One year and counting ‘til Election Day

We’re at the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. Which in most years would mean that we have reached the culmination of the “silly season.”

Go to school!!! NO election today

All the rants and rages and innuendoes and slander and ridiculous rumor being spewed by political people who are trying to take down another political person would be coming to an end. It would be Election Day.

YET 2013 IS the one year every four when we get spared from such trash talk. Our elections this year were limited to select suburbs, and took place back in April. Nobody in Illinois is voting for anything this day.

We’re just at the point where it is now 52 weeks until we have to decide who will win the 2014 election cycle. Our state’s U.S. senate seat will be up for grabs, along with the Illinois governor’s post and all the other offices within state government – including all of our state legislators.

At this time next year (which will fall on Nov. 4, to be exact), we’ll finally be putting an end to the nonsense. But for now, we have a full year of it.

And there will be plenty of nonsense, particularly in the ranks of the governor’s race. Although the Senate race will get silly too – although perhaps not as much because the Republican partisans seem to be having trouble coming up with a credible candidate to take on the mantle of “Dump Dick Durbin.”

AND YES, IF you try searching that phrase on Google or some other search engine, you’ll find a lot of explicit images and definitions of the phrase in a crude manner. Don’t try it, unless you’re prepared to be repulsed.

Countdown to political retirement ...

Then again, there are those who are more repulsed by the prospective GOP nominee – James Oberweis – who has a record of failed campaigns for political office because his attempts at political conservatism wind up being so off-putting to real people.

I’m sure he will spew the venom against Durbin – who wants a fourth six-year term in the Senate. Whether he can credibly make any of his allegations stick has yet to be determined.

Which means most Republicans interested in winning an election are going to be focusing on the gubernatorial race. Which actually falls within their way of looking at government.

THEY WANT THE state governments to be all supreme, with the federal government learning to mind its own business and do what the states tell them to do.

... or preparing for new terms in office?

The GOP-leaning types probably would rather have governor, particularly if they think he would be able to order the U.S. senators around in some way.

But the gubernatorial field is such right now that I don’t have a clue which of the four candidates now circulating nominating petitions to get on the March primary ballot will actually be running in November.

I could see both William Brady and Kirk Dillard (who has gone out of his way to alter his one-time moderate stances into something that can appeal to the rural conservative interests that dominate the Republicans these days) getting not only those people excited, but also the interests of urban Chicago.

AS IN ANGERING those urban voters to the point where they turn out in force to vote for anybody but them – even Pat Quinn, whom many think of as being so bland, if not incompetent.

I could also see Bruce Rauner’s campaign being just the thing to turn off the Republican base to the point where they don’t bother to vote next year. He is, after all, the friend of Mayor Rahm Emanuel (which has me wondering how long until someone starts beating up on Dillard because he used to be a friend to Barack Obama back when both served together in the state Senate).

OBERWEIS: Does he help, or hurt?

The GOP’s best chance to win could well be Dan Rutherford – although it’s questionable whether the one-time Pontiac-area legislator has enough of a personality to run a credible statewide campaign.

But it could be that he gets the Republican base, while Democrats take their usual attitude toward state government elections. They don’t matter!!!!

BECAUSE WE ALL “know” that the elections of real importance are the City Hall ones that will take place in 2015. State government is for the people who aren’t qualified to serve in the city (which could be part of why Stephanie Neely wouldn’t want to give up a city treasurer post to be lieutenant governor).

Of course, the real truth is that I don’t have a clue who’s going to win on that first Tuesday following the first Monday of November that will take place one year from now.

Anybody who says they do know is either lying to you, or else is more ridiculously optimistic than a Chicago Cubs fan.

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