Did Obama surrender Ind. to Clinton?

When Hoosiers – that unique breed of individual that calls Indiana its home – cast their ballots on Tuesday, a majority of them likely are going to support the presidential candidacy of Democrat Hillary R. Clinton.

I know, I know. That’s a real “bold” observation, ranking up there with noting that the Chicago White Sox do not wear white socks with their uniforms.

BUT WATCHING CLINTON make a priority of campaigning throughout Indiana, while Obama at times appeared as though he’d rather be elsewhere, means it won't surprise me in the least when/if a majority of Hoosiers who vote in the Democratic primary choose Clinton over Obama.

What is important is for people who are looking for some sort of number or statistic to support (or dispel) the idea that Obama’s campaign is shriveling up, the fact that he lost in Indiana ought not be used to bolster their argument.

I lost count of the number of times Clinton appeared in Indiana in the past two weeks, including Lake County – the portion of the state that is an extension of the Chicago area.

Conventional wisdom three weeks ago had Clinton focusing her campaign activity on the rural parts of the state where she might be able to make Obama appear to be some sort of urban freak (not regarding the fact that she’s really not all that different in that aspect).

INSTEAD, SHE SPENT her time “eating off Obama’s plate,” so to speak, making her own appeals to the Hoosiers to whom Chicago is a daily reality, not some scary abstract concept. She made at least five trips to the region (there may be more, I literally lost count) that was considered to be the heart of Obama’s only chance to “win” Indiana.

Obama made two trips, although he had his wife, Michelle, make a Monday night campaign stop in Gary as her final bit of activity before she got a couple of hours of sleep prior to Election Day.

That could be why a poll taken by JEM Research for the Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper showed Clinton with a substantial 46 percent to 33 percent lead over Obama in Lake and Porter counties. Of the 19 percent that did not pick either, just over half said they truly were undecided, and not leaning to one candidate or the other.

Statewide, a Zogby International poll released Monday showed Obama with a very slight (statistically, it is a tie) lead over Clinton, 44 percent to 42 percent, with another 15 percent saying they wished there was another candidate on the ballot – and 33 percent of those people saying they were significantly turned off to Obama because of the activity of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

AS I SEE it, Clinton is going to take the portion of Indiana that ought to be Obama’s foothold, and take the state as a whole. Her percentage of the state’s 72 delegates, however, will be barely more than half. Indiana is not going to be the place that allows her to significantly close the gap in delegate counts – where Obama still leads due to that 12-state primary election and caucus victory streak he ran up a couple of months ago.

Some Obama backers in Indiana are trying to make something significant out of the fact that of the roughly 127,000 absentee ballots cast early across the state, about 20 percent come from three counties where Obama could have significant support – the aforementioned Lake County, Marion County which has Indianapolis, and Monroe County which has the college town of Bloomington.

That could be a lot of early votes cast for Obama that could come into play if ballots cast Tuesday turn out to an extremely close election.

It sounds impressive – one of every five votes coming from those three counties, until one takes into account that the three counties are among Indiana’s post populous – they account for about 1.5 million of the state’s 6.31 million population. When you provide about one of every four people in the state, a 20 percent total is not all that impressive.

OBAMA’S PROBLEM IN Indiana is understandable.

He has been getting hammered by the conservative partisans who are trying to play politics and stir up race-motivated allegations against him, in hopes of persuading a number of blue collar white voters to vote for anybody but Obama.

So his natural response is to focus attention on his hard-core supporters, to ensure that they do not suddenly defect. Keeping the hard-core Barack backers from deciding they could live with Hillary as president is a necessity.

That is why Obama’s attention in recent weeks has focused so much more on North Carolina, which also is having its primary election Tuesday. That state’s 134 electors make it an even larger prize than Indiana.

THERE, LIKE MANY other southern states, the bulk of the Democratic Party these days is the African-American vote, which has remained loyal to Obama at a time when some people want us to believe he sympathizes either with black racists or hippie terrorists.

