EXTRA: Obama will be beloved in Chicago space that rejected Trump

Barack Obama will be in Chicago Sunday, using the UI-Chicago Pavilion to hold a rally by which he tries to spread his beloved status amongst Democratic Party faithful to other candidates running for office in Tuesday’s elections.

This Near West Side-space will host an Obama political rally Sunday … 

I happened to be at the Pavilion Thursday night, and it got me to thinking of how Obama will literally be using the same space that so vehemently rejected the very idea of Donald Trump as president.

REMEMBER BACK TO March 11, 2016? That was the night that then-candidate Trump was in Chicago, and was going to use the Pavilion to try to stir up the masses in favor of his candidacy.

But thousands of people jammed the streets around the Pavilion, along with the hundreds of Trump critics who managed to get inside for the rally itself. Trump wound up having to cancel the event, rather than face a critical crowd that could easily have become a mob!

I’m sure those who approve of this Age of Trump in which we now live view the Pavilion as some sort of horrid place. How dare they be critical of The Donald! The fact that Obama will now be able to come in and get cheers and applause will be the ultimate repudiation of Trump-ism by us Chicagoans.

As to whether all that applause will translate into votes come Tuesday remains to be seen. Because it’s not unheard of that people who were compelled to show up for a rally on Sunday could easily find themselves too lazy to turn out to the polling place on Election Day.

THE SAME COULD be said for the rally to be held earlier Sunday in Gary, Ind., where I understand the tickets that allow people inside the Genesis Convention Center for the political event were snapped up quickly on Thursday and people are being told to stay away from downtown Gary unless they actually have a ticket to the event.

… as will this one in Gary, Ind.

Anyway, we’re bound to see a pair of public spectacles this weekend in which people will be urged to vote against political officials whose presence would provide aid and comfort to “President Trump.”

With this year’s election cycle serving as a prelude to 2020, when we get the chance to “Dump Trump!” himself from elective office. With Trump allies counting on general apathy from the people so as to allow Trump to have another term in office – should he decide that’s what he wants to do!

Would I be in a better mood if the ballgame had had a better ending? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

All of which were thoughts running through my mind while sitting inside the Pavilion, where my alma mater Illinois Wesleyan Titans managed to start off their basketball season by getting their clock cleaned, so to speak, by the UI-C Flames.

  -30-

EXTRA: Second City certainly ain’t ‘Ground Zero’ of the DJT Fan Club

It shouldn’t be a shock that, as has been pointed out in many reports, that President Donald J. Trump didn’t actually say anything specific about Illinois when he made his first visit as president earlier this week to the Land of Lincoln.

A sunny Saturday in Chicago … 

Trump was on hand to tout the U.S. Steel plant that re-opened in Granite City (near St. Louis). Trying to take personal credit for it, he went out of his way to avoid saying anything that anyone in Chicago could construe as a positive.

NOT THAT SUCH acts should be shocking. It is Chicago that is the reason Illinois is solidly in the “blue” column when it comes to electoral support and is one place that can be counted on to give its Electoral College support in 2020 to whomever runs against Trump for president.

As was evidenced by the political rallying taking place Saturday in the Near North Side’s Washington Square Park. The one-time Bughouse Square where the radicals would gather and literally stand on soap boxes to rant and rage about whatever issue caught their fancy. Once a year, they try to recreate that ol' spirit.

I stopped by briefly and caught a bit of the rhetoric – a woman complaining that modern politicos are all for gentrification that tries to attract cutesy businesses like an Amazon.com facility rather than a steel mill. Which is true enough -- the steel mills where my grandfathers were employed are both long-abandoned, and generations of people who thought they would have life-time jobs there have had to come up with alternate schemes for life.

Not that she, or many others on hand Saturday, would have been inclined to look favorably upon Trump and the actions he has taken that he claims are the reason U.S. Steel was able to reopen their plant in the St. Louis. The park was also filled with lots of anti-Trump rhetoric.

INCLUDING THE BANNERS that I couldn’t help but notice hanging all around the park.

… wasn't a pleasant place for everyone. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Not that it was all feisty rhetoric by people wanting to play “anarchist” for an afternoon. There were those making a point of walking their dogs through the park, and for all I know making sure their pets deposited their loads of poop by those people they most disagreed with.

  -30-

Are we protesting because we’re concerned about issues, or because there’s nothing worth watching on TV?

I’m not one of those people who sees protesters and rallies as something subversive or a waste of time – even if it’s a batch of people with whom I completely disagree I have always seen the right to assemble and express oneself as one of the fundamental rights of people in this country.
 

