A blast from the political past, does that spell L-o-s-e-r on Election Day?

The Republican Party’s field of candidates for Illinois governor is a mass of candidates of varying ideological thought processes, including a pair of candidates who are going to try to pass themselves off as The Man who can bring back the glory days of 1995 and ’96.

Those were the two years that the GOP’s candidates held all of the statewide constitutional offices, and controlled the entire General Assembly. If not for the state Supreme Court, all of Illinois would be Republican-dominated.

BACK THEN, KIRK Dillard was the chief of staff to Gov. Jim Edgar who went on to become a state senator from Hinsdale, while Jim Ryan was the Illinois attorney general.

Dillard has remained in that legislative post all these years, while Ryan has been in political retirement ever since he lost the 2002 gubernatorial campaign to Rod Blagojevich.

Now, he wants to come back by making another bid for governor – almost as though he thinks that if he wins, the history books will somehow be rewritten to where there was NEVER a Democrat as governor for the past eight years (Blagojevich and Pat Quinn).

That Ryan campaign in ’02 literally gave off an air of believing that people ought to vote for Jim because it was his turn. Thompson (as in Jim), followed by Edgar (as in Jim), followed by Ryan (as in George), followed by another Ryan.

OF COURSE, THAT campaign got bogged down in the partisan rhetoric from Democratic Party officials who were so desperate to win their first gubernatorial election in 26 years that they resorted to cheap shots against Jim Ryan.

Certain polls taken recently show that some people still can’t truly tell the difference between the one-time attorney general and Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate number 16627-424.

So Ryan may very well be too much of damaged goods to be taken seriously in this primary.

Yet Dillard may come off as too much of a staffer (rather than elected official) to be taken seriously as a candidate for statewide office. I’m also sure there are those people who are among the Republican hard-core who will hold it against him that he was friendly with Barack Obama back when the two were in the Illinois Senate.

THERE ARE SOME people who seriously will blame Dillard for the fact that he was an Obama poker-buddy in those after legislative hours.

Now in this political fight for a resurrection of the ‘90s, Dillard gained a plus – Edgar gave him his endorsement. I’d like to think that the Edgar endorsement would help advance his campaign to make him a front-runner.

But this is one of the most unpredictable election cycles I have ever seen.

The partisan rhetoric coming from the rest of the gubernatorial candidates to downplay the Edgar endorsement’s significance all centers around the theme that nobody cares much about what somebody from the ‘90s thinks.

THESE PEOPLE WANT to move forward, and they want to define what constitutes “forward” – even though one could argue that it was the “old school” way of doing things actually gave the Republican Party domination of Illinois government as strong as any that the Democrats have these days.

One could also argue that it was the move in the direction that these other candidates want to go that caused the Republicans to lose relevance in this state.

How else to explain the attitude of conservative pundit and candidate Dan Proft, who told the Chicago Tribune that Dillard was of a “failed go-along-to-get-along approach” to state government?

Only a true hard-core conservative believer could seriously believe that the 1990s were a “failed” era for the Republican Party.

HAVING ACTUAL POLITICAL power and influence (and domination for a couple of years) sounds like success, particularly compared to the modern era where Republicans are even more irrelevant than the Democrats were back in the spring of 1995.

I know there are political pundits who believe that Edgar has the ability to move polling numbers to the point where his endorsement will be the major factor in helping Dillard break out from the GOP gubernatorial pack to actually win the nomination.

But a part of me wonders if it is the kiss of death, in the same way that Jim Ryan will always be the one political person of Irish ethnic background who won’t be able to use his surname on the ballot as a plus.

Considering the mindset of the modern-day electorate, those who are devoted to the Republican Party in Illinois are most likely looking for an ideologue, which means their attention will center around all the candidates not named either “Dillard” or “Ryan.”

STATE SEN. BILL Brady, R-Bloomington, who is billing himself as the most politically experienced of the ideologues, may have expressed it best in his statement Monday when he said, “my campaign is about tomorrow, not yesterday.”

