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.

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Trump leads GOP tripe talk in their fight against Donnelly for Senate

Let’s be honest – it’s likely the only reason that Joe Donnelly, the Democrat who has been a U.S. senator from Indiana the past six years won that post because his Republican opponent was (in the words of '70's TV ideologue Archie Bunker) a “meathead.”

DONNELLY: Can he win in '18?

I don’t doubt that GOP partisans are resentful of the fact Donnelly beat Richard Mourdock back in 2012 – even though one could say it was their own fault for beating up on the long-time, and legendary, Sen. Richard Lugar in their primary that year.

WHICH IS WHY Donnelly is going to get dumped all over for the next few months, particularly since Republicans decided this week in the Indiana primaries just who would be their nominee would be to challenge Donnelly in the Nov. 6 general elections.

One can say that Republicans didn’t make the mistake of picking the most outspoken ideologue of the three, which means they may have learned from their mistake of ’12 when Mourdock (a former state treasurer) wound up bringing national shame on himself and the political party with his rancid rhetoric about rape and abortion.

Remember he was that guy who said women who became pregnant as a result of rape should just accept that it was God’s will, of a sort, that they have the baby?

But it’s not like nominee Mike Braun needs to say crazy and inane things for this campaign cycle to get stupid. If anything, Braun has the head GOP nincompoop in his corner to spout out nonsense-talk.

BRAUN: Can he take back Lugar's seat?

I’M TALKING ABOUT President Donald J. Trump, who Thursday night ventured to Elkhart, Ind., for a campaign rally meant to appeal to the kind of people who will forevermore think The Donald is their kind of guy – no matter what he says or does.

Which meant Donnelly was his target of choice – even though I know of many Democrats who are distrustful of the senator from South Bend, Ind., because they think he’s handling his voting record on issues to avoid taking opposition to Trump.

Donnelly doesn’t want to give Trump types political ammunition in the form of votes against the ideas they hold most dearly.

TRUMP: Getting involved in Hoosier politics

Not that it matter much what Donnelly has actually done. For Trump (and GOP partisans) are determined to demonize him no matter what is really said or done.

FOR TRUMP ON Thursday pointed out that Donnelly didn’t support all of the president’s trash talk of the Affordable Care Act and opposed that measure of last year that Trump bills as significant tax cuts for the American people.

Even though Donnelly isn’t a reliable vote for Democratic partisan issues and proposals, Trump says that the first-term senator “will do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell him to do.

Trump claims Donnelly supports, “the radical, liberal agenda. It never, ever fails.”

Which is political trash talk of the most absurd. Donnelly’s voting record has been so unpredictable from the so-called progressive stance. The true hard-core liberals view someone like Donnelly as unreliable.

A QUICK REVIEW of his record includes only 60 percent support for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 58 percent support for the League of Conservation Voters, 35 percent backing for the American Civil Liberties Union, a grade of “D” for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and an “F” for the NIAC that lobbies on behalf of Iranian-Americans.

EMANUEL: Will he help prop up Donnelly again?

If anything, it might be said that Donnelly is a person who tries thinking for himself – rather than following a knee-jerk party line of any type. But that’s exactly what the Hoosier GOP wants for themselves and for all of us – thinking they can bad-mouth Illinois because we’re the exact opposite of their partisan leanings (and possible to reinforce that following our own election for governor).

It may be that Indiana winds up balancing out Illinois on the national scene, although my own thoughts about the Hoosier senator is that I still remember the first time I ever met him – at a fundraiser put together for him by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago.

It was Chicago campaign cash that helped him run for office in 2012. It may well be people determined to undermine Chicago’s political influence (and suck up to Trump) who will be the most outspoken critics of Donnelly come November.

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Now we see why Trump was so eager to have Moore vote in the U.S. Senate

John McCain, the senator from Arizona who tried challenging Barack Obama nearly a decade ago for the presidency, is about to demonize himself yet again amongst the ideologues of our society.

McCAIN: Taking an early holiday break

McCain has been in poor health, having dealt with brain cancer for the past year and currently undergoing treatment for a viral infection. Which means he’s gone home. He’s called an early beginning to his Christmas holiday. Which, for his own sake, is good.

YET IT MEANS he’s not on Capitol Hill at a time when Congress is supposed to be considering the tax bill that President Donald J. Trump has referred to as his “Christmas gift” to the American people.

