“Deport ‘em all” seems to be the extent of a Trump campaign strategy

Donald Trump may well have said stupid things about just about every group of people possible who isn’t like himself, but he’s the guy who kicked off his time as a political person by calling Mexicans “drug dealers,” “criminals” and “rapists.” 

TRUMP: He wants to stay in D.C.!

So it really shouldn’t be surprising that to kick off his bid for re-election, he’s going on a rant about deportation.

AS IN HE’S going to have federal immigration officials begin the process of kicking out millions of people whom he wants to believe have no business being in this country.

Of course, that’s just Trump his role as the twit who Tweets – using his Twitter account Tuesday morning to send out messages to his followers about how he’s going to get serious about removing all these foreigners from this country.

Which may well be a task too large to take on. It may well be that trying to get rid of that many people at once is too great to accomplish. It may very well overwhelm the infrastructure of our immigration department.

But then again, I doubt that Trump is seriously intending to accomplish much of anything – other than spewing cheap trash talk to get his ideologue followers all worked up.

AND SINCE MANY of his backers seem to have a xenophobic streak behind their thought processes, saying he’s going to get the foreigners out of this country so that only people like themselves will remain will be just the kind of trash talk that will get them all worked up.

Which makes this perfect for the rally Trump planned for Tuesday night in Orlando, Fla. – the one where he officially kicks back into campaign mode and becomes the guy trying to win himself re-election.

Actual governing? He’ll leave that to the geeks whom he has appointed to various federal government posts. And when they turn out to be incapable of getting anything done?

 

OCASIO-CORTEZ: She's not leaving, either!

Well, he’ll blame it all on Democrats for standing in the way of everything he wants done on behalf of people just like himself.

OR MAYBE HE’LL blame it all on Alexandra Ocasio Cortez – the congresswoman from New York whom the far right seems overly obsessed with. Even though many of them don’t even appear to know her name, instead merely referring to her as “that AOC woman!”

Who knows? Maybe Trump, in his own delusional way, thinks she’ll be the first one he can have deported. Or maybe one of her relatives – even though as one of Puerto Rican ethnicity, that means her family consists of U.S. citizens going back generations.

For all I know, she’s more a “real American” than any of the Trump backers whose families came here a generation or two ago from somewhere in Eastern Europe – and view nodding their heads in accordance with Trump trash talk as their way of “fitting in” with our society.

But back to Trump, who’s more than willing to use his xenophobic scare tactics to stir up support.

TAKE TRUMP’S SON, Eric, who had an e-mail message sent out Tuesday telling people that his father wanted $7 million in contributions made to him that day – a “huge” and “incredible” gesture meant to show that everybody loves Donald. “Even the Radical Left won’t be able to lie their way out of this one,” Eric said.

 

BIDEN: Can he even beat his 20-plus opponents

Although going through my e-mail, I also found a message from the Joe Biden presidential campaign – announcing his own Internet-based fundraising effort.

Both men are seeking donations of $5 or more per person (although Trump claims the average donation he’d like to see is $42), all in a grand to try to one-up each other. Which makes me think that Trump’s trash talk about deportations is meant more to inspire donations toward his $7 million goal, rather than being about removing a single soul from this nation.

And making believe all the moreso that Election ’20, regardless of its outcome, is going to be an incredibly depressing period in our society – as we all dive down to the bottom of our pit!

  -30-

Kennedy wants racial/ethnic vote to turn Dem gubernatorial primary into a two-way campaign w/ Pritzker

Some may dismiss one-time Illinois Senate President Emil Jones as “crass,” but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Kennedy is banking that he can turn the March 20 primary into a one-on-one fight with J.B. Pritzker – the man who has support from much of the Democratic establishment of Illinois.

 

KENNEDY: Can non-Anglo vote make him a winner?

For Kennedy, whom some polls indicate has been caught by third candidate Daniel Biss, is the guy using radio spots featuring the gravelly voice of Jones to appeal to the African-American portion of the electorate.

PRITZKER HAS BEEN ahead in various polls, indicating his self-provided millions have been effective in getting his name recognition out there. But he’s also made his share of gaffes indicating he may have offended potential black voters.

Which has Kennedy going in for the kill.

He’s hoping that becoming the gubernatorial candidate of choice for black people will put him back in the running against Pritzker. Because it could make Biss’ attempt to appeal to a certain segment of white people insufficient to win overall.

