How vociferously will Trump resist the influence, allure of the presidency?

I see where President-elect Donald Trump is saying he doesn’t really want to live in the White House – he envisions being able to govern the nation from his high-rise luxury apartment in Manhattan, with trips to his Mar-A-Lago mansion in Florida and an occasional visit to that ugly tower along the Chicago River.
 

Will this replace the White House?

As though he can keep conducting himself as though he’s running his usual business interests. Does Trump secretly envision that the nation will be renamed from the "United States of America" to "Trump – the country?"

OF COURSE, THE sensible thing for us to do with such egotistical pronouncements is to chuckle at the naivete being expressed. I don’t doubt that the security concerns involved in protecting a chief executive of the nation will require Trump to accept residence in the presidential mansion in the District of Columbia.

Even though I’m sure Trump probably thinks the nation’s mansion is downright drab compared to the tacky level of gaudiness that exists at so many of his other properties, and may think Harry Truman had a point when he referred to the White House as the "crown jewel of the federal penal system."

Trump kind of reminds me of the statements that Barack Obama made in the early days of his presidency – when he insisted he and the family were going to be making regular trips to Chicago so as to revitalize themselves. They would need their Chicago fix.

Not that the man has never set foot in Chicago since becoming president. But practicality has made them into District of Columbia residents to the point where they openly admit they’re not returning to the city once his term ends in January.

THERE WON’T BE that final flight for Obama and family on board Air Force One to the Second City on Inauguration Day – which is what tradition would call for.

 

Presidential vacation home?

Although I suspect that the Trump-type of voters are probably snickering to themselves and saying Obama doesn’t deserve the perk – we ought to let him hitch-hike, then have him arrested for vagrancy on the walk home!

In short, there’s a lot of nonsense we’re going to hear in coming weeks as Trump tries to wrap his mind around the reality that he’s now going to be legally responsible for the fate of this country. He will be blamed for everything that goes wrong in coming years.

 

For when he deigns to visit Chicago

His legacy now is not going to be some garish buildings and being the “best sex” Marla Maples ever had (if you believe the New York Post). He’s going to have to start behaving like a serious human being – instead of an egotistical blowhard.

IT IS WITH that in mind that people are watching his appointments.

Some may be relieved he didn’t put New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (himself a blowhard) in charge of anything. Others are repulsed that Steve Bannon will have anything to do with our government – he has edited conservative websites and often gets the labels of “racist” and “anti-semitic” attached to his name.

But the one that intrigues me is that of Reince Priebus – the head of the Republican National Committee who took his share of abuse during the campaign from Trump for being amongst those GOPers who resisted the charms of The Donald as president.

A quick look through Google finds headlines from earlier this year reading Reince Priebus, other Republicans, denounce Trump’s indefensible comments about women and Reince Priebus condemns Trump on Muslim ban, amongst others.

 

Will he be first fired by 'President' Trump?

YET NOW, TRUMP is using the political operative to be his chief of staff – the guy who’s going to be in charge of the presidential staff and will be largely responsible for whether or not the Trump presidency succeeds at accomplishing anything.

Is Priebus feeling the “call of the White House” and can’t resist a chance to “serve his country?” Or does he just need a job that badly.

And as for Trump, is this a sign that he’s adapting to the political realities of being president? That he may try to conduct himself like a responsible human being?

Or is the reality that the instant Priebus does something to offend the president, he’ll become the first individual to get a “You’re Fired!” from the Trump administration?

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Claypool for chief of staff – how circumstances change with time!!!

Mayor Rahm Emanuel turned to an experienced political hand in choosing a new chief of staff; shifting Forrest Claypool away from his CTA post and putting him in charge of running the staff that does the actual work that the mayor gets to take credit for.

         

Not that I think Claypool is incompetent. He did hold the very same position twice under Mayor Richard M. Daley. He’s been around a number of local government positions. He knows how things operate.

IT’S JUST THAT the circumstances under which Claypool was picked by Emanuel actually amuse me.

Let’s not forget that Emanuel is now the guy whom all the good-government types demonize. He’s the ultimate political hack, as far as they’re concerned. They desperately wanted to dump him in this month’s municipal elections.

Except that Emanuel was the candidate with the big bucks that allowed him to spend the living daylights out of opponent Jesus Garcia – who had become a darling of those people who like to think they’re the good-government types.

Now Emanuel turns to Claypool to make sure things get done the way he wants them to.

YET I CAN remember back in 2010 when Claypool ran for Cook County assessor, ultimately losing to Joe Berrios.

Berrios managed to win that election cycle despite being demonized for being a political hack – a walking ball of conflicts of interest. The guy who conducted himself in ruling on tax appeal cases in ways that made it clear he was getting some sort of benefit (if not quite criminal in nature) that enriched himself.

Claypool’s election as assessor was supposed to be the move that would save us from the political hack days of old – the days when now-corrupt behavior was commonly accepted as standard practice.

The fact that a majority of voters picked Berrios in that election was supposed to be some sort of sign of our political stupidity – just as some, I’m sure, think the fact that Rahm Emanuel took 56 percent of the vote (not far off from those pre-season polls that said he’d take 58 percent) is a sign that we STILL haven’t learned any better.

DOES THIS MEAN that Claypool, who also ran the park district once and also served on the board of appeals that handled tax cases, has gone from being the goo-goo to being the guy who’s going to keep “politics as usual” operating in local government?

It’s probably more a piece of evidence that the people who were ready to anoint Claypool to political sainthood some five years ago were seriously over-exaggerating his good government sensibilities.

If he’s able to work with Emanuel – who actually was the guy who got him into the CTA position that he’s held in recent years after he lost that assessor election – then he’s probably got a practical politics streak. Although it could also mean that some of those practical political people also have a touch of government altruism flowing in their veins.

Although I do find one bit of irony. Berrios managed to get re-elected despite all the goo-goo griping because his Puerto Rican ethnic origins made him attractive to the Latino segment of the electorate.

THE SAME SEGMENT that this time around was the hard-core base of the Anybody But Rahm voters. Which amounted to all of 44 percent of the vote this month!

And which is what can make the Latino electorate unpredictable – because it often splits between those who want to be practical and back the winner and those who have an ideological streak for what they perceive to be the right thing.

Let us hope that Claypool, in trying to run Emanuel’s city government operation in a professional manner, can strike some sort of balance. That ultimately is what would benefit Chicago as a whole.

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