How fickle our electorate can be

It can be amusing to see just how quickly we, the voters of Chicago and Cook County, can turn on the political people we elect.

FOXX: Legal savior, now demonized

Almost as though all we really want to do on Election Day is “throw da bums out,” rather than try to judge public officials on their merits and pick the best qualified people.

IT MAKES ME think that just about three years ago, the public sentiment was such that people were looking for an excuse to dump State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez from office. The popular sentiment amongst many was that anybody with sense would choose Kim Foxx to be the county’s head prosecutor.

Sure enough, Foxx won the Democratic primary of 2016. Very few people were the least bit upset to see Alvarez depart – with some wishing she could have suffered something much more severe as part of public officials being prosecuted for the shooting death of a black teenager by a Chicago cop.

But now? How times change!

Foxx is finding herself demonized for the fact that the state’s attorney’s office decided to drop the criminal charges that had been filed against actor Jussie Smollett.

POLICE SUPERINTENDENT EDDIE Johnson is “furious.” Soon-to-be former Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he wants Smollett to have to reimburse Chicago for the cost of the police investigation (some $130,000) against him.

ALVAREZ: Will her legacy change?

Many pundits are going about saying that Foxx will have to take the blame for the failure of Chicago’s law enforcement community to get a criminal conviction of sorts against Smollett.

Heck, some people are going about speculating that even the now-demonized Alvarez wouldn’t have let Smollett walk away unprosecuted – and capable of going around saying he’s the victim of police incompetence.

People already are gunning for Foxx to be dumped from office when she faces re-election in 2020. From reformer looking out for the protection of the people to corrupt hack. It took her just a couple of years. She may never be capable of shaking this stain from her public persona.

WHICH IS SOMETHING we probably ought to keep in mind when it comes to other political posts.

PRECKWINKLE: Once progressive, now a hack

Take mayor, for instance.

Toni Preckwinkle went through her time as alderman and as Cook County Board president with something of a “goo goo” reputation, and was supposed to be the political progressive amongst the 14 candidates who tried becoming mayor in this year’s election cycle.

But when Preckwinkle made it to the run-off stage of the electoral process against a candidate so much like herself, Preckwinkle’s experience made her the “political hack.” Opponent Lori Lightfoot has tried to claim her inexperience in electoral office merely means she hasn’t had the chance to become tainted by it all.

PRECKWINKLE IS BEING demonized now with the issues that her challengers in the 2016 county board presidency campaign tried unsuccessfully to use against her. We’re hearing now more about that pop tax the county tried imposing a few years ago. That issue’s time has come.

LIGHTFOOT: How long 'til electorate turns on her?

Of course, this trend is ongoing. So perhaps before we get all absorbed in the notion of Lori our government savior who’s going to shine a light on everything, keep in mind that it could easily shift gears and voters will rant and rage about how they could ever have been silly enough to think Lightfoot deserved election.

Perhaps her lack of experience, once she has to go up against the political powers-that-be will be such that the electorate will turn on her. It will be intriguing to see how quickly that shift happens, and just what the issue will be that will sway the electorate against her.

Not that I’m feeling all that much sympathy for any of the candidates. Or even for the government that is supposed to represent our interests. For the fact is that we usually get a government of the quality of the people whom we elect. Which means we tend to “get” what we deserve come Elections day.

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It’s nice to see how common the idea of females in government has become

I didn’t realize what I was doing until after I cast my ballot at an early voting center for next week’s primary election – I picked women for the nominations for the three government posts that have serious challengers.

DUCKWORTH: Send her to Senate

As I previously wrote, I finally overcame my reluctance to get enthused about the Hillary R. Clinton presidential dreams enough to vote for her.

WHILE ALSO GIVING my support in the U.S. Senate primary to Tammy Duckworth to challenge Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., in the November general election. And also casting a primary vote for Anita Alvarez to keep her political post for Cook County state’s attorney.

Not that it was some sort of unique pick – in the state’s attorney Democratic primary, all of the choices were women. I’m sure there already will be people ready to lambast me for not preferring Kim Foxx or Donna More for the post.

While for the U.S. Senate, I could also have considered Andrea Zopp. Only Hillary didn’t have other women running against her, and I just couldn’t seriously think of  casting a ballot for Willie Wilson – he of the failed mayoral bid and likely to be equally unsuccessful for president next Tuesday.