Although about the only ones who will benefit are those who are in the same tax bracket as The Donald himself. Which means there is a great mass of our society that would love to see this plan collapse.

They’d thoroughly enjoy having the Democratic minority caucuses in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, including Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth from Illinois, unite to kill the tax plan – and ensure that Trump’s first full year as president was one of complete failure. As in being unable to get anything he desired passed by Congress.

Of course, it is the Republicans who control both congressional chambers. But in the Senate, it is such a slim margin of majority for the GOP. Meaning that McCain’s absence will be noticed. And that the people who are desperate for Trump to have his first political victory will be looking for someone to blame.

TRUMP: Still looking for first political victory

I HAVE NO doubt that they will be more than willing to accept McCain as their “fall guy” should the tax bill fail to get approved by the Senate when it is scheduled to come up for a vote Wednesday. That is, of course presuming the House of Representatives passes it first on Tuesday.

For a political party that wants to think it is all powerful and that the opposition ought to just “Shut up!” and learn to do what it’s told, you’d think one lone vote due to illness wouldn’t be missed.

If the Republican Party were truly as significant as it likes to think it is, it wouldn’t be missed.

But there is the fact that it technically has a 52-48 margin over the Democrats in the Senate. One that will become 51-49 when Doug Jones takes his seat from Alabama in the Senate early next year.

MOORE: His loss hurts Trump

JUST LAST WEEK, McCain and Thad Cochran of Mississippi were absent due to health reasons. The Associated Press has reported that Cochran plans to show up on Wednesday for the tax plan vote.

But who’s to say that someone else will be unable to make it for the session. Or for that matter, that the upcoming year won’t include many times when Trump wants Congress to put its stamp of approval on his many goofy whims and desires.

But won’t be able to because of the numbers game.

Illinois on proper side of tax issue ...

It becomes all the more apparent why Trump would be willing to put aside his own concerns (if any) he might have had about the personal character of Roy Moore in Alabama. For a president who doesn’t have any real political skills to get things done, he’s not capable of swaying over the opposition to his desires.

IN FACT, THE whole concept of this Age of Trump is telling the opposition to “Stuff it!”

Which is why it would be perfect if Trump himself were to be told the equivalent of “Stuff it!” by the American people with regards to his tax plan – which truly is meant to benefit only a tiny segment of our society. Whom I’m sure that Trump believes are the only people in our society who matter.

... with Durbin and Duckworth

Now as much as I’d like to see a political defeat on this issue, I’m not getting my hopes up. My own sense from having observed government and politics throughout the years is that officials only occasionally do the “right thing.” We may have seen our share of the “right thing” with Jones’ electoral victory last week.

So when it comes to the $1.5 trillion tax cut that likely won’t benefit the majority of us, the only real question I have is how will the slim Republican majority manage to pass this in a way that will let them deny responsibility for the harm it could cause us all? Because that’s the most likely outcome.

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How some can rationalize anything to benefit their own political partisanship

We as a society are going to learn something about ourselves Tuesday, regardless of the outcome of the special election in Alabama to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy from that state.

MOORE: Will one-time 22 point leader prevail?

That, of course, is the one in which Republican Roy Moore (a one-time judge of right wing sensibilities) ought to be the favorite to win. Yet the disclosures of Moore’s past attractions to teenage girls extending well into his adult years have some wondering/hoping/praying that Democrat Doug Jones can prevail.

WHICH WOULD HELP Dems extend their efforts to undermine the amount of Congressional support President Donald J. Trump can count on for his goofy whims of political fantasy.

Trump is fully aware of that, which is the reason why he has publicly endorsed Moore – saying the need to keep a congressional seat Republican is more important than any repulsion that one may feel toward Moore’s attraction to a 14-year-old girl back when he was 32 (he’s now 70).

Just as “the whole world is watching” back in 1968 when protests in Chicago became violent due to police behavior, the world will be watching Alabama on this day to see whether the political party that usually likes to think of itself as overly moral (it’s not, but that’s a debate for a future day) will back someone who, if he’d been caught at the time, could have faced statutory rape charges.

Considering he was an assistant district attorney in his home county at the time, that would have made it particularly repulsive. Moore ought to have comprehended the law well enough to know better.

WE’RE GOING TO see how intense political partisanship is over any true sense of morals amongst the portion of our society that lives in Alabama.

