to face because she has openly talked of the need to dump long-time (a full half-century) Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, from his political post.

SHE WAS IN full agreement with those Republican ideologues who tried running campaigns last year on the grounds that we need to “Dump Madigan!” and she publicly refused to take the aid that Madigan usually provides to Democrats to support his own Illinois House majority.

It’s not likely she’d have a lengthy future as a representative, since I don’t doubt the Madigan operation is already seeking someone more politically sympathetic to “Mr. Speaker” to challenge Stava-Murray come 2020.

DIRKSEN: Most definitely of the past

But by doing this, she’ll shift the story from her being a renegade legislator to her being one of Illinois’ top politicos (along with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Gov.-elect Pritzker and whichever of the assorted characters manages to win the mayoral elections to be held next month and in April).

I don’t doubt that Democratic operatives will go out of their way to undermine Stava-Murray and try to ensure she returns to being a political nobody after next year.

BUT I HAVE to wonder what goes through her mindset – if she really thinks she’s the beneficiary of a revolutionary “movement” against Madigan, instead of someone who won because of the intense level of contempt many of us feel for Donald Trump!

TRUMP: His critics led Stava-Murray to win

To me, the explanation is that she’s from Naperville – which once was a part of the great DuPage County Republican organization that was among the strengths of the GOP nationwide.

There once would have been a time when Stava-Murray would have been a Republican aspirant for political office – except that the Republicans have gone so far overboard to become the political party of rural America that I suspect if she had tried to run in the Republican primary last year, she’d have lost. They wouldn't want her. She's a Democrat by default!

It may well be that Stava-Murray is showing off her political ignorance and doesn’t fully realize “which side” she’s on. For her sake, she’s going to have to figure things out and “pick a side,” or else it could turn into a bloody two years for her.

  -30-

“Shithole countries” controversy shows how we don’t agree on what is truth

The word has spread throughout our society about how President Donald J. Trump used a vulgar expression to describe certain countries around the world, many of which are on the African continent, as places where we ought to be discouraging the residents of even dreaming of immigration to the United States.

DURBIN: Speaking out against president

Trump made the so-called comments during a meeting he held last week to discuss potential immigration policy reform with members of Congress.

YET A MOVEMENT that has cropped up just as quickly, and one that is being taken up vehemently by some of an appropriate ideological bent, is a claim that Trump said no such thing.

There are those people in full support of this Age of Trump we’re in who say Trump didn’t say it. He didn’t say any such thing. It’s a fairy tale coming from people who can’t get with the program that Trump wants to present for our society.

The effort to discredit has become just as strong as the claim that Trump really was such a buffoon. Although perhaps not as intense as those neo-Nazis who, on the one hand, deny that the Holocaust ever occurred, but then engage in their jokes about how the ovens of Auschwitz were a fate too good for Jewish people.

My own thought, having not been present when the comments supposedly were made, is to admit that it is totally in character with Trump’s persona and past trash talk about so many issues to think he would use such a crude term – and probably really would think such a thing.

IF THAT MEANS I’m siding with Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. – who in recent days has become the most outspoken politician insisting that Trump really said it – then so be it.

Although I’m sure the kind of people who want to believe Trump are the ones who want to be critical of Durbin (who was present at the Trump session with Congressmembers) because he has long been a proponent of having our federal government do a significant overhaul of our national immigration policy.

The one that has so many glitches that can make it nearly impossible for some people to make it all the way through the naturalization process to U.S. citizenship.

TRUMP: Are his pants on fire?

Of course, those glitches are appreciated by the nativist element of our society – the ones who really don’t want anyone else being able to gain U.S. citizenship and are amongst Trump’s strongest supporters.

SO DID HE, or didn’t he, say “shithole?”

The ideologues amongst are going to insist he didn’t. I’ve lost track of the number of Facebook dialogues where people try to discuss the issue, only to have someone barge in with their rant that “It didn’t happen” as though they expect to be taken as the final word that ends the discussion.

The second-most common response I’ve encountered is for people to respond by saying the United States has portions that could be classified as “shitholes.” The only point for debate on that aspect is whether a “shithole” is Detroit, Baltimore or South Side Chicago.

Or rural Mississippi, Arkansas or West Virginia?

