EXTRA: Dumping Madigan may be a matter of thinking small (y en Español)

There are those people out there who are convinced that Michael Madigan is the root of all evil in our politics, and many of them waste far too much time trying to concoct schemes by which they depose the long-time Illinois House speaker and chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party.

MADIGAN: Does neighboring race worry him

Could it be that the real key to ending Madigan’s political reign (which goes back to the early 1970s and his days as part of the state Constitutional Convention) is to think small? And also to find someone who’s the 13rd Ward equivalent to Aaron Ortiz?

AARON IS THE political newcomer who Tuesday night defeated state Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, for his post in the state Legislature.

Burke is the brother of Ald. Ed Burke, D-14^th, and it was generally seen as evidence of Ed’s overall political influence that Dan served in the Illinois House of Representatives for the past 28 years with virtually no opposition.

Until now. The fact that much of the old white ethnic Southwest Side neighborhood structure is now Latino in composition meant that the local voters finally decided they wanted “one of our own” to be in government.

Hence, we now have a 26-year-old high school counselor who will be serving in his first political post once he wins the Nov. 6 general election – in which he’ll be running unopposed.

ORTIZ: Is someone like Aaron the key?

MANY POLITICAL OBSERVERS have used this election as evidence of Ed Burke’s declining influence on the local political scene.

But as it was pointed out to me by a mangy-old reporter-type (a group of us gathered for lunch Wednesday to hash out the electoral happenings of the night before), Madigan may be the one who ought to be more scared.

Burke is the powerbroker of the city’s 14^th Ward, while Madigan is the bigwig from the neighboring 13^th Ward. They’re both Southwest Side pols who represent areas that have turned Latino – in fact, heavily Mexican, in composition.

There was that election cycle of Jason Gonzales in 2016 where he challenged Madigan for the 22^nd Illinois House district seat; and the Madigan-types played the power politics to let it be known of the criminal offenses Gonzales had as a teenager – offenses for which he had formally been pardoned by now-former Gov. Pat Quinn.

GONZALES: Couldn't win in '16

ONE CAN ARGUE that was ugly and mean and downright dirty, but it can also be argued that a better candidate might have been able to run a viable campaign against the speaker – thereby eliminating him as a representative and requiring that someone else be picked as speaker.

And also, likely, as state Democratic chairman.

Madigan himself was unopposed in Tuesday’s primary. But could the search be starting up for someone to take Madigan on come the 2020 election cycle?

Consider that Aaron Ortiz was put up to running for office by Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who on Tuesday won his own primary to represent the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago and the suburbs in Congress.

GARCIA ACTUALLY BACKED about a half-dozen people for various political posts, and all of them actually won!

GARCIA: Moving on up in so many ways

Causing that aforementioned mangy-old reporter-type to speculate that Garcia is “the new Madigan” and a political power-broker in his own right.

That likely is an overstatement. But could Garcia be the key to finding a replacement for Madigan some day?

Or will “Mr. Speaker” himself figure out ways to gain a sixth decade in Illinois politics by appeasing Chuy so that he doesn’t dig up a not-yet-known Latino to challenge Madigan.

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After spending all that money, we got the predictable electoral outcome

The people of Illinois have voted and their votes are being tallied.

J.B. couldn't win a majority of Dems

And what’s the outcome of the 2018 primary election cycle, one in which some $120 million was spent on campaign tactics meant to besmirch the opposition?

WE’RE GOING TO get some seven more months of pricey, hostile tactics!

For it seems that the Illinois gubernatorial campaign that will come to a head on Nov. 6 will wind up being a battle of the rich guys.

Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker, both of whom are independently wealthy enough that they can afford to finance their own campaigns for political office, appear to have won their political parties’ respective primary elections.

Both of these guys are in desperate need of a hobby. Instead, they have chosen to satisfy their need to do something worthwhile with their lives by running for political office.

IN THIS CASE, both want to be governor of Illinois.

