How weak is the so-called “Party of Lincoln” in the “Land of Lincoln?”

What's the point of Party of Rauner?

It really shouldn’t be a wonder that Gov. Bruce Rauner isn’t willing to publicly denounce Republican congressional candidate Art Jones – a white supremacist who literally used to run around wearing Swastika armbands and pledging “Heil!” to Adolf Hitler.

Jones, who managed to win the Republican primary to run for Congress from the 3^rd Illinois district (Chicago's Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs) because no one else tried seeking the GOP nomination, is a political embarrassment.

What would Lincoln think of GOP?

NOT ONLY TO Chicago’s Southwest Side (he’s a reminder of those days of about four decades ago when the area around the city’s Marquette Park was home to many willing to see a role model in Hitler to try to scare off black people from moving anywhere near their neighborhood) or to Illinois.

But to the Republican Party themselves. Which is why Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas who made his own presidential bid two years ago and whom some consider somewhat of an embarrassment himself, came out recently with his cry denouncing Jones’ presence on his political party’s ballot.

If Rauner was competent, neither Jones ...

He came out and called Jones’ presence “horrific,” and said people should vote come Nov. 6 either to re-elect Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., or no one. Zero votes for Jones, is his goal.

Rauner’s response this week was something along the lines of telling Cruz to mind his own business. Personally, I have no problem with telling a Texan to, “Butt out!”

BUT I DON’T think it’s because Rauner really thinks people will pay that much attention to Cruz. Most likely, it’s because Cruz is scoring political points for himself by drawing direct attention to just how weak the Republican Party is in Illinois.

… nor McCann would be on ballot

It’s a party that literally couldn’t find a token candidate to bear the GOP banner back in March, and also couldn’t get itself organized enough to challenge the ballot status of Jones – who based on his past attempts at running for government office has a fringe campaign that isn’t capable of running a serious effort to win office.

But no matter how incompetent Team Jones IS this time around, it would seem that Team Rauner is even worse off.

Yes, I think it accurate to call the Illinois Republicans Team Rauner, largely because the only reason there is a Republican Party in our state is because of all his own money the governor has thrown in to prop up GOP candidates.

MOSTLY BECAUSE HE wants to have political allies to support his ideals for government. Yet what he has is a state Legislature solidly in opposition to him – one where as little as we think of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, we think even less of “Governor Bruce.”

Which is why many of the would-be Republican partisans are thinking of shifting over to a third-party political candidate for governor – that of the newly-created Conservative Party that plans to run state Sen. Sam McCann, R-Plainview, for governor.

CRUZ: For once, Texas has a point

Considering how difficult it is for an outside entity to get itself on the ballot (there are too many political tricks that can kick political dreamers away), it ought to be considered further evidence of Illinois Republican ineptitude that McCann WILL challenge Rauner, along with Democrat J.B. Pritzker and Libertarian Kash Jackson.

It actually is sad that in Illinois, a place that likes to think it was influential (because of Lincoln) in creating the Republican Party, the GOP has become so inconsequential. To the point where outspoken Chicago Republican William Kelly, it could be said, wouldn't be any more inept if he ever were elected to office.

BUT THAT IS the status of our political scene, where it seems we have a Democratic Party that represents the two-thirds of the state population that views itself as urban, and another third that is rural and, in its isolation, seems quite confused.

KELLY: Would he be any worse than Rauner?

The “Party of Rauner” is one that doesn’t seem capable of accomplishing the tasks that, quite honestly, are a political party’s only reason for existing.

It makes me wonder what Rauner really thinks he has accomplished during his three years in office, and why he thinks anything would be significantly different for Illinois if he were to somehow miraculously be elected to a second term in office.

Unless, that is, if he can somehow write off all the money he put into Republican political candidates as a financial loss. Which would be exactly the kind of action I would expect from our federal government during this Age of Trump we’re now in.

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Next election cycles already begun, even though this one ain’t over yet!

As you read this Tuesday, votes are being gathered in the primary elections. We definitely don’t know yet who won.

We haven't even had the ...

And anybody who says they already know is either a liar, or a lucky guesser.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean there aren’t people out there already engaged in plans to run for office in a future election cycle. We’re not even through the current cycle yet, and the new ones are already underway.

