EXTRA: Another ‘foreign guy’ vs. ‘Miss America’ for Ill. atty general?

The campaign in next year’s election cycle for Illinois attorney general is already shaping up as one to see who will be capable of out-trivializing the other.

Kwame Raoul likely to get as many insults ...

For the Cook County Democratic Party on Friday officially picked state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, as its preference amongst the seven other political people expressing a desire to be the party’s slated candidate to replace Lisa Madigan – who is giving up the post following four terms in office.

MEANWHILE, REPUBLICAN PREFERENCE Erika Harold was able to issue a statement earlier this week indicating that Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon decided not to run for office.

Meaning that the woman who once served as Miss America and later went to law school likely will run in the Republican primary unopposed.

And since the Democratic primary usually is dominated by the Cook County vote, we ought to start thinking of the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood as the favorite.

So when it comes to picking a replacement for Lisa Madigan, it could likely be Raoul versus Harold. Which has so much potential for ignorant thoughts and trivial expressions to be concocted. It truly could become a campaign of which candidate can sink to the lower level of intellectual thought.

... as will Erika Harold

FOR THOSE OF you to whom the name Kwame Raoul is alien, he’s a state senator who has served for over a decade. When Barack Obama made the move up from representing Hyde Park and Kenwood in the state Legislature to the state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Raoul was the guy who replaced him.

Amongst the rank-and-file of the Illinois General Assembly he has shown himself to be a competent legislator. Although there are those who dismiss him as just another funny-sounding name like Obama.

But while Obama was Hawaii-born and Ivy League-educated, Raoul is a Chicago native with a DePaul University education and Chicago-Kent School of Law background. Something that theoretically ought to sound like many of the masses.

QUINN: Not the Cook Co. preference

Except that some won’t be able to get past the non-Anglo name and will want to presume that because they come out of the same neighborhood that they’ll want to tag him in the same way they still try to do with Obama.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt that Harold will have to deal with her own share of attacks during the upcoming election cycle. She is an Urbana native with a University of Illinois bachelor’s degree, to go along with the Harvard Law School degree she has (paid for in large part through the scholarship funds the Miss America organization provided to her after she won the top title in 2003 and did her year of wearing the tiara as an example of American femininity.

She is a licensed attorney and has served on various legal commissions. But you just know it’s a matter of time before she gets dismissed as the airhead beauty queen. Heck, Raoul himself has already had to issue some apologies for the way he has dismissed her as merely “Miss America.”

The trash talk will be spewed for several months. Who’s to say how ugly this campaign will get – or how ridiculous?

I actually wonder if the fight for attorney general will wind up being even more stupid and ridiculous than the brawl for governor – the one with the multi-millionaires capable of self-funding their own attacks on each other.

 

McMAHON: Dropped out of GOP running

IT ALMOST MAKES me wonder if things would turn out to be more sane if former Gov. Pat Quinn’s desire for a political comeback would lead to a better outcome if it were to occur.

Not that it is likely to happen. The Cook County Democratic Party, in its slating effort, specifically rejected Quinn’s pleas for support, or for even an effort to remain neutral so that any of the eight would-be Dems could have a chance of winning the March 20 primary.

All of which makes me wonder if it is just me approaching advancing age, or if our level of political intellect is just taking a ? I fear it’s the latter.

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