Does Tio Hardiman think everybody should drop out of governor’s primary?

Now we’re moving into the segment of the primary election cycle in which everybody starts talking stupid.

KENNEDY: Wants Pritzker out

Perhaps it’s the fact that the nearly year-long time period during which they’ve been campaigning is making them feel touched in the head. They’re spewing silliness.

HOW ELSE TO explain Chris Kennedy’s rant Thursday that he thinks J.B. Pritzker, whom various polls have shown to be the front-runner, of sorts, for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination should withdraw from the race.

To which Daniel Biss, the state senator from Evanston who’d like to think he can play politics with the big boys, says Kennedy has no business making such a demand. He thinks both Kennedy and Pritzker ought to step aside to allow him to have the gubernatorial nomination.

I found one anonymous commenter on the Internet who says that Pritzker missed the perfect chance to complete the circle by issuing a statement calling for Biss to back away.

Although my reaction is to wonder if Tio Hardiman, the gun control activist who has a primary interest in the level of urban violence we’re confronted with in society, thinks everybody ought to get out of the race so that he might have a chance to win.

HARDIMAN IS THE guy whom the same gubernatorial polls show with about 1 percent support. That is, on the occasions when they even bother acknowledging his existence on the political scene.

PRITZKER: Trying to stay above fray

I did think of making a joke about Robert Marshall being the candidate who wanted everybody else to clear a path to victory for himself. But even that thought was just a tad too ridiculous.

I suspect if Marshall were to become the Democratic nominee for governor, that would drive swarms of people over to an effort to create a third political party, something along the lines of the 1986 election cycle when Adlai Stevenson III had to run a third-party campaign to try to fulfill his gubernatorial dreams.

Because Marshall just ain’t a Democrat, no matter what papers he filed in order to run in the primary.

BISS: Wants Kennedy/Pritzker out

I TAKE SUCH a light-hearted view on this issue, because I don’t expect anybody would seriously consider dropping out of the race for the benefit of someone whom they’ve been bad-mouthing for several months now as being totally unfit to serve.

But the fact that anybody would spew such rhetoric in any way other than as a tacky joke meant to be heard only by their hard-core supporters means, to me, that the wear-and-tear of the election cycle is getting to them.

Not that I can’t sympathize. As a reporter-type person, I have covered the day-to-day grind of a political campaign. I’ve been watching this election cycle from a distance, but it is still tiring.

Personally, I can’t wait for Tuesday night to come and go, and the unofficial election results to become public. I’ll be grateful for a time when I don’t even have to contemplate Marshall’s existence, at least until his next token campaign for office in 2020.

HARDIMAN: Could he win if everybody dropped out?

AND FOR A time when two out of the three of Biss, Kennedy and Pritzker will become ancient history. I’m sure the candidates are awaiting a rest period once the primary cycle is complete.

So what should we think of Kennedy saying, “If (Pritzker) believed in public service and sacrifice, he would sacrifice his own political career in service to the Democratic Party of Illinois and, frankly, to the people of Illinois by dropping out of the race.”

Or Biss saying, “Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker are two sides of the same gold coin.”

If Kennedy and Pritzker are “gold coins,” does that make Biss a Lincoln-head penny of the sort that I have far too many of in my pants pocket’s spare change?

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