 

... Rauner/Pritzker brawl yet, but ...

It’s no wonder we seem to be in a never-ending political mode – with somebody always trying to garner our support in the form of us making our symbolic mark on a ballot for them to hold office.

I couldn’t help but notice the message in my e-mail box Monday morning reminding me of the existence of William J. Kelly. He’s a conservative ideologue pundit who has dreams that the people will someday pick him to hold a political post.

He’s never more than a fringe candidate, but he doesn’t give up.

... William Kelly already has presumptuous photos of himself in the governor's office.

NOW, HE’S SAYING he’s running for governor. As in he wants to be on the Nov. 6 general election ballot as a political independent.

As Kelly says it, he played nice and stepped aside from running in the Republican primary proper so that state Sen. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, could have a one-on-one political brawl with Gov. Bruce Rauner.

She definitely has gained the support of the political ideologues, but whether it will be enough to win the primary is questionable. It’s likely that she has weakened Rauner as a candidate, who will manage to win Tuesday by the slimmest of margins.

Garry McCarthy has mayoral dreams, ...

But Kelly envisions that once Ives is defeated this week, he can step in as the conservative alternative to Rauner in the general election. Whether that will mean much of anything is uncertain. He could easily become the guy who takes 1 percent voter support in a Rauner/Pritzker brawl – or whichever other Democrat manages to win that primary election.

YET THAT’S NOT even the most forward-looking political fantasy to be offered up. News reports indicated that one-time Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy will say officially this week that he’ll be a candidate for Chicago mayor come the 2019 municipal election cycle.

It seems McCarthy is still peeved that Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants him to take the fall for the shooting death of a teenage boy by a Chicago police officer – one whose criminal charges for murder are still pending.

Emanuel is going to face some serious opposition from people offended by the police conduct who want Rahm himself to take the blame for the death of Laquan McDonald.

... as does Paul Vallas

Somehow, I think the kind of people who would most willingly support McCarthy are the people completely opposite – as in they want to believe that McDonald brought his fate upon himself.

THIS WILL BE a campaign issue, and McCarthy isn’t alone. Tech entrepreneur Neal Sales-Griffin has said he wants to replace Emanuel come the municipal elections to be held in February and April of 2019. While one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO and nationally-known educational consultant Paul Vallas supposedly also is contemplating a bid for mayor.

To the point where he already has moved from his long-time home in suburban Crestwood and moved with his wife, Sharon, to a residence in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Thereby establishing city residency so he could run for the mayoral post.

2020 and Trump arrogance will be here soon

We haven’t even begun the likely Rauner/Pritzker political brawl of this year, and yet there are those who already are looking forward to an Emanuel/Vallas/McCarthy fight for votes.

And if that isn’t bad enough, consider that it will be followed up in 2020 by what will be an unnaturally-bloody brawl for president, as Donald J. Trump goes all out to try to convince the history books that his 2016 election wasn’t the ultimate political fluke.

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EXTRA: Will immigration issue provoke 'civil war' amongst GOPers

Gov. Bruce Rauner followed through on his rhetoric of last week, using Monday to sign into law the Trust Act – a measure limiting the ability of local police across the state to get involved in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

KELLY: Rauner 'betrays' Illinoisans?

Rauner even went so far as to venture into the Little Village neighborhood for a bill-signing ceremony; which ensured he was surrounded by many Mexican-American activist types who have long been anxious for such legal protections from police harassment.

BUT THE CONSERVATIVE ideologue-types are upset. They’re the kind who want government officials who are eager to harass so-called “foreigners” who “don’t belong” in this country. Many of them aren’t too concerned about the niceties of the law or the details of a person’s ethnic origins.

Party regulars willing to defend Rauner

Such as William Kelly, a Chicago Republican (Yes, they exist) who is talking up himself as a gubernatorial challenger in the GOP primary come March. He claims Rauner has “betrayed” Illinois residents and “has made Illinois a sanctuary for criminals, drug dealers and gang members.” Kelly also said Rauner, “has turned the state of Illinois into Chicago, America’s murder capital.”

That latter statement is so over-the-top as to be absurd. Particularly for those people who take the homicide rate literally – Chicago isn’t even the worst in the Midwest (St. Louis and Detroit have higher rates, while other cities such as Baltimore and New Orleans also exceed the Second City).

