ELECTION DAZE: Obama 952, Mac 250

That was the “vote” painted on the front window of a bakery in south suburban Homewood, a town I happened to pass through on mid-day Tuesday.

Nielsen’s Bakery is like a lot of other businesses, making an effort to sell its products with an Election Day theme. In the case of the bakery, it was cookies. They sold edibles touting both the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain, and kept track of how many of each were sold in an attempt to come up with a “winner.”

WHEN IT COMES to cookies, Barack beat McCain big time.

Now I’m not about to claim that cookie sales really mean much, no more so than all those 7-Eleven franchises that are selling drinks in special Obama and McCain cups (big surprise – in Chicago, Obama wins. In Arizona, it’s McCain).

But this neighborhood bakery is in an area that was once the heart of a strong Republican Party organization in the Chicago southern suburbs of Cook County. There was once a time when the idea of hinting that locals liked Democrats would have warranted a brick through the bakery’s window.

You want to know how Illinois went from being the ultimate bellwether state (siding with the winner in all but two of the presidential elections held in the 20th Century) to being such a hard-core Democratic state that the only reason any candidate pays attention to us is our proximity to Indiana?

IT IS THIS very suburban trend. The GOP that used to be seen as the mechanism by which suburbs were able to withstand the political might of Chicago Democrats is now the party that is so blatantly rural in its view of the world that those same suburbs now see they have more in common with Chicago than they do Cairo.

Hence, Obama’s campaign has been sending out e-mails to his Chicago-area supporters, asking if they could work phone banks to try to get the good people of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond to get off their Election Day duffs and vote.

And the closest Mayor Richard M. Daley came to appearing at a campaign rally is when he made a trip last week to Highland to speak to the Hoosier faithful to get them to want to back Barack. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay was on hand, which led to countless jokes about which one could provide the other with more examples of how to steal an election.

What other items were notable about activity taking place on Election Day?

EVERYBODY HAD AN “EXCLUSIVE” STORY: Insofar as I can tell, long-time Chicago newsperson Pam Zekman of WBBM-TV gets credit for “breaking” the story that some polling place workers were so lax about checking lists of early voters that those people could have voted again on Tuesday.

There were people in Chicago who showed up at their polling places, just to see if they would be given a second ballot to use. When they were, they high-tailed it for the telephones to call the local television stations.

I first heard the story reported by Zekman, only to see it reported about two minutes later on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight” program. For all I know, every other Chicago television station also had the story shortly after 7 p.m.

Not to trivialize the seriousness of the issue, but I have but one question. If those people who felt the need to check on their ballots had the time to wait in line at the polling place on Tuesday, why didn’t they wait until today to cast their ballot?

JACKING UP THE PRICE, VS. GIVING A DISCOUNT: Downtown Chicago business interests reacted in differing ways to the proximity of Obama’s Election Night rally being held in their proximity.

While some parking garages are taking advantage of the street parking bans for the day by jacking up their fees (as much as $50, depending on the garage’s proximity to Grant Park), the Chicago Tribune notes that theatergoers are getting a break on tickets, if they choose to attend tonight’s shows.

Tickets that can go for as much as $90 apiece are being sold today for $44.

So for those of you who are too cheap to pay the usual rates but still want to catch a theatrical experience (http://www.broadwayinchicago.com/specialoffers.php), this was your chance. Of course, parking your car near the theater meant you got caught in the higher-than-usual rates caused by Obama. So it all balances out in the end.

NOT MUCH CONCERN FOR CON-CON: When I was handed the card that I needed to insert into the touch-screen device so I could cast my ballot Tuesday, I was also handed a blue sheet of paper telling – both in English and en Español – the proper wording for the portion of the ballot related to whether or not to hold a Constitutional Convention.

Not that many people around me were too concerned about the issue. Most of the people I witnessed in my polling place (which doubles as a Lutheran church the rest of the year) barely glanced at the sheet.

The man ahead of me in line to get a ballot literally crumpled his up and tossed it into a trashcan before voting – without even reading it.