Disgust over Donald?

Yet there are times when I do wonder if people put together protests without giving much thought to the image they’re going to create amongst the public. Are they doing harm to their cause by trivializing it?

THAT IS A thought that has been bopping about in my brain since I received a statement through e-mail a few days ago telling me how the students at Bowen High School in the South Chicago neighborhood were planning to express their outrage over the fact that Donald Trump was actually chosen to be president.

Students participated on Tuesday afternoon in a walkout, meaning they skipped class. The statement I received said it was meant to, “show opposition to the rise of hate and racism across the nation in the resulting weeks.”

Said statement also had quotations attributed to school administrators offering up support for the event, in which students skipped class to march to nearby Bessemer Park – where they partook in a rally that WLS-TV reported was to express opposition to harassment of people who are black or immigrant or not otherwise of an image that Trump-types might want to believe doesn’t belong here.

It sounds like a noble cause. It even uses the tactic that younger students have used often before to try to express themselves – the walkout. Yet I can’t help but wonder how many people are going to view this as just a chance for people to get out of a geometry class they wouldn’t have paid much attention to anyway?

PARTICULARLY SINCE PROTESTS related to disappointment that we as a society could really be stupid enough to elect Trump president have been done elsewhere, and with greater effect.

This really comes off as an attempt that plays as too little, too late – something that would have had greater impact on Nov. 9 but by Nov. 22 was old and moldy.

Which is similar to how I’m perceiving the protests that we’re told will take place Friday along Michigan Avenue; the place for people who want to be seen shopping -- real people shop elsewhere.

 

Refusing to forget Laquan

Friday, of course, is “Black Friday,” the date upon which retailers go into the black financially for the year – making all their sales during December as pure profit.

FOR THOSE WHO think back to last year, activists concerned with the shootings by police of too many young black men used the day to stage protests downtown – hoping to gain attention to their cause by disrupting all the holiday shopping that took place.

They’re hoping for an encore, saying they’ll be out there again. They’re going to demand that people LISTEN to them and feel a reaction. Which is a problem, because one of the realities of freedom of expression is that you have a right to say or think what you want – but you don’t get a guarantee of the last word.

Also, people have the right to choose to ignore you if they wish.

Which is what I suspect will happen on Friday. We’ll get the sight of several holiday shoppers going to extremes to ignore what is being said – particularly if it tries to keep reminding us of Laquan McDonald; the young man whose videotaped shooting death by police left some appalled, but others feeling empathy for police.

I CAN SENSE how some people are going to feel it’s the same old trash talk being spewed. A repeat of the same ol’ day we experienced last year – only not in a cute and funny way like in the movie “Groundhog Day.”

The extent to which many people will be concerned

I sense a public relations disaster in the making, particularly if incidents arise that cause police to try to take anyone into custody. Could we get the sight of holiday shoppers cheering for the police while activists try to make their case against violence?

Not that I’ll be anywhere near this. For I have to confess to detesting the whole idea of holiday shopping beginning so soon. As you read this, I may be preparing myself for a holiday feast that my father is actually starting to prepare as I write this Wednesday afternoon.

Either that, or I’ll be taking a desperately needed nap – the only “cause” I’ll be promoting on this holiday of thanks.

  -30-

Political spin can rival a roller-coaster when it comes to making one ill

I couldn’t help but be amused by Bernie Sanders, whose presidential campaign put out a statement regarding his Sunday campaign rally at Ohio State University.

Putting his own spin on Trump dealings

“Boisterous, but peaceful,” was the way the Sanders people described the crowd of 7,500 who gathered to “feel the Bern,” so to speak. Also meant as a direct contrast to the crowds of nincompoops who have felt compelled to be at Republican Donald Trump’s campaign rallies.

ONE DAY AFTER the event that Trump wants to describe as Chicago “thugs” getting out of hand at the University of Illinois at Chicago, someone tried to rush the stage at an event in Dayton, Ohio.

That led to a public decision to cancel the event meant for Sunday in Cincinnati. Although it appears that the event wound up taking place anyway, the security was stepped up to the point where Trump was physically surrounded by local police and the Secret Service detail that has been assigned to his campaign.

Trump, it seems, already wants to behave as though he’s the head of a police state prepared to flex its muscle at anyone who dares to speak out against The Donald!

Trump, meanwhile, is keeping up the cheap talk about how the need for this overkill in security is because of the people being instigated by Bernie Sanders himself.

FOR IT SEEMS that Trump is one of those people who just can’t function in life if he isn’t the perpetual victim – some “meanie” is constantly out to get him. He’s being picked on so much that it’s the very fault of the people Trump singles out for abuse that he criticizes them.