But it feels like evidence of the continued evolution of our political structure that the three political posts for which there were serious choices to make (all of the others in my South Side district were people running unopposed, or just against token challengers) wound up producing so many female challengers.

NOW I KNOW there probably will be some people who won’t want to acknowledge this as anything significant. Perhaps they want to believe gender shouldn’t be a factor.

Although I’d argue it is people who think that way who truly are the problem. Because it’s as though they fantasize about a day when women don’t get elected any longer and we can go back to the days of all-male officials who don’t have to take into account the concerns of other types of people.

ALVAREZ: Not perfect, but who is?

In short, the people who are the bulk of the voters who have given Republican Donald Trump many of his primary election and caucus victories thus far.

We aren’t anywhere near the point where gender (or ethnicity or race) isn’t relevant. So I find it worth noting that my own ballot wound up producing so many potential female nominees for the Democratic ballot.

THEN AGAIN, I’M also not young enough to be of an age that would think the presence of women in government is routine.

I was in high school back when Jane Byrne won the Chicago mayoral election – the one we now regard as largely a fluke of the weather and a government official’s inability to control the situation.

CLINTON: Can she trump Trump?

While my first ballot cast in the 1984 election cycle was the one that gave us Geraldine Ferraro as a vice-presidential candidate (a move we now remember as presidential hopeful Walter Mondale’s act of desperation in his failed bid to defeat incumbent Ronald Reagan.

Even as recently as the 1998 election cycle when Illinois got its first female lieutenant governor (remember Corinne Wood?), many political-watchers joked that the accomplishment was only achieved because she ran against Mary Lou Kearns for the Democrats.

SO BEING ABLE to so easily cast a ballot with such a strong female presence felt, to me, like something significant – and perhaps a blow against those voters who probably think they’re saving us from “those broads” when they vote against them.

Honestly, I think I picked the best candidates on the Democratic ballot (although I expect serious challenges to my choice for state’s attorney), even though I’ll admit that when it comes to all of those judicial candidates, sometimes I’ll deliberately vote for the female.

Just to counter the people who seriously think it makes sense to vote for anyone with an “O’” or a “Mc” or anything else Irish-sounding who happens to appear on their ballot.

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Will Dems follow orders, back Foxx?

The Cook County Democratic Party put the word out Thursday – loyal Democrats are supposed to back Kim Foxx’ bid to be the new state’s attorney.

FOXX: The official choice of Dem party

With the party deciding to slate her bid over that of incumbent State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and challenger Donna More, it means that the political operatives in charge of getting people to actually turn out and vote for Democrats on March 15 will be under orders to stress votes for Foxx.

OR, IF THEY happen to be among those people who just can’t bring themselves to vote for the woman who was once chief of staff to county board President Toni Preckwinkle, they will be under orders to keep their mouths shut and do nothing to interfere with Foxx’ campaign operations.

Personally, I remain unsure how the election for a new state’s attorney this year will turn out.

I don’t doubt that people upset by incidents involving police violence against black people will be in place, and there will be some people more than willing to see incumbent Alvarez go as punishment for the fact it took her office about a full year to decide to prosecute the Chicago cop who shot Laquan McDonald to death.

Even those who I’m sure want to protect the interests of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Sacrifice Anita, but keep Rahm!

BUT THE FACT is that Foxx will not be in a head-to-head political fight against Alvarez come the Democratic primary. More, a one-time federal prosecutor who also has been involved with the Illinois Gaming Board, has her own share of supporters.

The overly-simplistic way of viewing this fight is to say Foxx will dominate the South Side and suburbs where significant numbers of African-American people live (she is a resident of suburban Flossmoor), while More will be the preferred opposition to Alvarez for North Side and suburban voters who are overwhelmingly white.

PRECKWINKLE: Will she decide election?

Which could result in a split that gives Alvarez just enough voters to win a three-way fight.

So what does this decision to slate Foxx really mean?

IF IT IS a factor in getting North Side and suburban political types to get on board with the program for Foxx, it could be significant. It could be what enables her share of the vote to top Alvarez – particularly if it drives More’s campaign into irrelevancy.

But the one thing I have learned about being around political people is their talk in public often does not match their actions.

RAUNER: Will ties help, or hurt, More?

I could very easily envision a whole batch of whispering taking place up north that enables More to keep getting voter support – even though publicly the officials will claim they’re going along with the political party’s pick on Thursday.