For what it’s worth, Jones uses his minute of time in the radio spot to remind an older generation of African-Americans just who Kennedy’s father (Bobby) and uncle (Jack) were.

 

JONES: Obama mentor boost Kennedy?

THE MAN WE recently learned was belittled by Pritzker (in private conversations a decade ago with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich) tells us how the Kennedys, “fought and struggled and sacrificed alongside Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) in the civil rights movement,” and also tells us that Chris would continue on in “the Kennedy way.”

Indicating that Kennedy is banking on the black vote to turn out in strong enough force to enable him to overcome those polls of late that say Biss has actually overcome Kennedy to be the serious challenger to Pritzker.

Actually, what the polls say is that there remains a strong-enough share of people who are undecided in the Democratic primary, with Pritzker, Biss and Kennedy all following behind.

 

PRITZKER: Still leading, but can he hold it?

This primary may be just a month in the future, but it is far from settled.

PERHAPS THE KENNEDY campaign is influenced by that PPP poll (conducted for Our Revolution Illinois/Chicago) that shows amongst potential black voters, Kennedy is not only second behind Pritzker (38 percent to 31 percent), Biss is virtually irrelevant (7 percent).

And when it comes to the Latino vote, Kennedy is actually the leader (31 percent to 28 percent), with Biss only at 14 percent.

Perhaps it is the spirit of the Viva Kennedy clubs of old that enabled Chris’ uncle, Jack, to win the 1960 presidential bid, but it may well be a combination of the Latino and black vote that keeps the Kennedy gubernatorial dreams alive.

And ensures that the suburban white segment of the Democratic primary electorate that actually takes Biss seriously never grows into a larger coalition that could actually win the March 20 primary.

IT MAKES ME wonder if this campaign advertising spot (which is airing on the Chicago radio stations appealing to African-American listeners) is going to be the first of many the Kennedy campaign will issue.

 

Can Chris resurrect JFK's 'Viva Kennedy' spirit?

Will we see every ethnic and racial name dredged up to make endorsements in hopes they will sway more non-Anglo voters to turn out for the primary election – hoping they will be the kind of voters who will not easily be swayed by the millions of dollars that Pritzker could put into his own campaign for governor.

Which, to be honest, seems to be the primary factor that wins over the support of his political backers. They like the idea of someone who won’t be constantly hitting them up for more money in order to pay for his campaign.

Although it should be noted that with the dozens of millions of dollars that Gov. Bruce Rauner has committed to campaigns for himself and for allies in the General Assembly, even Pritzker will be grossly outspent in a campaign battle for the Nov. 6 general election.

  -30-

Well, duh! Who’d you think Ted Cruz would wind up casting a ballot for?

One of the drawbacks to being a part of the newsgathering racket is that there are times you can see the way stories get reported and you know it’s nonsense. Yet it still winds up turning out that way.
 

Mission Accomplished - name is in the papers

I couldn’t help but think that about the news reports that went out Friday that tried to make it seem like a dramatic moment in the story of Election ’16 – former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz will vote for Donald Trump for president.

IF YOU THINK about it seriously, who’s he really going to vote for?

This is one of those tea party-type dinks whose political philosophy is based so heavily on believing that Hillary Clinton (and her husband Bill) are exactly what is wrong with this country.

I’m sure that in the mind of the senator from Texas, his biggest regret is that it won’t be himself who gets to take on Hillary and drive a political stake through her heart. He probably would enjoy that image, and would love to go down in the history books as the guy who beat Clinton.

Of course, that’s not going to happen. Because Cruz wound up being a part of that mass of Republican candidates who couldn’t rise above the pack – resulting in the GOP giving its presidential nomination to Trump.

ADMITTEDLY, CRUZ WAS the last of all those 18 people to drop out. He was the final holdout. And some people who remember his performance at the Republican National Convention seriously wanted to believe that Ted was somehow acting on some sort of anti-Trump principle.

Which of these candidates ...

He wasn’t.

What bothered him was that he lost. History won’t record the concept of “President Rafael Edward ‘Ted’ Cruz,” at least not in this election cycle. He’s exactly the type who may try running again in future years.

For all we know, he may actually get the nomination. Or maybe he’s just destined to be a perennial joke – constantly appearing on the ballot and screeching to steadily declining crowds as the years pass by.