Yet it was “yesterday” that the GOP was relevant, which makes me wonder if the party faithful have lost sight of the fact that the key to achieving partisan goals is to actually win on Election Day.

Come Feb. 2, the groundhog may or may not see its shadow, but we will gain a strong sense of whether the Illinois Republican Party has any sense of wanting to win on the Election Day come November.

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Columbus Day not the same as our youth

I recall a moment that took place more than a decade ago – I was chatting with a person who worked on the Illinois state government payroll and we were joking about the concept that while the rest of the world worked, she would have the day off.

It was early October of that year, and Columbus Day was just a couple of days away. “It’s the first time I’ve had Columbus Day off since I was in grammar school,” she told me.

NOW, IN CHICAGO proper at least, even that’s not true.

For it turns out that the Chicago Public Schools aren’t going to waste one of their “holidays” to celebrate the explorer hired by the Spaniards to go to India (but managed to stumble his way into Puerto Rico instead).

His “Indians” were actually “Boricuans.” But it made for a nice story to tell grade school children about how Cristobal Colon “discovered” a whole new continent. Who today would give Christopher Columbus such a noble image? Illustration provided by the Library of Congress Collection.

His “discovery” was one of the stupid accidents of history that likely would have happened eventually (it was just a matter of time before those Eurocentric Europeans discovered the existence of two more continents on Planet Earth).

WHEN ONE CONSIDERS the number of other holidays that vie for the public’s attention, perhaps it is fitting that Columbus Day be taken down a notch or two to the level of a lesser holiday.

Put it up there with Flag Day, which to my mindset is about where it belongs.

So I’m not bothered by the fact that Chicago schoolchildren (or at least those whose parents don’t make a point of sending them to the Catholic schools maintained by the Chicago Archdiocese) won’t be getting a day off to sit around the house watching cartoons or roaming the streets in search of something, anything to fill a day’s worth of downtime.

There will be enough private school kids and suburban youths (including my nephews and nieces) who will get the day off, although I don’t think the day will be anything resembling an educational experience – which is what proponents of keeping the holiday will claim is its purpose.

NOW I PROBABLY should state that while I do agree there is some element of truth to those people who would argue that Columbus was just another conquistador in search of riches whose actions wound up causing harm to the indigenous peoples already here (Hernan Cortes meeting up with the Aztecs in what is now modern-day Mexico would be a similar example), I’m not inclined to get as worked up over the issue.

I think the people who start making comparisons to Adolf Hitler or going out of their way to write sentences that pair up the words “Columbus” and “genocide” are getting a bit overworked. Did they forget to take their medication this morning?

Just about anyone who takes on some project on a grand scale has an ugly side that can be exaggerated into pure evil. It also is true that many of those grand-scale projects were flukes, as the person likely was in search of something much less moralistic.

Are we better off thinking of Columbus as a seeker of riches who made the trip in the first place because he was paid very well by the Spanish royal family? Probably.

ARE WE BETTER off trying to ignore outright the man who was one of the first contacts between indigenous American (even though they never would have thought to use that label for themselves) and European cultures?

No. Because that would be just a gross a rewrite of the history books as those people who want to view him as some sort of saintly character.

So what we in Chicago will get this year is what has become the typical ethnic holiday parade – the one that starts at Balbo Street and works its way up Columbus Drive to Monroe Street.

At least this is the proper holiday to have a parade there. The Columbus Day parade on Columbus Drive sounds cute – unlike the St. Patrick’s Day parade that always leads to silly jokes about Cristobal being renamed “O’Columbus” for the day to make him an honorary Irishman.

JUST FOR THE record, I’m not going, nor do I plan to watch any of it on television. The only times I have seen these parades are when I had to work as a reporter-type person and cover them.

Otherwise, they just don’t do much for me. Because in a sense, the parade itself will become the generic ethnicfest that all of the downtown Chicago holiday parades have become in recent years.