As it stands, the Birmingham News reported Monday on two polls – both of which show Moore with solid leads. A Trafalgar Group report shows 51 percent of people planning to or leaning toward voting for Moore, compared to 46 percent siding with Jones.

JONES: Can former KKK prosecutor overcome?

Another poll by Gravis Marketing showed 49 percent for Moore compared to 45 percent for Jones.

We’ll know by the end of Tuesday how close these polls are to reality, particularly since the ideologues most likely to put partisanship ahead of morals are more willing to cite a new poll done for the Fox News Channel – one that shows Jones leading Moore 50 percent to 40 percent. Which strikes me as a large number of undecideds still; and whose intent most likely is to scare right-wingers into turning out to vote for Moore!

MY OWN EXPERIENCE in watching government and politics is that every now and then, public officials and voters surprise us by doing the right thing. Putting aside their own personal interest and doing what is for the good of the people.

But those moments truly are rare and come as a surprise. So I’m not about to predict how Moore will do in Tuesday’s vote down in the Cotton State. As much as I’d like to think Alabamans would like to put an end to the number of nasty stories about how intolerant their region of the nation is, I’m sure some will be more than willing to add to it by giving Moore an electoral victory.

Now some in Washington, D.C., have said they consider Moore to be unfit to serve in Congress. Perhaps that has some thinking that even if Moore wins, he’ll be rejected and this vote is about deciding which political party will get to pick his replacement.

Although I’d argue that continuing to back someone like Moore (who with all the right-wing nonsense he’s spewed throughout the years was unfit for office even before all the stories about young girls started cropping up) shows Republican leadership in Alabama is unfit to have any say on the issue.

OTHERS, I’M SURE, have their own odd rationalizations. Such as one I read in a public comments section of the Birmingham News.

Are Alabamans eager to add to list of absurdities built up during Civil Rights era?

One reader says everybody needs to vote for Moore because a vote for a Democrat is just too harmful to our societal morals. “Pedophilia will be legal if Democrats have their way! It will become a Civil Right and be protected by Title IX,” one wrote.

Now if one looks up the definition of pedophilia, one learns that it relates to people who have sexual attraction to children 12 and under. Which means that for them, Moore’s okay because his attraction was to girls 14 and up. He's in the clear, morally!

That’s quite a rationalization some are willing to make just to win an election with an unfit official. One whose stain will be smeared over the nation as a whole if he prevails on Tuesday.

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EXTRA: Degrees of boorish behavior? or, Are we still acting like high school?

Let’s be honest. When now-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., groped that broadcaster by her breasts (and had someone take a picture of the moment), he was being a boor.

FRANKEN: A first-class boor?

That was just tacky, acting as though he were in a frat house with a girl who passed out from too much liquor consumption. LeeAnn Tweeden, the woman who didn’t realize at the time what was being done to her, is justifiably p-o’ed.

SHE’D BE JUSTIFIED if she were to walk up to Franken and give him a smack across the jaw. Or maybe a knee to the groin!

But for those people who are trying to use this incident as a way of downplaying the significance of the Senate candidate from Alabama, that’s just disgusting. The fact that President Donald J. Trump himself is going out of his way to bash Franken while saying as little as possible against Roy Moore merely shows just how ridiculous such a stance is.

The fact is that they’re two separate issues. LeeAnn Tweeden has every right to be upset about her encounter with Franken just over a decade ago when both were participants on a USO tour in Afghanistan and the now-senator (then former Saturday Night Live entertainer) used the moment to get kisses she otherwise wouldn’t have given him – and that moment later when she was asleep and got “felt up” by Franken.

I’m inclined to believe Franken’s claim that he thought it was a “funny” thing to do. Although in retrospect, it was more tacky than humorous.

MOORE: Should have known better

BUT MOORE’S BEHAVIOR with teenage girls, particularly the one who was only 14 at the time of the incident nearly 40 years ago, is much more despicable. And the fact that Alabama state law thinks there are circumstances in which girls as young as 12 can consent to sexual behavior doesn’t make it any less creepy.

By comparison, Tweeden is now 44, which would have put her in her early 30s at the time of the incident. She has a right to be upset. But she was capable of defending herself in a way the 14-year-old wasn't.

Moore, who at the time was a criminal prosecutor and most definitely should have known better, did something more repulsive – even though some of those of Republican partisan leanings seem to want to believe that Moore is somehow forgivable whereas Franken needs to have the long arm of the law sicc’ed on him.

Is title why some think Franken worse?