... makes your blood boil over?

HE’LL PROBABLY MAKE the focal point of his future campaigns the chance to rant and rage about all the actions that will be committed in the next few years by “President Hillary R. Clinton” – if that concept becomes a reality.

The idea that Cruz would ever back Clinton was an absurdity.

If anything, this election cycle is becoming one less about radical change. The idea that people would suddenly vote against their usual political interests isn’t going to happen.

Many Democrats are finding it in them to accept the idea of Clinton as president, while many Republicans (including the Ricketts family, although there’s evidence that daughter Laura thinks that father J. Joe can stick it) are finding it within themselves to back Donald.

THE BIG SHIFT may be those so-called “alt-right” (real people call them “white supremacist”) voters who usually think the Republicans are too wimpy to take seriously. Many of them think Trump has balls enough to stand up to the foreigners and perverts and racial mongrels (which they would phrase more crudely) and all other people who aren’t just like themselves.

 

Really??!?

Could they wind up giving Trump enough political support to win come Nov. 8? Particularly if combined with apathy from certain segments who theoretically should be Hillary-backers?

A lot of it will depend on the incumbent President, who according to the Gallup Organization had a 52 percent approval rating as of Friday. The more people like the idea of Obama, the more they will want to ensure his philosophies will be carried on by the next U.S. president.

That will wind up being what decides the upcoming election – not anything that Ted Cruz would have said or done as he tries to figure out how to remain politically relevant. Which really is the only reason he bothered to make a statement Friday to begin with.

  -30-

When it comes to Election Day, can’t we just get it over with already?

Labor Day has come and gone. Officially, the time period for active campaigning for public office on Election Day is now upon us.
 

Just 63 more 'shopping days' for a candidate

We’re supposed to see a batch of activity that steps up the level of rhetoric that gets spewed about why the opponent is a repulsive idiot and the only sensible vote is one for my candidate.

YET THE REALITY of the 21^st Century is that Tuesday isn’t any more important to the candidates seeking election this year than on any other date. Any campaign that waited until now to get serious is one that is seriously dead in the water.

I’m not saying the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump spat for president can’t get uglier than it already has. Or that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, have been doing through various legislative campaigns.

After all, Rauner would love to have real political power – which he would get if only he could have a General Assembly composed of people who don’t feel their allegiance is to the people in organized labor whom the governor views as the root of state government’s “problem.”

While Madigan and labor view the new governor as the problem that must be kept in check, People in Illinois, or at least in certain legislative districts, will have a choice to make when it comes to picking that schleppy, anonymous representative they usually pay little attention to.

OF COURSE, THE presidential campaign is offering up a similar choice for voters.

MADIGAN: Continued gov opposition?

It’s less about Hillary vs. The Donald and more about whose influence do you want over government. Particularly with the Supreme Court of the United States.

That vacancy caused by the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia is still open, and the partisan desire to control who picks the replacement is still just as intense.

Heck, for many of the Republican Party operatives who are appalled by the presence of Trump at the top of their party’s ticket, they’re voting for Trump because they want to ensure it isn’t Clinton or Democratic interests that get to shift the balance of the nation’s high court.

RAUNER: Giving governor his way

THEY DIDN’T OBJECT when Ronald Reagan used his presidential powers to shift the leaning of the federal courts to Republicans back in the 1980s, but they seem to resent the idea that partisan leanings are not permanent.

History could wind up seeing a “President Clinton” (the second) as one who reversed the political tinge of the courts’ partisanship.

Which is why some people who personally don’t think much of Hillary will wind up voting for her – the notion of a federal court that isn’t hostile to our ever-changing society and doesn’t seem determined to hold us back in the 18^th Century is something that does appeal to some.

Which also is intriguing in the way Illinois’ legislative races may wind up being influenced by presidential politics. Will people have to choose between federal and state governments, or which way they want the whole mess to lean?

BECAUSE RAUNER HIMSELF is one who has tried to tamper down his own leanings in the presidential campaign. Because the last thing he wants is people becoming so disgusted with Trump that they don’t bother to vote for the Republican in their home district who’d represent them in the Legislature.

TRUMP: Impacting more than his election

Or maybe the first thing he wants is some of those people who pick Hillary for president deciding they don’t want Madigan to influence their local legislator, so they choose to vote Republican instead, on that part of the ballot.

