With Claypool out, will Preckwinkle follow Obama path to challenge Stroger?

On the one hand, it was a good day for Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.

One of the guys whom many political pundits would have figured to be a significant challenger to the son of John Stroger (which, in all honestly, is how most people will always perceive Todd) made it known publicly Thursday that he’s not even going to run in the Democratic primary next year.

IN FACT, THE Chicago Tribune reported that Forrest Claypool, a county commissioner who once was Mayor Richard M. Daley’s chiefs of staff, may not run for any office in 2010.

Claypool was the guy who back in 2006 challenged John Stroger, but wound up getting defeated by Todd when the elder Stroger became too ill to complete his term – let alone run for continued political office.

Many of the people who now make up Stroger’s political opposition are those who seriously wanted Claypool to win three years ago, and would have loved for a Stroger/Claypool rematch to try to rewrite political history of 2006.

Coming just a few days after one-time Chicago Schools chief Paul Vallas made it known that he’s not coming back to Cook County to seek the presidency as a Republican, it would appear on one level that Stroger’s potential challengers are refusing to want to get involved.

IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE, since a fight against Stroger will be brutal.

Racial overtones will become entangled, and Stroger will drag out claims among African-American voters that this amounts to nothing more than a white guy trying to depose a black elected official (particularly since Stroger could wind up being the most prominent black pol on the Democratic ballot in next year’s elections).

Claypool may not have wanted to get involved in such a racial mish-mash. There’s also that past tie to Daley, which while it shouldn’t be reason for opposition will be used against him if he ever decides to run for political office.

Basically, Daley critics who don’t have the political strength to dump on Hizzoner himself will take it out on his former staffer.

IT IS BECAUSE of this that I think the real news Thursday of the Cook County Board presidency campaign thus far came in another statement – one that on the surface seems like self-righteous political propaganda.

Toni Preckwinkle put out a statement letting the world know that her campaign now has its own website.

Basically, it means that as of now, we have to include Preckwinkle among the list of political people who are named whenever anyone speculates about who will have the nerve to challenge Stroger.

For those not in the know, Preckwinkle is that lowest of political creatures. She’s an alderman on the Chicago City Council – that government body that has created so many future federal prison inmates.

NOT TO IMPLY that I have knowledge of Preckwinkle doing anything illegal. In fact, her reputation is fairly clean.

She is the alderman from the Hyde Park neighborhood – that overly academic area that produced our president.

Do we really want Barack Obama’s alderman being put in charge of the Cook County Board?

The reason I bring up Obama’s name in conjunction with Preckwinkle is that her statement on Thursday read so much like she’s trying to capture the same aura that Obama himself used to motivate the youth of America to give his presidential candidacy a base.

SHE GOES SO far to tell us that the lesson of the Obama campaign is that online organizing is key, and she plans to engage in plenty of it.

“Technology is not only an important organizing tool, but it also enables great transparency in government, a major component of my administration as Cook County Board president,” Preckwinkle said, in a prepared statement.

Preckwinkle is an African-American woman, but with the kind of resume that could also appeal to white voters (or those who want to claim they’d rather not get involved in racial identity politics).

She’s got that similar University of Chicago background that appealed to a portion of Chicagoans, while also being able to take away from Stroger what could become the most significant reason he tries to give to the African-American population on the South and West Sides to vote for him for another term.

NOW I’M NOT sure whether Preckwinkle has the strength to run for an elective office that takes her outside of her home neighborhood and the 4th Ward (just like there are those who are convinced that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is lucky he has never had to appeal for votes to people who live outside his 13th Ward on the Southwest Side).

But with the Claypools and Vallases of the Chicago political world deciding they’d rather not take the time to run against Todd Stroger, it clears the path just a little bit more for someone like Preckwinkle.

So will this go down as the day that Claypool dropped out, or the day that Preckwinkle stepped it up? We’ll have to wait and see.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Toni Preckwinkle claims her website (at http://www.tonipreckwinkle.com/) will offer more of substance in coming months, while Forest Claypool (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/06/claypool-wont-challenge-stroger-for-county-board-president.html) left his supporters strugging to find a new Stroger challenger to support.