Rauner already has had four years in office, and he wants four more. Only this time, he wants to not have to deal with the Democratic Party officials led by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago – whom some can say earned his money the past four years by being the force that prevented Rauner from implementing what he wants to think of as “reform” but really are nothing more than union-busting tactics.

Rauner barely won a majority of GOPers

Pritzker, who for many years has been the rich guy whom Democrats turn to for financial donations in order to raise the money they need to pay for their political campaigns, has decided he’d like to be a political person in his own right.

Perhaps he saw the ego boost his sister, Penny, got from being a government official in her own right (she was U.S. Commerce secretary during the Barack Obama presidency) and thought it would be fun.

OR MAYBE HE just doesn’t want to be outdone politically by his sister? Who’s to say what made J.B. decide he’d like to be a politico.

Can J.B. top his sister, Penny, politically?

It certainly isn’t the money. For the just under $180,000 salary Illinois provides to its governor would be mere pocket change for Pritzker – whose family has an immense fortune that originated from the Hyatt Hotels chain.

Then again, money isn’t what entices Rauner.

This is the guy who’s paying to run a re-election bid AND also to fund several candidates for the General Assembly so that he might have a majority that would actually support him.

Ives sets her political legacy

IT’S NOT WRONG to say that Rauner has practically become the Republican Party in Illinois. A thought that offends the sensibilities of many of those individuals to whom ideology and social issue stances is their motivation for politics.

For Rauner is now a guy who took a significant financial advantage against a primary election opponent who borders on being a right-wing nutcase and barely won his primary by the skin of his teeth.

Jeanne Ives of Wheaton will be remembered for her whacked out stances on issues ranging from abortion to guns to gays and how she nearly won. Which already has many electoral observers saying Rauner ought to be ashamed politically and perhaps ought to begin preparing himself now for the big move out of the Statehouse Scene.

Then again, Pritzker is the guy whose overwhelming victory on Tuesday was less than a majority. Challengers Daniel Biss and Chris Kennedy combined were a majority. Most people who voted in a Democratic primary (myself included) wanted somebody other than J.B. to take on Rauner.

RAUNER’S GREATEST ASSET politically is that sense of apathy – if it lasts, the Democratic challenger will lag behind, while also getting smacked about with all the politically partisan attacks Rauner can come up with.

DAIBER: Couldn't even beat Tio Hardiman

For he has many millions more to spend as this election cycle likely tops 2010 in California as the most expensive gubernatorial campaign ever.

One final thought; I wonder what’s going through Bob Daiber’s mind right now. He’s the one-time Madison County regional schools superintendent who tried being the lone downstate Illinois candidate for governor and thought rural Illinois would turn out for him.

Instead, his 1.2 percent of the vote put him behind Tio Hardiman’s 1.7 percent. Talk about accomplishing nothing!

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Next election cycles already begun, even though this one ain’t over yet!

As you read this Tuesday, votes are being gathered in the primary elections. We definitely don’t know yet who won.

We haven't even had the ...

And anybody who says they already know is either a liar, or a lucky guesser.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean there aren’t people out there already engaged in plans to run for office in a future election cycle. We’re not even through the current cycle yet, and the new ones are already underway.

 

... Rauner/Pritzker brawl yet, but ...

It’s no wonder we seem to be in a never-ending political mode – with somebody always trying to garner our support in the form of us making our symbolic mark on a ballot for them to hold office.

I couldn’t help but notice the message in my e-mail box Monday morning reminding me of the existence of William J. Kelly. He’s a conservative ideologue pundit who has dreams that the people will someday pick him to hold a political post.

He’s never more than a fringe candidate, but he doesn’t give up.

... William Kelly already has presumptuous photos of himself in the governor's office.

NOW, HE’S SAYING he’s running for governor. As in he wants to be on the Nov. 6 general election ballot as a political independent.

As Kelly says it, he played nice and stepped aside from running in the Republican primary proper so that state Sen. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, could have a one-on-one political brawl with Gov. Bruce Rauner.