And if by chance, Trump’s critics respond in kind – he claims HE’S the one being hurt!!!

Who has bigger victim complex; Donald ...

Bernie Sanders’ campaign appearance Sunday had its touch of self-serving silliness – what with contrasting how well behaved his crowd was compared to the Trump crowd.

But Trump’s victim complex is becoming so overbearing as to the point of being ridiculous. To the point where it is a miracle anyone can take seriously his presidential aspirations. And we have to seriously question the mental competence of anyone willing to publicly say they’d vote for the man.

... or Charley Hustle?

WHICH IS WHY it may be all too appropriate that Trump on Sunday got the endorsement of Pete Rose – the one-time Cincinnati Reds hitter and manager who himself has a victim complex at work. It would be like if Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs were to give a presidential candidate his political blessing

Rose is determined to believe he’s wrongly being denied his place in baseball’s Hall of Fame just as I’m sure Trump will take his eventual electoral loss as evidence of what is allegedly wrong with our society.

Even though I’d argue it will be the moment of clarity in a campaign cycle that has exposed just how delusional some of us in our society can be.

It also is the moment when the campaign cycle that resembles an amusement park roller-coaster ride will come to an end, and we’ll all feel a bit queasy at the memory of what we will endure in coming months.

  -30-

EXTRA: In defense of Chicago. We told Trump where he could stuff it!

I’ve had a chance to sleep on it, so to speak, with regards to the behavior of those people who felt compelled to silence Donald Trump when he tried to speak Friday night at a campaign rally at the University of Illinois campus here.

Chicago's way of telling Trump, "You're Fired!"

Because as we all know by now, those people got so unruly that the Trump people wound up cancelling the event – offering up some vague talk about doing the event somewhere else at another time.

THAT HAS CAUSED an all-too-predictable outburst from people determined to think Trump was disrespected by Chicago. That somehow, we singled him out for undue abuse. Trump himself is going about using the word “thugs” to describe our city’s behavior.

I have an uncle in Minnesota who actually is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, but who felt compelled to turn to Facebook to use the word “hypocritical” and say we had a “disgusting exhibition of stifling the ‘Democratic’ process.”

I realize my uncle has the same right to expression as anyone else. But my gut feeling in this case is to say to my Aunt Christy, “Tell Uncle Jim to lighten up a bit.”

Because after taking a few hours to mill over the events of Friday, I can’t help but think we in Chicago came up with the appropriate response to the nonsense talk that Trump has been spewing across the country and likely thought he could do once again in our fair city.

IF IT TURNS out that Chicago gets a reputation for being the place that stood up to Trump and told him to “stuff it,” then it makes me all the more pleased to be a Chicagoan.

Yes, I realize Trump can go ahead and act like a goof when he campaigns, deliberately making his political appeal to the share of our society that expresses intolerance for anyone or anything that isn’t exactly like themselves.

Of course, then they argue that those people not like themselves are obligated to show them the highest of respect. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy of those people who complain about “reverse racism” or “political correctness run amok.”

As it turns out, four men and a woman now face criminal charges for their behavior. Which in a group of that size, strikes me as being the proverbial needle in a haystack. A fairly insignificant number of people.

THIS WAS NOT some sort of massive riot in which people were killed or maimed – which is exactly the image I’m sure the Trump types will try to create in their own minds, then force into our thought process.

Which is part of why I can be sympathetic to those protesters who felt compelled to show up at the college campus Friday night.

But there’s also the fact that Trump’s campaign strategy likes to create the impression that there’s a hostile opposition, and many Trump rallies in other parts of the country usually have as their highlight the fact that security publicly removes people from the crowd.

In some cases, the Trump types have even taken punches at those people as they’re removed.

WHICH MEANS THE only real difference here is that Trump was denied the moment of picking out who got removed. That, and the fact that the Trump types didn’t get to hit anybody – because if they had, it’s likely the masses would have fought back and we’d have got the sight of Trump types having the caca kicked out of them!

As for Trump, it really is common sense that if you’re going to spew so much nonsense that targets so many people, that those people are going to want to retort in an equal fashion. Unless your idea of expression is that Trump gets to insult – and others just have to swallow it.

We got to see that the Trump types really are an overly-vocal minority. Consider the recent Chicago Tribune poll that showed Trump winning the Illinois Republican primary next week – but only having 32 percent support and some ridiculously-high disapproval ratings. In a one-on-one, he loses big time!