It’s no surprise that the same Zogby International poll showing a tight race in Indiana has Obama with a nice lead over Clinton, 48 percent to 40 percent – with 13 percent more remaining undecided.

Obama probably wishes he could have spent Monday in North Carolina, rather than having to make a campaign appearance in Evansville to try to reduce the margin by which he will lose Tuesday in Indiana.

A victory in North Carolina along with a narrow loss to Clinton would be a good Tuesday night outcome for Obama. It would give him another check in the “win” column and keep Indiana from hurting him too much.

NOW I WILL be the first to admit my knowledge of Indiana politics is crude. It is nowhere near as in depth as my understanding of Illinois. There may be some inherent factor I am overlooking, although much of rural Indiana strikes me as remarkably similar to rural Illinois. And Indianapolis bears some resemblance to Peoria.

So I don’t think I’m totally off base in thinking that the “rest of Indiana” will overcome the urban portions where Obama might get some support. To me, a Clinton victory is an obvious conclusion.

But for those who have a problem with my attempt at analysis here, I think I deserve a bit of credit for not being as vapid as some of the pre-Election Day analysis being peddled on television Monday night.

The most trite comment I heard came from the mouth of Katie Couric, who opened the CBS Evening News Monday night by saying the Indiana election either would, “end the battle (for president), or keep it going once again.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I’m not alone in thinking the real Hoosier preference for president (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-indiana-economy_bdapr27,1,102766.story) is neither Clinton nor Obama. It is John McCain.

Has the New York Times’ “big picture” view of the world enabled them to see a trend in Indiana? Or, is the “gray lady” of 42nd Street just giving us the East Coast elitist view (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/us/politics/24indiana.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) of what Hoosiers think?

What do the British make (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-woos-conservative-indiana-in-latest-democrat-battleground-821611.html) of the Indiana campaign?

How important is this observation (http://www.imadeamesss.com/2008/05/indiana-and-obama-things-are-looking.html)? I can’t help but think a 20 percent figure from those three counties is not all that significant.

Most intense presidential TV ad seen by Chicagoans intended for Hoosiers

Chicago television stations lost out this year on the big bucks that usually come from high-level political campaigns that need to buy airtime to run partisan commercials to promote their campaigns.

Until Monday, that is.

BARACK OBAMA’S VICTORY in Illinois’ presidential primary was such an obvious conclusion in the Feb. 5 primary that he didn’t buy much airtime. Neither did Hillary R. Clinton. Outside of the Chicago area, television stations in places like Champaign, Springfield, Peoria and Carbondale noted they got no campaign ad money.

So it was a trip to see the Obama campaign flood the Chicago airwaves Monday with its new spot that bashes Clinton’s support for a temporary repeal of the federal gasoline tax (Obama, in the ad, calls it a, “short-term quick fix”).

But two things struck me as unusual about the ad.

First, it is autobiographical in nature. While Obama’s attack provides a snippet, most of the spot tells people about whom Obama is. It lets them know of the social work he did after graduating from Columbia University and moving to Chicago. It even works in the phrase “steel workers,” as in Obama worked to help out-of-work steel workers in their time of need when their jobs first disappeared.

BIOGRAPHICAL ADS USUALLY are the first thing a campaign airs. It had the feel of a spot that should have run a year ago, or at least three weeks ago when campaign activity in Indiana stepped up a notch in intensity. Running the ad the night before Election Day reeks of desperation, admitting that they had failed in letting Hoosiers know just who their candidate is.

The other thing is that it is an ad focused on the portion of the Chicago area that most people like to pretend isn’t really a part of the urban area.

Lake County, with a population of just under 500,000, is only about 6 percent of the Chicago area. Yet all of the nearly 9 million people who live in the Greater Chicago area got to see the Indiana-intended attack on Clinton.

We here in Chicago got to see more Obama-connected advertising for a campaign we can’t even vote in, than we did for the Election Day that was ours.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not the only campaign ad airing in the final hours of the Indiana presidential primary (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/obama-strikes-back-with-negative-ad/). It is, however, the most autobiographical. The others are more straight-forward (and traditional) attack ads.