Not that it really matters much what Kelly says. He wants attention (I suspect most would-be voters don’t have a clue who he is, and would say that even if he gets on the primary ballot, Rauner is still running unopposed because it is difficult to call Kelly a credible candidate). He’s desperate for it!

BUT SOME WITHIN the Republican political structure must be concerned. Because the party managed to issue their own statement, quoting all kinds of law enforcement officials who claim that the Trust Act isn’t a big deal to them. In fact, the party got their statement to me through e-mail about a half hour before the governor’s statement confirming he actually signed the bill into law.

RAUNER: Will issue be key in '18 campaign?

The political party wants us to believe only the Democrats have a mess of candidates to pick from, while the GOP is solidly behind Bruce. Which may or may not be true. We’ll have to wait and see if Rauner can successfully portray a pol who cares one whit about urban issues.

Particularly after spending the past two years bashing the city about every chance he gets. “It breaks my heart to see the senseless violence going on in our streets, especially when that violence is inflicted on innocent children,” the governor said. “We need to prioritize our resources for the prevention of violent crime.”

Are you buying it?

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Kelly to get more attention as observer than he would have got as candidate

One of the unofficial rules of reporting I have operated under is not to go about reporting on threats of lawsuits. If they’re serious, let them file the suit.

Perhaps we should have taken the same attitude toward William J. Kelly.

HE’S THE PUNDIT of a conservative ideological bent who during the summer went on and on about how he was going to run for mayor in the Feb. 24 elections. He went so far as to come up with $100,000 of his own money toward his campaign fund – which under state law blows the limits placed on the mayoral candidates to try to restrict campaign finances.

There’s just one thing. Kelly isn’t going to run for mayor after all.

Monday’s deadline for filing nominating petitions to get a place on the ballot came and went without Kelly being among the 10 candidates who plan to run for mayor.

He did issue a statement saying he plans to take the $100,000 in his “William J. Kelly for Mayor” fund and spend it to try to rebuild a Cook County Republican Party structure – which this year couldn’t even come up with token candidates to run for Cook County government positions in this month’s elections.

I DON’T KNOW how much $100,000 will help the party, which was so weak that it wasn’t able to do much of anything to bolster the recent election of Bruce Rauner as governor. The governor-elect had to rely on his own $27 million to get himself elected, without help from the political party whose label he used.

But it’s a start, I suppose. Perhaps it means Kelly can go about claiming he’s the head of the Chicago Republican Party, which reminds me of the old Mike Royko line about being the “tallest midget in the circus.”

He already was claiming that GOP leadership label, of sorts, on account of the fact that he would have been the only mayoral candidate willing to identify himself as a Republican.

Instead, we have 10 Democrats running for mayor – and the breakdown of candidates will be amongst those named “Emanuel,” those who hate the idea of an Emanuel mayorality, and those running because they wish to represent the interests of Chicago’s African-American population.

KELLY AS MAYORAL candidate would have got lost in the shuffle of candidates – particularly because the perception would be that he wouldn’t stand a chance of taking more than 1 percent of the Feb. 24 vote.

He certainly wouldn’t be amongst the Top Two candidates who would be in an April 7 election run-off – presuming that Emanuel (or any other candidate) can’t take a majority in February.

Not that being a Republican would have mattered in the mayoral election.

We in Chicago have had non-partisan municipal elections ever since the mid-1990s when the then-Republican dominated General Assembly approved the change away from political parties to overstep their authority over local matters.

JUST THINK HOW different the 1983 elections would have been if Harold Washington’s 36 percent of the vote had not been enough to win the Democratic nomination, but had merely qualified him for a run-off against Jane Byrne?

Kelly this year would have been as irrelevant as Bernard Epton would have been in ’83 under a non-partisan electoral system.

Which is why it makes sense for him to take his campaign money and try to invest it into building up an alternative political party – which on the surface is a completely noble goal. People are better off if they have choices on Election Day.

And Kelly may actually get a phone call or two of press attention in coming months as a local Republican big-wig, instead of being ignored completely as a mayoral fringe candidate.