Sosa no longer outrages me like he used to when way too many adored him

I can remember the day not so long ago when Sammy Sosa was the face of the Chicago Cubs and the image of the prevalence of the Latino ballplayer in the U.S. major leagues.

He was the home run hitting slugger with a childlike sense of humor, although there were times when Sosa’s schtick came across as being too much like a real-life Chico Escuela.

IN FACT, ABOUT the only people who didn’t think of Sluggin’ Sammy as a baseball golden boy were written off as hopeless cranks whose real reason for not appreciating all that was good about Sosa was the fact that they spent their spare time rooting for the Chicago White Sox.

Petty jealousy, Cubs fans would claim.

But now that the suspicions of some baseball fans have been confirmed with circumstantial evidence published by the New York Times that Sosa failed a drug test for steroids back in 2003, does this mean that White Sox fans are the only people on Planet Earth with their minds grounded in reality?

And what does it say that the only person wanting to be seen in public with Sosa these days is Jose Canseco, the former baseball slugger who admits his steroid use and claims baseball officials are harming his income by refusing to employ him. He wants Sosa to support a lawsuit he is considering filing against Major League Baseball.

ACTUALLY, LET’S GET one thing straight. Sosa passed the test. Failing would mean that no traces of banned substances were found in his system.

So now that people who are quick to dismiss Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmiero will eagerly add Sosa’s name to the list, what should we really think?

For the fact is that back in a certain era of just under a decade ago, Sosa was the face of Chicago athletics. And he also was the modern-age Latino ballplayer personified.

To drop from such exalted status to that of a non-person in a matter of six years is truly unique.

WHAT MAKES SOSA unique is that his rise to sports stardom was so shocking – he had been a journeyman ballplayer for nine years in the major leagues before doing anything that even came close to hinting at stardom.

Both the Texas Rangers and White Sox had given up on him, with the White Sox deciding that his stubbornness to work the kinks out of his swing at bat would prevent him from ever becoming a truly great hitter.

I know many Cubs fans want to believe that White Sox fans somehow wish their team had never given up on Sammy, and somehow were jealous. It just isn’t so.

It’s because we remember how awful a ballplayer he was during his early 1990s stint with the White Sox, and because we always suspected that the only reason he hung on with the Cubs for so long before finally hitting all those home runs was because the Cubs had such awful teams.

THEY COULD AFFORD to keep a baseball-playing hack like the pre-home run hitting Sosa on their roster for so long.

My point is that my years of nitpicking Sosa (who hit for such awful batting average and struck out so often when he wasn’t hitting home runs, and also was a mediocre-to-terrible defensive player) came years ago.

To me, I don’t see what is to be gained by ganging up on Sosa these days.

My initial reaction to hearing from my brother, Chris, about the reports that Sosa how had something resembling a positive steroids test was to shrug my shoulders and say, “meh.”

DO I THINK this amounts to some evidence that the whole concept of the Chicago Cubs as a superior baseball franchise back in the late 1990s (the days when the Cubs would draw about 2.9 million per year and the White Sox bottomed out at about 1.2 million) is a fraud? Probably.

But the Chicago baseball fan in me doesn’t really care about coming up with more evidence of the Cubs’ natural inferiority. Perhaps that is the after effect of rooting for a team that actually wins a World Series in my lifetime.

If anything, it is the part of me that takes an interest in Latin American ballplayers that wonders what will become of the Sosa legacy.

For the fact is that from 1998 to 2003, Sosa the ballplayer was, for lack of a better word, Ruthian. It was in that era that he became the only ballplayer to hit 60 or more home runs in a single season three times, and hit nearly half of the home runs that he accumulated during a 17-season career.

IT WAS THAT inhuman era that made Sosa a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame, where currently there are only 11 members who were born in Latin American countries.