Daley's the political prodigy who appears to be Chicago's version of 'everyman'

“Dumb Dumb” Daley.

I still remember when Richard M. Daley ran what turned out to be his first successful mayoral campaign, allies of opponent Tim Evans (then an alderman, now a judge) tried to tag the “son of ‘Hizzoner’,” with that label.

I CAN REMEMBER the phrase sticking for awhile. People in Chicago would say “Dumb Dumb,” and everybody knew who they were referring to. Yet that didn’t stop them from voting for Daley over Evans, or for continuing to pick Daley to be mayor of the Second City for the bulk of the past two decades

Richard M. inherited from his father, Richard J. (the man both beloved and despised by a certain generation of Chicagoans), the ability to come off as every man – providing an image that allows people to think he’s just like themselves, even though the Daleys have led lives in Chicago politics the bulk of us could never identify with.

Consider that Barack Obama is the guy who was raised by a single mother who struggled financially at times and had to work hard to gain the financial aid that allowed him to get a top-flight education, while Daley is a product of a political family that set the stage for him to someday run for office (Illinois Senate, then Cook County state’s attorney, before becoming mayor) and be a Chicago big shot.

Yet Obama is the guy who gets tagged with being an “elitist” who can’t identify with the common man, and Daley is seen as the guy who still lives in the neighborhood (he left Bridgeport years ago) and probably enjoyed playing slow-pitch softball while guzzling beer – just like everybody else.

THIS IMAGE WAS what came to my mind when I first learned of Daley’s latest gaffe, referring to self-important television talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as “Helen” when providing a taped introduction for her show.

Daley’s participation was due to the fact that DeGeneres is doing an episode of her show from Chicago, and the producers wanted to include Chicago’s preeminent resident.

Now I have read a couple of Internet rants that claim shame that Daley wouldn’t know the name of one of talk television’s top names these days. “Muttering, stuttering, illiterate” and “Mayor Knucklehead” are just a couple of the tags from people who are upset that Daley has more important things to do with his life than keep straight the name of the latest person who is important just from having been on television.

But Chicagoans, by and large, are not going to hold this against Richie. How many of us have managed to blow a name?

I’D ARGUE THAT “Helen” and “Ellen” may very well be a slip of the tongue, or a product of Daley’s “Chicagoese” – which itself is a product of the old Irish brogue mixed with Midwestern nasally twang, and exposure to the hundreds of other ethnic accents that have passed through Chicago in its more than 170 years of existence.

“Helen DeGeneres” is far from the most outrageous thing I have heard come from Daley’s mouth. I vote for, “I’m pro-death. Let’s get on with it,” to a question about capital punishment, although some people I know still remember the line, “If you had a rat in your sandwich, you’d want to know,” to a question about restaurant cleanliness.

It’s just a blunt-spoken way of talking that people think of as being honest – even at times when Daley is going out of his way to say as little as possible. For those people who like sports analogies, “Daley-speak” is similar to “Stengel-ese,” the comical, twisted, overly-convoluted way that former New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel used to express his thoughts about baseball.

It made him a character in baseball circles, and Daley has become a similar colorful personality in the world of electoral politics – which is ironic because Daley the personality can be so average that he’d be deadly dull if he didn’t mangle his syntax every now and then.

IT IS THIS image that enables Daley to escape the corrupt culture of Chicago politics.

So many times, there are political scandals that convince political observers that the mayor is on the verge of losing everything. I can still remember the debates from political people utterly confused about why the world of “Hired Truck” was not resulting in Daley’s defeat in the 2007 mayoral election.

These people couldn’t figure out why Daley was running so far ahead of his opposition, which was hardly putting up a fight at all.

It is that image of “everyman” that Daley can put forth with his gobbledygook and gaffes. Daley is one of those people who could only be brought down on Election Day if a federal indictment were to be issued against him.

