It’s that time of year again – having to hide from lies on my television set

One of the rules of electoral politics people ought to keep in mind this time of the year is that all would-be officials spin. It’s not lying, although they want you to believe that everybody else’s spin is a lie and they tell nothing but the absolute truth.

Newman has some establishment backers

It doesn’t matter which candidate you support or which political party you back. Everything is described through the mindset the candidate wants you to adopt – which is that they’re wonderful and the problems lie with everybody else.

I COULDN’T HELP but think that as I went through my e-mail Tuesday morning and noticed a pair of messages that included video snippets of campaign commercials that will air on television in coming weeks.

One of them is about how wonderful Erika Harold is, and how we all ought to be casting our ballot in the Republican primary so we can pick her to be Illinois’ attorney general.

While the other is about how disgusting Marie Newman is. She’s the woman seeking the Democratic nomination for the Illinois Third Congressional district, wishing to take away the position from Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., on the grounds that he’s not liberal enough to be a Chicago-area congressman.

But as this ad tells us, Newman is really someone who won’t look out for the interests of people who work at Midway Airport, who has no real liberal credentials and, in fact, once ran a restaurant that was infested with fruit flies.

THE ACTUAL NEWMAN campaign is the one that rants about Lipinski not being a “real” Democrat because, on many social issues (most prominently abortion), he doesn’t side with the party platform. In fact, Lipinski is one of those individuals who’d just as soon see abortion become a criminal act.

Is ad a retort to this write-up?

Although he’s not likely to lead the charge for THAT cause. But he doesn’t side with a woman having a “right” to choose to terminate a pregnancy, which has many of the woman’s rights activists upset – and even has Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., publicly backing Newman.

That has the United for Progress group paying good money to air an ad that bashes Newman about. Since Lipinski is the only other choice (unless you want to take Republican Arthur Jones – a white supremacist activist – seriously), he becomes the benefactor.

HENCE, WE’RE HEARING allegations of foreign airlines taking over the slots at Midway, the inability of political operatives to find federal records for charitable funds Newman allegedly oversaw, and the health code violations at her one-time restaurant (with the tacky tales of fruit fly infestation).

The high-minded approach would be for someone to tout that Lipinski is one who consistently backs the interests of organized labor and unions – which is why he identifies as “Democrat” and most likely would be hostile to GOPers like Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Are these Dems of past the Lipinski backers?

But this is the campaign season – with Election Day less than two weeks away and some people (myself included) having already cast their ballots. Sickening fruit fly stories work better, I guess. Particularly since Newman got a nice write-up Monday on the New York Times’ front page. Is this ad a rebuttal tactic?

Although in terms of distortion of fact, I kind of find the Harold spot (one produced and paid for by her own campaign) to be more outrageous. Aside from constant references to the “Madigan machine,” it talks about how Harold in her life has “beat the odds” to win.

TO MY KNOWLEDGE, Harold actually has lost every single Republican primary she ever has run in (for Congressional seats from central Illinois).

The “victory” referred to that has her beating odds? It was in 2003 when the then-Miss Illinois went to Atlantic City and became Miss America. The last time an Illinois contestant won that competition.

I’m not going to say Harold is not allowed to cite her status as a former Miss America. But I’m also going to shout “Bull!” the next time she, or political operatives, try to lambast any Democrat who tries to trivialize her by saying she’s nothing but a former Miss America.

And as for “Madigan’s machine” that Harold supposedly would “hold accountable,” one could argue that what it has done is held Rauner accountable as governor – preventing him from imposing a series of anti-labor measures into law under the phony label of “reform.”

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Did Biden really “win” anything?

I feel like I’m becoming a broken record when the subject matter is presidential debates.

But reading the “day after” attempts at coverage of the confrontation Thursday night between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican VP hopeful Paul Ryan makes me wonder about the legitimacy of any of the millions of words that are being spewed.

I REMAIN CONVINCED that most people who pay attention to these events look for clues that can reinforce their previously-held preferences and biases.

The people who are saying that Biden scored a victory, or taught President Barack Obama how a debate should be done are most likely Obama backers. They weren’t going to acknowledge anything negative.

Likewise, the fewer pundits who are claiming a Ryan victory are the ones who weren’t paying any attention to a word Biden had to say.

Once again, I have to confess that I didn’t get to see the debate. In my duties working for a suburban daily newspaper, I was covering a City Council meeting – where the aldermen were grousing that their mayor was taking too long to get through the evening’s municipal business.

THEY ALL WANTED to leave City Hall, find themselves a television and check out the debate for themselves. By the time I got through writing up a story about their activities and planted myself in front of a television, the debate was over.

I can tell you all about the Yankees/Orioles playoff game from Thursday night (although I went to sleep just before the 13^th inning – which is when it turns out Baltimore broke the tie and won, sending this round of playoffs to a fifth, and final, game Friday night).

But for the debates? I have to rely on the attempts at reporting that are way overloaded with political spin (that of campaign operatives pointing out specific things to reporter-types in hopes of influencing the tone of the story).