How else to explain the fact that the Mexican Folkloric Dancers will be among the many groups participating in the event? You’d think my ethnic brethren would be aligned with those Puerto Rican activists who want to mourn the arrival of Columbus on the Caribbean island.

Except that we’re too busy working to get all hot and bothered about this cause. In fact, there are times I think only the Italians are truly concerned (and I don’t just say this because of the episode of “The Sopranos” where Tony’s mob administered a serious beat-down to native American activists) about this issue.

WHICH IS PROBABLY fitting, since the fact that Italians like to claim Columbus as one of their own even though the concept of Italy as a single nation united didn’t exist until some 350-plus years after his death.

Would Columbus himself (born in Genoa in 1451) have thought such a characterization accurate? It is the question I always wonder when I think of the holiday, not about whether Columbus was a genocidal maniac?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For those of you who have no desire to see yet another downtown Chicago parade (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=resources/inside_station/station_info&id=7051611) on television, avoid WLS-TV (Channel 7) at all costs between noon and 3 p.m. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Illinois offers a balance while becoming a new front in ethnic culture wars

Am I the only one who wonders if the announcement this past weekend promoting the change in the school code to include more Hispanic accomplishments in history courses was somehow timed to balance out the announcement that Illinois now has a new representative to Africa.

Sure enough, we do (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/state&id=7059404). Dr. Carol Adams was moved from her post as director of the Illinois Department of Human Resources to her new title, which really means she'll be working out of the state's trade office in Johannesburg. Which means she'll be trying to get people in all the nations of Africa to buy Illinois-made goods and services.

REGARDLESS OF THE timing, the school code change is long overdue. Personally, I remember the contributions of Spanish-speaking people to our history as being so miniscule (according to the official curriculum) as to be non-existent. The fact that history courses will now have to be more accurate in acknowledging the accomplishments of all ought to be praised by all, except for the nativist nitwits who can't stand hearing about anyone except themselves.

For those of you who want to know more, check out the latest commentary at this weblog's sister site, The South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/).

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What a difference seven days make

Even if President Barack Obama had unanimous political support across the nation, there’s no way he could have done anything in his first nine months as president that would legitimately make him worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award that he learned Friday will be bestowed upon him is a political statement, just like Obama’s detractors will spend the next few years claiming.

YET I’M NOT so sure that makes it a bad thing.

The people who bestowed the prize want to ensure that the direction in which Obama would like the United States to move in terms of its relations with the world and with the Middle East will some how prevail.

And if in the process, if means that we are forced to look a little more bluntly at Obama’s political opponents and see their actions as the crass opportunism that they truly are, then maybe this political statement is about viewing the issue a little more honestly than we have been in recent months.

Part of it is the fact that some of us are so determined to believe that “both sides” have equal legitimacy that we don’t want to acknowledge the crass factor that is at work here.

IF ANYTHING, THE safe thing for the Nobel people would have been for them to wait a few years, see what actions Obama took, then give him the prize in 2012.

Of course, Obama’s political detractors would have denounced that act as being an attempt by “foreign” elements to influence a presidential election (that is the year, after all, that he likely will run for re-election).

Who would have the nerve to vote against a fresh Nobel Prize winner, rather than whichever conservative ideologue winds up winning the Republican Party’s nomination for president in the next federal elections?

Instead, they’re awarding the promise of what could be from an Obama administration – in hopes that enough people will be inspired by the award. Instant credibility could bolster his political strength in the future, or at least that’s what the Nobel people probably are hoping for.

NOW I HAVE read some “instant” commentary from people who say that if Obama were truly the noble creature that the Nobel people claim him to be, he would refuse to accept the award, while also making some sort of self-deprecating statement claiming himself to be “not worthy.”

Which is why I noticed the statement Obama sent to his supporters by e-mail that almost goes in that direction, although he says he will accept the honor when it is formally presented to him in spring 2010.