For all I know, the fact that More has a record of financial ties (as in campaign contributions) to Gov. Bruce Rauner could wind up being a boost for herself – even though I’m sure both Alvarez and Foxx will go out of their way to make More out to be the governor’s lackey because of it.

IN SHORT, I remain confused about how this particular election will turn out – and remain convinced that the race for Cook County state’s attorney will be the prime campaign at stake on March 15.

ALVAREZ: Any love for Anita these days?

U.S. president? Forget it! Who really cares which of those clowns running in both major party’s political primaries manages to take Illinois voter supports? Just a bit more evidence of the overly-local tendencies Chicago and suburban voters tend to have when it comes time to walk into the voting booth on Election Day!

And one that could provide yet another anecdotal story about how the political parties just don’t mean as much these days as they did in the days of “the Machine” when “Boss Daley” could bark orders at who should get elected to office.

Somehow, I don’t think Preckwinkle has the same boss-like tendencies.

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EXTRA: Could racial split boost Anita?

It was a common theme I read expressed on the Internet on Wednesday; Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is despicable because it took her office two years to figure out that a cop who hit a handcuffed suspect warranted criminal charges.

Will suburban incident ...

I saw countless people use this incident to claim it as all the more evidence of why we should dump Alvarez when we get the chance come the March 15 Democratic primary.

BUT THERE ALSO was another common theme I noticed, and it is the reason I wonder if we’re going to have a whole mess of peeved voters come March 16 who are going to say they voted against Anita, only to have her get re-nominated.

... impact state's attorney's election?

For there are two challengers to Alvarez for the Democratic nomination for state’s attorney – and this threatens to become a campaign with a racial split that could see Anita get more votes than either; even if not enough to claim a voter majority.

There are some people who say Alvarez’ incompetence is all the evidence we need to justify a vote for Donna More. She seems to have some political people of electoral influence on her side, and prominent criminal attorney Sam Adams, Jr., came out publicly in her favor.

ALVAREZ: Benefits of incumbency

Yet there are other political people of an African-American racial flavor who seem to be equally vociferous in claiming that Alvarez’ incompetence is all the evidence we need to justify a vote for Kim Foxx.

FOXX IS A former chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who is the big cheese giving her political backing enough to think seriously of running.

FOXX: Is Preckwinkle backing enough?

While More is a former assistant state’s attorney and prosecutor herself who can claim the potential financial support of Gov. Bruce Rauner and the other wealthy people who backed his campaign.

In short, she could have the kind of money that allows her to be competitive.

MORE: Could she be the North Side's favorite?

While I have heard some observations (which are predictable) that Foxx’ political reach doesn’t extend beyond the South and West side neighborhoods in Chicago, and perhaps those southern suburbs (Foxx herself lives these days in suburban Flossmoor) that have majority African-American populations.

THIS COULD BECOME the election where all the white people who want to dump Anita Alvarez go for More, while all the black people pick Foxx.

As for the Latino segment of the electorate, nobody is going to dominate them. Not even Alvarez, whose own background as a career prosecutor in the state’s attorney’s office who gained the top post in the 2008 election cycle makes the more activist of Latino voters suspicious.

It really could turn out that if one candidate cannot ultimately dominate the Alvarez opposition (I don’t doubt that many people upset over the death of Laquan McDonald blame her even more than they blame Mayor Rahm Emanuel), the challengers could split about 65 percent while Anita could wind up winning with about 35 percent of the vote.

And the fact that a videotape exists of suburban Lynwood police officer Brandin Frederickson cold-cocking a criminal suspect in cuffs inside the police station won’t matter all that much.

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No matter how unpopular, can anyone put up a serious challenge to Alvarez for state’s attorney this year?

I don’t doubt that some people are outraged at Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, and not just because it seems her office took way too long to decide to prosecute the shooting death of a black teenager by a white Chicago cop that some want to view as an open-and-shut case.

But I still wonder if Alvarez’ chances of political survival are based on the idea that all the people who can’t stand her won’t be able to unite behind a single challenger.

BECAUSE AS OF now, there are two people saying they’ll run against her in the March election for the Democratic nomination for state’s attorney.

We have Kim Foxx, whom it seems is the preference of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Donna More, herself a career prosecutor and part of the legal community.

I found it amusing to learn of a Public Policy Polling poll this week that actually had Alvarez with 33 percent voter support in the lead.

It placed Foxx in second place with 24 percent, and More with 11 percent at this point in time.

ACTUALLY, I SHOULD write that Foxx is in third place, because “undecided” was actually in second place 32 percent. Which is understandable – it’s early. How many rational people have given any thought to the March primary elections?

