Interested in truth? Or only politicking?

It will be interesting to see how (if at all) the Supreme Court of the United States reacts to a brief by several current and former local politicos asking the high court to issue a definitive ruling as to what constitutes bribing a government official.

Only Blagojevich image that interests some

What’s bringing this issue us is Rod Blagojevich – as in the former Illinois governor who is now into serving the sixth year of a 14-year prison term on charges that he tried to solicit bribes in exchange for political appointments.

BLAGOJEVICH, OF COURSE, claims he didn’t have criminal intent. He claims any money given him was purely political contributions made to Rod by his supporters.

An excuse that some may snicker at (Political contributions?!? Yeah, suuuuuure!”) and find absurd.

But to the 19 political people (including one Republican, former state Rep. Angelo “Skip” Saviano who now is village president of Elmwood Park), they wonder if there is enough confusion that exists as to what is a legitimate campaign contribution and what is a bribe.

In their brief, they say they think the Supreme Court ought to take up the Blagojevich appeal on the grounds that it would allow them to issue a legal opinion that, once and for all, establishes what is a campaign contribution and what is a bribe.

THEY WANT THERE to be a definitive ruling that says just what a government official is obligated to do for his financial backers, and what do those backers have a right to expect in exchange for the checks they write out to political people.

Several current and former Illinois members ...

Which are legitimate questions that ought to be resolved. Although I don’t doubt that some people will not want to hear of such talk. They’re the ones whose distaste for Blagojevich is so intense they don’t care if he was grossly over-sentenced for his offense.

Just so long as he gets punished, they’re happy.

Heck, Illinois Republican Party officials on Wednesday were using the legal brief filed by so many Dems as reason to lambast likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker and tie him to Blagojevich.

... want high court to rule on what's a bribe?

HOPING THAT THE mere mention of the boogeyman they call Rod will be enough to ding Pritzker even further. For them, Blagojevich serves a political purpose that is far more important than any serious interpretation of a legal issue.

The tie is that so many current Dem officials signed off on this brief – including Congressmen Danny Davis, Bill Foster, Luis Gutierrez, Mike Quigley, Bobby Rush and Jan Schakowsky. Along with former Congressmen Bill Lipinski, David Phelps and Glenn Poshard.

This issue will become so overburdened with partisan politics that the fear is any legitimate legal ruling will become drowned in political slop. Because being able to ding somebody with the Blagojevich label is all-important to some people.

These politicos who put their names on this brief probably are right that the high court is going to have to be the final arbiter on this issue. That is, after all, the reason for the Supreme Court’s existence.

ALTHOUGH THERE ALSO are those individuals who think the high court itself ought to be the rubber stamp to implement their partisan ideals (while squashing anything the opposition party might try coming up with).

In this Age of Trump, it might be asking too much to expect the Supreme Court to stick its neck out and establish a stance on a crucial issue that could wind up restricting Republican fundraising efforts as well as Democratic ones.

Is Sosa the Blago equivalent?

It’s almost as confusing as the ongoing quandary concerning Baseball’s Hall of Fame and whether ballplayers caught using steroids are worthy of admission. Sportswriters who make that decision have sought advice from the Hall of Fame – only to be told it is their issue to resolve.

Will the Supreme Court ultimately ultimately take the same attitude; thereby reducing the issue of political bribery to the same confusion as to whether one-time Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa deserves his bronze plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.?

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Only the rich can run for office – is that our political trend of the 21st Century?

I remember once hearing a debate of sorts (it was actually just a couple of political operatives being cranky and arguing amongst themselves) over the appropriateness of would-be government officials paying for their own campaigns.

KENNEDY: The political pauper of 2018 cycle?

One was all for it – feeling that it was somehow wrong for a person to expect other people to come up with the cash for them to afford all the trappings of a successful campaign.

WHILE THE OTHER was convinced that something essential to our existence was being lost if we relied on big money guys for political candidates. “Do you really want a system where only the rich can run for office?,” he asked.

For better or worse, it seems that is the direction we have turned to.

Take our state’s upcoming election cycle for Illinois governor – where we’re more than a year away from Election Day, yet the candidates have already spent some $102 million collectively on their efforts to put their own names forward while also taking down the reputations of the people daring to challenge them.

With some 12 ½ months remaining before the Nov. 6, 2018 elections, who’s to say how much the final total spending will amount to? The academics who devote their attention to politics and government already are calling this the most expensive election cycle in U.S. history, with candidates acting as though they think the election is this November rather than next.