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize – men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace,” he said, in his statement.

“But I also know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement, it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes,” he said.

I CAN’T HELP but note the recipient of the peace prize for 1964. That would be the year that Martin Luther King Jr. received the award for his pacifist protests on behalf of civil rights for all.

Technically, his activity that was awarded by the Nobel committee was considered criminal activity in certain parts of the United States, and mere evidence in other parts of the country of his “communist” tendencies.

Yet it was that Nobel that gave him a jolt of credibility that forced many of his contemporaries to regard King as more legitimate than just some rabble-rousing protester. And it was the start of the process that, throughout the years, has made us realize how ridiculous those people who several decades ago were so eager to label King a “commie” were being.

Could it be that the people who today are bashing the Nobel people for awarding Obama are upset because they fully appreciate how much of a credibility jolt he has received (despite their attempts to marginalize him and his supporters in our society)?

I WONDER IF the people complaining today about Obama receiving the award are the ideological grandchildren (if not the literal ones) of the people who thought it a disgrace that King got the honor?

Obviously, we’re going to have to wait a few decades to see how events pan out and whether King and Obama deserve to be regarded in any sense as equals.

But a part of me can’t help but note that the people who are most irritated by the actions of Friday are the ones whose views are most offensive to those of us who want our nation to move forward into the 21st Century – rather than take a few steps back into the first third of the 20th.

So it won’t bother me too much to see them upset.

OF COURSE, IT could also be that what really bothers them is that we went from last Friday with the pundits trying to blame Obama for the failure of the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 summer Olympiad to Chicago, to this Friday with Obama getting the Nobel.

Any political fallout he would have suffered (and I’m convinced it would have been minimal) from the Olympics will be far overshadowed in the history books by the Nobel.

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EXTRA: Just another day in Hyde Park

I couldn’t help but notice Friday the portion of the University of Chicago’s website devoted to the fact that so many recipients of the Nobel prizes are faculty, former students or have some other connection to the Hyde Park-based university.

It already has been updated. Barack Obama was added to the list of “Maroons” who have received the award. In all fairness, the university concedes that Obama is the only U of C type to ever receive the Peace Prize – generally considered to be the most prestigious of them all.

BUT IN THE eyes of the university, the one-time instructor in the law school is no different from Saul Bellow or Milton Friedman or any of the other recipients who came to be connected to the college that is within – but at times not truly a part of – the South Side.

It makes me wonder if we literally will get the sight within Hyde Park of Obama’s honor not being taken all that seriously, because after all so many other “locals” have achieved it as well.

Only in Chicago could one win one of the major international honors, and find a group of people who could possibly pooh-pooh it for other than politically partisan reasons.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Until Friday, the only University of Chicago-affiliated Nobel Prize winner this year (http://www.uchicago.edu/about/accolades/nobel/) was George E. Smith, a 1959 graduate whose invention of a device converting light into digital signals led to much better pictures for academic research. Trying to come up with world peace, or achieving a high-tech digital camera, which idea will capture the public interest more?

It’s Alive!

It is a question I have read quite a bit in recent days whenever Internet-based commentary addresses the current situation at the Chicago Sun-Times – Why would anyone want to buy a newspaper?

The implication being that our society in Chicago would be better off with the remains of Marshall Field’s vision of a liberal alternative to the isolationist Chicago Tribune being a mere memory.

THIS TYPE OF talk usually comes from two types of people – isolationists who want to think that anything that isn’t as far to the right politically as they are is somehow out of touch with society, or those computer-oriented geeks who are so attached to their electronic devices that they just can’t comprehend the fact that a significant portion of the population finds enjoyment in those moments when we turn off the computers and other devices.

The rhetoric about letting the newspaper, along with its sister publications throughout the suburbs, die off came up again when it was learned that the Chicago Newspaper Guild members who represent reporter-types at the Sun-Times and three of the suburban newspapers (most of them are non-union, and the new management is determined to keep them that way) came up with a deal that could keep the publications open for the time being.