I’M CURIOUS TO know how long this particular debate will last. And will it be strong enough to be the major debate point of 2018? Or can Trump say something more absurd later this year that will overcome this. I find it hard to believe anything could top this.

Then again, when it comes to partisan political rhetoric, I suppose there is no limit as to how outrageous the cheap talk can get.

It may turn out that the Gallup Organization is the best barometer of public feeling. In their presidential approval rating, Trump had a 57 percent disapproval (compared to 38 percent approval) rating from the public.

So I suspect a majority of our society is inclined to believe Trump really could be that crude. And that there’s nothing anyone could say or do to convince Trump backers that he really did say it.

  -30-

‘Give it back! as ridiculous a command from GOPers as ‘Lock her up!’

Are Durbin and Duckworth (below) ...

The Illinois Republican Party is trying to do its part to overhype the degree to which Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., is thought of as the ultimate pervert when it comes to political people, rather than Ray Moore of Alabama.

While I understand why they would engage in partisan politics on this issue (I don’t expect them to come to the defense of a Democrat), I can’t help but think of the tactic as one that reeks of absurdity.

... really obligated to give back anything?

HEARING REPUBLICANS ARGUE that Sens. Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, are obligated to get rid of any money that was raised for their campaigns through Franken’s celebrity status is just ridiculous.

Hearing them say the two should give it back is as ridiculous as a year ago when they were constantly getting themselves all worked up in frenzied chants of “Lock her up!” whenever the name of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came up.

About the only thing those chants really accomplished was angering the segment of the electorate not disposed to back Donald Trump’s presidential dreams – to the point where Trump had better hope he never actually gets caught doing anything illegal.

FRANKEN: Is he really Moore's equal?

Because you just know there will be some people inclined to show up at a future Trump sentencing and chant “Lock Him Up!” at the moment punishment is imposed.

BUT THAT SEEMS to be the way the Republicans think these days – even the ones in Illinois who like to think they’re not quite as extreme as the Trump mentality, but would have withered away into insignificance if not for the personal money of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Is Moore really as believable ...

Which often makes me think I should clarify in copy that the “R” following the name of GOP elected officials ought to stand for Rauner Party, rather than Republican Party.

So what’s the latest issue that’s getting the Illinois Rauner Party (I’m sure seeing what happened to the entity once thought of as the “Party of Lincoln” would make Honest Abe roll over in his grave more than anything that Rod Blagojevich ever did) soiling their drawers?

... as Trump would have us think he is?

It’s the fact that Franken is not a standard issue elected official. He has a certain celebrity status that he has used to help his colleagues in politics raise money to support their campaigns.

SEVERAL OFFICIALS HAVE to admit to having received contributions from Franken – who now has a couple of women claiming he behaved in a manner that was probably worthy of the response of a slap across the face.

In the case of Durbin, who has been a D.C. public official from Illinois for 30-plus years, it comes to $21,000. Which isn’t the largest amount in the world. Although it’s tremendously huge compared to Duckworth, who only has $5,000 to account for with Franken connections.

Neither one of those amounts of money are huge. Yet that’s not the point of the Republican actions.

It’s a matter of distraction, trying to get people to think that Franken’s heterosexual behavior is worse than any of the teenage girls that Moore is now alleged to have been involved with back when he was in his early 30s (he’s now 70).

CLINTON: Will Hillary get last laugh?

THEY’D LIKE IT if people would focus attention on Franken, but would probably settle for it if they would think of him as the Democratic Party equivalent of Moore.

Which is just too ridiculous a claim to take seriously.

Now as for Durbin or Duckworth giving back money (or actually, making charitable contributions of an equal amount), I stand by my belief that doing so doesn’t mean a thing. But here’s a thought – how about looking into the financial records to see which people or groups are giving campaign money to Moore, despite knowing of his proclivity for young girls?

Those people are the ones whose political and moral judgments ought to be questioned.

  -30-

Can one really ‘give back’ a campaign contribution once money was spent?

Let’s say one thing up-front; the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein probably is a pig!

Weinstein still has his Oscar

The reports are coming out about how Weinstein has treated various women – including many who appeared in the films he produced. We may hear in coming days of more and more actresses willing to admit publicly of things they were pressured to do for Weinstein’s gratification.