All I know is that if the Trump types ever do try to re-schedule the Chicago rally (as they hinted they might), it is likely to be an event so overly staged as to bear resemblance to a Nuremberg rally of old. Which some might think an overly-appropriate image to have?

  -30-

EXTRA: Will they let it go? Or, Ouch! Does it still hurt all these years later?

Yes, I'm too cheap to send out individual King Day greeting cards. Although they do exist. Image provided by Greeting Card Universe.

I should point out with regards to the reference I made about the pastor at a King Day celebration who previously was outspoken in his opposition to gay marriage in Illinois that he wound up speaking about the need for African-American people to honor King’s memory by striving to make the most they can of their lives.

He didn’t bring up gay marriage. Although I did notice several of his supporters wearing yellow buttons that read, “Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman.” Some people just can’t let certain issues go.

ALTHOUGH IT ALSO was amusing, in a warped sort of way, to hear his reference to King’s time in Chicago – particularly that rally through the Marquette Park neighborhood back in 1966.

What other city on Planet Earth greets a Nobel Peace Prize winner by hitting him in the head with a brick?

And how ridiculous does this make Chicago appear to be, even if it was nearly some 48 years ago?

  -30-

No Dems rally at state fair – Is that really much of a surprise these days?

A lot of people are going to try to make an issue out of the fact that this year’s Illinois State Fair will not include a political rally by the Democrats to try to tout their candidates seeking nomination in the primary elections to be held come March.

They'll claim it is evidence that the Democratic Party in this state is chaotic and unorganized. They can't get their act together to hold a simple rally.

I doubt anybody'd cry about no politicos

 

HOW CAN THEY possibly be trusted to govern the state of Illinois any longer? So vote Republican!

They’ll probably cite the Republican Day rally scheduled for Thursday and all the excitement that will be on display and try to claim that it is evidence that The People!!!! are ready for a change.

Excuse me for being skeptical. But I don’t buy it. I don’t think it is any big surprise that Democrats aren’t going to do much with their traditional rally on the fairgrounds. I’m actually surprised they didn’t do this years ago.

Now for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the tradition for the state fair (held at the State Fairgrounds on the far northeast corner of Springfield) is that one day is designated as “Governor’s Day.”

IT IS A day meant for the governor himself to show up on the fairgrounds, take part in many events and appear as though he’s one of the people. By tradition, the governor’s political party uses the fairgrounds to hold a rally to let us all know how wonderful they are.

Then, in a sense of fairness and equality, the opposition party gets its own “day” at the fairgrounds, in which their officials try to make it seem as though they’re more in tune with the public.

It’s all a lot of trivial nonsense. Although in a year before the elections, it can be an unofficial start to campaign activity for the prospective campaigns.

This year, Governor’s Day is Wednesday, and Pat Quinn will show up and do his thing (although he’s already spent a lot of time at the fairgrounds since the event began Friday). Republican Day is Thursday.

I doubt many would come even if there was a Wed. rally

BUT QUINN SAID last week that the Democrats who in theory are his allies won’t be doing anything at the fair on Wednesday. They will have a breakfast meeting in Springfield, but that’s it.

Some people are pointing out the fact that at last year’s Democratic Party rally at the state fair, organized labor officials showed up and heckled the governor. Perhaps the reason for no partisan rally is that Quinn is some sort of coward who can’t take a little bit of criticism.

Actually, I think it is just a realization that the state fair has become a less-important political event for the Democratic Party that represents the interests of the urban portion of Illinois.

There are Democrats in the rest of Illinois, but their numbers are dwarfed in most cases by the Republican Party organizations. Which is evidence of just how much the Chicago area can dwarf the rest of the state that it has become the dominant political party in Illinois as a whole.

MY POINT BEING that the Illinois State Fair largely draws its crowds from people who live in Sangamon County and the rural counties that are directly adjacent to it.

Much of Southern Illinois takes the DuQuoin State Fair (this year, it’s Aug. 23-Sept. 2) more seriously. While in the Chicago area, even the scaled-back Taste of Chicago and all the summer festivals are more significant than what happens at the state fair.

With the Chicago dominance of the Democratic Party, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that most of the power-brokers are pleased they don’t have to make the four-hour drive to Springfield to pretend they care about what is happening at the fairgrounds.

QUINN: Gets the fair all to himself

In fact, what I recall of the state fair during the seven years (1993-99) I was a Statehouse reporter was that the political rallies were held in a portion of the fairgrounds that was isolated from the rest of the event.

MOST PEOPLE ATTENDING the state fair weren’t even aware of the blather being spewed by political people of all partisanships. I really doubt anybody at the fairgrounds on Wednesday will miss the presence of politicians in the least.