IN FACT, DALEY might very well be the one Chicago politico who could win re-election even with an indictment against him.

A part of me wonders if it would take Daley literally being carted off to jail to break his power over City Hall, or if he would turn out to be like so many Mafioso who supposedly oversee organized crime from their jail cells.

If it turned out that Daley did covertly give orders from “the big house,” there’d be a segment of Chicagoans who wouldn’t be the least bit offended. They'd be the ones who would hold candlelight vigils for Daley.

If that sounds appalling to you, keep in mind that "the Chicago way" is the mentality that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has had to fight his way through as he oversees many investigations of municipal corruption in northern Illinois.

SO WHAT SHOULD we make of Mayor “Dumb Dumb?”

I honestly thought DeGeneres herself handled the situation the best, cracking wise that Daley should remember her as the woman named after the city’s mass-transit system – the “El” (for “Ellen,” get it?)

She also tried to get Daley to go along with her show schtick, as she wanted him to dance with her at the end of the show’s opening number.

Of course, Daley wouldn’t dance, which probably made him appear to be even more of “a real guy” to the thousands of Chicagoans who couldn’t dance the Funky Chicken (or even the Chicken Dance) to save their lives.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: How many thousands of Chicagoans are going to watch the “Helen” DeGeneres show on Tuesday (3 p.m. on WMAQ-TV, Ch. 5), just to see and hear (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2008/05/04/daley_clearly_not_a_big_ellen_fan/7276/) Richard M. Daley blow it again?

Some people (http://chicagoist.com/2008/05/04/uh_mayor_its_el.php) take verbal gaffes (http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/television/931157,CST-NWS-ellen04.article) way too seriously, as noted by the reader commentary to these two pieces of copy.

Ellen does Chicago (http://ellen.warnerbros.com/thisweek/) in style, taping her show from Michigan Avenue. Somehow, I’d be more impressed if she had sought out the real Chicago, rather than the touristy version. How about a taping from 91st Street and Commercial Avenue?

Stateville "fight" helps Will, hurts state

If it turns out to be true, politics got put ahead of public policy in the likely deal that would keep a maximum-security state prison – and roughly 400 jobs – in the Joliet area.

The Herald News of Joliet reported that state officials will announce a deal Monday that will keep the Stateville Correctional Center open in full, even though state officials earlier this year expressed interest in closing the oldest parts of the prison and shifting inmates to the newly-built maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill.

THAT PRISON HAS its own unique political story. It is new – built in the first few years of the 21st Century and intended to supplement the existing maximum-security prisons located across the state, including Stateville near Joliet.

But it has never opened, because state budgetary constraints prevent the Department of Corrections from having enough money in its budget to hire sufficient guards and other staff for the facility.

As a result, the state has a modern maximum-security prison sitting empty. Meanwhile, Stateville dates back eight decades – and has portions that are old and decrepit. The cost of bringing the facility up to modern corrections industry standards would be excessive. This model of the Stateville "penitentiary" is from the days when the facility near Joliet was a modern prison using the ultimate in technology. Now, it is old and nearing the end of its life as a corrections facility, even if some state officials don't seem to realize that fact. Note Joe Ragen, the long-time warden of Stateville who was known nationally for implementing prison reforms intended toward rehabilitation - rather than punishment - of inmates.

So the idea that the old maximum-security prison should be shuttered and replaced by the new prison is one that makes all too much sense. While the name “Stateville” has a historic connotation (among prisons, it is as legendary a name as “Alcatraz” or “Leavenworth”), this would be a case of a building reaching the end of its useful life.

OF COURSE, THAT logic is way too logical for many political people, who were determined to put their local concerns ahead of those of the state. While the Illinois Department of Corrections viewed the move as a transfer of jobs (the payroll would have remained the same), political people would only view the move as a loss of about 400 jobs for the Joliet-area, many of whom come from Crest Hill – the town that borders up against Joliet and is the actual mailing address of the prison.