The one safe prediction we can make about what will happen 63 days from Tuesday is that none of the usual rules will apply. The whole thing could become a free-for-all – one that will make the next two months one of those time periods we recall for years to come.

And some of us certainly will wind up having to learn to live down the shame of explaining in the future why they actually cast a ballot for whichever knucklehead they wind up voting for come Nov. 8.

  -30-

Presidential insults; what else is new?

One of the most intriguing parts of the museum and library in Springfield, Ill., devoted to Abraham Lincoln is the exhibit showing samples of all the hostile rhetoric used to denigrate “Honest Abe” back when he was alive.

 

OBAMA: Would he let insults stop him?

With such harsh and hostile sentiments existing about the man, it’s no wonder his election resulted in people taking up arms against the nation – something that has not happened in recent years even though there are people who detest the very concept of “President Barack Obama.”

THERE HAVE BEEN so many slurs uttered by so many people of varying beliefs about Obama that I honestly have lost track of them. And it’s not just the conservative ideologues – let’s not forget the many Latino activists who voted for him but refer to him as the “deporter-in-chief” because of his inability to change the federal policies that have resulted in many individuals being removed from this country.

It is in that context that I have to admit to not getting so worked up over the recent wisecrack by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who referred to Obama as the “drug dealer in chief.”

It was Kirk’s attempt to criticize the dealings our federal government under Obama has had with Iran, while also trying to appeal to the hard-core ideologues who otherwise might think Kirk is too wimpy to represent their interests.

 

KIRK: Merely the latest of trash-talkers

People who likely would be happier if a Trump-like person (as in spewing rhetorical nonsense about so many issues) were on the Republican ticket for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

KIRK’S CHALLENGER, DEMOCRAT Tammy Duckworth (herself a member of Congress from the northwest suburbs) has said such trash talk is unbecoming a U.S. senator. Yet there are times when I wonder if the standards for political talk have declined so much that the idea of something being unbecoming is a quaint concept.

For the record, Kirk refused to apologize during a candidate forum in Normal, Ill., on Wednesday. I suspect if he had been apologetic, the crowd would have turned on him something fierce.

LINCOLN: What president hasn't been insulted?

As though he was better off keeping his mouth shut and not causing even more damage for himself. Because we're in an era where such hostility is what passes for political talk -- why else would we take Donald Trump seriously?

Which is why I can’t get too worked up. I don’t doubt that Kirk is representing a viewpoint held by a certain segment of society – and he wants their votes. Because it’s pretty clear that the kind of people who oppose such a viewpoint will never vote for him come Election Day.

BESIDES, I COULDN’T help but notice an e-mail message I received Thursday from the Duckworth campaign. She wants to make sure we know just how offensive she thinks Kirk’s comments were. “Illinois deserves better than a senator who employs such extreme, offensive rhetoric,” her political director, Cameron Joost, wrote.

Of course, Joost then got to the point of the e-mail – the Duckworth campaign wants my money.

In fact, the e-mail was set up in such a way that I could just click on a link and make a campaign contribution. Show my outrage by kicking in a few bucks that can add up into a significant amount of money to support her election bid.

Somehow, the appeal for campaign cash comes off as just a bit crass. I have a feeling similar to that of “Ralphie” in “A Christmas Story” when he realized his newly-acquired Little Orphan Annie decoder ring was just a means of sending messages advertising Ovaltine.

“A CRUMMY COMMERCIAL!,” he said, before uttering an epithet that would have got many of us a bar of soap in our mouths from our mothers.

So much for the noble appeal to our higher ideals. Not one likely to get me to reach into my wallet, because like I’ve said before hostile political rhetoric is oh, so common. If Obama is a big boy, he can take it.

Besides, the kind of people who indulge in such trash talk wind up invariably hurting themselves my coming off as so lowbrow.

And in the end will come off making those people look as ridiculous as those who tried to label Lincoln as, “Abraham Africanus the First.”

  -30-

It’s hard to say right now who do we hate the most – Trump or Hillary?!?

We’re halfway through the Democratic nominating convention for president and have completed the Republican version of the show, and it’s hard to say which of the two major candidates seeking the White House we have the most contempt for.

 

CLINTON: It's her week to impress U.S.