BUT THERE’S ANOTHER thing we’re going to see a lot of in coming days – political people trying to rewrite history in ways that would make it appear they never relied on Weinstein’s financial support to get themselves elected to office.

For Weinstein throughout the years has been one of the big-money interests who has supported Democratic Party candidates for high-ranking office across the nation. It was supposed to be evidence that Weinstein was a “progressive-minded” guy with high-minded ideals on many social issues.

Now, we have many political people checking their campaign finance records to see how much money they ever received from Weinstein – and are now going out of their way to publicly make charitable contributions of their own for identical amounts.

Just a couple of examples include Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. – both of whom would like for us to believe they never took Weinstein’s money.

OBAMA: $61,900

WORKING ON WOMANHOOD is a Chicago-based group that has received $10,900 from Emanuel, and will get another $2,000 in the near future. The larger figure is the total of two donations Weinstein made to Emanuel mayoral campaigns, while the $2,000 is for a donation Weinstein made to an Emanuel congressional campaign back in 2004.

The Chicago Sun-Times also reported that $1,000 will be donated to the American Red Cross by Durbin – an effort to erase the contribution Weinstein made back when Durbin first ran for the U.S. Senate back in 1995.

Now before anybody thinks I’m trying to single out Emanuel or Durbin for abuse, keep in mind that I realize this is a common tactic by political people who certainly don’t want to be tainted by their ties to someone who later turns out to be scummy in nature.

EMANUEL: $12,900

There have been many charitable organizations used by government officials to try to erase their potential sins-by-association. I’m sure the organizations were able to put the money to good use.

BUT JUST AS I always thought right-wing idiots who wind up taking money from white supremacists or other leeches on our society shouldn’t be able to erase their stain so easily, I’m not sure that anybody should be so quick to dismiss the Weinstein affair.

What we really need is an honest accounting of his behavior and efforts to try to raise the level of conduct in our society so that we stop harassing women just because. Merely giving up some money that came from campaign contributions seems like a lazy effort to make the problem “go away” without doing anything to make it actually go away.

DURBIN: $1,000

Besides, my own gut feeling is that the money donated to campaigns by Weinstein certainly got spent years ago. Trying to give it away now doesn’t erase the fact that there was a Weinstein impact to the past elections.

It seems like a lazy response to a very real problem.

WHAT WE NEED is for people to speak out with more than their campaign wallets. Take former President Barack Obama (whose own presidential re-election campaign of 2012 received over $61,000 in Weinstein donations) – he and one-time first lady Michelle issued their statement denouncing Weinstein’s behavior and saying, “We should celebrate the courage of women who have come forward to tell these painful stories.”

TRUMP: Saying as little as possible about issue

Which stands out compared to the thoughts expressed on behalf of our current president. Donald J. Trump admitted recently that he knew Weinstein personally, and was “not at all surprised” to hear such stories.

Of course, Trump himself probably can’t go farther in being critical of Weinstein because there are many tales out there of pre-presidential Trump behaving in a boorish manner – many of which he told about himself throughout the years during appearances with broadcaster Howard Stern.

Which is just as much a problem as those elected officials who think they can make a perception problem go away by “returning” money they really spent years ago.

  -30-

Picking a federal prosecutor is a political process, no doubt about it

It seems the first steps have been taking toward picking a new U.S. attorney for Chicago; the Chicago Sun-Times reported that names of recommended appointees were sent recently to President Donald J. Trump for his consideration.
 

TRUMP: On verge of picking new U.S. attorney

The president gets to pick who he wants, but usually seeks the advice of the local members of Congress from the state in which the appointee will serve.

WHICH IS WHY Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., the senior-most member of the Republican portion of Illinois’ congressional delegation, took it upon himself to make recommendations – who now will be reviewed by the president’s advisors so as to make sure that Shimkus hasn’t picked a legal dud or two.

Of course, the process is complicated by partisan politics – the great headache-inducer that manages to interfere with the process of “the people’s business.”

Because the president usually defers to a state’s Senate delegation in seeking recommendations. But we in Illinois have chosen Democrats to serve as our senators.

And undermining any influence Democrats may have is kind of the whole point of this Age of Trump that we’re now in.

SHIMKUS, AN OTHERWISE obscure member of Congress from the Illinois-based suburbs of St. Louis, certainly wasn’t going to care what either Richard Durbin or Tammy Duckworth thought.