So how does this lack of concern about the issue play out? Did people vote out of ignorance, moving on to the issue (U.S. president) they really care about? In short, this portion of the ballot has the potential to have less thought put into it than all those judges.

DID THEY EXPECT THE ‘TERRORIST’ FIST JAB?: My chuckles for the day came from the various accounts being published about how University of Illinois at Chicago education professor (and onetime Weatherman activist) Bill Ayers was seen voting at the same polling place where Barack Obama cast his ballot earlier in the morning.

Do people seriously expect Ayers to go into seclusion, or to be denied his vote at his polling place at Shoesmith Elementary School in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

Or perhaps they seriously expected the two to schedule simultaneous appearances so they could (http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/11/04/obama-ayers-cast-ballots-in-same-polling-station/) give each other an Election Day dap?

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Cash for (and against) Con Con

I must admit; it makes me squirmish to be on the side of “big money.”

But if an Illinois Campaign for Political Reform study released this week is at all accurate, then that would appear to be the case.

THE ISSUE AT stake is “Con Con.”

Translated into English, that’s the need for a Constitutional Convention in Illinois. If it happens, it would be the sixth time in the state’s history that the constitution faced a serious rewrite.

Under Illinois law, voters periodically get the chance to decide whether the constitution should face a thorough review. One of those chances (the first in two decades) will come next week.

All Illinois voters (after casting their vote for or against Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and representative, a legislator, and countless numbers of judges) will be asked to vote “yes” or “no” to the idea of a Constitutional Convention – which if it were to be held would consist of picking two people to represent each of Illinois’ 59 state Senate districts at a gathering in Springfield.

I’VE MADE IT clear previously that I will be among those people voting against the idea. My opposition is largely due to the fact that many of the people with pet issues that the Legislature has been unwilling to consider want to rewrite the state Constitution to change the rules, so to speak, so as to make it easier for their pet causes to get passed into law.

I’m a firm believer that the document itself is fine. It is the government officials who are flawed, and these people who are pushing for a “Con Con” would be better off putting their time and energy into trying to dump their incumbents.

In short, I don’t want to see long-term damage done to Illinois government just because somebody is miffed that their pet issue (such as the people who want recall elections in Illinois – another concept that I oppose) can’t get a majority support under the current rules.

Now the Chicago-based group that monitors all those financial disclosure records and maintains a website that tries to make all the information from those reports much easier to comprehend, says it does not have a stance on the concept of “Con Con,” although I wouldn’t be surprised if many of its members privately support the concept and plan to vote “yes” next Tuesday.

BUT THE GROUP released a new summary this week that is meant to show just how the big money interests that try to influence the Illinois Legislature are among the big financial supporters of efforts to turn out the vote against a “Con Con.”

Their study notes the creation of a group called the Alliance to Protect the Constitution, which has managed to raise $1.2 million since July, with $440,000 coming from five groups.

The biggest of those is the Illinois Federation of Teachers (the parent organization of the Chicago Teachers Union), which reports coming up with $300,000 for the "anti-Con Con" effort.

The teachers’ federation and its affiliates are a political player on the Springfield Scene. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform notes they are the third-biggest donors ($558,000) to the individual legislators (although much of that money was given to funds controlled by the four legislative leaders – who then dole it out as they see fit to the rank-and-file legislators).

THE ILLINOIS EDUCATION Association is also a big player ($225,000 to the "anti-Con Con" effort and $877,000 to the legislators – the top donor) on both lists.

I’m sure some will want to see this as an effort by legislative supporters to kill a project ("Con Con") that could potentially have negative impact on the General Assembly’s membership.

But the two labor unions related to educators across the state are hardly the types to support establishment-related projects in Springfield.

Both are among the more liberal-minded of interest groups that pay attention to the Statehouse Scene, to the point where Republicans usually complain about their excessive influence over Democrats. The two groups also are usually the bigger financial supporters of the types of legislators who usually gain the support of the good-government types who join groups like the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the other really big financial supporters of the "anti-Con Con" effort are Exelon ($100,000), the Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity ($92,500), and the American Insurance Association and Health Care Services Corp. (both tied for fifth with $50,000).