Seriously, some want Al prosecuted (at the very least, Sens. Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, are getting calls by GOPers to give away any campaign money Franken ever helped them raise), whereas they make excuses as to why talking about "statutory rape" with regards to Moore is wrong!

PERHAPS IT IS because they have read the reports of Moore’s actual actions with the 14-year-old girl. One such report indicates he undressed her to her underwear, then groped her. Almost like a stumbling teenage boy who doesn’t really have a clue what he’s doing when with a real-live girl!

Does that make him the equivalent of a teenager at heart? Which ought to bring up the question of whether he’s mature enough to be a public official.

Then again, Franken’s behavior is reminiscent of those moments when I was in junior high school when we thought the most awesome thing to do to a girl is pull through her blouse on her bra straps.

Which may be the ultimate problem – too many people behaving in boorish ways that you’d have thought they’d have given up on after leaving the halls of high school. For those of us with sense, we realize that was the moment real life began.

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Neither ‘Justice Gorsuch’ concept, nor Donnelly's Dem vote, a surprise

We’re in a particularly partisan era of our society politically. We have a federal government that is determined to impose its will upon us all, and let the opposition know its irrelevance!
 

DONNELLY: One of 3 Dems to back Gorsuch

So anybody who thought there was a chance that Neil Gorsuch would be denied the Supreme Court position to which President Donald J. Trump appointed him was seriously kidding themselves.

THE ONLY REASON that the federal healthcare reform program imposed during the presidency of Barack Obama remains in place is because of the incompetence politically and socially of the current government leadership in Washington, D.C.

The will to do away with the Affordable Care Act was just as intense as it was to approve Gorsuch’s appointment. In fact, if anything, the failure to successfully repeal Obama’s health care reform only strengthened the resolve to ensure that the Senate approved the appointment to the high court.

Republicans were sick and tired of looking inept and incapable of governing. After all, what’s the point of having the White House AND complete control of Congress if you can’t strong-arm issues into public policy?

So it was inevitable that the Senate leadership would use their “nuclear” option to eliminate the rules that allowed an outspoken minority from preventing a final vote on Gorsuch’s appointment. It was also a “done deal” that when the issue came up Friday for a vote, the Republican majority in the Senate would approve him.

DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION WOULDN’T matter in the least.

From the perspective of a political observer, the question I had was how many Democrats would wind up casting votes in favor of the appointment because they don’t want to give Republicans the opportunity to “tag” them as flaming liberals, subversives or whatever other cheap rhetoric the GOP dreams up for the 2018 election cycle.

It turns out three of the 46 Democrats wound up siding with the 51 Republicans who voted to approve Gorsuch (Johnny Isakson of Georgia was absent on Friday).

GORSUCH: That's 'Justice' Gorsuch now!!!

One of those three was Joseph Donnelly, a senator from Indiana (the South Bend area, specifically, and a guy who takes great pride in being a Notre Dame alumnus).

DONNELLY ISN’T EXACTLY a wild-eyed radical (although many GOPers do think that of everybody who isn’t in complete lock-step agreement with them). He’s certainly no Jan Schakowsky – as in the oft-outspoken Congresswoman from Evanston.

But he’s progressive enough on many issues, and he certainly has been willing to set foot in Chicago to take political support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and campaign contributions from many of the same people who fund the political aspirations of our own state’s Democratic leadership.

So is Donnelly a sell-out?

Or is he just someone who’s thinking strategically about his vote. Knowing there’s no way his own caucus is going to be able to kill the Gorsuch appointment, he wound up siding with it so that a “no” vote on his part couldn’t become an issue to be used against him when he seeks re-election in the 2018 cycle.

IN FACT, THE Reuters wire service pointed out in their story that all three of the Democratic senators who voted for Gorsuch are up for re-election next year and come from states (Indiana, West Virginia and North Dakota) where Trump won the Electoral College in 2016.

There are those who think this kind of strategic action rings false. Politicians should vote what they think (or what they think their constituents think), rather than what they think will help their preservation. But it does happen.

 

OBAMA: Acted similarly on select issues

Let’s not forget Barack Obama from back when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois – his voting record includes an “aye” vote for a measure related to supporting construction of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border. For that matter, so does the record of Hillary Clinton when she was the junior senator from New York.