“To suggest we could lose 400 jobs out of our area was not something I would want to see,” state Rep. Brent Hassert, R-Romeoville, told the Herald News newspaper.

Of course, the fact that the town of Thomson (population 559) and the nearby “big city” of Mount Carroll (population 1,832) would have gained a windfall of economic benefits from having the state facility located in their region of the state was considered irrelevant to the local politicos.

This is the reality of politics at the state or federal level, as opposed to the world of Chicago City Hall or any other municipal government.

COMPETING REGIONS OFTEN fight it out for the perks that will benefit the state or Midwestern U.S. as a whole. In the big picture, it doesn’t matter where a facility is located, since a region will receive benefits. Getting involved in the actual location of a facility is considered a parochial matter.

It almost compares to the fight that has taken place for nearly three decades now over where to put a new Chicago-area airport. The Federal Aviation Administration has always taken the perspective that Chicago needs a third airport, but doesn’t care where it is put.

The need for a new airport hasn’t lessened throughout the years, but political people who want to be able to control “the jobs” can’t reach agreement amongst themselves. So the aviation needs of the nation are put on hold.

It is the same situation for corrections, where the needs of the state prison system are now made to suffer a bit longer because the political people are more concerned about the site and the jobs.

I FULLY REALIZE that prison guard jobs are not the types that people would move to a new community for (particularly not one as isolated as Thomson). Will County would have taken something of a loss.

But in the big picture, keeping inmates in the aging roundhouses for which Stateville is known (the structures which at one time were considered an innovation in corrections practices are considered “historic” in nature) is ridiculous.

The structures have become old (on a couple of occasions when I was a reporter for United Press International, I got a chance to get a “very structured” tour of the prison by state officials), and portions are downright disgusting.

The time has come for a new maximum-security prison to go along with the Menard Correctional Center near the Southern Illinois town of Chester.

WHILE SOME PEOPLE will argue that one of the prisons should be near the Chicago area, the simple fact is that land acquisition costs are significantly less in the rural communities that have become the home of most of the state’s prisons.

So Thomson makes as much sense as any other northern Illinois location for a new high-security level prison for the state’s most dangerous inmates.

To me, it also is a bad idea to further delay the opening of the Thomson prison because no one was ever talking about completely shuttering Stateville. Only the oldest portions would have been closed, and the prison itself would have continued to house inmates.

THERE STILL WOULD have been some corrections department jobs for Crest Hill and the Greater Joliet area, which also has a lot of other things going for it. Joliet’s image should not be totally reliant on a prison being located nearby.

So come Monday, state legislators from Will County are expected to be joined by Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, to announce the political deal that will keep Stateville fully open for the upcoming state fiscal year.

Will County may have won a “short-term” economic victory (because the prison’s age means its demise is not long in the future). But the “better interests” of the Corrections Department, and the state as a whole, will have taken a hit.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Joliet could keep its status as Illinois’ preeminent prison town (http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/929008,JO02_STATEVILLE_WEB.article) once a deal to keep the Stateville Correctional Center is announced.

The 83-year-old state prison designed for 1,506 inmates currently houses 2,773 people who (http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/facilities/information.asp?instchoice=sta) are considered among the most dangerous in the Illinois prison system.

Will County officials took seriously the notion that inmates (and jobs for prison guards) would be moved (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/02/joliet-ill.html) to a prison located near the northwestern Illinois town.

For those of you who were curious, there are restrictions on the ability to get married (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_get_married_in_Stateville_Correctional_Center_in_Joliet_Illinois_if_the_person_is_in_reception) to an inmate at the Stateville Correctional Center.

Daley's support for immigrant rallies merely acknowledges Chicago history

On the one hand, I want to praise Mayor Richard M. Daley for the comments he made Thursday while speaking at the city’s rally on behalf of immigration.

“Hizzoner Junior” acknowledged that Chicago is a city that was built up by immigrants, and that its continued strength depends on newcomers to this country continuing to locate in the Second City, rather than in places like Houston, Los Angeles or Miami.