Only the political geeks (such as myself) who can’t comprehend that real people have lives and won’t give much thought to down-ballot races for another couple of months.

It’s always possible that a Foxx/More brawl could wind up splitting people so much that the people who always are inclined to back an incumbent could be just enough to win this election.

Particularly if it is true what I hear that More has the potential to tap into wealthy contributors and have the campaign fund that could allow her to be competitive. We probably shouldn’t presume that it would be “Foxx” finishing in second place in this election cycle.

ALTHOUGH IT’S ALSO possible that some of those contributors could come back to bite More in the behind. She’s already drawing criticism for the fact that she was one of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s financial supporters in the 2014 gubernatorial election cycle.

Making some say her claims of being a Democratic partisan are nothing but a crock if she was one of the people who “sold out” Pat Quinn to give us the current governor and the budget stalemate that makes Illinois government the peak of our political foolishness these days.

But I’m not ruling her out, because I don’t doubt some of those people who were itching for a political statement would view More as providing a shakeup similar to what Rauner thinks he’s doing at the state government level.

Then again, maybe Foxx will be the second place finisher and More will wind up being the person who deprives her of enough Alvarez opposition votes to actually be capable of winning the election.

OF COURSE, IT’S still early. It’s 90 or so days to March 15 and the primary that probably will be dominated by thoughts of presidential hopefuls. There still is time for both Foxx and More to fall into the political trap of saying something stupid that gets exaggerated into a major scandal that allegedly shows up unfit either woman is for public office.

Not that I expect Alvarez’ perception to change. I suspect the people who always were opposed to her will remain so, and there’s nothing she can do to improve. She just has to avoid sinking herself lower than she already is.

Because she’s not that far from “36 percent.” That’s the level of support that Harold Washington got in the 1983 primary for mayor. A majority of Chicagoans that time around desperately wanted – for whatever reason – either Jane Byrne or Richard M. Daley.

While I’m not comparing Anita to Harold, let’s be honest. This primary could become a brawl between Foxx and More that winds up maintaining the status quo.

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Who’s the new ‘b----’ of Chicago politics? Or do we despise Rahm more?

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez likely remains the most unpopular woman of the Chicago political scene these days; what with all the people who want her to resign her post as punishment for not promptly seeking criminal charges against the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald to death.

ALVAREZ: Still most despised

After all, the city is facing embarrassment for the way that 2014 shooting incident occurred and people want somebody’s head on a pike. Although not anybody too important – a state’s attorney may be high enough on the political totem pole.

BUT FOR A time, it seemed that Alvarez was going to be displaced as the femme many people wanted to see suffer.

For Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan had the unmitigated gall (some would say) to suggest that the Justice Department come in and investigate the way the Chicago Police Department handles things.

I can already hear the spirit of Richard J. Daley rolling over in his grave, while her very own father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, was probably wondering where he went wrong in teaching her the ways of politics and government.

For the last thing our political people ever want is to invite the feds into the scene. Who knows what they might dig up? Or might decide is important and worthy of further attention and action.

AFTER ALL, THEY don’t even answer to “da mare.” They think the president of the United States is the big guy.

MADIGAN: Challenging the prosecutor?

So even though this would be a Justice Department headed by people with ties to our city’s very own Barack Obama, saying that the federal government is needed to tell Chicago how its police department ought to operate is perhaps the ultimate heresy.

You might as well suggest that some outside entity ought to tell Emanuel how to do his job!

Plus, I’m sure the type of people who think that too much is being made of this McDonald mess (how dare anyone challenge a police officer’s authority or judgment) resent the idea that Lisa Madigan would suggest the need for the United States government to intervene in any way.

THIS RESENTMENT, MUCH of which will come from the “right wing” of our political society, might have been enough to make Madigan the most unpopular woman of our local political scene.

CLINTON: Support for Lisa's stance

After all, the lead story of the Chicago Tribune on Thursday wasn’t Madigan’s request for federal intervention, but local hostility toward the idea. Mayor: No need for fed probe was the banner headline on Page One.

Yet there are those sources of support for such an idea, including Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and the presidential aspirations of Hillary R. Clinton – who said she also thinks a federal investigation of our police is a worthy idea.

And even Emanuel had to back off his opposition to the idea, what with Crain’s Chicago Business reporting in mid-day that Emanuel now ‘welcomes’ federal probe of Chicago police.

