Short-term ‘retirement’ post turns out to be a long-term one for Jesse White

It was a couple of decades ago when Jesse White ran for election as Illinois secretary of state.

WHITE: At age 84, is he up to sixth term?

The line of logic that existed amongst his political supporters is that White had been an 18-year member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Chicago’s Near West side who then returned home to Chicago for a term as Cook County’s recorder of deeds.

AT AGE 64, sending him back to Springfield for a term as secretary of state (replacing George Ryan, who gave up the post for his now-infamous stint as governor) was sort of a reward for White.

He could finish out his political career “on top,” so to speak. Before wandering off into a retirement from a life of community and public service, while occasionally reminiscing about “what might have been” if he had made it to the major leagues with the Chicago Cubs back in the 1960s.

Shows you how little we all knew back then.

For now, 20 years later, White is about to finish his fifth four-year term as the man who runs the state government office that – most prominently – puts his name on everybody’s driver’s license. Along with a whole slew of other services that makes the local secretary of state’s office the one Illinois residents most frequently deal with in their daily lives.

HELLAND: Out to make it a prime issue

NOW, COME NOV. 6, White will be the Democratic nominee seeking a sixth term, taking on Republican Jason Helland and Libertarian Steve Dutner. Both of whom are ridiculously young, compared to White.

Dutner is a 2002 college graduate, while Helland was in high school back when White was running the recorder of deeds office.

It almost brings to my mind the old Ronald Reagan debate wisecrack, the one where he said of presidential opponent Walter Mondale, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

 

REAGAN: Able to beat it down against Mondale

The point being that Reagan already was 73 years old, and wasn’t about to be intimidated out of running for office just because some people would prefer he retire to memories of his days as a B-grade movie actor.

JUST AS SOME people, including Republican Helland, are trying to make age an issue in this election cycle.

They’re claiming that electing White to a sixth term is really nothing more than putting control of picking the secretary of state into the powers-that-be of the Democratic party.

They’re claiming White has every intention of retiring shortly after his re-election – thereby giving the governor the ability to hand-pick a replacement – similar to how Rauner in 2014 picked an Illinois comptroller when Judy Baar Topinka died before she could be sworn into office.

An 'alternate life' version of White … 

Of course, Republicans want to believe that all Democrats are puppets of Michael Madigan, the Illinois House speaker and state Democratic chairman whom they’re trying to demonize.

OR COULD THIS be the admission by Republicans that Bruce Rauner’s re-election dreams are little more than delusions? Which means a “Gov. J.B. Pritzker” will go along with whomever Madigan desires for the post!

Even though the real admission is that Helland is a candidate with no chance of winning secretary of state, and is merely doing service to the GOP by allowing his name to fill the ballot slot.

… if there hadn't been an 'Ernie Banks?'

Because running the Grundy County state’s attorney and a former prosecutor in Kankakee County for the post comes across as falling way short of White’s political service dating back to 1975, and his work with kids, particularly leading the Jesse White Tumblers, that goes back even further.

About the only reason people might find a negative about White is his time as a professional athlete – playing first base for Chicago Cubs minor league affiliates back in the 1960s and futilely trying to beat out Ernie Banks for his major league job. Then again, I don’t think even Chicago White Sox fans would hold that against him.

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EXTRA: Over the (Capitol) Hill club?

“Illiana,” it seems, has provided the charter members of a new caucus of Congress – veteran politicians who became too old to have the continued trust of their constituents.

MANZULLO: Veteran pol lost in March

Illinois’ primary back on March 20 provided the original House of Representatives member when long-time Rockford-area Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., lost a bid for re-election to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.

THE POLITICAL ANALYSIS and speculation in our state said that the two Republicans pitted against each other by Democrats who drew the political boundaries for the upcoming decade fought it out, with the voters ultimately deciding that they’d rather have freshman Congressman Kinzinger, who’s only 34, to represent them.

He was young and fresh and seemed like he could have a long political career ahead of him; as opposed to Manzullo – who will be remembered in the Rockford-area as a political legend.

But as someone who was only four days away from his 68^th birthday on Election Day in Illinois, he was seen as having his best days in the past, during his 20 years in Congress.

That same sentiment seems to have been expressed in Indiana, where that unique breed known as Hoosiers held their primary elections on Tuesday and decided to dump their long-standing, internationally-renowned member of the U.S. Senate.

RICHARD LUGAR, WHO turned 80 last month and had been in the Senate since 1977, lost to Richard Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer.

Mourdock is the guy who made his alliances with conservative ideologues who were desperate to dump Lugar, who wasn’t willing to play their partisan games to the degree that they wanted.

LUGAR: Followed Manzullo lead Tuesday



No rational person would have ever used the “liberal” label on Lugar. Then again, they spewed enough rancid rhetoric that it seems the people of Indiana were more than willing to back a younger man – even though at age 60, Mourdock isn’t the kid with the potential for a lengthy stint on Capitol Hill that Kinzinger offers.

But when going against one of the grand old men of the Senate (or at least as grand as any of them are, these days), it didn’t take much for people to be willing to dump a political legend (Lugar’s star was much bigger nationally than Manzullo’s, but both of them had strong admiration locally).

OF COURSE, BOTH of those politicos still have some time left. Their terms don’t run out until early January of 2013. We still have both Lugar and Manzullo serving in Washington for the rest of this year.

Although both now have the “Lame Duck” label dangling around them, and I’m sure the ideologues are now going to start up the chants at their first opportunity about how unjust it is that men who lost their most recent elections could still be in office for another eight months.

I’m not anxious to see either man leave, because their departure will mean yet another victory for the forces that want to play political partisanship games to the hilt.

For Kinzinger, his fate is secure. There is no Democrat challenging him come Nov. 6, and any independent candidacy that might crop up will be purely a token effort.

BUT IT HAS me wondering if, in Indiana, Democratic nominee Joe Donnelly (a congressman from the area around South Bend, Ind., and Notre Dame) has a chance to defeat Mourdock – particularly if the help he can get from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago political operatives extends beyond the fund-raiser they held for him in Chicago back in March.

Then again, maybe not.

For I suspect that the Republican operatives who are thoroughly ashamed that their state “went blue” (Electoral College votes going to Barack Obama for president instead of John McCain) in 2008 are going to pull out all the stops to switch the state back to the Republican column.

I doubt that those Chicago-oriented people of Hammond and Gary will be strong enough to overcome the rest of the state. If they were, perhaps Lugar would have prevailed on Tuesday.

AND WHEN THEY return to Washington for more work on Capitol Hill, perhaps Lugar and Manzullo can become a pairing; although not quite an Odd Couple.

They are the physical evidence that sometimes the voters can manage to overlook experience and first-hand knowledge in the ways of governing JUST to strike an ideological viewpoint.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Richard Lugar's concession speech, particularly his opening paragraph, doesn't strike me as the ramblings of a liberal, which is what his critics would have us believe.