Although the realities of the political process are that Senate rules exist that would allow either Durbin or Duckworth, if not both combined, to thwart the appointment process. Not that they’ll get any say in who gets the position, but they will have the authority to totally gum up the works.

SHIMKUS: Sent names to president

Which is why, as the Sun-Times reports, the president’s staff has reached out to Durbin to indicate it understands the rules that would permit Durbin, as a Senate judiciary committee member, to have some say over an attorney serving in his home state.

Could it be that our president, who during his first four-or-so months in office has shown much contempt for the process of government, is finally catching on?

OR AT THE very least doesn’t want something as basic as appointing federal prosecutors to various districts across the nation – including northern Illinois – to become a convoluted mess?

DURBIN: Can make GOP life miserable

Because Trump is the one who made the big spectacle of terminating the employment of all the chief federal prosecutors who had been appointed by Barack Obama – thereby leaving the offices in the hands of interim staffers who aren’t expected to last for the long-term.

Even Trump realizes how incompetent he’d appear to be if he couldn’t come up with permanent replacements. The real question is how uncomfortable will Trumpites be in having to acknowledge Democratic Party control or influence of even this minor magnitude.

I’m sure that Shimkus considered it a significant advancement to his influence on Capitol Hill that HE would get to make the recommendations and would get to ignore the thoughts of senior-most officials because of politically partisan concerns.

WILL HE, AND other Republicans, consider it some sort of blow to their political partisanship that the president winds up having to contemplate what the other side, in the form of Durbin, thinks after all?

 

DUCKWORTH: Likely to have a say too

And what happens if it turns out that the recommendations picked by Shimkus wind up being found too incompetent, or unqualified, for whatever reason to warrant the president signing off and picking those individuals in his name?

I’ve always thought the only way that Trump could seriously face the threat of impeachment and removal from office (regardless of the new Morning Consult poll that shows 54 percent of people believing Trump is unfit for office and 43 percent thinking he already has committed an impeachable offense) is if he were to actually behave in a conciliatory manner toward more-progressive interests in our society. The concept of a buffoon who eagerly dumps all over non-ideologue Republicans is exactly what GOP officials who have the majority in Congress desire.

So could naming the replacement for Zachary Fardon and 45 other U.S. attorneys wind up being an act that causes Trump so much of a political headache he’ll be wondering just why he was foolish enough to ever want to be president in the first place.

  -30-

Rauner really is – to cite cliché – damned if does, and damned if doesn’t

It has been nearly two days now since Gov. Bruce Rauner issued his statement in response to the House of Representatives approving the President Trump-desired measure to repeal Barack Obama’s vision of health care reform, and I’m still not sure exactly where the Illinois governor stands on the issue.

RAUNER on Health Care: Huh??!?

He says the bill that passed the lower chamber of Congress, “continues to be of deep concern to our administration.”

YET IN HIS five-sentence, two paragraph statement, Rauner also says, “The Affordable Care Act is a seriously-flawed law that should be changed.”

For those of you who get easily confused by political jargon and gibberish, the Affordable Care Act is the measure put forth by former President Obama that the ideologues amongst us have labelled “Obamacare.”

The alternative measure being put forth by Trump’s advisors and backers is the American Health Care Act.

Which, in the Trump way of viewing the world, means that “Affordable Care” is for poor people, and nobody cares about helping them. Whereas the “American Health Care” plan is an AMERICAN vision!!!!!!! that is wonderful just because it is for us, and NOT none of those foreigners who fantasize that they can someday be us.

IF YOU GET the impression that I’m mocking the jingoism and xenophobic views of this Era of Trump that our society is now in, you’d be correct.

 

TRUMP: His vision of healthcare reform ...

The simple fact is that the primary goal and intent of Republicans in Congress wishing to reform health care is that they want to erase the measure that the Obama administration managed to get passed into federal law back in 2010 and that for the past three years has made it possible for many people (myself included) to have health insurance plans that provide us basic health coverage in the event of an emergency.

I often joke that this means if I get shot by a sniper’s stray bullet, there’s a chance that a hospital Emergency Room somewhere will actually make an attempt to save my life – rather than dismissing me because I can’t afford to pay the full cost of medical treatment.