It’s true that the establishment Republicans made a show attempt at denying Donald Trump the GOP nomination and that Ted Cruz of Texas made a point of publicly snubbing the real estate developer/aspiring politico when he spoke.

YET IT’S NOT like Hillary is getting much more love in Philadelphia.

The people who had delusions early on that the nation would ever come together behind a Democratic socialist for U.S. president seem determined to show that they’re not giving an inch – even though their preferred candidate of Bernie Sanders himself has said they should support Hillary.

It caught my attention when several Sanders supporters took up the same chant that some Republican convention-goers used the week before whenever Hillary Clinton’s name was mentioned – “Lock Her Up!”

As in thinking she belongs in a criminal indictment and ought to be facing the prospect of federal prison time – even though investigators in all the issues that Republican partisans have brought up against her throughout the years have constantly cleared her of illegal activity.

I WENT INTO this election cycle feeling largely apathetic toward the concept of Hillary Clinton as U.S. president and came around to the idea because (A) somebody has to win and (B) all the other mopes on all political sides came across as worse!

I really believe that if we had a legitimate option of letting people vote “None of the Above,” that would be the winner. Of course, someone would still have to take over when Barack Obama’s term ends in January. We have to make our choice of “Who?”

This is going to truly be the election cycle in which the nominating conventions were less about the pep rally aspect and more about how the candidates themselves handled the idea of being confronted with the fact that a majority of America despises them.

Trump gave us the impression last week that he could care less. How will Hillary conduct herself this week?

MUCH IS BEING made of the leaked e-mail messages from Democratic Party operatives – the ones that show party regulars didn’t want anything to do with Sanders as a presidential candidate.

They were firmly behind Hillary Clinton and plotted out strategy to bolster her strengths – or, more accurately, emphasize Sanders’ weaknesses. We’re hearing yelling and screaming from the Bernie people about how unfair it was. Some even go so far as to imply the party’s actions are a criminal conspiracy in and of themselves.

Which is a load of nonsense. Political parties exist to coordinate elections, campaigns and candidates. It would be expected for them to favor a candidate who has been tied to the party for the past four decades – rather than someone who until this election always made a point of running for office as a political independent.

Why would they have considered siding with Bernie? It would make no sense! I'm actually amazed at how convoluted the resistance was toward him; compared to what it could have been!

IT SEEMS PEOPLE are upset that the Democratic Party political structure is not as weak and uncoordinated as the Republicans were. Because let’s be honest, if they could have got their act together there’s no way that Trump would be the GOP nominee now.

Of course, considering that the ideologues of our society have always wanted to spew the thought that the Republicans represent the establishment and that the Democrats were the threat to the natural order, perhaps it is just ironic that in this election cycle perceptions are reversed.

Either that, or we have an upcoming election in which the one-time schoolyard bullies are hoping to restore what they perceive to be a natural order for our society.

Which could make this the election about the serious split in Hillary perception – with many believing she’s some old lady whose time has passed while others are determined to view her as liberalism incarnate. That question will be the real issue to be resolved come Election Day.

  -30-

Hoosier governor for VP – could Pence become Trump’s political savior?

It would be intriguing if Indiana Gov. Mike Pence truly were willing to give up his current post for the chance to be one seat away from the presidency in a potential Donald Trump administration.

PENCE: Will Trump 'train' take him for better ride?

For the Roll Call newspaper in Washington, D.C., reported Thursday that Trump will pick Pence as his running mate, although Trump later said he would postpone his announcement out of a sense of respect for those killed in a Bastille Day attack on Thursday in Nice, France.

NOT NEW JERSEY Gov. Chris Christie. Not one-time House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Not even his daughter, Ivanka – whose name Trump has tossed into the rumor mill most likely to confound those people determined to influence his pick.

I have to admit the idea of Pence as the running mate makes some sort of sense – in a purely political logic kind of way. Even though I have to admit to seeing the humor in political columnist Ann Coulter saying the only reason Trump would say Pence now is so that when he really does name his choice, everybody will think to themselves “Thank God it’s not Mike Pence.”

But keep in mind there are those Republican types who are in with the GOP for social conservative reasons and they don’t find satisfaction in all of Trump’s anti-Mexican or anti-Arab talk or any of the other cheap rhetoric he has used to try to stir up dissent.

Because Trump is a wealthy Manhattanite who doesn’t show the same fear of, and bigotry toward, gay people that they do.

