It’s campaign time – ’14 cycle begins

I didn’t venture down to Springfield early Monday, although I wish I could have. For there was the occurrence of a key moment in an election cycle.

The ticket of Tio Hardiman/Brunell Donald-Kyei filed its nominating petitions Monday so it could challenge Pat Quinn/Paul Vallas come March 18. Photograph by The African Spectrum

 

The filing of nominating petitions; the documents required of any candidate to show that he has any kind of support that makes him (or her) worthy of a spot on the March 18 primary election ballot.

EVEN IN MY absence, however, the usual spectacle took place – hundreds of people lined up outside the offices of the Illinois State Board of Elections to submit their petitions in hopes that they can be the first to file for their desired office so as to qualify for the top slot on the ballot.

In some cases, the actual candidates came out to wait their turn in line. While others sent their political operatives to do the dirty work of bearing with wintry-like weather.

It seems this year, there were a few people who camped out beginning last week to ensure they were they absolute first people in line when the state Board of Elections offices opened at 8 a.m. Which is always the case. I’ve seen it in the past – only the names have changed, ever so slightly.

According to the Chicago Tribune, they were people who worked for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. Personally, I’d have been more impressed if Madigan himself had shown up to file his petitions.



William Brady gets credit for filing ...

INSOFAR AS THE Republican brawl for the gubernatorial nomination, it seems that William Brady and Kirk Dillard to file the petitions that their campaign aides put together for them.

While Bruce Rauner sent aides to do it for him, and Dan Rutherford sent Steve Kim – his running mate for lieutenant governor, to do the paperwork that gets the two of them on the ballot.

Since all were on hand when the Elections Board office opened, there will be the lottery sometime next month to determine who actually gets the top ballot spot (which according to political superstition can be worth as much as 5 percent of the vote).

Won’t it stink for the candidate who froze his tushie off on Monday, only to lose the lottery and wind up last or next to last?



... own petitions, as did Kirk Dillard

THERE’S ALSO THE Democratic Party brawl, so to speak, for governor.

Tio Hardiman filed his petitions to get on the ballot, meaning that Gov. Pat Quinn will have an actual challenger for the primary. But now we know the actual name of Hardiman’s lieutenant governor running mate.

She’s Brunell Donald-Kyei, an attorney who according to the Capitol Fax newsletter once worked in the Public Guardian’s office before going into private practice, where she was the attorney for Eugene Mullins – a friend of former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger who was found guilty of corruption charges for allegedly taking kickbacks related to county contracts.

We can joke about a possible Paul Vallas/Donald-Kyei debate, although it probably says a lot that the State Board of Elections website botched her name. We may have some voters searching for “Donald Brunell” on the ballot.

THAT IS IF they don’t just ignore the Hardiman/Donald-Kyei slot and cast their vote for Pat Quinn.

I’m focusing primarily on the governor’s races for now, because I suspect they’re about the extent that anybody is paying attention to political campaigns at this point.

Other elections will get their day in the sun, although it probably will be a cloudy, overcast day and few will pay attention. It always causes me to feel dismay the degree to which many people don’t pay attention to their elected officials – then want to rant and rage when their ineptitude comes through.

Although I found it intriguing to see state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, filed his petitions Monday for re-election. Smith, of course, was the freshman legislator whose colleagues kicked him out of the Legislature when he was indicted on federal charges that amount to soliciting bribes.

SMITH: The political thing that won't go

BUT SMITH GOT himself re-elected in the very next election cycle. And it seems the U.S. Attorney’s office is taking so long to get around to Smith’s trial that he may well finish out his current term and get himself picked to another!

For those who are repulsed at the notion, his conviction would eventually remove him from office. But the Smith shadow will continue to cover the General Assembly.

It is why political observer geeks such as myself find days like Monday to be something special. It literally is a day when everybody who wants to run for office has to make their physical presence in Springfield – or at the County Building downtown if their desired dream post is a Cook County government position.

