Rather bold talk from people who like to think they’re the ultimate “goo-goos”

In my experience, I have always found Wisconsin political people to be a bit off. They relish the image of themselves as the ultimate good government-types.

They want to believe that they not only play by the rules, they take the rules to a higher plane. I have known some Wisconsin political types who are among the most obnoxious, self-righteous people ever.

WHICH IS WHY I found it amusing to read an Associated Press report on Monday that relates to the upcoming recall elections that are meant to cut off the gubernatorial term of Scott Walker.

For it seems that the people who are eager to defend Walker are resorting to one of the oldest tricks in the political book. They’re trying to undermine the opposition by having candidates run against Walker who really aren’t his critics.

“Fake” Democrats, is the phrase used by the Associated Press to describe this tactic.

Gee, putting up token opponents to undermine the opposition, causing them to split up their support rather than converge on one real challenger.

IT SOUNDS LIKE something the Wisconsin people would lambast Illinoisans for doing. And let’s be honest, it has been done in Illinois. Now, it’s being done in Wisconsin, and by the ideologues who like to think they’re superior to us all to the point where they think they should be able to create the world in their image – and the rest of us should be forced to live in it under them.

Not that I ever thought Wisconsin people were superior politically.

I always find it laughable when other states try to lambast Illinois as being corrupt politically, or when rural people try to claim that the matter of political corruption is somehow a trait caused by urban government officials.

Or have we already forgotten the official in rural Dixon, Ill., who supposedly used (at least prosecutors say so) municipal funds to prop up, and enhance, her horse ranch?

NOW, WE HAVE Republican officials in Wisconsin openly urging their counterparts to consider voting for Democratic candidates who aren’t really serious – in hopes that Walker ultimately will have a weak challenger in the effort to knock him out of office.

I’m not going to get all worked up and start condemning Republican officials for even thinking of doing such a thing. It happens.

Quite frankly, if the Democratic Party in Wisconsin is so weak that it can’t fight off such a cheap shot tactic, then perhaps they deserve to “lose” and Walker should remain as governor for the remainder of his term in office.

Heck, there were those in Illinois back in the March primary who talked of flipping over from Democrat to Republican just to vote for a presidential candidate other than Mitt Romney – so as to weaken his support in the Land of Lincoln.

NOT THAT IT mattered much. Romney solidly won Illinois’ delegates to the Republican National Convention.

If there are competent political people in Wisconsin, they will be able to succeed in their efforts to depose Walker – which would be a worthy punishment for the guy who tried to use his government authority to strong-arm organized labor because they were cutting into the profit margins of corporate interests.

I should point out, as I have written before, that I don’t care much for the concept of “recall” elections. They strike me as the tactic of the sore loser. And if the official is really that bad, perhaps the state should have to live with the shame of him for his (or her) term in office (for Walker, that’s early 2015).

But it seems that Wisconsin-ites aren’t really any different than you or I who live in Illinois – or likely any other state in the nation. Except for the fact that their state did away with a death penalty in 1853 (even though Walker ideally would like to bring it back), while it took us in Illinois until last year to catch up.

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We’re in for generational warfare, and I’m on the side of the ‘old farts’

Talking on a phone in the car has come a long way

I’m not a kid anymore.

That concept got reinforced on Tuesday when I learned that Illinois state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, talked of the chances of banning cellular telephones outright in automobiles.

FOR THE RECORD, Cullerton says he does not expect that to happen anytime soon. Although he won’t be surprised if it is an issue that the Illinois General Assembly will someday take up.

When it does, we’re in for a serious battle of the generations. I couldn’t help but notice in the couple of hours after stories started cropping up on the Internet about Cullerton’s comments, one anonymous person went so far as to characterize a ban on cellphones while driving as being the same as banning breathing while driving.

To me, that is pure nonsense.

In fact, to me, the idea of not using a cellphone while in the car makes all the sense in the world – particularly since I have noticed the number of times that drivers who were busy yakking away on their hand-held communications devices weren’t paying attention and would have hit me had I not managed to engage in a sudden maneuver.

AS FAR AS I’m concerned, I actually have one of those devices in my own car that lets me talk on my cellular telephone without holding it in my hands (it was a birthday gift from my brother a couple of years ago).

Yet I rarely use it, preferring to ignore most calls to me while driving (I call them back once I get to where I’m going).

CULLERTON: Predicting cellphone fate?

On those rare occasions when it is someone whom I do need to talk to, right there and then, I pull over to the side of the road and stop (which led to one recent story I reported, in part, for an area newspaper from the side of Interstate 80 just outside of Joliet), then talk.

In short, I will have no problem complying with the idea that using a cellular phone in the car is absurd.

BUT I CAN also tell that this will be a generational thing. There will be the younger crowd that just won’t get it. They’re going to be prepared to fight and shout and scream that it is their “constitutional right” to talk on the phone, or use it to send text messages, or whatever, at whenever the urge strikes them.

It is something I have noticed with my oldest nephew, who is 17. That kid spends a lot of his time locked up in his bedroom. If one didn’t know better, they’d think he was some sort of anti-social, serial killer-the-making, plotting some diabolical scheme all by himself.

Actually, he’s texting constantly with his friends, who are all scattered at their own homes. They’re in constant contact with each other at all times, able to engage in friendly banter and sarcastic wisecracking – just like we all do in groups of REAL people.