Now that we have to look skeptically (and the fact that some Hall of Fame voters are refusing to back Sosa rival Mark McGwire makes it very likely they will dump on Sosa as well), does this mean a little less recognition for the Latino ballplayer?

Perhaps we should have suspected something was wrong just by looking at Sosa’s achievements. Despite being the only player to hit 60 or more home runs three times, it should be noted that in none of those three seasons did he ever lead the National League in home runs.

Nor has he ever been the Major League home run leader for a single season or a career.

SLAMMIN’ SAMMY WAS an inhuman home run machine (when he wasn’t striking out) who always had someone else (McGwire or Bonds) hitting just a little bit better.

So the part of me that follows the White Sox can smirk a bit at Sosa’s predicament (who now is seriously going to argue against Frank Thomas as the best Chicago baseball player of the 1990s?), while the baseball fan in me is already spent with Sosa criticism.

And the Latino in me wonders how many Latino kids were inspired by Sosa’s image, only to have it crushed these days with these latest reports?

Perhaps as much as seeing my favorite ballplayer as a kid, New York Yankees outfielder Lou Piniella, now wearing that ridiculous Cubby blue on a daily basis.

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Chicago on display for sporting world

I have read reports indicating that Chicago is the favorite to get the bid to host the summer Olympic Games come the year 2016, and I have read others indicating that the Second City is fourth (dead last).

I have read reports indicating that the presence of Barack Obama as president ensures that the games will come to Chicago, and that he literally will get to walk from his Hyde Park home to the Olympic Stadium to be built just a few blocks away.

I HAVE ALSO read other reports indicating that such talk is absurd.

But all of that has been little more than cheap talk. The only rhetoric that truly matters is the talk taking place this week in Switzerland, when officials with Chicago and the three other cities that want to host the Olympics to be held seven years from now will get their only chance to talk to the entire International Olympic Committee.

For Chicago, city officials plan to throw out the same pitch that is given to tourists – all those attractions within walking distance of the downtown hotels, or close enough to mass transit that one can get by in the city without an automobile.

But will getting to see videos touting the wonders of the Bundy Fountain (a.k.a. Buckingham Fountain) truly woo the worldly crowd that comprises the IOC? I don’t know.

ALL I KNOW is that being able to host the games is the kind of event that so-called world-class cities are supposed to be capable of doing so. Hosting an Olympics would be among the historic events that leave their mark on the city’s history (just like the World’s Fairs that came to this city in 1893 and 1934).

I’m not nominating the ’16 Olympics for a fifth star on the Chicago flag (two of the existing four stars commemorate those World’s Fairs). But I can’t help but think that bringing the games to this city could be one of those events that would give us all some stories to tell in the mid-21st Century about what it was like to live in Chicago back when …

What 8-year-old athletic prodigy will wind up having his (or her, for that matter) name forevermore associated with Chicago by performing incredible athletic record-setting events in our fair city.

I also happen to believe these Olympics could wind up inspiring city officials to make some of those long-overdue municipal infrastructure repairs that could provide us Chicagoans with better mass transit and other benefits for years to come.

YEAH, IT WOULD be ideal if city officials would make these improvements for us without the motivation of an Olympic Games. But I’ll take the improvements any way we can get them.

Part of me also is a bit star-struck. It just strikes me as ridiculous that a large-scale city like Chicago cannot handle an event like the Olympics. Too many of the people who are quick to badmouth the concept strike me as being the types who ought to be living in Towanda, Ill.

Not that I’m bad-mouthing Towanda. It’s a cute rural town where the “big city” is nearby in Bloomington.

But I always thought that those of us who choose to live our lives here in Chicago (or those of us who are born here and choose not to relocate) do so because we like the grand scale of the Second City.

NOW AS I understand it, one of the drawbacks to the Chicago bid is that the U.S. government won’t offer up a guarantee that it will pay for any financial shortfalls that occur from the actual staging of the games.

City officials are hoping that a $1.2 billion fund put together from city, state and insurance guarantees is good enough in the minds of the IOC.