Does anybody believe either of them is in agreement with Trump on that issue, or any other? Nor does it lessen the impact that Gorsuch (who at age 49 becomes the first Supreme Court justice younger than myself) can potentially have if he chooses to put the “Trump” brand on the court and so many aspects of our society.

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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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EXTRA: Does Kirk gain bonus points politically for speaking Spanish?

KIRK: Habla en Espanol

I'm sure that Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., thinks he gained himself some political points when, during a final debate held Friday between himself and Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth, he reverted to the use of the Spanish language.

He showed off his bilingual abilities when asked a question by Univision-Chicago broadcaster Erika Maldonado about where he stood on immigration reform, saying, "I'm going to answer this question in the language for whom the issue is most meaningful."

DUCKWORTH: Fighting back in Thai

HE THEN TRIED to say in Spanish that he has been a supporter of the issue, while most of his Republican colleagues in Congress have not. He also tried rubbing it in by saying, "My opponent does not speak any Spanish."

Of course, it could be argued that by trying to portray the issue as purely one impacting Latinos, he is trying to isolate it off so that other voters don't give it much thought. There's also the argument that by giving his answer of moderation in Spanish, he ensures that many of the people who are most hard-core xenophobic in their thought process won't have a clue what he said.

And won't be reminded just how much they disagree with Kirk on this issue, and many others. After all, if he were really in line with their thoughts, they'd probably be backing him and it could be argued that a Donald Trump presidential candidacy would have coat-tails strong enough to carry him back to the U.S. Senate.

I also couldn't help but notice the wire service news accounts of the debate, which indicated that while Duckworth may not speak Spanish, she did show off her skills in the Thai language when answering questions from reporter-types.

  -30-

It was nice knowin’ ya, Kirk. Welcome to the Senate, Tammy Duckworth

The most embarrassing part of Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., managing to put his foot in his mouth during his debate this week with Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth?
 

KIRK: Still removing foot from mouth

It’s the fact that Kirk gave Donald Trump and his political camp a legitimate reason to mock the man.

KIRK HAS BEEN going out of his way to distance himself from the Trump presidential campaign for being too sexist and bigoted to be representative of the people. So naturally, Kirk makes a remark during the debate that is interpreted as an ethnic slur on Duckworth – who was born in Thailand to parents with U.S. citizenship who lived and worked in several Southeast Asian nations before she settled in this country at age 16.

Anytime that Trump political operative Kellyanne Conway can call out Kirk for stupidity, you know is a bad moment that you don’t recover from politically.

The fact that Conway used Twitter to make her attack likely only makes it all-the-more lasting. That tweet ain’t goin’ noplace. It likely will keep cropping up for the remainder of Kirk’s life, and may even make it into his eventual obituary. That attempt at an apology he made Friday? Already forgotten about!

So what was it that happened during Thursday night’s debate between Kirk – a former Naval Reserve officer – and Duckworth, who wants to make sure the world knows she lost her legs while serving in combat during the Gulf War of the early 1990s?

DUCKWORTH HAS ALWAYS made a point of letting people know of her support for military issues and causes, and likes to talk of how she comes from a military family. Supposedly, family members fought as far back in time as the American revolution.

 

DUCKWORTH: Illinois' new senator?

Which could be true, as her father served in the Marine Corps and he was far from the first in the family to enlist for a stretch of military service. Except that Repubicans usually want to believe that if they were a "legitimate" military family, Republican partisan genes would have taken root. The fact that Tammy turned out Democrat must make her suspect -- in GOP minds.

Kirk came up with the wisecrack that I’m sure he thinks is particularly witty and was meant to put that woman in her place. As in, “I forgot that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

The VoteVets organization on Friday trashed Kirk. Group Chairman Jon Soltz called the wisecrack “racist” and said, “Mark Kirk can say whatever he wants, but (Thursday) night he made clear that he will run his campaign, and the office of senator, the same way Donald Trump has run his campaign – based on racial and ethnic slurs, insults and tarring non-whites as not sufficiently American.”

 

CLINTON: Equally responsible for Duckworth

DUCKWORTH HERSELF ISSUED her own critical statement, although the key part of her effort was less to blast Kirk than to ask people for money. “Can you chip in right now to help me respond to this disgraceful attack?” she said.

Which makes me wonder how she would have asked for the campaign contribution if Kirk had kept his mouth shut and behaved himself Thursday night.