ON THE OTHER hand, the real story would be if Daley and other city officials did not publicly acknowledge the role of immigration to Chicago. It could very well be that Daley looks at simple arithmetic and sees that Chicago is a place where the Hispanic population is nearly as large as the white or black populations.

By the year 2020, it is expected to be just as large as either of those groups. The numbers demand that Daley not irk any segment of the population, particularly since he will want their votes come 2011 – when he likely will try to run for the term that potentially (if he wins and serves the entire term) would make him the longest-serving mayor ever in Chicago history.

So what was notable about Immigrant Rally III, Chicago-style?

A few thousand people marched from a West Side park to the public square outside the Dirksen and Kluczynski federal buildings. This year, because Chicago officials were fully aware that large numbers of people would participate, they were ready.

POLICE CLEARED A route for the marchers to follow, and Chicago Transit Authority bus routes were altered during the afternoon to prevent the possibility of a bus running over protesters (as much as that thought would likely please the nativist crowd).

The Chicago rally was one of dozens to take place in large cities with significant Hispanic populations. Likely, the one tidbit from Chicago that will warrant national attention was the participation of Saul Arellano, the U.S.-born boy whose mother, Elvira, was deported to Mexico last year after she sought sanctuary in a Humboldt Park neighborhood church for nearly a year.

Of course, he only gets a tidbit because all he really did was said “Si, Se Puede,” the slogan of United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez that roughly translates to “Yes, We Can” and is meant to be an “Up With People” type of saying to encourage people to do more with their lives.

In Chicago (and perhaps elsewhere in the country), activists who marched were determined to talk up the need for improved protections for the rights of Hispanic people, comparing them to other groups that often fight political battles for civil rights.

THAT IS A step forward for Latino activists, for as long as their fight consists of nothing more than marches, it becomes easy for political people to dismiss them. All too many people are going to cite the official crowd estimate of roughly 3,000 people who participated and compare it to the 300,000 or so who marched in 2006.

They will claim this is evidence that the Latinos themselves don’t really care about the issue. All it really means is that the marches themselves have the potential to become stale, and activists need to advance their fight if they wish to prevail.

Prevail they must, although I wonder at times why Latinos are still considered such an immigrant group in Chicago, considering that our origins here date back to the years just after World War I. We're not newcomers. Some of us (my family included) have been here three or four generations.

This is an important issue, as xenophobic elements of our society who have problems with the fact that the U.S. Hispanic population is growing (and is also moving to places besides California and Texas, such as in the southeast and northwest where Latinos previously never lived) are putting their own pressure on political people to impose laws they believe will somehow “force all those foreigners” out of the country.

THE REALITY IS that the Latino population is too large to ever be eliminated, but many people can suffer in the interim if these elements of society are allowed too loud a voice in public discourse.

So for those of you Chicagoans whose usual daily routine might have been disrupted (the crowd at the federal building kept you from walking your typical route through “the Loop” or your bus had to take a detour), relax.

The “delays” were for a good cause. Besides, the typical Chicago resident is of some ethnic background that makes it likely their parents or grandparents would have been the brunt of the same ridiculous criticism a generation or two ago.

Besides, the protesters gave so much advance notice (these marches have been in the works for months), that if you didn’t have enough sense to figure out an alternate route in advance, you deserve to be a little late for work.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Even the Rev. Jesse Jackson got into the act at Thursday’s immigration (http://cbs2chicago.com/local/immigration.rights.rally.2.713078.html) march and rally in Chicago.

Chicago wasn’t alone in holding such rallies. Both New York and Los Angeles (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/02rally.html) held similar events. Heck, even Milwaukee Latinos staged a march.

A blast from the not-so-long-ago past, when Latino activists got hundreds of thousands of Hispanics and other immigrants to march through the streets of urban America (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12578901/), forcing Anglo-America to realize that Latinos are a significant part of this country’s composition.

What a wimpy response!