Exelon and the American Insurance Association have just the opposite perspective of the teachers’ unions. They usually are financially supportive of more ideologically conservative government officials.

If it sounds like I think there’s a bi-partisan element to the “Con Con” opposition, I wouldn’t want to trivialize the issue with such a simple-minded statement. After all, a lot of these groups are operating out of their own self-interest – preferring not to have to deal with learning a new set of rules in mid-game.

But it does strike me that there are people with differing perspectives on much of the business that comes before state government who see some logic to the idea that the Constitution itself is not the problem in Illinois.

I ALSO HAVE to wonder about the bit of political spin that the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform put into its own statement announcing the results of its new study. They noted that the two groups most active in trying to get people to vote “yes” for a Constitutional Convention – “Con Con Yes” and “Metro Chicago United PAC” – have raised a total of $5,000.

In short, it’s not like this is a fair fight.

The "anti-Con Con" people have the kind of cash to stir up significant opposition through the use of media campaigns and stunts to persuade people to vote “no” when they get to the end of their ballot.

Why else would former Gov. Jim Edgar and one-time Edgar gubernatorial opponent Dawn Clark Netsch (remember 1994?) be working together these days to encourage people to vote “no” on "Con Con?"

BY COMPARISON, THE "pro-Con Con" people will just have the concept of an anti-incumbent sentiment that runs through many would-be voters, hoping that a majority will be willing to vote “yes” even if they don’t fully comprehend exactly what it is they’re voting in favor of.

So what’s the case? Are the "anti-Con Con" people a bi-partisan group of people from both sides of the political equation, or are they a batch of big bucks bullies willing to push around the will of the people?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform is trying to educate people (http://www.ilcampaign.org/concon.asp) about the upcoming vote on “Con Con.”

Barack Obama’s birth state and adopted home state both are considering whether they (http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20081027_foes_of_concon_fear_horse_trading.html) need to make changes to their states’ constitutions.

Arguments to be made both for (http://www.southtownstar.com/news/mcqueary/1240338,102608mcqueary.article) and against (http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/10/24/opinion/letters/doc48fbc4a5d22d6924627089.txt) holding yet another Constitutional Convention in Illinois.

VOTE “NO”: “Con-con” is a con

I must admit that when I received my little blue booklet in the mail on Saturday, I didn’t realize I was holding in my hands evidence of an attempt by the corrupt political hacks of this state to scare we, the people, out of approving a Constitutional Convention to consider making changes to the 38-year-old document.

And now that I look at the booklet after having heard Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn’s accusation that the wording of the question to be placed on the Nov. 4 election ballots is biased, I still don’t see it.

IT’S TOO BAD that Quinn didn’t wait until Sunday to make his latest announcement (that he’s prepared to go to court to challenge the wording of the ballot question). It would have been totally in character for him to hold a weekend news conference so as to get all those real news-starved television broadcasts out to cover him.

Instead, by holding it during the week, he’s going to get the serious-minded people who actually understand the concept of a Constitutional Convention and why it should be considered a radical step, almost a last-resort.

The last thing we should be doing is revising our state’s constitution on a regular basis. As it is, it is embarrassing that our state (which dates back to 1818) went through four different state constitutions before finally coming up with the current version that was approved in December 1970.

That doesn’t mean I have a problem with the issue being up for question in this year’s elections.

WHEN THOSE OF us throughout Illinois go to our polling place to express our support (or disgust) with favorite son Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations, we’re also going to have to decide whether Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., needs to be replaced.

Then, we’ll go through our state legislators, a few county officials (will Anita Alvarez truly become Cook County state’s attorney?) and a few referendum questions that will vary depending on where exactly we live.