I actually think that not having the federal treasury being involved ought to be a plus, particularly when it comes to swaying those people who for whatever reason don’t like the thought of public funding being used for athletic events.

So what is the true significance of this week? It will be Chicago’s last chance to make its strengths known to the world (and I honestly believe Chicago is capable of being matched up to any other city on Planet Earth), since the International Olympic Committee doesn’t plan to listen to too much more public rhetoric.

THERE DEFINITELY WON’T be any more delegations coming to Chicago to check us out.

After this week, it will be a matter of waiting patiently while the committee ponders in a back room – making its final decision public on Oct. 2.

It sounds so much like the ways of Chicago politics of old.

It strikes me as the perfect reason why our city ought to get the games. If there’s anyone who can appreciate the intrigue of the Regular Democratic Organization (a.k.a., the Machine), it’s the IOC.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Could U.S. Cellular Field and Wrigley Field become the venues that see (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2009-06-14-olympic-bids_N.htm) the return of baseball and softball to the summer Olympics?

The Chinese propaganda machine is making it known that Chicago is “well prepared” to host (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/15/content_11547424.htm) the Olympics in 2016. Chicago’s propaganda machine is (http://www.chicago2016.org/) spreading the same message.

Peraica "gets" it!

It was totally in character for the Cook County Board on Tuesday to pass a resolution praising the memory of the recently-deceased blues singer Koko Taylor.

It also was not at all surprising to see the main sponsor of the resolution was county Commissioner Jerry Butler. Considering that "the Iceman" has his own stellar reputation as an r&b singer, he would be the appropriate choice to pay tribute to Taylor.

BUT WHODATHUNK IT that the most vocal blues backer on the county board would turn out to be Anthony Peraica?

The county commissioner from west suburban Riverside spoke out in saying he doesn't think Chicago and Cook County do enough to celebrate the blues resources that reside here.

"They are more celebrated on other continents than they are appreciated in our midst," Peraica said of blues artists such as Taylor, who has a generation of North Shore types who think of one of the great female blues singers of all time as their maid.

"These are international ambassadors of Chicago, not just part of our local scene," Peraica said. For what it's worth, Butler's resolution cites Taylor's eight Grammy Award nominations, her 25 W.C. Handy awards, and her appearance in that otherwise dreadful film "Blues Brothers 2000."

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CHICAGO CLICHES: Gangsters, deep-dish pizza & Ozzie dumps all over Wrigley

What would Ozzie Guillen have thought of the West Side Grounds -- the ball park the Cubs dumped because Wrigley Field was a step up? Photograph provided by the Library of Congress collection.

It is becoming ever so predictable. Every summer when the Chicago White Sox make their annual trip to the “alien” land otherwise known as the Lake View neighborhood, reporter-types will make a point of doing stories about how much White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen despises Wrigley Field.

It is getting to the point where Ozzie trashing the Chicago Cubs’ stadium is as much a Chicago cliché as the notion that all Second City residents spend their time eating deep-dish pizza while dodging bullets from mob guys.

SURE ENOUGH, IT happened again this year. On the eve of the White Sox taking a bus ride north to Lake View (I refuse to call it “Wrigleyville,” and most long-time residents of the neighborhood whom I have met feel the same way), we got stories from every news outlet.

This year, Ozzie says that Wrigley Field makes him ill. Or, as he so “eloquently” put it, “I puke every time I go there.”

In reading this year’s version of the “Ozzie disses Wrigley” stories, it comes off that Guillen won’t pick on Cubs players or manager Lou Piniella. He even manages to give some praise to those misguided Chicagoans who spend their time rooting for a ball club that hasn’t won a National League championship in 64 years (or a World Series title in 101).

It’s the building.

OF COURSE, WHEN one considers that so much of the Chicago Cubs’ aura and mystique is built around the fact that the building the team plays its games in is old and antiquated.

They bill the concept of playing ball games in a building that is lacking in so many of the amenities that most fans have come to expect when going to professional sports events as being a historic experience – watching a game under the same conditions that your great-grandfather watched a game.