Perhaps people at the fair on Thursday will wish that Republicans would follow the same lead and spare us their blather. You really want to get the people who attend the Illinois State Fair all angry? Take away the Husband Calling Contest.

Somehow, I suspect the loss of the sight of middle-aged women trying to come up with loud, obnoxious screeches meant to attract their husbands’ attention (which took place Sunday) would upset fairgoers more than the loss of politicians.

  -30-

Too many people trying to translate heckles about a distant election

Excuse me for not being impressed with the people who are trying to interpret Friday’s Grant Park rally for the Chicago Blackhawks as evidence of how much we can’t stand Gov. Pat Quinn.

QUINN: Do we hate him, or all pols?

Yes, it’s true! The governor -- who shouldn't have gotten any more involved than placing a bet with the Massachusetts governor -- was given a chance to say a few words while also being seen wearing some sort of red-and-black garb (including a Blackhawks cap) to give him a moment of glory with the Stanley Cup trophy.

AND YES, IT’S true that the people at the rally (perhaps as many as 2 million) behaved like Homer Simpson in thinking he had “the right, no the duty, to make a complete ass of myself” while in a large sports-related crowd.

It’s a good thing they didn’t follow the other Homer Simpson rule about sports; “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how drunk you get.”

The bottom line is that any political person who shows up at a sports event is going to get booed. Only part of it is an expression of political opposition.

Much of it is the fact that the people on hand want to see a ballgame. Or on Friday, cheer on a championship team. Anyone who doesn’t actually play for the Blackhawks was going to get booed.

THE LAST THING anybody wanted to see or hear was a government official.

EMANUEL: Slipped in, and out, of rally unscathed

Which is why I couldn’t help but notice the fact that the Capital Fax newsletter pointed out the fact that when Mayor Rahm Emanuel made his brief comments at the rally, he just went up to the microphone and spoke.

Unlike Quinn, who received an introduction to the Grant Park masses!

Considering how far most of those people attending the rally were from the stage, I suspect most people had no clue that Rahm was Rahm – at least not until after it was too late to boo and any heckling would have seemed to have been directed at a professional athlete.

WHICH ON FRIDAY would have appeared to be downright uncouth!

MADIGAN: Will he stay, or will he go

It’s just one of those unwritten rules about when it is appropriate to heckle a political person. In fact, about the only time I can ever recall a politician NOT being booed at a sports-related rally was last autumn when Emanuel appeared at Mount Carmel High School to help celebrate the Woodlawn neighborhood school’s state championship in high school football.

Although I suspect it was more the presence of Catholic brothers who would have cracked down on any students who misbehaved. Perhaps that was what Quinn needed to prevent himself from being heckled – some clergy from his own alma mater, Fenwick High School, to provide crowd “control.”

Not that Quinn’s appearance was the only prognosticating on Friday. The Chicago Sun-Times came up with a pair of stories attempting to downplay the chances of potential Quinn challenger Lisa Madigan of being successful in next year’s gubernatorial primary.

DALEY: Benefits if Quinn and Madigan fail

LONG-TIME POLITICAL OPERATIVE David Axelrod told the City Club of Chicago that he thinks it will be an obstacle to her campaign if her father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, refuses to step aside from his long-time (three decades-plus) post.

Which is what another candidate, William Daley, wanted us to think when he made public his own poll results earlier this month that said people would not vote for her because of her father.

I kind of admired the Illinois attorney general’s response to all this – telling the Sun-Times at an EMILY’s List event in Chicago that she’s NOT going to be the one to tell her father that it’s time to leave the Legislature. “I’m not going to give my father political advice,” she told the newspaper.

MADIGAN: Not about to tell father, 'it's time to go'

All of this makes me suspicious of the people who want us to believe. They’re too eager to campaign for something we’re not going to be asked to vote for until March of next year.

IT MAKES ME want to dig out the earplugs to try to avoid all the rancid rhetoric we’re going to get in coming months.

Too many people are trying to put this thought into our heads – as though we’re supposed to dismiss her before the campaign gets seriously underway. Just like the same kind of people who want us to discredit Quinn because he got booed.

  -30-

I wish we could have dug an alligator-filled moat Monday around Daley Plaza

I’m sure in the minds of the conservative ideologues of the world, they took a stab at the political heart of true-blue (as in Election Night map-leaning) Chicago.

Daley Plaza wasn't so cheery Monday



Although to my mindset, what the ideologues (just over 100 of them, who looked so few and lonely in the grand space that is Daley Plaza) managed to do on Monday was turn themselves into a dinky little island – isolated from the masses who have better things to do than spend a lunch hour spewing ever-so-much trash talk.