The Chicago Sun-Times will be alive on the Day of the Dead (Nov. 1). Let's hope they're still alive to cover Barack Obama's bid for re-election in 2012.

It seems that the initial “take it or leave it” deal put forth by the proposed buyer of the Sun-Times and its company (for a mere $5 million) was a negotiating ploy, and we can now see the unions were justified in rejecting it.

The deal that they ultimately accepted (although in all fairness, the Gary (Ind.) Newspaper Guild still has to vote on the issue come Friday) still requires some serious concessions by the unions.

NO ONE CAN say that these union members were somehow being selfish or thinking only of themselves, although I know those people in our society who want to believe that organized labor ought to be regarded as a criminal conspiracy will disagree.

The part of the deal, as it has been reported, that intrigues me the most is the portion related to the compensation cuts that previously were approved. The deal extends those cuts for three years (instead of permanently, as the original “take it or leave it” deal demanded).

Does this mean someone seriously envisions the newspapers being alive for three years? I hope so. It is more optimistic than the rhetoric put forth by people with an ideological axe who would see the death of another news organization as validation of their views about life.

As I’m sure you have figured out by now, I am a newspaper supporter to the point where I will publicly state that I find it to be a superior medium in some aspects when it comes to reporting detailed accounts of the news.

INK ON PAPER is easier on my eyes than reading off a computer screen or any type of device (I remember once attending a forum on the future of journalism on the Internet where one person made the statement that newspapers will remain until technology comes along that can duplicate paper – it hasn’t happened yet).

But what concerns me more is the fact that I have yet to see any Internet-oriented business model that even comes close to being able to support the kind of labor-intense situation needed to adequately cover news.

Too many sites that like to think they’re about news get by because they’re based on the idea that someone else is paying for the generation of copy.

Those sites that try to generate their own (such as the Chi-Town Daily News that only remains up and running due to the generosity of “volunteers” willing to write for free while the owners try to figure out a business model to stay alive for the long-term) learn quickly that they are no more successful than the so-called “19th Century journalism” of ink on paper.

BUT WHAT I’M interested in seeing is what becomes of these publications. Because what is really being purchased is the archives that could be turned into a resource – people have to pay to see those old stories when they’re doing research about news events of the past.

And they’re also paying for the skills of those reporter-types who felt like they were being put at risk of being left for dead with no compensation whatsoever (now, they’re looking at some severance) should the company wind up dying off anyway.

Some people like to point at the plight of real estate developer Sam Zell, who is on his way out of the Chicago Tribune and its company having failed in his attempt to bolster the company’s financial situation.

Of course, his “plan” appears to have been about nothing more than cutting, with no interest whatsoever in the actual product (the news) being produced.

THE KEY WILL be to see if the proposed buyers of the Sun-Times (who still need their purchase approved in court – the company is in bankruptcy) have a vision for trying to use that resource known as the newsroom to put out a product that will sell.

It is a valued resource, primarily because of its age and experience and legacy. Perhaps if some of these websites that like to snipe at newspapers can stick around for seven decades (roughly the age of the Sun-Times), they will over time develop the same value. They don’t have it yet.

Perhaps the Sun-Times’ new owners will be the ones who will come up with some way for the actual information to be produced in a way that will generate profits when the economy improves. My point is that this will take time.

Having that resource to use as the basis for developing a news report for use in the 21st Century – to me, that’s the answer to the question, “Why would anyone want to buy a newspaper?”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Dueling coverage of sorts of the Sun-Times News Group’s possible (http://www.suntimes.com/business/1811775,sun-times-sale-guild-union-agreement-100709.article) continued life is offered by the newspaper itself, its competition (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-sun-times-media-group-union-deal-oct07,0,5547878,full.story) and a so-called neutral (http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2009/10/07/stmg-guild-members-swallow-hard-and-accept-jim-tyrees-new-terms) source.