In fact, if you’re not careful, that stain you’re stepping in could be the remnants of where your grandfather spit his tobacco chaw so many decades ago.

So there are people who consider themselves Cubs fans whose whole point in backing that ball club is the building. To them, speaking out against Wrigley Field is sacrilege. So such stories will help stoke some anger.

WHAT OTHER TEAM has fans who make a point of wearing special jerseys that tout the stadium, rather than the team? I’ve never seen anyone wear a “Yankee Stadium” jersey – even though the building in the Bronx that finally turned to rubble after 2008 saw more sports and cultural history than Wrigley Field could ever dream of.

So if it reads like I think the “Ozzie hates Wrigley” stories are getting overbearing, you would be comprehending me correctly. We know he doesn’t like the building that much. It’s not really news anymore.

Quite frankly, anyone who’s willing to be honest about the conditions at Wrigley Field would have to admit that Ozzie is merely stating the truth.

I agree with Ozzie in large part because of the occasions during my two decades as a reporter-type in and around Chicago that I got into Wrigley Field. I was never a full-time sportswriter, but I have had occasional assignments that got me temporary credentials that allowed me to be in places (such as the team clubhouses, dugouts and playing field) that some Cubs fans would consider to be a fantasy-come-true.

OF COURSE, MY memory of walking from the Cubs clubhouse to the dugout was not seeing a step and taking a tumble onto the decades-old concrete in the tunnel that connects the two. I have to wonder how many Cubs players throughout the decades injured themselves from making that same tumble?

And I can also remember interviewing ballplayers in a “media room” that was little more than a one-time storage room barely bigger than a walk-in closet. The ballplayer in question has his back up against the wall literally (he’s stuck in the corner) with television cameras stuck just a couple of feet away from his face.

Behind those cameras are the reporter-types, all jammed into a room with pipes popping out of the ceiling and walls at all odd points.

Compared to other sports stadiums, these are downright primitive. Many minor league teams in cities that have spent the money to build new stadiums in recent years have nicer facilities than the Chicago Cubs.

NOT THAT I blame the Cubs for any of this. I can see how they’re taking a building that was designed in 1914 to be little more than a grandstand with seats for about 14,000 people and trying to squeeze in many of the amenities now expected in sports stadiums within a limited amount of space.

The same small confines of one square city block that make the stands so intimate and close to the playing field also leave little room for facilities for the people who actually work in the building.

In past years, Ozzie has ragged on Wrigley for having rats. I never saw any there. But I would be surprised if a building open to the public for more than nine decades did not have some vermin roaming around.

So is Wrigley less than pristine? Yes.

IS IT GETTING old to have Ozzie Guillen dump on Wrigley Field every year? Double yes.

Is the bottom line that most sports fans this week are going to be more interested in the action on the playing field, rather than the decrepit conditions of the building as a whole? Most likely!

And insofar as this week is concerned, I fully expect the White Sox to blow two ballgames to the Cubs. The built our hopes up a couple of weeks ago during that 10-3 stretch, but have lost so many games since then that the whole thing sort of balances out as a ball club built to fall short.

I don’t even think that Chicago Cubs’ style ineptness can give the Sox this series.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't plan to work my way out to Wrigley Field this week for the latest matchup (http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090615&content_id=5340198&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb) of Sox vs. Cubs. But many thousands of Chicagoans will this week.

Patriot, or trash-picker?

It has been a week since I first learned of the activities of Jeff Olsen, and I have to confess that I still don’t know what to make of him.

Olsen is employed by Waste Management, and the old-school term for his job is “garbage collector.” He’s on the crews that work around the Elgin area, going from house to house to pick up the trash cans and haul the waste away.

BUT WHAT GOT Olsen some public recognition last week, and has led to follow-up stories in recent days, is the fact that Olsen makes a point of going through peoples’ trash cans, and takes his action if he finds anything resembling a U.S. flag.

It could be one of those little 3-by-5-inch flags on a stick that one waves with their thumb or index finger, or a full-fledged flag that once was rung up a flag pole as part of a patriotic display.