The sad thing is this won’t be the reason that Kirk likely loses his re-election bid a week-and-a-half from now. His campaign already was lagging due to the fact that Illinois leans Democrat and likely has a majority of voters fully comfortable with both of the state’s U.S. senators being of the Democratic persuasion.

In the interest of disclosure, I should point out that I was among those voters when I cast my own ballot this week through early vote. Perhaps Kirk would have a better chance of getting re-elected if he were seeking the Indiana seat – although even there Democrats are hopeful (although maybe too optimistically) they can win this year.

IT’S ALL ABOUT the concept that Trump has spread so much rhetorical manure that he’s given an overall stink to the concept of being a Republican.

 

CONWAY: Used Twitter to treat Kirk like a twit

Which is why it is sad that Kirk would get caught up in this particular bit of nonsense – since it probably gives Trump and his backers some sense of cockiness in thinking they would have looked out for Kirk if he had really been one of their own.

But since he wasn’t, then forget him!

And the likely outcome will be a Duckworth victory. Only she had better be careful, because her re-election bid of 2022 will not have a presidential campaign to leech off of. She’ll have to convince Illinoisans she’s worthy of retention – unless she wants to be nothing more than a one-termer.

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Election Day won't bring to an end our national partisan political stalemate

There’s nothing terribly surprising about failed presidential candidate John McCain talking about how his Republican counterparts in Congress are prepared to be obstructionists with regards to any effort by a “President Hillary Clinton” to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States.
 

McCAIN: Senator says 'no judges' for Hillary

Obstructionism has been the ways and means of operating our federal government for the past six years that Congress has been in the hands of Republicans who don’t want President Barack Obama to have any lasting effect on the nation.

SO IT WOULD seem that obstructionism will be the way they will deal with a second coming of the Clinton family to the White House.

There’s still that vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the death of Antonin Scalia early this year. Any hope that the passing of Election Day in a few more weeks will result in a return to normalcy is just a dream.

Either that, or obstructionism has become the new normal.

In some ways, hearing that Senate Republicans would be inclined to refuse to confirm any Clinton appointment to the nation’s high court may be the most sensible thing we’re hearing these days.

AFTER ALL, IT would mean that Republican opponents of a President Clinton would be staying within the process created for our government’s operations. Not that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned government officials would be petty enough to resort to such tactics.

Then again, maybe petty has become the new normal.

Hearing that the Senate would refuse to confirm a Supreme Court nominee sounds more sane than those people who talk of a coup d’ tat within our government – so as to keep “that broad” (they probably use much harsher terms to describe her) from taking office.

 

TRUMP: His followers prepared to wreck havoc

There’s even one website now (usuncut.com) with a video snippet of somebody saying he’s prepared to kill Hillary Clinton should she manage to be able to win the presidential election – which various polls and studies are indicating is somewhere in the vicinity of a 90 percent certainty.

AT THE VERY least, there are those who take Donald Trump’s “stupid speak” of Clinton being prosecuted and incarcerated if he were to win the just a tad too seriously. Let’s only hope that Trump himself has never engaged in a business deal that could be construed by a prosecutor as criminal in nature.

Although I’m sure the Trump-types would dismiss his future indictment as some sort of conspiracy by Clinton to cover up her own wrong-doings.

All of this is relevant because of the likelihood that Republican interests will hold on to their control of Congress. I know many of the e-mail missives I receive from Democratic interests these days always make the point of how we have to dump the GOP control of Congress if a “President Clinton” is to be capable of achieving anything.

Some go right out and try to scare me by saying it is inevitable UNLESS Democratic candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives win – which usually means more campaign cash. Which really means they want me to kick in money, and they’re trying to make me feel guilty because I haven’t contributed a dime to any candidate.

NOT NOW. NOT ever, actually.

 

CLINTON: Is she really such a shoo-in to win?

Although I don’t doubt the truthfulness of an obstructionist Congress. It may well be McCain speaking the blunt truth when he talks about an ongoing effort to keep the Supreme Court short-staffed – unless conservative ideologues get to pick one of their own to replace Scalia (and any other judge who retires or dies in the near future).

All of which means we’re not going to get radical change in the way our government operates these days. Which is sad, because radical change is what we desperately need. And NO, Donald Trump is as far removed from “radical change” as we could get.

It is sad that we have a political mindset by which people can only work with themselves and are incapable of working with others. The only way our government gets anything accomplished is if the “game” is rigged in someone’s favor – and bipartisanship becomes the ultimate vulgar expression.

  -30-