PRITZKER: Entirely self-funded

THE SITUATION IS so outlandish that Chris Kennedy, a member of the not-quite pauperish Kennedy political family, is going around semi-jokingly saying he “thought” his family was wealthy – until he saw the kind of money his would-be opponents for governor were putting in on their own behalf.

Consider that the $3.4 million Kennedy has come up with for his own campaigning thus far buries all the other fringe political candidates with dreams of being the “big shot” of the Statehouse Scene.

But Kennedy himself gets lumped into the fringe candidate category because he doesn’t even come close to the kind of money the top two candidates for the gubernatorial post offer up.

RAUNER: Practically funding entire GOP

J.B. Pritzker, of the family that includes amongst its financial assets the Hyatt Hotels chain, has come up with some $28.2 million – all of which comes from his own money. He’s not raising anything from the public.

WHICH IS WHY the Democratic Party political bigwigs (including state party Chairman Mike Madigan) like him – he makes it possible for them to focus their fundraising efforts in support of other candidates – including the state attorney general fight that it seems Republicans are focusing their efforts on in order to win something, anything, come the November 2018 elections.

But before one can go around saying the Democrats are the big-money guys out of touch with the “real people,” one has to contemplate Gov. Bruce Rauner – who has some $70.9 million available for his campaign. With the bulk of that ($50 million) being his own money.

Personal donations he has made to himself to bolster his chances of re-election, and the election chances of other Republicans wishing to run for seats in the General Assembly.

The state Legislature has been the entity that has kept Rauner from implementing his alleged “reform” agenda – most of which really is nothing more than measures meant to whack at the influence of organized labor within government. Rauner hopes he can buy a more favorable Legislature to support his political desires.

ALL OF THAT money is the reason that Rauner can’t be counted out, despite the fact that he has peeved a significant segment of the Republican electoral base with issues they perceive as violating their social conservative principles. Rauner hopes he can buy enough votes come Election Day to win “four more years” in office.

Times have changed since Daley & Uncle John

While Pritzker hopes he can spend enough to overwhelm any potential competition, then take advantage of the significant number of Illinoisans (most of whom admittedly live in and near Chicago) who are thoroughly disgusted with the 2 ½ years we’ve had of the Rauner Administration and want him gone come January of 2019.

Which reminds me of that long-ago quarrel at the Statehouse. “Do you really want a system where only the rich can run for office?”

It seems that is exactly what we have – at least for the top posts. Perhaps someone without personal wealthy can still run for city Clerk or Illinois treasurer. In the end, it seems the wealthy can be just as much political hacks as those without.

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Can big bucks buy J.B. human persona?

J.B. Pritzker is the millionaire would-be politico who’s showing a willingness to spend his own money to try to run for governor in next year’s election cycle.

Gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker's late mother, Sue, is featured in his latest campaign advertising spot now airing on television. Does this make him appear more human? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Democratic opponent Daniel Biss (whose campaign appeal seems limited to anyone who lives in or near the suburb of Evanston, where he lives) is trying to use Pritzker’s wealth against him – he issued the statement that pointed out Pritzker’s campaign is spending some $120,000 per day – which he says is more than the annual income of he and his wife.

YET JUST WHAT could Pritzker be spending so much money on?

Perhaps it is those campaign ads that began appearing on television this week – the one where Pritzker doesn’t talk about the state of the state or how sleazy his gubernatorial challengers (or incumbent Bruce Rauner) are. Instead, we get to hear a first-hand story of how wonderful his mother, Sue, was.

He talks about how after his father, Donald, died when J.B. was merely a 7-year-old, his mother struggled to support he and his siblings. Her efforts were made all the more difficult by the fact that she was an alcoholic.

PRITZKER: Most empathetic?

She could easily have been overwhelmed by becoming a widow. Instead, she managed to raise all her children to adulthood where they succeeded in life, and J.B. says he gained “a kind of empathy and understanding” about people who struggle.

HE CLAIMS THAT empathy will be put to use if he becomes governor. He’ll sympathize with all of us.

Which usually I’d be inclined to dismiss as a whole lot of schmaltz.

But this particular statement is something off-beat and usual. I’ve never really seen a political campaign try to put forth such a statement. Usually, something personal would be more likely to have Pritzker allies (although not J.B. himself) telling us what a despicable excuse for a human being Rauner is.

BISS: J.B. nothing but money?

Turn this into a battle of the two candidates likely to try to self-fund their way to the Executive Mansion in Springfield following the Nov. 6, 2018 elections.

BUT IT IS because this statement is so much like something just about anyone would say about their mother. I could easily come up with a similar accounting of how strong my late mother became following her divorce from my father – all because she wanted me and my brother to not suffer due to the split some four decades ago.