Then, our ballots will end with the “con-con” question, which goes as follows:

“In 1988, the electors rejected the call for a constitutional convention, with 75 percent voting against calling a convention and 25 percent voting in favor of calling a convention. If you believe the 1970 Illinois Constitution needs to be revised through the convention profess, vote “YES” on the question of calling a constitutional convention. If you believe that a constitutional convention is not necessary, or that changes can be accomplished by other means, vote “NO” on the calling of a constitutional convention.”

WHEW! THAT’S A mouthful (or should I say a fingerful, since I had to type it out.)

Under our state law, voters have to be given the chance every two decades to decide whether the constitution is so flawed that it needs to be scrapped, and completely rewritten.

If a majority of Illinois voters decide to vote “Yes” to that overly verbose question (I could have written it in half the words), then officials from across the state will gather at a convention, which would try to draft a new document for consideration by the year 2010.

The drafting of a new constitution ought to be a scarce moment in history.

AFTER ALL, IF the existing document is so flawed that it needs to be replaced, then there are some serious problems with our society.

In a sense, it is kind of embarrassing to think that our state’s constitution was created in a post-Apollo 11 mentality – as though the Illinois founders from the early 19th century had nothing worth preserving in terms of their thoughts on the way this state should be governed.

For those who want to argue that things become obsolete, I’d argue that one of the advantages of the U.S. constitution is that it remains from the late-18th century, a testament to the fact that the ideals remain relevant – even if there have been times when our government officials have done a terrible job of implementing them into a daily reality.

If anything, it is those government officials who should be blamed – not the document itself.

I WISH THE people who are so desperately calling for a Constitutional Convention (I can’t stand the term “con con,” it trivializes a significant document) would focus their intention instead on working to defeat the government officials who particularly offend them.

That would be working within the system in a way that would be in complete compliance with “the American way” of doing things.

I say that because I understand many of the people who want a new constitution feel that way because they want to put the concept of “recall elections” into Illinois law. Our state does not now have such special elections, and some people are so determined to be able to dump people from office in mid-term that they now want to rig the rules in their favor.

Will we also get people determined to eliminate the provision of state law that allows for political maps to be drawn by a commission whose tie-breaking member is chosen by a random lottery? I don’t trust the people who argue that computers should draft the maps of legislative and congressional district boundaries randomly, because I wonder if the person who programs the computer is capable of putting his (or her) political bias into the mix.

THAT KIND OF political shortsightedness is why I am skeptical of the need for a Constitutional Convention, even though in theory, the voters could decide in November to have a convention, and the delegates themselves could decide that the existing document is just fine, as-is.

As I read through my blue booklet (published by the Illinois secretary of state’s office), I can’t say I’m terribly swayed by the portion that gives the argument for why there should be a new convention – even though I agree with the idea that the people should be asked to consider this issue every 20 years.

So when I walk into my polling place on Nov. 4 (the recreation room of a Lutheran church in my neighborhood), I’m probably going to vote “No” on the question, along with casting my many other votes.

I’d hope that would put the issue to rest – at least until 2028.

AND FOR THOSE who are upset that the constitution can’t be rewritten to make it easier for them to dump on their political enemies (particularly all those people who can’t stand Rod Blagojevich), I wish they’d put their attention into just trying to find a credible candidate and get him elected.

If they did that, I might very well support them.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Creation of the U.S. constitution brings to mind the image of white men in powdered wigs discussing high-minded principles of democracy. The Illinois constitution’s creation (http://www.ilga.gov/commission/lrb/conent.htm), by comparison, was done by a batch of guys in polyester suits and wide ties (it was the 1970s).

Is a reminder of the previous rejection of a constitutional convention an illegal attempt to distort the results (http://www.sj-r.com/news/x154126448/Quinn-Boland-seek-new-wording-on-con-con-question) of a new plea to redo the state constitution? Or is Patrick Quinn too desperate for publicity?

For those of you who have become incapable of handling the concept of “ink on paper,” here (http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/index/constitutionalcon.html) is the official booklet published by the state explaining the “pros” and “cons” of a Constitutional Convention.