Olsen told the Chicago Tribune that he has managed to find about 250 flags by going through peoples’ trash. In some cases, he tries to repair them. In other cases, he takes it upon himself to give them a more dignified disposal than being dumped in a Glad bag along with someone’s pizza box and rotted tomatoes that didn’t get eaten in time.

In theory, I don’t really care what Olsen or anyone who gets worked up over his “cause” does. After all, these are items that were disposed of by their owners. So it certainly is not theft.

BUT IT BUGS me to think that someone has the potential to rifle through the trash of someone else, and start making judgments about what those people chose to dispose of.

Now I know some people are going to read this and start giving me a rant about patriotism and proper respect for the symbol that is a U.S. flag. Others may get overly anal retentive and start quoting precise portions of the U.S. Code that relate to proper display and disposal of a U.S. flag.

I suppose I can’t stop you from sending me your messages, but be forewarned that I have read the code. You won’t be informing me of anything I haven’t already seen.

And what I have seen has been vague to the point where I don’t know what constitutes proper disposal of a U.S. flag.

I KNOW SOME people swear by giving their tattered old flags to a local veterans’ organization. Those groups are good about collecting such flags, then periodically holding rituals in which they pay tribute to the nation – before disposing of the raggedly old flags into a pyre.

In short, they burn them.

But somehow, I get the feeling that the people who are most likely to want to make some sort of hero out of Olsen these days would be greatly offended if any of those people who threw their tattered flags into the trash were to have tried to create a bonfire in the backyard and had dumped the flag into the flames.

Police would have been called. Reports would have been filed. Tax dollars would have been spent to pay for the prosecutors who would have had to convince judges about whether someone’s backyard fire was dignified enough to be a legitimate disposal.

IT WOULD HAVE become a fiasco because someone thought the best way to get rid of a tattered flag was to dispose of it quietly, rather than make an elaborate ritual of the affair.

Now I will agree that dumping a flag into the trash bin, then taking the trash can out to the curb probably is not the most dignified way to get rid of a flag of any type. Just envision the stains it would gain from leftover Chinese food cartons that would spill onto it.

And what would people think if the kitty litter had managed to get onto the flag? What an outrage.

But Olsen told reporter-types he thinks people who throw the flags into the trash are the same as those who stomp on them as an act of political protest. That is just absurd. And that is why I have my problems with the patriotic trash-collector (who to the best of my knowledge has never picked up the trash anywhere near my neighborhood).

THERE HAS TO be some sense of degree. I don’t know that I want to start blaming the people who disposed of their flags for doing something all that improper.

After all, I have seen the flags that Olsen chose to have his picture taken with. They were more than just tattered. They were torn. They were definitely battered to the point where it would have been wrong to run them up a flagpole and claim they were a part of any patriotic display.

If it reads like I’m praising these people for at least having the sense not to fly a torn rag (which is what these flags had become) to score some “patriotism” points for themselves, then you’d be correct.

Should we really be trying to make a heroic figure out of someone who is “refuse rummaging” – a practice that most of us quit doing when we were about six?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: A Northwest suburban American Legion post used Flag Day on Sunday (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/06/flag-day-elgin-jeff-olsen.html) to pay tribute to a trash collector who has spent the past 18 months picking U.S. flags from peoples’ garbage cans.

Is this what it takes to turn the burning of a U.S. flag from an act some want to think is un-constitutional to one (http://www.flagkeepers.org/ProperDisposalCeremony.asp) that gives the symbol its proper due?

He’s stayin’ in N’Awlins

On a certain level, Todd Stroger had to be incredibly happy on Friday.

That was when it became publicly known that the candidate whom some Republicans publicly claimed was their best chance to dethrone Stroger is NOT going to seek the office of Cook County Board president come the 2010 elections.

PAUL VALLAS, THE one-time Chicago Public Schools chief who now is trying to rebuild the school system in New Orleans, had suggested earlier this year he would return to the Chicago area later this year and would consider becoming a Republican so he could challenge Stroger.

