‘Queen’ Dunkin trash talk not all that surprising, nor is his opposition

I’ve been trying to ignore the rants and rages that have taken place in recent days against state Rep. Ken Dunkin, D-Chicago; mainly because many of them seem to be coming from political people who are jealous that they didn’t have the initiative to grab at a piece of political power like he did.

DUNKIN: Inspiring political jealousy?

Dunkin, of course, is the representative who earlier this week refused to vote in accordance with the other Democrats in the Illinois House of Representatives on a measure that wound up giving Gov. Bruce Rauner a political victory in the ongoing spat with the Democrat-led Legislature.

IT SEEMS THERE already are two Democrats willing to publicly say they’re challenging Dunkin for his legislative post in the March primary elections.

Supposedly, one legislator took Dunkin’s nameplate on the Illinois House floor and tossed it over to the Republican side of the chamber – saying they could have him now.

I’ve lost track of the number of attacks I have read that make reference to “Queen Dunkin” serving at the beck and call of “King Rauner.” I’m sure someone thinks that making a borderline homophobic putdown of Dunkin is oh so clever.

It strikes me as being more of a lame joke. But I do comprehend the fact that Dunkin, who in the past has offended his alleged Democratic allies by deciding not to show up for certain key votes, think that he is selling them out.

BECAUSE IT IS only with their collective unity that the 71 Democrats in the 118-member Legislature have that “veto proof” majority that enables them to thumb their collective nose at the governor and his talk of “turnabout agendas” and government reforms that really are nothing more than telling labor unions to “stuff it!”

MEEKS: Can Dunkin advance this far?

Dunkin all by himself can refuse to support them, making it possible for there to be movement on an issue.

That’s a lot of power, similar to the thrill that James Meeks used to feel back during his decade in the Illinois Senate whenever he would refuse to support the party line of the Democrats who voted to send him to Springfield in the first place.

Meeks, of course, also has been a Rauner backer, and it got him a state cabinet post – Illinois State Board of Education president, to be exact.

I DON’T KNOW if Dunkin expects some sort of similar appointment in the future should one of the challenging Democrats (one of whom has ties to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle) actually manage to win the primary.

RAUNER: The short-term winner?

But I would sense that Dunkin is now the lone member of the Legislature’s black caucus whom the general public (or at least those who are political geeks who follow this sort of minutia) actually pays attention to. It must be quite an ago boost to shoot above the general anonymity level of a state legislator from Chicago.

So do I view Dunkin as a political sell-out? Or more just as a guy who’s taking advantage of a political opportunity to advance himself?

Perhaps the real question is to wonder why more legislators haven’t done the same.

AS FOR WHETHER Dunkin can be defeated, it will be tough. Too many legislators are able to benefit from knee-jerk reactions amongst voters to keep sending them back. It won’t help the cause for removal if Dunkin continues to have multiple challengers – they could wind up undercutting the effort of those people absolutely determined to “Dump Dunkin” at all costs.

Besides, let’s be honest and concede that organized labor doesn’t have the best of histories when it comes to African-American people. All too often, the unions were more interested in protecting their established interests to bother including them.

So the idea that some black voters might have a touch of respect for someone who’d be willing to tell labor unions to “stuff it?” Anything is possible.

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How close was Obama to lobbyists?

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to know the connection between the Illinois political rumor mill and a detailed story published Monday in the USA Today newspaper.

That story’s focal point is to claim that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is independent-minded enough to vote against the interests of lobbyists – even ones who have donated money to his previous campaign funds.

THIS STORY WAS published one day after a public relations executive for Republican interests used a radio program to blast Obama as a “phony reformer” who more than 40 times as a state legislator voted for bills that benefited Antoin Rezko – the political operative who now faces time in federal prison for stepping over the lines that separate legitimate political activity from accepting bribes.

I don’t think there is a direct connection between the comments of Chris Robling, who was one of several people Sunday on a panel on Bruce Dumont’s syndicated “Beyond the Beltway” program, and the story that turned up in the Gannett-owned national newspaper the very next day.

But it doesn’t strike me as being at all out of character that when the rumor mill starts circulating stories that claim Obama’s voting record during his 7 years, 10.5 months in the Illinois Senate can be twisted into a certain negative connotation, that someone would think it worthwhile to get a story into the public information mill that says Obama knows how to take people’s money, then dump all over their interests.

When Robling, who has worked as a spokesman for Republican interests and also has been a broadcast reporter in Chicago, made his charge, my reaction was to think it was ridiculous.

IT STRUCK ME as being an after-the-trial attempt to link Obama’s name to the corruption trial in U.S. District Court that found Rezko guilty of significant wrongdoing when it comes to political influence peddling and also smeared the reputation of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Obama’s name barely came up during the trial this spring.

What struck me as particularly weak about the accusation was the figure Robling tossed out (which he made sound like it is the statistic being passed around from conservative pundit to conservative pundit).