She definitely has gained the support of the political ideologues, but whether it will be enough to win the primary is questionable. It’s likely that she has weakened Rauner as a candidate, who will manage to win Tuesday by the slimmest of margins.

Garry McCarthy has mayoral dreams, ...

But Kelly envisions that once Ives is defeated this week, he can step in as the conservative alternative to Rauner in the general election. Whether that will mean much of anything is uncertain. He could easily become the guy who takes 1 percent voter support in a Rauner/Pritzker brawl – or whichever other Democrat manages to win that primary election.

YET THAT’S NOT even the most forward-looking political fantasy to be offered up. News reports indicated that one-time Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy will say officially this week that he’ll be a candidate for Chicago mayor come the 2019 municipal election cycle.

It seems McCarthy is still peeved that Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants him to take the fall for the shooting death of a teenage boy by a Chicago police officer – one whose criminal charges for murder are still pending.

Emanuel is going to face some serious opposition from people offended by the police conduct who want Rahm himself to take the blame for the death of Laquan McDonald.

... as does Paul Vallas

Somehow, I think the kind of people who would most willingly support McCarthy are the people completely opposite – as in they want to believe that McDonald brought his fate upon himself.

THIS WILL BE a campaign issue, and McCarthy isn’t alone. Tech entrepreneur Neal Sales-Griffin has said he wants to replace Emanuel come the municipal elections to be held in February and April of 2019. While one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO and nationally-known educational consultant Paul Vallas supposedly also is contemplating a bid for mayor.

To the point where he already has moved from his long-time home in suburban Crestwood and moved with his wife, Sharon, to a residence in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Thereby establishing city residency so he could run for the mayoral post.

2020 and Trump arrogance will be here soon

We haven’t even begun the likely Rauner/Pritzker political brawl of this year, and yet there are those who already are looking forward to an Emanuel/Vallas/McCarthy fight for votes.

And if that isn’t bad enough, consider that it will be followed up in 2020 by what will be an unnaturally-bloody brawl for president, as Donald J. Trump goes all out to try to convince the history books that his 2016 election wasn’t the ultimate political fluke.

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Is it finally Danny Boy’s time to leave Congress, or will he gain another term?

Dan Lipinski has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years, and by all rights ought to have all the political benefits of incumbency when it comes to getting re-elected.

Does Dan Lipinski wish he could be ...

Yet the realities of partisan politics may have changed enough that Lipinski is now at risk of losing the Congressional seat he inherited when his father, William, retired following a political career that saw him rise from the ranks of a South Side alderman to a member of Congress.

OR MAYBE HE isn’t going to lose. That is the big unanswered questions on the Chicago political scene this election cycle.

Every cycle, Lipinski has to answer allegations that he’s too conservative to be a Chicago-area congressman, and in fact has so many ideological leanings to the right that he has no business identifying himself as a Democrat.

Not that it has worked in the past. There are many people who  have tried challenging Dan Lipinski since he gave up a university teaching position in Tennessee in 2004 to return to the Chicago area and replace his father on Capitol Hill.

None of them put up a serious challenge. To the point where I understand why Lipinski, the younger, would go into this election cycle feeling confident that he could beat off yet another “misguided liberal-type” of political dreamer.

BUT THIS ELECTION cycle is turning out to be the one in which a liberal-type might actually win the primary election to be held Tuesday. Which, of course, would result in a Nov. 6 general election victory, since even the Republican Party is openly appalled at the thought that they’re likely to nominate Art Jones, a white supremacist, to run for them.

So will Marie Newman, a small businesswoman, manage to elevate herself to Congress by the benefit of running at the right time? Or will Lipinski manage to gain himself yet another two-year term representing Chicago’s Southwest Side neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs?

... same old-school Dem as his father, Bill?

Is Lipinski, a Democrat with a significant voting record in line with Republican partisan interests, truly out of line with his constituents?

That is a question I have been pondering for several months now.