With his family still living in and around suburban Crestwood, Vallas will always be a Chicago-area guy, regardless of where he works.

And Vallas, on paper, would be a bigger name than anyone the Republican Party likely can come up with on its own. But Vallas on Friday let it be known he has signed another contract to work for the New Orleans school system.

So he’s not coming back any time soon to the city and state that rejected him as a gubernatorial candidate back in 2002.

AND NOW, THE Republicans don’t have any obvious alternative to put on the ballot for county board president. Admittedly, Vallas would have been a long shot to win. But just about every other likely GOP candidate is a no shot.

Are we really destined to get another campaign by county board Commissioner Anthony Peraica of suburban Riverside? He has turned himself into a caricature, and I can’t envision any significant change in votes. Anybody who is disgusted with Stroger these days likely was appalled by Peraica back in ’06, and nothing has changed.

So now, Stroger can focus his campaign efforts on next year’s primary election. I fully expect a few of those county commissioners, and probably an ambitious politico or two from outside of county government, to try to challenge Todd for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

But should Stroger succeed in winning the primary, he likely would be able to do a light jog through the marathon of a campaign season to the general election finish line.

IT WON’T BE like the situation with the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, where whoever wins a feisty, contested primary will have to deal with a Republican opponent who will receive significant help from the national GOP – which would love to put an Illinois seat in their partisan column.

In some ways, this could be good for the Democratic Party (if you believe that the Democratic Party’s electoral success is a good thing for the state as a whole).

For the dumping of Todd Stroger that some people are now fantasizing about (and which has managed to take on racial overtones, no matter how much some people want to deny that fact) could backlash against the Democratic Party.

Like it or not, the African-American electorate of Chicago that provides the bulk of support for Democratic Party candidates in Illinois statewide elections is not going to like the concept of two black officials (Stroger AND Sen. Roland Burris) being replaced by white guys (or maybe a white guy and girl).

THE IDEA THAT Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White would be the only black candidate on the Democratic Party ballot is not going to be seen as sufficient. It could legitimate cause some black voters to “sit out” the 2010 elections (there’s no circumstance that would cause significant numbers of African American voters to cast ballots for the GOP).

I have always thought it was most likely that either Burris or Stroger would need to be on the ballot offered up to local voters interested in Democratic Party candidates. Since I have always believed Burris is nothing more than an interim official completing the two years remaining on Barack Obama’s term in the U.S. Senate, that means I’m unofficially accepting of Stroger running for yet another term – even if watching him work at times gives the impression of a kid who might have been ready for the political post in another couple of years.

Besides, I can’t honestly say I ever thought Vallas would have been successful in the county board post.

Vallas has had success making improvements in public education systems that some people like to demonize as too bloated and too big (as though they have much of a choice in how many students they must accept).

BUT THE THOUGHT of him as a government official strikes me as being similar to the thought of Ralph Nader actually becoming president of the United States.

The consumer advocate has some great knowledge about a couple of specific areas, similar to how Vallas knows education administration.

But being a government chief executive means having to deal with issues of all types, including some things they’d probably prefer to ignore outright.

If it sounds like I’m saying I don’t think Vallas would be able to come up with any significant solution to the sales tax situation that is confronting Cook County government these days, you’d be correct.

IN THE END, Vallas did the right thing by returning to New Orleans. He has the chance to accomplish some great things in that city, parts of which have yet to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Combined with his success in Chicago and Philadelphia, he’s going to have some great stories to tell of his work when he does finally retire to the “country estate” in Crestwood.

But if he gave that up to run campaign bids, he’d threaten to turn his legacy from a great educator to a modern-day Al Hofeld – who despite his personal wealth NEVER won election to anything.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: One more year in New Orleans means no political campaign in ’10 (http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/no_schools_leader_paul_vallas.html) for Paul Vallas.

Could Vallas have actually won election as county board President? We likely (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2009/02/vallas-to-gop-is-likely-to-fail.html) will never know.