Fewer than 50. And it’s not like specific bills were cited, so we have no way of knowing what constitutes support for a “Rezko interest.”

FORTY-PLUS BILLS may sound like a significant number, until one considers that the Illinois Senate (of which Obama was a member from 1997 until late in 2004) routinely votes for hundreds of bills (probably close to 1,000) every year.

Obama, in his nearly eight full years in the Legislature, easily has a record of about 7,000-plus votes. If the best one can come up with is 40-something suspicious bills, I’d have to say you’re not trying very hard.

My point being, that total offered by the Republican pundits is not very significant. If one can only come up with about an average of five bills per year that would have some Rezko interest at heart, the obvious conclusion is to say that Rezko didn’t ask much of Obama as a state legislator.

And the now infamous land deal where Rezko purchased a plot of land neighboring Obama so that the U.S. senator from Illinois could expand the property surrounding his dream house in the Hyde Park neighborhood didn’t come until long after Obama left the Illinois Legislature.

THINKING ABOUT THIS accusation rationally makes one realize it is not all that significant.

But it provides ammunition for the political operatives who are trying to knock down the reputation Obama is trying to create for himself as some sort of political “goo goo” who will bring radical change and honesty to the operations of government.

They want us to think that Barack Obama was just as likely to do favors for lobbyists and other special interest representatives as any other politician. They want to take away Obama’s ability to use his refusal to accept donations to his presidential campaign from lobbyist organizations as an issue in his favor.

Hence, the USA Today story becomes a significant factor.

THE STORY NOTES that six lobbyists who donated money to his campaign fund for his 2004 bid to move up from the Illinois Senate to a U.S. Senate seat being abandoned by Peter Fitzgerald could claim that 16 of their Illinois clients received grants, with support from Obama.

But the newspaper also found instances where Obama resisted the desires of lobbyists and voted against them, even though he had personal contacts with the individual lobbyists.

They found a 2003 bill desired by the telecommunications industry where Obama was one of six Democrats in the state Senate to vote against it, even though Obama had met with SBC lobbyists, had eaten meals with the corporate operatives and had even played poker with them.

That may be more in character with Obama from his days as a state legislator (where he spent the bulk of his time in the minority party caucus with little influence) than the incidents that conservatives will try to pull from the USA Today story.

ONE INCLUDES THREE grants received by Chicago State University. Totaling more than $8 million for various projects, Obama voted in their favor while also accepting campaign contributions of $1,500 from the university’s lobbyist.

It has the appearance to some people of a political favor that is one notch legally above being a bribe. But to other people, the key to understanding support for the grants is to consider the recipient.

Chicago State University is a state college on the South Side with an overwhelming African-American enrollment, and Obama was a member of the state Senate’s black caucus at the time. The interests of Chicago State and Northeastern Illinois (on the city’s Northwest Side) universities have a special place in the minds of many black caucus legislators in Springfield out of the belief that these two colleges provide special roles and support to racial and ethnic minority communities.

IT IS NO different than the Southern Illinois legislators who keep a special eye out for any benefits received from the state for the Southern Illinois University campuses in Carbondale and Edwardsville. It is part of looking out for one’s home community and its interests.

If anything, Obama likely would have come under attack back then had he voted against providing grants to Chicago State University. I don’t know it for a fact, but the chances are good that the campaign donation from a lobbyist back then likely was coincidence.

So what should we make of the fact that the man who now says he won’t take campaign donations from lobbyists accepted $1.2 million from political action committees and another $140,400 in personal donations from lobbyists (out of $16.3 million raised) during his attempts to raise money to be in the U.S. Senate?

IT SOUNDS A lot like people who are jealous of the massive campaign fund he has put together for his presidential campaign who are trying to find ways to turn campaign money into an issue.

In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. Campaign money can corrupt some people. Obama is only human.

But the problem with a lot of people who try to make an issue out of political donations is that in their attempt to simplify the issue for the masses, they take all context out of it. Campaign contribution stories without context are simple-minded trash, worth about as much as the “breathless” reports that aired all day Monday about Obama shifting his presidential nomination acceptance speech to the 75,000-seat Invesco Field so that more people can witness “history” being made.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Does Barack Obama have it in his character (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/07/Report_Obama_opposed_lobbyist_friends/UPI-52351215438787/) to take money from lobbyists, then refuse to provide political favors?

Obama technically is not accepting campaign donations from government lobbyists. But a USA Today report found cases (http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-06-Lobbyists_N.htm) where lawyers who work for firms that hire lobbyists are making personal donations to Obama.

How long will it be until someone tries to make a negative campaign issue out of the fact that Obama is offering up special passes to (http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/obama.backstage.donation.2.765391.html) witness his Invesco Field acceptance speech for the winners of a drawing his campaign will conduct. The cost of a ticket for the drawing? A donation to the campaign, of course.