It’s that time of year again – having to hide from lies on my television set

One of the rules of electoral politics people ought to keep in mind this time of the year is that all would-be officials spin. It’s not lying, although they want you to believe that everybody else’s spin is a lie and they tell nothing but the absolute truth.

Newman has some establishment backers

It doesn’t matter which candidate you support or which political party you back. Everything is described through the mindset the candidate wants you to adopt – which is that they’re wonderful and the problems lie with everybody else.

I COULDN’T HELP but think that as I went through my e-mail Tuesday morning and noticed a pair of messages that included video snippets of campaign commercials that will air on television in coming weeks.

One of them is about how wonderful Erika Harold is, and how we all ought to be casting our ballot in the Republican primary so we can pick her to be Illinois’ attorney general.

While the other is about how disgusting Marie Newman is. She’s the woman seeking the Democratic nomination for the Illinois Third Congressional district, wishing to take away the position from Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., on the grounds that he’s not liberal enough to be a Chicago-area congressman.

But as this ad tells us, Newman is really someone who won’t look out for the interests of people who work at Midway Airport, who has no real liberal credentials and, in fact, once ran a restaurant that was infested with fruit flies.

THE ACTUAL NEWMAN campaign is the one that rants about Lipinski not being a “real” Democrat because, on many social issues (most prominently abortion), he doesn’t side with the party platform. In fact, Lipinski is one of those individuals who’d just as soon see abortion become a criminal act.

Is ad a retort to this write-up?

Although he’s not likely to lead the charge for THAT cause. But he doesn’t side with a woman having a “right” to choose to terminate a pregnancy, which has many of the woman’s rights activists upset – and even has Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., publicly backing Newman.

That has the United for Progress group paying good money to air an ad that bashes Newman about. Since Lipinski is the only other choice (unless you want to take Republican Arthur Jones – a white supremacist activist – seriously), he becomes the benefactor.

HENCE, WE’RE HEARING allegations of foreign airlines taking over the slots at Midway, the inability of political operatives to find federal records for charitable funds Newman allegedly oversaw, and the health code violations at her one-time restaurant (with the tacky tales of fruit fly infestation).

The high-minded approach would be for someone to tout that Lipinski is one who consistently backs the interests of organized labor and unions – which is why he identifies as “Democrat” and most likely would be hostile to GOPers like Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Are these Dems of past the Lipinski backers?

But this is the campaign season – with Election Day less than two weeks away and some people (myself included) having already cast their ballots. Sickening fruit fly stories work better, I guess. Particularly since Newman got a nice write-up Monday on the New York Times’ front page. Is this ad a rebuttal tactic?

Although in terms of distortion of fact, I kind of find the Harold spot (one produced and paid for by her own campaign) to be more outrageous. Aside from constant references to the “Madigan machine,” it talks about how Harold in her life has “beat the odds” to win.

TO MY KNOWLEDGE, Harold actually has lost every single Republican primary she ever has run in (for Congressional seats from central Illinois).

The “victory” referred to that has her beating odds? It was in 2003 when the then-Miss Illinois went to Atlantic City and became Miss America. The last time an Illinois contestant won that competition.

I’m not going to say Harold is not allowed to cite her status as a former Miss America. But I’m also going to shout “Bull!” the next time she, or political operatives, try to lambast any Democrat who tries to trivialize her by saying she’s nothing but a former Miss America.

And as for “Madigan’s machine” that Harold supposedly would “hold accountable,” one could argue that what it has done is held Rauner accountable as governor – preventing him from imposing a series of anti-labor measures into law under the phony label of “reform.”

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