Welcome home Arne Duncan, but this is a problem Chicago has to resolve itself

I woke up Wednesday and flipped on a television, only to have my first conscious moment of the day become a graphic on the TV screen that read “Chicago violence.”

It turns out the broadcast-types of CNN (actually, it might have been the “Headline” version) were playing up big the recent incident at Fenger High School, where a student who may have been coming to the aid of a friend who was being beaten was himself beaten to death.

THIS INCIDENT WOULD not amount to much in the public mindset, except that someone thought enough to pull out the cellphone with its cheap camera and capture the beating. So there are pictures of a kid being clubbed to death.

Which means that CNN and every other broadcast outlet has footage (no matter how crudely shot) to show over and over and over again.

The news peg for the day was the fact that the federal government is taking this incident seriously, so much so that Education Secretary Arne Duncan (he who was snatched away from the Chicago Public Schools to take over education at the federal level) and Attorney General Eric Holder both came to our wonderful city to meet with Mayor Richard M. Daley so they could appear to be coming up with a solution.

If it sounds like I think there is little this trio could accomplish, you’d be correct.

THERE IS AN element of truth to some of the commentary that is turning up on various websites, some of which points out the ridiculousness of these three eating eggs Benedict at the Four Seasons Hotel while miles away in the neighborhoods surrounding Fenger a serious problem exists.

Personally, I think the most honest thing I heard on Wednesday came from the mouth of Cliff Kelley, the one-time Chicago alderman who since being released from prison on a corruption conviction has turned himself into a broadcaster and pundit.

One of the voices of WVON was on CNN Headline, being used as a pundit. And he said the situation at Fenger related to recent changes that affected which neighborhood schools people attended.

The attempt to shake things up has created situations where students now must go to schools outside their neighborhoods, which means they occasionally cross street gang boundaries along with (occasionally) racial division lines.

THIS CASE AT Fenger does not appear to fall into the latter category.

But the situation is that we in Chicago like to extol the benefits of our neighborhoods, claiming they add so much color and atmosphere to the overall character of the city. We even find it intriguing when we come across people who have never in their lives lived outside of the roughly mile-square space that comprises a typical Chicago neighborhood.

Of course, we overlook the fact that such conditions also can produce people who can’t view anything about life outside of their neighborhood. In some ways, that insularity is also a part of the character of Chicago.

Kelley pointed out reports of recent days saying that the Fenger incident literally was due to someone objecting to the victim being in their neighborhood. He even paraphrased a quotation something to the effect of; We don’t have anything in our neighborhood, why should we share it with anyone else?

IT’S SAD. IT’S also Chicago.

It also makes me think of a recent moment I experienced. As a freelance writer, I do some work for one of the Chicago area newspapers, and an assignment I’m working on currently caused me to take a trip out to the De La Salle Institute.

That’s the Bronzeville neighborhood school that for many decades was a “white island” with kids from Bridgeport and Canaryville, but which now boasts of an integrated enrollment from across Chicago (as well as being the alma mater of 5 Chicago mayors).

They literally cite a statistic claiming their enrollment is split roughly equally one-third black kids, one-third white and one-third Latino, with a smattering of Asian youths as well.

IT SOUNDS NICE. They likely have achieved the ideal. They literally have today the racial and ethnic breakdown that is expected to be achieved city-wide in Chicago by the year 2020.

But before we start relaxing and figuring the future is set with people learning to at least tolerate each other’s existence, perhaps we need to figure that Fenger is also a part of the picture.

Perhaps these are the two extremes, and the reality of modern-day Chicago lies somewhere in the middle.

While President Barack Obama can say all the nice things he wants to about tragedy occurring here and he can send whatever federal officials he chooses to Chicago to appear to be “dealing with” the situation, this ultimately is a “problem” that is going to have to be dealt with locally.

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