BECAUSE THE DISTRICT is one that is pretty much the remnants of the old South Side of Chicago – one that was ‘white ethnic’ in composition and one that most definitely didn’t think of itself as sympathetic to the interests of African-Americans.

A part of me jokes that the people who support Lipinski in Congress are the children and grand-children of the same Chicago residents who, back in 1968, cheered for the Chicago police officers who beat up the ‘hippie freaks’ who protested in Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention and who were offended when the resulting investigation classified the incident as a “police riot.”

As though the rest of the world was out of whack with their sense of morals. Just as I’m sure Lipinski-backers feel about Newman and her supporters.

Personally, I’ve always understood Lipinski’s Democratic Party identity is tied to his support for issues related to organized labor and unions. I have no doubt that someone like Gov. Bruce Rauner, with all his ideological rhetoric on such issues that he tries to bill as “reform” probably thinks of Lipinski as being just as much a part of the “problem” as Michael Madigan.

TO THE POINT where I don’t expect the hard-core Republicans think much of him just because on abortion or many other social issues, he sympathizes with their political party’s platform. There are those who have no problem thinking of Dan Lipinski as a Democrat. They're the ones who are the target for a Twitter campaign trying to portray Newman as anti-Catholic -- so Vote for Dan!

NEWMAN: Will she bring Ill. 3rd into 21st Century?

Newman is trying to inspire the people whose political leanings are influenced primarily by those very social issues to rise up and vote for her. Dump Dan Lipinski, is their battle cry. Many Democratic-leaning national organizations are offering up support to her.

But will it work. Is the motivation amongst many progressive-minded voters to dump anyone perceived as not openly hostile to Donald Trump capable of providing enough voter support to enable Newman to beat Lipinski?

Or is there still enough of the old spirit of the Sout’ Side remaining to send Dan back to Capitol Hill? We’ll know better come Tuesday night.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I happened to read through some of the old copy published at this weblog when I found this Feb. 3, 2008 commentary about Lipinski being challenged by Mark Pera (remember him, I don’t). It amazes me about how some realities of Chicago and its political scene haven’t changed one bit during the past decade.

Some school officials were too anxious to control student dissent at walkouts

I have a nephew who attends Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the suburbs, and he was among the participants in that school’s attempt to participate in the national walkout of high school students desiring more stringent gun laws.

Not all high schools were as photogenic in their activity as these on Walkout day. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Although to listen to his account of the school’s activity this week, it most definitely seems that some people have no clue of what a real “walkout” consists of.

SCHOOL DISTRICT OFFICIALS did not make an effort to stop students from voicing their concerns; all students were told they could partake in such events.

But students at the south suburban high school were given various sites both inside the school building and outside on school property where they could gather to express themselves.

“Express themselves” meant conducting 17-minute moments of silence to pay tribute to the high school students who died in the Parkland, Fla., high school incident that had occurred one month earlier.

But as my nephew explained it, students had been told that while they were excused from class to participate, they were expected to do so in a respectful manner.

SOMETHING ALONG THE lines of go outside, do your moment of silence, then get back to class. Students were informed that disrespectful behavior WOULD be grounds for detention.

Downers Grove detention won't look like this

For what it’s worth, the number of students who got punished by the school for their behavior Wednesday morning wasn’t any higher than it would have been on any given school day. The school pulled off the illusion of protest without having any of the ugliness of students feeling compelled to speak out.

There certainly wasn’t any of the kind of activity of students marching through the streets of their surrounding neighborhood, yelling and screaming and demanding that our government officials take their heads out of their behinds and quit acting as those individuals in our society paranoid enough to feel the need to own an AK-47 or some other high-powered semi-automatic rifle are somehow expressing their “American-ness” in such actions.

It definitely isn’t the most controlling behavior I have heard of from school officials this week.

THAT COULD POSSIBLY go to the administrators of Downers Grove North and South high schools. There, students were told that participation in such activity would be regarded as a disruption of school and would be punishable by an hour’s detention.