Perhaps it was the ghost of Lee Elia lingering in a corner of the manager’s office at Wrigley Field, but someone clamped their hand over the mouth of Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

The Elia diatribe (which White Sox fans love to quote, particularly the part about 85 percent of the world working for a living, and the rest being Cubs fans) has become the standard by which all baseball managers are judged when they lose their tempers.

PINIELLA HAD THE potential to top it when he was asked following a particularly pathetic Cubs loss to the Milwaukee Brewers whether he had considered replacing star hitter (but lame defensive player) Alfonso Soriano in left field.

“You’re damn right I thought about it,” Piniella snapped. “You think I’m stupid or something?”

But then, he silenced himself, although the look in his eyes gave the impression of someone who had many dozens more words to say.

Which is too bad, because if ever there was a baseball personage with the potential to top Elia’s obscenity-laced schpiel of 26 years ago (it repeatedly implied that in addition to being unemployed, Cubs fans are the types of people who perform certain sex acts often featured in pornographic films), it is Piniella.

PINIELLA THE BALLPLAYER was actually a favorite of mine when I was a kid who actually enjoyed the on-field antics of the 1970s-era New York Yankees (particularly the play of former White Sox players Rich Gossage and Bucky Dent). It’s hard to say how many baseball dugout water coolers got bashed beyond repair because Piniella took out his on-field frustration on someone else’s drink of water.

That same attitude was maintained during his managerial stints in New York, Cincinnati, Seattle and Tampa Bay. Although the one time I covered him as a reporter (the first round of the 2000 American League playoffs, when the White Sox got stomped by Piniella's Mariners), he was mellow and in good cheer. I guess winning does that to you.

I always wondered just how Piniella would cope with the notion of being affiliated with the Chicago Cubs. The organization’s losing ways were bound to make him crack, and are bound to put a blot on his baseball career – similar to how Dusty Baker may have won a division title in his first year as a Cubs manager, but finished his four-year stint in Chicago with a losing record.

Despite his attempt at manners on Thursday, I wonder when the memorable outburst will come. There’s no way “Sweet Lou” is going to be able to “stifle” himself forever.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Another Cubs loss nearly provoked a Lou Piniella outburst (http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=406953)

I'll believe it when I see it when...

… Illinois state government approves some plan to overhaul Wrigley Field without involving state tax dollars, and

… the Illinois General Assembly actually manages to put a state constitution amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot that provides for recall elections.

NOW I HAVE written before about the substance of the two issues, and my basic stance has not changed. I think recall elections are for sore losers who want to un-do the results of the majority, and I think the majority should have to live with its Election Day mistakes.

Meanwhile, in today’s day and age, governments are involved in the development of stadiums used by professional sports teams, often with leases that are meant to allow the ball clubs to financially rip off the government.

So to argue against some sort of state involvement in the future renovation of Wrigley Field on the grounds that government should have no role, well, that’s cute, but shut up. Nobody cares.

You might as well be arguing that all the riverboat casinos in Illinois should be shut down because gambling is immoral.

WE HERE IN Illinois had our officials make a decision years ago when they built a new Chicago South Side stadium for the White Sox, then provided some assistance for the Chicago Bears to renovate Soldier Field and for the Chicago Black Hawks and Bulls to get their own West Side arena.

Is this a 1929 panoramic view of the future Chicago Cubs State Park, sponsored by ComEd (or some other garish corporate entity)? Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

To claim now that there is something repulsive about the Chicago Cubs “getting some” from the state is absurd. It is going to happen. It is just a matter of what form the aid will take.

That is where I get skeptical.

Former Gov. James R. Thompson, who now chairs the government agency that oversees U.S. Cellular Field for the White Sox, says he has figured out a way that no state or local tax dollars would be put into a state purchase of Wrigley Field, with the state then being responsible for providing the significant reconstruction needed on the 94-year-old building to ensure that it can continue to be a viable sports stadium for several more decades.

THOMPSON WOULDN’T TELL the Chicago Tribune what this magical way of government finance without use of government money actually consists of. Chicago Cubs officials also claim to have not heard anything specific about how this transaction will occur.