Medical treatment and healthcare has become a politicized issue, and Rauner certainly doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Which is most likely why he’s trying to take both sides of the issue, while also not making a simple, declarative statement on where he stands.

 

... is basically to erase any involvement of Obama

IF RAUNER COMES out in favor of Trump or his ought-to-be Republican colleagues, he gives Democrats a significant issue that can be used to bash him about – one that might be heated enough to take him down no matter how many millions of his own dollars he puts into campaign efforts that bash Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

Let’s not forget how overwhelmingly Democratic Illinois is – and how alone Rauner is within the Illinois political structure. Rauner needs to spend those millions of dollars for his political survival.

Yet if Rauner tries to appease the more urban portions of Illinois that are the basis of the Democratic Party majority in this state, he’ll find out how quickly the Republicans turn on him.

For while Rauner likes to think he made GOP inroads by gaining a few legislators in rural parts of the state, the fact is that many of those voters were influenced by the presidential presence of Trump.

I DON’T DOUBT there are people in Illinois who would get all excited about Rauner if he became the ultimate Trump ally – a move that would ensure his political death in the more urban parts of the state that comprise about two-thirds of the state’s population.

 

DURBIN: He will be part of effort to fix mess

So where does our governor stand on healthcare reform?

The most honest part of his statement may well be where he says, “We are hopeful that our federal lawmakers will continue to work hard to get this right for the people of Illinois and our nation.”

Which basically means he’s desperately hoping and praying that somebody else manages to figure out a solution – which is a long-shot considering the number of years that government officials have devoted to trying (unsuccessfully, I should add) to find the solution.

  -30-

Do we really like Rauner more? Or can he drop below Christie in the rankings?

Is Bruce Rauner’s favorability amongst Illinoisans really on the rise? Or are we just moving on to other people we despise a little bit more we do our state’s illustrious governor?
 

RAUNER: Can he rise to middle-of-the-pack?

The Morning Consult group came out with their latest survey – one that ranked all of the nation’s governors and senators based on how well they’re liked by their constituents.

THE BIG NEWS of their survey is that Chris Christie of New Jersey, who at various times in the past was supposed to be a presidential favorite AND someone that Donald Trump should consider for vice president or a prominent cabinet post, is now the most unpopular governor in the country.

Which probably shows how rankings such as these don’t mean a whole lot. It’s not like there’s anything about Christie’s underlying persona that has changed significantly. It’s just that we’ve now decided we want to think more negatively about him.

So what does it say about their ranking for Rauner – who supposedly is the 44^th most popular (out of 50) governor in the nation. He’s one notch ahead of Wisconsin’s nationally-known governor, Scott Walker.

Who there was a time way back when he was going out of his way to provoke labor unions in his state when HE would have been the most unpopular, and people likely would have thought Christie was “cool.”

TO GET MORE specific about Rauner, the Morning Consult group says his approval rating has gone up significantly (from 33 percent back September to 42 percent now) while his disapproval rating went from 56 percent then to 49 percent now.

 

CHRISTIE: Can he rise above Rauner?

It’s not that Rauner has done anything differently in recent months to make people like him any more than they did before. If anything, Illinois’ governor has shown himself to be terminally stubborn – digging in his heels with his desire to have a legacy as the governor who undermined organized labor’s influence within state government.

We’re no closer to a budget. Rauner seems determined to believe he can prevail because everyone will “Blame Madigan!” Perhaps he envisions a “South Park”-like song (“Blame Canada”) with Illinoisans singing as they venture to the polling places come the 2018 election cycle?

What will really determine things is whether the cycle shifts that people go back to blaming Bruce, or if that just gets old for would-be voters.

 

Are Richard  Durbin and ...

WILL PEOPLE LISTEN to messages like the one from gubernatorial candidate Ameya Pawar, who on Tuesday blamed Rauner for program cuts to senior citizens, college students, child health care and the mentally ill.

Will we be outraged a little more than a year-and-a-half from now? Or will we get tired of hearing such talk and move on?

He won’t be helped by the fact that this does essentially remain a Democratic-leaning state; even though Rauner’s rhetoric would have you think his 2014 election converted us to being lovers of the GOP elephant – even though many modern-day Republicans seem embarrassed by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was ever one of them.

The same Morning Consult study showed Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., with a 52 percent approval rating, and 50 percent for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. His having been around longer (more than two decades in the Senate and close to four decades in D.C. overall) does give him a certain ignomy (34 percent disapproval).