I know what it is like. I still recall one debate I covered (for Illinois governor, many years ago) in which a campaign staffer sat herself down next to me, and kept whispering nasty comments into my ear whenever her candidate’s opponents said something silly.

I SUSPECT NOTHING has changed throughout the years. There was probably a lot of similar activity that took place Thursday night.

Although there was one theme that I couldn’t help but notice in much of the coverage. A lot of the less-blatantly biased news types who were most eager to write “Mitt wins” debate stories last week were now going along with the theme of “Joe rules!”

Could it be that some reporter-types wanted to make the election cycle more interesting by writing stories to make Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney more competitive, only to follow up with stories meant to restore the “balance” by giving the Obama camp a victory now?

If you carry that line of logic out to its extreme, it means that the town hall session scheduled for Tuesday between Obama and Romney will become a Mitt victory, followed up by an Obama victory in the final debate – to be held later this month.

THAT COULD CREATE a scorecard of a debate victory each for Obama and Romney proper, with Team Obama getting the VP battle and Romney getting the town hall session.

Some might think that is “balanced” journalism – everybody gets something in their favor.

Except that it goes against my idea of what debate coverage ought to be – a sense of how the candidates were at confronting each other under  equally limiting restrictions (all those time limits).

It makes me wish that more of my professional counterparts would follow what ought to be the Number One rule of covering any news event – Just write what happened.

INVARIABLY, THOSE KINDS of stories are the most damaging to a political candidate. Just report what he actually said and did. Particularly if the candidate says or does something stupid, it will be reflected in the copy. People are intelligent enough to figure out for themselves who “lost” a debate.

All these attempts to give in to political “spin” is what makes people feel like they’re being given doses of stupidity pills – and which probably caused many individuals to switch the channel away from the debates.

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My head’s spinning silly!

I don't think I'll ever be able to walk by the Thompson Center building without remembering the day that a giant, inflatable coal plant was erected out front. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

If you’d have asked me last week what the funk was that was clinging to my physical being, I’d have said “sweat” from all the heat we got hit with. I was dripping, and I’m sure I didn’t smell all that pleasant – no matter how many times a day I showered.

But this week, the funk that is all about me is nothing more than pure political “spin.”

FOR IN THE past couple of days, I did some work for one of the suburban daily newspapers in covering a pair of protest rallies outside the Thompson Center state government building related to the same issue.

Only different sides. And everybody was pushing their party line off onto me, while also making sure to be on hand to rebut anything the other side might have to say.

At stake in this issue is Illinois Senate Bill 3766 – which was approved this spring by the General Assembly. It is related to the proposed construction of a plant that uses the gasification process to convert Southern Illinois coal into a synthetic natural gas that can be used for heating.

One side (the batch that came on Monday) wants the project because it would be a significant construction project that eventually would be an operating business employing hundreds of people in and around the 10^th Ward – specifically the one-time site of Republic Steel that now sits vacant in the East Side neighborhood.

PICTURE THE SIGHT of 100 or so construction workers, trying to do their best to be an intimidating presence, and literally coming out and saying to Gov. Quinn, “our work boots turned out the vote for you. You owe us.”



One of the Republic Steel remnants that could someday be cleared away for a plant turning coal to natural gas. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



The other side (the ones on hand Tuesday) hate the project because they fear emissions will further pollute the air (which already has a certain funk you just don’t notice anywhere else in Chicago – the result of more than a century of industry being present in the area).

I’m not about to weigh in on this issue, because personally I can see both points. It’s hard to argue against somebody talking of creating hundreds of jobs (thousands, if you count the temporary construction ones) at a time when there are people desperate for employment of any type.

But I also realize why 10^th Warders are suspicious of anything that has potential to pollute – even though the plant’s backers claim that modern technology would make it as safe an environment to work in as Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

I DON’T KNOW if I buy that line; although I do believe that technology has reduced the potential for emissions into the air.

Then again, seeing the environmental activists set up a giant inflatable coal plant complete with smokestacks (which the plant backers insist will not exist in reality) being set up just about 100 feet from that “Standing Beast” sculpture that sits in front of the Thompson Center is a sight I doubt I ever will forget.

It is burned into my brain (and preserved on this weblog, for however long it may last)! Along with some of the jokes I heard about how they could have used the structure as a “bouncy house” and let kids play in it while the protests are staged.

Just where does one go to get a giant inflatable coal plant? It doesn’t sound like an item stocked regularly at the local Party City store!

JUST AS I didn’t come down on one side or the other on this issue, I’m going to be further wishy-washy and refuse to predict how I think Quinn will react on this measure.

QUINN: Soon to be somebody's enemy

Although I thought it interesting that a member of his staff met publicly with the opponents of a gasification plant, but not with the backers.

Then again, Quinn has signed into law other bills related to this project. For him to suddenly do an about-face now would be extremely erratic – almost like the kind of behavior we’d have expected from our state’s previous governor.

So what’s the one safe bet on this issue? No matter what Quinn does, he’s going to tick off an interest group – one that likely already has its rhetoric prepared to lambaste him for not giving them their way.

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