I suspect that in the end, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority will come up with funding for the purchase and renovation in ways that some government observers of a curmudgeonly nature would believe is state and/or local money.

It is going to be a matter of how strictly one wants to define what constitutes tax dollars, similar to how when former President Bill Clinton famously said, “I did not have sex with that woman,” the truth of that statement depends on how one defines “sex” compared to what he did with intern Monica Lewinsky.

The newspaper, in its reports, hinted that the purchase of the ballpark (which would enrich the Tribune Co. owners of the team who want to sell after 28-years-and-counting of running a team that hasn’t won a thing) could come from money raised by selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field.

BASICALLY, NEW TRIBUNE Co. (run by Sam Zell, as compared to the old Tribune Co. geeks who sold out their interest in the “information and entertainment conglomerate”) would be allowed to pocket the money derived from offending Cubs fans by giving the building at Clark and Addison streets some sort of corporate name.

But renovations of the building along the line of what the New York Yankees did with Yankee Stadium in the mid-1970s or what the Bears did to Soldier Field in 2002 would be pricey – as much as $400 million, some officials estimate.

If the Cubs’ personality and potential profitability weren’t so tied into the cutesy image of their building, they would be better off financially going for a new stadium somewhere else. But the mentality of Chicago political people keeps the sports teams at their current locations – the White Sox will always be on 35th Street, while the Bulls and Black Hawks are on Madison Street. And the Bears have become the team of the lakefront.

So the Cubs can’t seriously think of having a stadium built for them somewhere else without upsetting the politicos. But those same politicos really don’t want to pay for the expensive overhaul of the one-time Weeghman Park.

THE BOTTOM LINE is that those two thoughts are contradictory. One of them will have to give. My guess is that it will be the ban on government funds being involved in the project, which wouldn’t bother me so much if only the state were willing to take a hard line and demand a significant rent payment from the Cubs to play in a stadium maintained at state expense, which would boost the Cubs profitability in and of itself.

But political officials enjoy being able to go to sports events and pretend they are big-shots while they sit in the crowd wearing too-tight caps with their business suits. So they won’t take a hard line.

Another thing they won’t do is actually get a constitutional amendment on the upcoming general election ballot for recall elections.

The Illinois Senate is considering a vote to approve something related to a recall when they meet Thursday. If they actually take the vote and give enough support to approve it, the measure would then have to return to the Illinois House of Representatives, which previously voted on its own recall election measure.

THIS IS A case of everybody in the Legislature wanting to pander to the people who think recalls are a “nifty” idea. Each legislator wants to be able to point to some bill that has him or her voting in favor of the idea.

But since the two chambers never actually agreed on the same identical bill (they agreed on two different bills that were virtually identical – not the same thing), they have not voted to approve anything that can be put on the Nov. 4 election ballots.

By law, any potential amendment to the Illinois Constitution must be approved by the Legislature at least six full months before the Election Day for which it is intended. That means Sunday is the deadline if anything is to happen in 2008.

Recall elections have become the equivalent of pay raises for legislators. Everybody in the General Assembly postures that they are against giving themselves more money at a time when the state is in tight financial times.

BUT SOMEHOW, THEY always manage to fail to agree on a single bill that would reject the pay raises, which means the raises take effect automatically.

The fact that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, hinted at having the House in session during the weekend just means he wants to put on the appearance of trying, really, really trying, to get something done.

Which means the Blagojevich-bashers of the Illinois political world (who are the people really pushing all this recall nonsense this year) likely will have to find another way to harass our goofy guv with the overblown hair.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: No government money for revamping Wrigley Field? (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed-wrigley-field-cubs-apr30,0,5382365.story) Prove it!

The Illinois House could have to endure “capital punishment” (defined in politico-speak as having to spend a weekend in the capital city of Springfield) to put on a show (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/04/madigan-says-ho.html) that they want to place a constitutional amendment on recall elections on this year’s ballot.