SOME GAY ACTIVIST types actually say Trump is a reasonable individual to do business with. He certainly hasn’t demonized them the way he has others.

So, in the sense that a vice presidential choice is meant to balance out a ticket, that is what Pence’s presence would do. It is why Pence spent the day Wednesday meeting with Pence while Democratic presidential challenger Hillary Clinton was in Springfield, Ill., claiming the mantel of Abraham Lincoln morality for herself.

 

GINGRICH: No political comeback for Newt?

For let’s not forget that Pence was the governor who signed off on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – the measure that equated hostility toward gay people as being one’s Constitutional right to express and treated efforts to fight back against such bigotry as the real act of racism.

People could claim their religion as justification for their bigotry – which I always personally thought was a repulsive interpretation of religious belief.

BUT IT WAS written into Indiana law, and for a time last year it was Open Season on Hoosiers. The state was the ultimate butt of jokes – to the point where even Mississippi and Alabama had right to look down upon them.

As things stand, if Pence ran for re-election as governor, his support of that measure and willingness to sign it into law would have been a major issue to be used against him.

He would have faced countless questions about gay rights and the mood of the nation might well have turned against him, and the state that hasn’t had a Democrat as its governor for more than a decade could receive one now!

But if he goes on board with Trump, he will be appealing to that segment of the electorate who will view him as heroic. He could well be the guy who helps solidify Trump voter support amongst conservative ideologues – particularly those who think the whole “gay” issue is of crucial importance.

AS IN MEDDLING in someone else’s personal business ought to be a priority of government. But whatever! I’m sure some voters now hesitant about Trump will be swayed by Pence’s presence on the ballot.

Will Hillary make Mike Pence a moot point? 

It may be that Pence has a better chance of having a political future if he signs on the Trump camp and becomes the factor that boosts it to a victory over Hillary Clinton.

And if it turns out that the REAL majority of our society winds up deciding that the return of the Clintons to the White House is nowhere near as repulsive as the thought of the Trump brand being applied to the Oval Office, then what else did Pence really have to lose?

Other than campaigning unsuccessfully for re-election in places like South Bend, Terre Haute and Gary – the latter of which likely would have been extremely hostile toward him.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mike Pence also has the political record that has tried to single out Chicago. Which probably ensures that the Trump camp has written off any chance of taking Illinois' Electoral College votes -- no matter what kind of cheap talk Trump himself spews.

Trump picks a side he wants to be on ideologically. Hillary will have to do the same soon if she wants to win

It has become a common rant by more liberal-minded groups trying to stir up opposition to Donald Trump’s presidential dreams – he’ll appoint a whole slew of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States who will undo everything we have done.

Of course, there are conservative ideologues who don’t trust Trump – they think he’s just a little too big-city Manhattan-oriented to truly represent the concerns of the political party that likes to believe that big cities represent everything that’s wrong with this country.

SOME OF THEM even think Trump can’t be trusted to pick the kind of high court justices they want – the kind who can be counted on to rig the legal system to benefit their partisan political beliefs.

So it wasn’t a surprise that Trump this week made public a list of 11 judges whom he said would be his picks for the Supreme Court – should he get elected in the November general elections.

All 11 are judges who typically come up on the list of conservative political operatives when they dream about having courts that would view liberalism as some sort of crime.

It would seem that the list is part of a tactic by Trump to gain, if not the love, at least the tolerance, of the conservative ideologues whose preferred presidential candidates all were defeated by Donald back during the primary season.

IT IS A tactic to appease the people who might seriously give thought to backing a third-party presidential candidate or, worse yet, not even bother to vote at all.

Which actually is the strategy of the campaign of Hillary Clinton for president. Hope that the American people are so repulsed at Trump’s garishness that they don’t bother to vote – which could make their faction just large enough to win the general election.

I really don’t know how the election cycle will shake out by autumn, although I don’t think there is anyone who is really enthused about picking from either Trump or Clinton.

Then again, maybe I wasn’t alone in thinking that there wasn’t anyone in the running for president during any primary season who was worth my vote. It really was quite the collection of mediocrities that led us to this point of deciding to vote for the candidate less likely to make us spew chunks!

AS FOR TRUMP’S list of judges, it is predictable – a collection of names that only legal geeks would recognize. We’re going to have to take the word of political observers that the legal minds assembled here are truly ideologically hard-core enough to appease the kind of people who want rigid adherence to a law that favors them, and only them.

