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| STRATTON: Establishment Dem pick? |
It will be intriguing to see who candidate Chris Kennedy comes up with to be a running mate, since as of now he's the only significant candidate who has yet to name a potential replacement candidate to serve as lieutenant governor in the event that he becomes incapacitated.
GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL J.B. Pritzker gave us Julianna Stratton -- a state representative. While candidate Ameya Pawar chose Cairo mayor Tyrone Coleman, and hopeful Daniel Biss just last week let it be known he's going with Chicago alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
He being the one who got elected in 2015 as the first openly gay Latino alderman and who since has made a name for himself politically by shifting from the Democratic Party to the Democratic Socialists -- meaning he wants to be aligned with the political element that thinks Bernie Sanders would make a fit president of this nation.
How will Kennedy counter those choices? Since his pick is going to be studied for clues as to what kind of public official he would be if actually elected by the voters.
Kennedy, who has never held public office but was most prominently president of the company that managed the Merchandise Mart in Chicago until the Kennedy family sold the property back in 2012.
WE'RE BEING ASKED during the next couple of weeks to sign petitions for gubernatorial candidates and also for their running mates.
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| ROSA: Enhancing rep for future electoral bids? |
Who, strictly speaking, aren't paired with their partners. For in Illinois, the lieutenant governor candidates run separately on the primary ballot. You could technically vote for Kennedy to be the Democratic nominee for governor, and Ramirez-Rosa for lieutenant governor.
It's only in the general election that the Democratic gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates get paired up to run against the Republican team of Bruce Rauner and Evelyn Sanguinetti -- who both are going to have their own political baggage weighing them down.
Unless the Democrats create so much baggage for themselves during the primary that even Rauner/Sanguinetti comes off as more appealing to Illinoisans.
ONE THING TO keep in mind as we contemplate Kennedy's pick -- which he has hinted could come some time this week. He technically doesn't have to name anybody.
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| COLEMAN: Voter appeal in Illinois' Egypt?' |
I still recall 1994 when Dawn Clark Netsch won the Democratic primary for governor and never did name anybody as her preferred running mate, saying she thought the voters should be able to choose her potential replacement in the event of an emergency situation.
She wound up being paired with Penny Severns, a state senator from Decatur, who had been the running mate choice of Richard Phelan, the Cook County Board president who had hoped that post would be a springboard to the Executive Mansion.
Only it wasn't for him, and Netsch in her gubernatorial campaign could never shake the perception that the Netsch/Severns ticket was a mismatch.
SO WE'LL BE curious to see who Kennedy tries to anoint with the family "aura" so he can have his own "top of the ticket." Particularly curious since there have been reports indicating that many political establishment types are rejecting the idea of a Kennedy pairing, fearing he'd go down to defeat and drag them along with.
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| KENNEDY: Who will he add to lt. gov. mix? |
It is interesting in that we're now within the time cycle where it is no longer ridiculously early to be contemplating who will be the candidates in the 2018 election cycle.
But the reality is that Rauner has been campaigning unofficially for so long it seems like this election cycle is old news. How many of us wish we could just cast our vote today and be done with it?
For some of us, the March 20 primary election and the Nov. 6, 2018 general election can't come soon enough.
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