STANDING IN THE shadow of the Picasso statue with their crudely-made picket signs that allege Barack Obama to be a socialist/communist/whatever phrase was most alliterative with the rest of their insult, it almost seemed like the lady was shuddering in disgust at the sight of so many people in her presence with nothing better to do at mid-day.

Or maybe she was just shuddering from being exposed to the 26-mph winds that gave the Loop a mid-Monday chill?

Either way, it was a pathetic sight to see so many people trying to pretend that it was still 2010 and that their “Tea Party” movement was still relevant (one woman literally crossed the “2010” off her old picket sign and replaced it with “2012” – as though nothing else had changed.

About the only thing that was reassuring about the spectacle is that “real people” of Chicago could be seen walking past the mid-day rally without giving it a second thought.

IT REALLY WAS like there was a separation between the ideologues who are letting their own hang-ups about modern-day life dictate their policies, and those rest of us who live in the real world and have our own problems to deal with.

There just isn’t any time to deal with the kind of nonsense-talk that was spewed on Monday, or that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is likely to spew when he visits Springfield, Ill., on Tuesday.

Not even the “laundry list” of Illinois political officials ranging from Gov. Pat Quinn to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, to Mayor Rahm Emanuel whose character was insulted by Danielle Rowe, a failed candidate for an Illinois House seat from the northwest suburbs who is trying to make sure we haven’t forgotten her.

Although I suspect the majority of us never knew her to begin with.

THEN AGAIN, I think people who use the Gadsden flag (a symbol of U.S. independence) to try to give their own ideological leanings some merit are being disrespectful – particularly when they use those flags as shawls to keep themselves warm.

KLEEFISCH: Touring the Midwest for Walker

Personally, I found it amusing to learn that Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch had nothing better to do that she could spare the time to be in Chicago to rant and rage about how unfair it is that anyone would think of having a recall election for her running-mate – Walker himself.

You’d think she’d be in her home state – either tending to her government post or trying to appeal to people who actually care about Wisconsin and are capable of voting there in the upcoming special election (scheduled for June 5).

Then again, she is a lieutenant governor. She probably had nothing better to do with her time than make a visit to Chicago (and St. Louis, too). It is the eternal truth of state politics everywhere that lieutenant governors only need to have a pulse – just in case the inevitable happens.

EITHER THROUGH MORTALITY or impeachment – which we in Illinois learned three years ago is a very real possibility.

So I couldn’t help but be amused when Kleefisch insisted on claiming the whole “recall election” movement in Wisconsin is, “about Big Union power. The Big Union bosses siphon dues from their union members, even the ones who don’t agree with them.”

That’s pretty tough talk. Although it comes across as whining, particularly since the whole reason this partisan fight in Wisconsin started is that Walker was the one who provoked the unions with his attempt to mess with Collective Bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers.

Of course the opposition will fight back. This kind of rhetoric makes Walker seem like the schoolyard bully who thinks he’s entitled to pick on everybody – and who thinks the person who slugs him back and blackens his eye is the bad guy!

PERSONALLY, I THINK Kleefisch does Walker more harm with rhetoric like she spewed in Chicago. Although I also think that we have enough loopy loons for political officials from Illinois.

Do we really need to be importing political trash-talkers from other states to tell us a batch of nonsense?

  -30-

I’m sure some thought 35th and Shields was a “holy” site long before Saturday

I have to confess.

When I first heard early this year that U.S. Cellular Field was going to feature nationally renowned (in certain circles) televangelist Joel Osteen at a religious rally to be held Saturday, my first thought was to wonder if the Houston pastor was in any way related to Claude Osteen – the long-time major league pitcher whose career ended with the Chicago White Sox.

FOR THE RECORD, he isn’t.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Saturday could well be the most significant night of all the events to be held at 35^th Street and Shields Avenue (a.k.a., Bill Veeck Drive) during 2011 – except for those who think ballparks are “holy” shrines because professional ballplayers play there.

Of course, that is more of a reflection on the fact that the Chicago White Sox have been a disappointment this season (and not just because they recently got swept four straight by the New York Yankees). The baseball being played this year isn’t worth remembering much.

So the fact that Osteen (the pastor, not the pitcher) is using U.S. Cellular Field as part of his national tour this year is something worth noting. Somehow, I get the sense that a crowd of about 40,000-plus filling the stadium to capacity will create a religious vision.

IT PROBABLY WILL be something that all of those in attendance will remember for years to come.

It probably won’t be of the same significance as the Catholic masses that various popes have conducted at Yankee Stadium in New York.