BUT HIS APPROVAL is identical to that of Cory Booker of New Jersey (whom some are contemplating as a ’20 presidential hopeful) and Timothy Kaine of Virginia (remember him, he could have been our vice president now).

 

... Tammy Duckworth more like Ill.?

Does that make Illinois a place inclined to see Rauner continue to plummet in the future. Or can he stabilize himself during the next year into an unmemorable governor?

Will Rauner continue to move up the popularity polls to the middle of the gubernatorial pack? Or will the coming of Election Day next year be the factor that puts more heat on him, causing Rauner to drop to the Number 50 slot (being the governor who couldn’t get a budget passed ever during his four-year term is a pretty nasty legacy to have)?

I’m sure Chris Christie himself wouldn’t be bothered in the least to be deposed as the possessor of the bottom slot on the gubernatorial favorability rankings.

  -30-

Gorsuch nomination likely to be confirmed, but at what cost to U.S.?

I have no doubt that the U.S. Senate will wind up confirming the appointment by President Donald J. Trump of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States.
 

The image Dems want Gorsuch to be tainted with

Trump will get a political victory – and a BIG one! Influence over the direction the Supreme Court takes on legal issues for years to come; way much longer than the time during which Trump will actually serve as president.

MEANING I HAVEN’T concerned myself much with the tactics being used by the Democratic Party minority of the Senate to try to thwart a vacancy on the nation’s high court from being filled. It’s going to happen, no matter how much senators (including Illinois’ own Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth) oppose it.

There has been speculation that the Senate’s Republican leadership is prepared to use some hardball procedural tactics that could basically force the issue to be addressed – regardless of the opposition from Democrats.

But those people who think they’re being practical-minded by merely looking at the end result (Gorsuch assuming the position, so to speak, on the high court) are missing the point.

For the purpose of the opposition tactics, quite frankly, is to muck up the reputation of Gorsuch based on the circumstances to which he gained a position on the court. Make it so that any future actions he takes get tied in so intensely to the legacy of Donald Trump.

Some of this is payback for Garland rejection

MAKE IT SO that Gorsuch becomes nothing but a female dog to The Donald.

Which isn’t a nice or honorable way for Democrats to behave. I have no doubt it carries its share of a taint of sleaze.

But as Democrats, including Durbin, have made a point of stating, Gorsuch only got to have the appointment because of the partisan political games that were played last year by the Senate in refusing for nearly a year to consider the Supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland.

He was the D.C.-based federal judge who then-President Barack Obama would have named to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Durbin among those spewing partisan rhetoric

BUT REPUBLICAN IDEOLOGUES already were repulsed that Obama had been able to name two justices to the Supreme Court (Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) and weren’t about to give him a third person.

The high court, after all, only has nine justices. Republican ideologues want to erase what they see as the taint Obama put on the federal government. Having a court with one-third of its picks chosen by Barack was totally unacceptable.

So Garland, a moderate pick from suburban Lincolnwood who was Obama’s attempt to appease more conservative interests, wound up becoming nothing. Gorsuch’s treatment, to a degree, is partisan political payback.

Duckworth efforts to meet Gorsuch ignored

But by making it clear that Gorsuch is a product of the Age of Trump (no matter what he really believes), they hope his name will be the subject of sneers and snickers similar to the way many in our society view Justice Clarence Thomas.

MORE THAN A quarter of a century after the confirmation hearings that resulted in the public airing of sexual harassment allegations, there are those who will never take anything he does seriously. Particularly because of the perception that Thomas was a pick of then-President George H.W. Bush who wanted a “certain kind” of black person on the high court who wouldn’t be as feisty as the legendary Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Time will tell if a “Justice Gorsuch” winds up being someone who can look beyond political partisanship while interpreting the law, or if he becomes so tied into the Trump image that we can never fully look at him seriously, or objectively.

GINSBURG: Now THAT will be a battle!

If anything, the real political battles will come if/when Trump gets to make Supreme Court appointments that would replace the justices perceived as not hostile toward progressive causes and issues.

Just think of how ugly the fight will be if Trump gets a chance to pick a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who just turned 84 a few weeks ago). That will make the current brawl seem like a silly little spat, by comparison.

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