The Chicago Tribune reported that some 3,900 students went to class, but another 1,100 engaged in a walkout. Perhaps we should complain about all the paper wasted due to all the detention slips written up – except that in today’s day and age, the students probably got detention e-mails informing them of their punishment.

It would be a crowded detention hall, except that school officials say they’re splitting the students up and having them serve their “time” either before, of after, school. Or even on Saturday.

As though they’re creating a real-life version of “The Breakfast Club.” Only no Molly Ringwald-like cutie hanging around, in all likelihood.

I NOTICED THE Chicago Public Schools administration put some organization into the marches that their students made so as to express themselves.

To the point where Illinois Attorney General candidate Pat Quinn felt compelled to show up at such a march – the one done by students at Benito Juarez High School.

At Benito Juarez, was it about Quinn?

Quinn even made a point of issuing a statement calling for, “common-sense solutions to end gun violence” – and a plea for donations, “if you can.” Although I suspect his real intent is less to pocket a few bucks, but to try to sway some of the Benito Juarez parents into casting votes for his political comeback dreams come Tuesday.

Making the student expression of political views nothing more than a political campaign stunt – just the type of activity that ought to warrant students rising up in protest against someone trying to steal their political voice.

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Does Tio Hardiman think everybody should drop out of governor’s primary?

Now we’re moving into the segment of the primary election cycle in which everybody starts talking stupid.

KENNEDY: Wants Pritzker out

Perhaps it’s the fact that the nearly year-long time period during which they’ve been campaigning is making them feel touched in the head. They’re spewing silliness.

HOW ELSE TO explain Chris Kennedy’s rant Thursday that he thinks J.B. Pritzker, whom various polls have shown to be the front-runner, of sorts, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination should withdraw from the race.

To which Daniel Biss, the state senator from Evanston who’d like to think he can play politics with the big boys, says Kennedy has no business making such a demand. He thinks both Kennedy and Pritzker ought to step aside to allow him to have the gubernatorial nomination.

I found one anonymous commenter on the Internet who says that Pritzker missed the perfect chance to complete the circle by issuing a statement calling for Biss to back away.

Although my reaction is to wonder if Tio Hardiman, the gun control activist who has a primary interest in the level of urban violence we’re confronted with in society, thinks everybody ought to get out of the race so that he might have a chance to win.

HARDIMAN IS THE guy whom the same gubernatorial polls show with about 1 percent support. That is, on the occasions when they even bother acknowledging his existence on the political scene.

PRITZKER: Trying to stay above fray

I did think of making a joke about Robert Marshall being the candidate who wanted everybody else to clear a path to victory for himself. But even that thought was just a tad too ridiculous.

I suspect if Marshall were to become the Democratic nominee for governor, that would drive swarms of people over to an effort to create a third political party, something along the lines of the 1986 election cycle when Adlai Stevenson III had to run a third-party campaign to try to fulfill his gubernatorial dreams.

Because Marshall just ain’t a Democrat, no matter what papers he filed in order to run in the primary.

BISS: Wants Kennedy/Pritzker out

I TAKE SUCH a light-hearted view on this issue, because I don’t expect anybody would seriously consider dropping out of the race for the benefit of someone whom they’ve been bad-mouthing for several months now as being totally unfit to serve.

But the fact that anybody would spew such rhetoric in any way other than as a tacky joke meant to be heard only by their hard-core supporters means, to me, that the wear-and-tear of the election cycle is getting to them.

Not that I can’t sympathize. As a reporter-type person, I have covered the day-to-day grind of a political campaign. I’ve been watching this election cycle from a distance, but it is still tiring.

Personally, I can’t wait for Tuesday night to come and go, and the unofficial election results to become public. I’ll be grateful for a time when I don’t even have to contemplate Marshall’s existence, at least until his next token campaign for office in 2020.

HARDIMAN: Could he win if everybody dropped out?

AND FOR A time when two out of the three of Biss, Kennedy and Pritzker will become ancient history. I’m sure the candidates are awaiting a rest period once the primary cycle is complete.