In fact, my quarrel would be to say that my mother was just as special as his mother. Something I’m sure just about every voter would argue.

That touch of humanity, and not just another political geek looking to ram his ideological leanings down all of our throats, is what Pritzker seems to want us to think – and what he’s trying to buy with the dollars that the Biss campaign would like us to think are merely evidence of another rich guy trying to buy himself a government office so as to appease his ego.

Of course, that could also be evidence that the Biss campaign’s momentum is withering away on account of the smudge on his political image after having to pick a new lieutenant governor running mate.

RAUNER: Not just a GOP version of J.B.?

HE’S NOT RAISING money for his own campaigning at the same rate he was early on. Although in this particular campaign, the J.B. Pritzker campaign was always going to be the one that grossly outspent everybody else on the Democratic side.

With incumbent Rauner’s personal wealth and the roughly $50 million he claims he’ll come up with to support his own re-election and that of sympathetic legislators for the General Assembly likely to dwarf his own spending.

Which is why Illinois House Speaker and state Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan has long been a Pritzker backer – his money could compete with the Rauner money.

Which also is why the Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association (Democrats in the rural parts of Illinois) are likely to do their own endorsement of Pritzker – even though the Republicans claim the association is “taking orders from Madigan” and nothing more. Maybe the GOP can’t think of something nice to say about their own candidate?

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Ivanka does Chicago! Donald does Bolingbrook? Trumps in Chicagoland

We won’t be seeing Donald Trump anywhere within the Chicago city limits anytime soon, if ever, during this campaign cycle.
 

Trump sends 'better half' to Chicago for campaign cash

There’d be far too many people inclined to mock him mercilessly for his initial debate performance – particularly from those people who are convinced the lousy microphone system was, in reality, a case of a candidate with “the sniffles.”

AFTER ALL, ISN’T Hillary the one who toughed it out on the campaign trail while suffering from pneumonia, continuing to make appearances at a time when ordinary people would have been staying home in bed and whining for their spouse to bring them another bowl of chicken soup?

Trump likely will have to do more debate prep for his next appearance Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, and probably will put the squeeze on his vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, who has his lone debate event Tuesday at Longwood University.

But we in Chicago may get a taste of Trump this week – for it seems that daughter Ivanka is scheduled to make several stops in Illinois on Wednesday.

Those include an evening cocktail party/fundraiser in the city, along with a breakfast-type/coffee event in Quincy and lunch in Peoria.

MUCH IS BEING made of Trump’s recent comments implying he thinks Chicago’s homicide rate makes it a far-more-dangerous place to visit than reality reflects.

Is Donald scared? Actually, he’s probably more realizing that any assault he’d face in Chicago would be in the form of verbal harassment and insults. As we saw quite clearly during his first debate performance Monday night, he doesn’t like being questioned or criticized.

He likes to be the one who dishes it out.

Besides, I do find it somewhat odd that Trump may be in the metropolitan area (as in outside the city proper) on Wednesday. Supposedly, he’s going to show up in Bolingbrook for a political luncheon that twice already has been cancelled.

SOMETHING KEEPS COMING up that knocks the event off the schedule. Will Trump finally honor this commitment?

Considering that Bolingbrook, is some minds, is nothing more than the municipality that once employed Drew Peterson as a law enforcement officer, you’d have to question the idea that the community is all that safe.

After all, not many communities can claim to have one of their officers now serving a lengthy prison term (he’d have to live to at least 93 to ever be free again) for murder. Although it seems that Peterson is only a threat to the young girls who fall for him, thereby leaving Trump safe.

Anyway, back to Ivanka, who could be an interesting persona. There is evidence that she may be the one of all the Trump kids (the jury is still out on Trump’s youngest son, Baron) who amounts to anything – what with her corporate role with the Trump Organization and the fact she plays a significant part in the business.

HOW MANY WILL come out to see Trump’s eldest daughter? Will they bring their checkbooks and make donations to try to give Trump a campaign fund that comes close to approaching the many millions that Democrat Hillary Clinton will have access to?

And what kind of crowd will Trump himself garner. Politico reported estimates from Republican party leaders that some 400 supporters will be on hand for the suburban event. Although there’s always the chance that some activist types will want to show up to cause a ruckus.

We’ll have to see if Trump has a sufficient explanation for his less-than-stellar debate performance Monday night.

Or will it amount to little more than a gruff demand that the questioner “Stuff it!!!!” up a certain bodily sphincter? Ouch!

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