I don’t think the list means much, in and of itself.

But it is a gesture of the type that could get more people interested in bothering to cast a ballot for Trump. Get enough supporters, and Donald wins the right to live and work in the Oval Office for a four-year period.

Or perhaps it will be Clinton who will wind up having to make more gestures to try to appease enough would-be backers to bother to turn out to vote.

SOMEONE IS GOING to have to give the American people something in the way of a reason for people to bother to turn out to vote.

Because despite all those silly hats about “making America great again,” this is not an election cycle that will get the public all worked up.

This is one where I suspect many people are going to hold their noses pinched shut while casting their ballots, and others will spend their lives living down the shame over just how they will cast their ballot just over six months from now.

  -30-

A matter of news judgment: Whose celebrity death matters more? Does Trump get trumped by Prince?

As someone approaching the three-decade mark of having worked in the news business, news judgment at times becomes second nature. As routine as watching a quality shortstop gobble up ground balls even if they took a bad hop off a pebble.

Purple Rain tops Playboy ...

But there are times when the calls made by editor types create some unique circumstances.

WHEN I WOKE up Thursday morning and checked around the Internet, it seems that the potential was for a celebrity death to dominate the nation’s news reports. Joanie Laurer, a.k.a. Chyna, was found dead in her Los Angeles-area apartment

She was a part of the crew of the World Wrestling Federation of old, and gave off the impression of a semi-attractive woman who was so muscular that there was no doubt she was capable of beating the caca out of anybody who messed with her.

Now I was never much of a fan of professional wrestling. But my brother, Christopher, was. He acknowledged the “fake” status of wrestling – not really a sport, but instead an overly-physical show in which the “entertainers” do their own stunts.

And to help enhance those stunts, she wasn’t shy about admitting her use of steroid substances that bolstered her muscular bulk.

QUITE THE FREAK show, and one that I’m sure some people remember fondly. Enough that I’m pretty sure they were pissed when later Thursday morning publicists for the entertainer Prince (a.k.a. Prince Rogers Nelson) announced that he was dead.

Found at his home near Minneapolis, a city of which he was a native.

... in terms of topping Prince over Chyna.

Chyna might have gone on to appear in movies and do a spread for Playboy magazine. But it seems the film “Purple Rain” and the song “1999” are a longer-lasting legacy than the sight of a scantily-clad Chyna whom not even Hugh Hefner would publish these days (because we’re really supposed to read Playboy for the articles these days).

Prince wound up being the big celebrity death. Chyna quickly got relegated to second-class status, and I’m curious to see how her death actually gets played in the Friday newspapers.

I WONDER IF we’ll get the same type of sniping as occurred back on May 17, 1990. That was the day after both Jim Henson (the Muppets creator) and Rat Pack singer Sammy Davis, Jr., died.

Many newspapers (including the Chicago Tribune) took their share of grief for thinking that creating characters such as Kermit the Forg and Big Bird was more important than singing “The Candyman” or being Frank Sinatra’s party buddy.

Personally, I don’t think Chyna or Prince would top either Davis or Henson on the overall society contribution checklist. But obituary placements often are a matter of timing.

Chyna might have got bigger overall play if Prince’s publicists had had the decency (some might think) to hold off another day in announcing his death – which came just a few days after reports of his emergency hospitalization in the Quad Cities.

I’M SURE SOME people are going to want to take on a “conspiracy theory” mode in thinking that something suspicious exists about the singer’s death.

Now some might think this is celebrity overplay. Although I have to admit those deaths do catch a certain level of interest that the rest of the news report fails to do with its presidential campaign obsessions.

Trump's appeal isn't orange, it's green

As I look at the newspapers in front of me, I see the lede story headlines of “Trump Stumps in Indy” (say that three times quickly) and “Russia Expands Submarine Fleet, Fueling Rivalry.” The latter came from the New York Times, which relegated their Trump-related story to Page Three. Although that story told us of the potential for the upcoming Indiana primary elections (May 3) could be the ones that make it inevitable that The Donald will be the Republican presidential nominee.

As far as I’m concerned, that is all the more reason to think there’s something funky in the polluted part of Lake Michigan water that those Hoosiers are consuming in the land east of State Line Road!

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