So what should we think of Kennedy saying, “If (Pritzker) believed in public service and sacrifice, he would sacrifice his own political career in service to the Democratic Party of Illinois and, frankly, to the people of Illinois by dropping out of the race.”

Or Biss saying, “Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker are two sides of the same gold coin.”

If Kennedy and Pritzker are “gold coins,” does that make Biss a Lincoln-head penny of the sort that I have far too many of in my pants pocket’s spare change?

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Electoral gamesmanship: It’s not just a matter of voting for the best candidate

I once covered a mayoral election cycle in the suburbs where we didn’t learn until the day before Election Day that the challenger was definitely off the ballot and that the unpopular incumbent truly was running unopposed for re-election.

RAILA: Back on the ballot, for now!

I mention that because it’s still six days away from Election Day, meaning there’s still time for electoral antics to occur with regards to the election being held for Cook County Assessor.

THAT’S THE ONE where incumbent Joe Berrios, most definitely an old-school politico of the Cook County mold, is trying to retain his post. But we don’t know exactly who he faces for opposition in Tuesday’s primary election.

Two people filed nominating petitions to get on the Democratic ballot to challenge him, and the one who has managed to get himself some airtime and political advertising is Fritz Kaegi – who’s been portraying himself as an honest guy businessman who wants to undo the ways of the political hack Berrios.

If it were a one-on-one political campaign, he might very well get enough voter support from all the people who are determined to view Berrios as venal in order to win the primary; which amounts to winning the election, since the Cook County Republican slate of candidates is weak and not likely to put up much of a challenge come the Nov. 6 general election.

But then, there’s Andrea Raila. She’s a tax appeal consultant. She has her own firm. She’s billing herself as one of the few women seeking a significant government post.

BERRIOS: Does Raila boost his chances of victory?

WHICH MEANS FOR those people who think Kaegi is too much of a political amateur to hold a countywide office but don’t want to vote for Berrios, there’s an alternative choice.

Yet Raila has been fighting for the right to even have her name on the ballot. Kaegi supporters say her nominating petitions were flawed and she didn’t qualify to even be a selection. Last month, she was removed from the ballot by a Cook County judge, who admitted ballots already had been printed with her name on them.

Which resulted in the situation I, and other Early Voting Center users, faced last week – I was handed a slip of paper before picking a touch-screen to vote with; informing me that if I voted for Andrea, I’d be spoiling my ballot.

It wouldn’t count.

KAEGI: A nobody after March 21, or a victor?

THAT IS, UNTIL Wednesday. When an Illinois appellate court overruled the circuit court. She’s back on the ballot, and anybody who cast votes for her instead of Berrios or Kaegi will now know that their votes will count, after all.

That is, unless another layer of courts manages to issue a ruling overturning the appeals court. This could get rushed through to the Supreme Court of Illinois. We may not know until Election Day whether Raila is a legitimate option for the post of Cook County assessor.

A post that usually doesn’t get much attention, but got actor Dan Ackroyd to recall his Elwood Blues character and take pot-shots at Berrios (while also endorsing Chris Kennedy for governor) in an Internet-only campaign ad. Now, it’s the focus of political chaos.

For what it’s worth, Raila has had to focus so much of her attention and money to a legal fight just to get her name on the ballot, it’s not likely she could actually win the primary.

SOME ARE CONVINCED she is a political front, of sorts, to steal votes away from a Kaegi campaign – thereby bolstering the chances that Berrios wins re-election.

Could she have been a credible candidate – the first Democratic woman to run for the post since the office was created in 1932 (that’s her self-important claim)? Perhaps. She might have been worth considering for a vote, since I’m not impressed with the Kaegi credentials. A political amateur, is what I fear.

Which means I was in line with many other Democratic Party establishment-types who wound up casting my ballot for Berrios. More of the same.

It would have been intriguing to consider a candidate like Raila; who turns to the late pundit Studs Terkel in saying, “You should be prime minister of taxes.”

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