But then again, Osteen has conducted his own mega-services at Yankee Stadium and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Which puts U.S. Cellular Field into a certain elite category.

Now I know there are those people who are getting offended by Osteen’s presence. I have seen some Internet commentary that wants us to think of Osteen as some sort of cult leader along the lines of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

IN FACT, THEY take offense in the fact that Osteen uses secular venues (this year’s tour alone will include appearances at New York’s Madison Square Garden, in addition to the former New Comiskey Park) to hold his large-scale religious services.

But then again, Osteen is the pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston – which purchased the old arena used by the Houston Rockets pro basketball team. It means that Osteen is used to having a 16,000-seat arena to fill on a regular basis.

So I’m sure a part of him will think of Saturday’s sermon as just another routine performance.

Is he a cult leader? I don’t know enough about Osteen to say if such attitudes about the “Night of Hope” events being held across the country are warranted, or not.

BUT IF SATURDAY night is truly a cult rally being held on the Sout’ Side, then it will be a night to remember.

Which might be ever so ironic because Osteen’s appearance comes merely one week after what is likely the most significant event to take place this year at Wrigley Field – one which also had nothing to do with the baseball being played on the field.

Of course, I’m referring to the concerts given last weekend by Paul McCartney, with the big video screens erected in what usually passes for center field.

It allowed all the 60-plus crowd to pretend they were still youthful and hip, while also giving us all a chance to reminisce about back in 1964 when the Beatles themselves included Chicago (Comiskey Park, actually) in their musical tours of the United States.

IT SAYS SOMETHING about how dismal 2011 has been athletically when these concert-type events are the highlights of the year at the ballpark.

But I can’t help but wonder how much crossover there is in the crowds that gathered last weekend at Wrigley Field and those who will be at U.S. Cellular Field on Saturday.

Will we have two completely separate segments of Chicagoland ? Or is there some room for overlap between those who reminisced on the North Side, and now want to save their souls on the South Side.

And just to state for the record, I wasn’t/will not be at either event – although I can claim family connections to both.

AN “AUNT” ON my step-mother’s side of the family (her sister) was among those at Clark and Addison reliving her teenage memories., while an aunt on my father’s side of the family will be among those at U.S. Cellular tonight.

Then again, my aunt who will be seeing Osteen tonight was a Beatles fan when she was young. If my memory is correct, she was a “Paul” fan. But she attended the Chicago Beatles concert held at the old International Ampitheatre.

Otherwise, maybe she’d be the perfect example of symmetry – a Chicagoan who could truly appreciate both events.

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EXTRA: Obama says we shouldn’t want to “relive the past” on economic issues

Obama: Gets to sleep in his own bed tonight

To listen to President Barack Obama in speaking Saturday to a rally of about 35,000 people spread across the Midway Plaissance, Republican partisans drove the nation’s economy into a ditch, left it to Democrats to push the wreckage of the economy out of that ditch, and now are demanding to have the keys back so they can resume driving.

“We need to tell them, ‘you can’t have the keys back. You don’t know how to drive’,” Obama said. It was that kind of night at the southern edge of the Hyde Park neighborhood, as faint echoes of the old “Oh-Bah-Mah!” chant could be heard around the Midway (although a part of me wonders if those people earlier Saturday in Grant Park who partook in the Chicago offshoot of the Jon Stewart-inspired D.C. "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" had more fun than the Midway crowd).

OBAMA – WHO EARLIER in the day used his regular weekend radio address to say that Democrats and Republicans will have to work together to end the economic struggles facing our nation – insisted that GOP people have been unwilling to do so, purely as a political calculation geared toward the elections to be held Tuesday.

“Their strategy seems to be that all of you will get amnesia,” Obama said, making several references (among them, 4 million jobs lost in the six-month time period before he took the oath of office as president in January of 2009) to the fact that the economic recession began during the presidency of George W. Bush.

“We need to make sure we don’t turn the keys (of control) back to the special interests of Washington,” Obama said.

Even Mayor Richard M. Daley, who served as a warm-up act for the president, played along with that theme, citing “health care,” “jobs” and “economic development” as areas where Obama has had success.

“WE SHOULD THANK him for all the things he has done in less than two years,” the retiring mayor said. “That is a difficult job, but he is up to it. He has the leadership ability, and we should support him,” by voting for his political allies.

Of course, the evening wasn’t all about Republican-bashing. It also was about encouraging the thousands to make sure they cast ballots in Tuesday’s election, and Obama ran through the laundry list of politicos running for office who were present.