I’ve even noticed on those occasions when he comes out of the room, with the texting still going. He even texts during meals. Or tries to, anyway.

IT SEEMS LIKE holiday celebrations lately have turned into my father (my nephew’s grandfather) berating him for texting while eating.

My point is that I doubt my nephew is alone. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to think that this is some sort of serious intrusion on their personal lives by telling them where their cellular telephones can (and cannot) be used.

Even though personally, I consider the cellular telephone itself to be the serious intrusion on my own personal life. As though some people think they have the right to speak to me whenever it is to their convenience.

It’s not like we haven’t had similar situations in the past.

I CAN RECALL just over a decade ago when the Illinois General Assembly passed bills that placed restrictions on where, in public, people can use laser pointers.

We got to hear legislators get all indignant about people imposing their own warped  sensibilities on all of us (I still remember the tale of a person who was using his pointer in a movie theater to show his friends all the traces of nipples and genitalia on the screen).

Then later, I got to hear from people who said that laser pointers are “fun” and that someone who can’t stand having a private part or two pointed out should learn to “lighten up.” I will be curious to see how this issue (which has been recommended nationally by the National Transportation Safety Board) plays out in coming years, although nine states already have such cellphone bans.

Are we going to hear some variation on “lighten up” in defense of cellphones in the cars? Have I really become the grouchy old man because I can side with such a ban?

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Will White still be around in ‘19?

On the one hand, the idea of a man pushing age 85 holding the political post that is one of the most visible in Illinois government reeks of absurdity.

WHITE: The pol who won't leave?



That’s how old Jesse White will be if he actually runs for Illinois secretary of state in the 2014 elections and manages to make it all the way to the end of his term in January of 2019.

EVEN RONALD REAGAN wasn’t that old when he finished his terms as U.S. president early in 1989 – and was starting to show signs of the behavior that later was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.

But then again, Jesse White has never been the typical politician – or person.

Anyone who saw White as I happened to see him on Saturday – helping to lug heavy mats around in hot, humid weather while helping to set up a stage in suburban South Holland for his Jesse White Tumblers gymnastics team (which was making its second of four scheduled appearances that day) – would not have seen a 77-year-old man.

To play off that old cliché, White was working so hard that it made me tired just watching. Let alone having to keep track of 17 young people AND handle the driving of the bus that was taking the tumblers from appearance to appearance.

WHITE OBVIOUSLY DOES not give much thought to retiring. He got elected to his fourth term in the office that most prominently issues our driver’s licenses (his name sits in the wallet of nearly every legal driver in the state) during last year’s election cycle.

He’s already thinking ahead, using political rallies at the Illinois State Fair last week to tell people he’s already planning to be the Democratic nominee in 2014.

Any other government official who talked of running for re-election this early in the process (three years and three months remaining until Election Day) would be considered delusional.

Yet in the case of White, the reaction seems to be mere acceptance. It’s like White has become one of those officials that we just assume belongs in political post.

IT’S MAKING ME wonder if the name “White” is becoming something akin to “Daley” for Chicago-area politicos.

What amazes me the most about White’s longevity as secretary of state is the fact that he had already had a full political career by the time he first won election to the position in 1998 – the year that Democrats started once again getting elected to Illinois government posts and culminating with the 2002 and 2006 elections that saw Democrats take over everything.

It’s almost like White was the leader who plowed the path for his political allies to come along and take control of the Springfield Scene from people who always saw the purpose of their authority as keeping Chicago under check – instead of trying to work with the city on issues.

But back on that day in January 1999 when White first took that oath, he was already pushing 65 years of age. He was the guy who had been a long-time state legislator from the Near North Side and who had moved “up” to the world of Cook County government by serving as recorder of deeds.

THAT, IN AND of itself, would be a full political career that few other government officials in our city could match. The perception back then was that White would be secretary of state for a term (or two, at most) before retiring. By that logic, White should have moved on years ago.

But he hasn’t.

He doesn’t want to seem to go anywhere, except to work.

That is, when he’s not engaged in the act of operating his self-named tumbling team that he created in 1959 to provide inner-city youths with an alternative to urban street life (a sweet-sounding euphemism for street-gangs and drugs). Which is work.

THE TEAM ROUTINELY performs all over the United States, and in fact later this year has plans to perform in London and in Edinburg, Scotland.

Which means that White could be busy enough if he were to focus his time on managing the tumblers – which in-and-of itself would be a noble way to spend his final years.

Yet White seems determined to hang on politically, knowing full well that anybody who seriously thought of challenging him in a Democratic primary would be seen as bringing down the Wrath of God (a.k.a. state party Chairman Michael J. Madigan) for causing internal political problems.

About the only way that White won’t run for secretary of state in 2014 is if he literally suffers a mishap and departs this planet. Not that I’m wishing for anyone’s death. But it seems that will be the only way that White won’t try to get a fifth term as secretary of state.

AND AFTER SEEING White in action during the weekend, I can’t say I see a man who looks like he’s going to leave us any time soon.

So much for a man whose sense of failure in life probably extends only to the fact that he was once a professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization in the 1960s who never made it to the big club.

Was the Cubs’ loss the people’s gain?

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