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Republicans battling it out in 1 ward

We’ve had Republicans swarming in and out of our state all through the weekend, yet I couldn’t help but notice they’re staying out of Chicago proper.

They even didn’t show their faces on Saturday at the event that usually attracts political people – the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Columbus Drive. Considering that I recall President George W. Bush marching with “Hizzoner, Jr.” in the parade a few years ago, it’s not like the concept of a GOPer in the event is so alien.

YET IT IS just testament to how overwhelmingly irrelevant the Republican Party has become in Illinois. The GOP starts off each election down by however many votes come out of Chicago.

In fact, I know one Republican-leaning person (he’s been both a political operative and publisher of ideological newspapers and magazines) who is convinced that the one-time Party of Lincoln will be irrelevant in the Land of Lincoln until the day comes that there is something resembling a significant Republican organization in Chicago proper,

Meaning, not just the outer Chicago suburbs.

So it is with that thought in mind that I have been reading the various reports that have been coming out in recent weeks about how Republicans are taking seriously a campaign for Republican committeeman for Chicago’s 42^nd Ward.

FORMER GOV. JIM Edgar may not have liked the gubernatorial campaign of William Brady, but the two men both agree that they want Tom Smithburg to be the ward’s committeeman within the political party structure.

Illinois Republican Chairman Pat Brady also wants Smithburg. In fact, it seems that much of the Republican establishment (or what’s left of it) wants Smithburg.

Former Gov. James R. Thompson, Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., all are among the names Smithburg has.

You’d think, getting that many big names and current titles that Smithburg were running for a statewide political post – instead of being the official Republican leader for his ward.

MAYBE THIS IS “Step One” toward the real resurgence of the Republican Party (instead of being the political party for rural Illinois that gets overwhelmed by Chicago and its suburbs on Election Day).

At the very least, it is an interest in the city.

Of course, what makes this particular post interesting is that there is a contested race for Tuesday.

The current committeeman for the 42^nd ward (which consists of downtown Chicago and the near North Side) is Eloise Gerson. She’s had the position for awhile (mostly because no one else has expressed interest in it), and there are some people who claim she is not the nicest of people to deal with.

THEN AGAIN, NEITHER am I.

But the critics also say she is part of the “problem” in that she can’t put together an organization capable of turning out voters on Election Day.

Yet there also is a third candidate, and it is seeming that this particular election will be about a choice between Smithburg and William Kelly. Smithburg is the son of a former Quaker Oats CEO who has been part of Republican “big money” efforts in recent years, while Kelly is a political operative who has been willing to do the “dirty work” of campaigns.

As Smithburg has told us in his campaign fliers, Kelly was the person who caused a mini-controversy by pretending to be a reporter-type person to get access to then-mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel and ask him more harassing-than-usual questions.

SMITHBURG ALSO CLAIMS Kelly is really a Democrat – having voted that way “at least 5 times.” Although Kelly has said in his own defense (in the Republican News Watch website) that he was voting for Richard M. Daley to be mayor – since the GOP has not put up a credible (Ray Wardingley does not count) candidate in a long, long time.

THOMPSON: Long time since GOP mayor

With rhetoric this nasty, you’d think this was for something more than just being the head Republican in downtown Chicago.



But it is the downtown location that makes Republicans seem to want to use this as their starting point for rebuilding relevance. Which has among its residents the kind of monied people who’d be inclined to want to be with the Republican Party, winds up going knee-jerk Democrat each election cycle – just like the rest of the city.



Yet that ward, according to Republicans, provided the presidential campaign of John McCain with 10,125 votes in 2008. Which means there were just over 10,000 people within walking distance of Grant Park who specifically voted against the Obama phenomenon that culminated that night with his historic moment.

TAKE INTO ACCOUNT there are rural counties that don’t even have 10,000 people living in them. Chicago has so many people that it could still provide significant numbers of votes for an opposition party. With hard work and a serious commitment, it could be built upon.

Which is why we have so many Republican big-wigs (even though many of them are former something-or-others) getting involved in this committeeman’s race.

Take this one high-profile ward with a serious political structure, and maybe more wards would follow. It’s not like the Republican Party is going to win any elections in Chicago in the near future. But it would cut into the vote margin if the GOP weren’t quite so irrelevant in the Second City.

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