It’s not quite the same as those people who line up to ensure they get any seat for a rock concert or major sporting event. Even though it ought to be regarded as more important -- considering the influence these people have to dictate how the tax dollars generated from our incomes actually gets spent.

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Lt. Gov.: The fight for Number 2; or, Why would anybody want it that badly?

It’s official now; all the Republican candidates seeking to challenge Gov. Pat Quinn in next year’s election cycle have a running mate.

SIMON: Any regrets?

Not that anybody of any significance thinks that holding the second-in-command position of Illinois state government is worth more than the proverbial “bucket of warm spit.”

THE GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES are getting no-names for running mates – people who hope that holding this nothing position for four years could mean they somehow get positioned to run for a real office with significant duties in the future.

Although it is possible to screw up such a situation.

Take the circumstances surrounding our current lieutenant governor – Sheila Simon publicly split from Quinn many months ago, and has said she wants to run a bid for Illinois comptroller.

Which puts her up against incumbent Judy Baar Topinka – a long-time office-holder who’s just different enough from the ideologue Republicans that she can win statewide office even in a Democratic Party-leaning state.

CONSIDERING THAT QUINN is a 99.9999999999 percent shoo-in to win the Democratic nomination for governor (or am I being overly generous in saying that Tio Hardiman has a 0.0000000001 percent chance of winning?), he could have easily kept Simon at his side.

Instead, she’s a likely loser to Topinka – and may well have built up enough ill-will toward her that she will soon be a political has-been!

SANGUINETTI: DuPage powerhouse?

The funny part is that nobody seems to want to be paired up with Quinn – even though he’s a primary election lock for victory and has a very good chance of winning the general election in November 2014 IF he can play himself positively off the nasty negative partisanship that can all too easily tie up the Republican campaigns.

The only stories and tidbits we hear are from the people who don’t want to be Number 2 on the Democratic ticket.

TRACY: Bolstering Dillard?

NOBODY HAS A clue who will be paired up with Quinn.

So long as the Democratic ticket is “Quinn/_____________,” he can’t even start circulating nominating petitions to get his campaign on the ballot.

It also further enhances the notion that this election cycle is about the Republican candidates, and that Quinn is an after-thought – a concept that could undermine the advantages of incumbency that Quinn is counting on to get himself a second full four-year term as governor.

RODRIGUEZ: A step up?

Then again, GOP chaos could be intense enough to overcome that factor. Who’s to say how the voters will feel 13 months from now?

PERHAPS IT IS because Quinn himself is a former lieutenant governor (one of the few who actually got to ascend to the top post) that he’s not all worked up over picking a running mate.

After all, he’s the lieutenant governor who had it become public knowledge that his governor openly ignored him – going more than a full year without speaking to him about anything.

Part of that was just the bizarre behavior of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Although it also shows how the post can be relegated to irrelevance. For her part, Simon has spent her time touring Illinois and visiting community colleges – but even that has to get old.

KIM: The Lt. Gov. top dog?

It may be why Democrats aren’t eager to be a running mate – even if it means being on a winning ticket.

WHICH IS WHY I find it curious to see the field of candidates on the Republican side of the equation; all of whom are eager enough to be a “nothing” politico in hopes that it will mean something someday.

From the newcomer to the group, Wheaton alderman Evelyn Sanguinetti, whom Bruce Rauner picked to help him steal away DuPage County votes from opponent Kirk Dillard, to state Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy (paired with Dillard), former Long Grove village President Maria Rodriguez (paired with William Brady) and Steve Kim (paired with Dan Rutherford).

When Kim comes across as the most experienced just because he ran a token campaign for Illinois attorney general in 2010, you know this is a fringe collection of characters who want to be Number 2.

A post the Dems can’t seem to find anyone to fill.

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Election cycle (ugh!) is now underway

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

TRACY: Vote for her, Dillard comes along

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRERICHS: Wants to replace Rutherford

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

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

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

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