They included Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias and lieutenant governor nominee Sheila Simon, just to name a few. Although in what may be surprising to some, he gave a plug to soon-to-be former Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. “If everybody who showed up in 2008 to vote does so again, we’ll win this election,” Obama said.

“If you’re willing to step up, if you’re willing to try, … we will restore our economy, rebuild the middle class, and re-claim the American dream for another generation,” he said.

BUT AS A sign that Obama does understand the priorities of the Chicago political mindset, he did make sure to give prominent mention to Toni Preckwinkle, not so much because she’s running for Cook County Board president, but because she is the alderman in whose ward they were all gathered.

“She’s my alderman,” Obama said.

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Labor unions an intriguing part of immigration reform debate these days

Immigration reform was the topic of interest at rallies and protests taking place across the United States this weekend, including one held on Chicago’s West Side.

That rally managed to draw a crowd of just over 1,000 people, including many political types eager for voter support going up as high as Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. His appearance at that rally, where he said that immigration reform must pass Congress “this year,” was the primary reason the Chicago rally was even acknowledged in national news reports – most of which focused their time on the Las Vegas rally where immigration proponents were trying to tout the re-election chances of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

BUT FOR ME, the intriguing part of the Chicago rally for immigration reform wasn’t who showed up – it was largely the usual (and expected) suspects. It was where the rally was held.

It was at Teamster City, 1645 W. Jackson Blvd., which is the primary facility for the Teamsters labor union in the Chicago area.

Not that it’s uncommon for political protests and rallies to be held there. But the fact that this particular event was held there means we have the Teamsters on the side of the immigrants and their proponents on this issue.

Which, to be honest, means we have most labor unions on the side of the immigrants on this issue.

I FIND THAT aspect to be interesting because most of the people who are opposed to immigration reform (or think that immigration “reform” should be defined as an increase in deportations) try to claim that their opposition has little to nothing to do with ethnic hangups.

Instead, they argue they are concerned about these non-citizens coming to our country at a time when we’re in an economic downtown and taking jobs from U.S. citizens.

Now some of these people manage to unmask their racial and ethnic hangups when bringing up this point when they say the low-level jobs now being done by these undocumented workers are jobs that could easily go to African-American people on welfare

Seriously, I have heard it. In their perfect world, black people wash dishes and do other menial jobs.

BUT BACK TO the point. It really has nothing to do with anyone taking away jobs from anybody else.

Because if it did, these labor union types would be the most outspoken opponents of immigration reform. We’d be seeing and hearing them in great numbers engaging in trash talk about the issue.

Instead, we’re seeing the unions realizing that these people are in this country to work, and that stabilizing their immigration status makes it less likely that companies would be able to hire them out of a sense that their uncertain status in this country makes them more likely to put up with abuse at the hands of an employer.

I’m not exaggerating. Anybody who doubts this ought to look at the organized labor rhetoric that occurred some two decades ago (and which we still hear traces of today) when the North American Free Trade Agreement was put into place.

THE UNIONS WERE more than willing to spew the official party line that thinking of Canada, Mexico and the United States as one economic unit would undermine the labor protections they had fought so hard to obtain throughout the years. Which played along with the nativist rhetoric that our country should not want to think of itself as an economic partner (or any type of partner, for that matter) with Mexico.

So I find it encouraging to learn that the unions are on the side of the immigrants,seeing them as mere workers who are trying to earn a living.

Now I realize that for some people, the fact that organized labor is now on the side of immigration reform will be a turnoff. Of course, most of those people likely are ideologically inclined to oppose immigration reform, regardless of who aligns in its favor.

But I like the idea that the ranks of organized labor, which includes many people whose families’ ethnic origins don’t go back that far, is willing to take a stand on this issue.

FOR THE BIGGEST problem faced by the immigration reform proponents is that the perception being spread by the nativist opposition is that this is an issue that no one other than a Latino has any real interest in.

Even though many immigration rallies wind up including many people speaking in an Irish brogue or in some eastern European dialect, too many people want to ignore this issue on the grounds that it is purely Latino in composition.

Which is why I was glad to see someone like Durbin (who often brags about his family’s Lithuanian origins) be willing to take a stance, instead of relying on Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to do all the talking and political heavy lifting on this issue.

That may well be what persuades some GOP-types in Congress (some seem to think that veteran Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is a potential swing vote) to consider the issue seriously. Which could be the key to actually achieving a vote in Congress during 2010.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Richard Durbin and Luis Gutierrez are becoming national leaders in the political debate (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/04/11/2010-04-11_immig_reform_cant_wait_till_next_year.html) over immigration reform.