IT MAY JUST be that our mess of a law enforcement situation is going to have to result in some sort of outside intervention in order to save ourselves from eternal damnation!

EMANUEL: Must he go?

Which puts Anita Alvarez back in the position of the woman despised by Chicagoans for letting this situation spring up – particularly those who delivered 32,000 petition signatures Thursday of people demanding her resignation. Although messes within law enforcement are rarely one person’s fault – and there are those who are determined to believe that Rahm Emanuel himself MUST BE the one who suffers in the end.

As I previously have written, I think it shortsighted to demand one person’s resignation. I don’t think the departure of Garry McCarthy as police superintendent changes things, nor would that of Alvarez, even though state’s attorney candidate Donna More said in a statement, “the McDonald case is just another in a series of missteps by the chief prosecutor that bring into question her handling of politically-charged cases.”

Because I still wonder how ridiculous will we all look if, by chance, we do boot all these people from office – and in the end Jason Van Dyke (the cop in question) winds up being acquitted! That very real possibility could wind up provoking the riots we managed to avert during the past week.

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Anita Alvarez – How far she’s fallen!

It wasn’t all that long ago that Anita Alvarez was actually a respected public official. Which makes the amount of hostile rhetoric she’s getting these days somewhat surprising.

ALVAREZ: Complaining to CBS

She may well be getting hit with more abuse than state Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, the congressional candidate who had hopes of an easy ride to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress until his recent arrest at O’Hare International Airport.

WE DEFINITELY HAVE in Alvarez and Trotter the “first couple” of abused Chicago political people.

Both have gone “national” in their political embarrassment. For the Cook County state’s attorney, her embarrassment came from a recently-aired episode of “60 Minutes” that portrayed her office as abusing the rights of defendants to extort false confessions out of them.

After several days of refusing to comment, Alvarez is now claiming the report was a “misrepresentation of the facts,’ and she says she sent a formal letter of complaint to the chairman of CBS News.

Which strikes me as being about as weak a gesture as on the old “Happy Days” show, when actor Ron Howard’s “Richie Cunningham” character would respond to any issue out outrage by saying he was going to, “send a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal.”

NO MATTER WHAT complaints she tries making, there are bound to be some people for whom the label “The False Confession Capital” (courtesy of “60 Minutes”) will stick to Chicago and Cook County.

When combined with the stink that is emanating from Cook County courts concerning the death of a young man allegedly caused by a nephew to former Mayor Richard M. Daley, Alvarez is coming across as someone who can only appeal to the “law and order” crowd who don’t care about the abuse of a person’s civil rights.

Following years of inaction in the 2004 incident, a special prosecutor had to be brought in from the outside (former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb) in order for any activity to occur in the courts.

TROTTER: A race to the bottom?

I find all of this interesting because I remember the impression she created among some people back in 2008 when she first got elected as state’s attorney.

SHE WAS THE breath of fresh air from a field of political hacks who ran for the office that year when Richard Devine decided it was time to retire.

She went through a Democratic primary with a half dozen candidates wishing to replace Devine in the post, and I still have in my collection of political memorabilia/junk a campaign card that portrays all of the candidates as playing card characters – going out of its way to trash everybody.

Except Alvarez, who apparently the publisher of the campaign card considered to be too insignificant to be included. Better to trash people like Howard Brookins and Tony Peraica!

So perhaps she won that primary based on the idea that all the other candidates were trashing each other so hard that she slipped under the radar. And she won a general election against then-Cook County Board member Peraica because he had the potential for such a surly personality that there were a number of people (including myself) who thought, “Anybody But Tony” when casting our ballots four years ago.

THOSE PEOPLE WHO were paying attention to Alvarez did include a few naysayers who claimed that her work in the state’s attorney’s office included nothing to indicate that she was qualified to be put in charge.

I’m sure those people who were screaming “Political Hack!” (and other harsher, more unprintable labels) toward Alvarez are now feeling self-satisfied with her fate.

Personally, I’m a little more concerned with where we go from here.

Many political people think Trotter’s career as an elected official will recover (even though Alvarez’ staff is talking about hauling Trotter’s case before a grand jury to get an indictment on assorted criminal charges), even if his chances of winning this particular special election may wither away in coming weeks. His performance before Democratic Party officials on Saturday in terms of seeking party slating for his campaign could give him a significant boost!

FOR ALVAREZ, IT might be harder – although she has the advantage of having just won re-election. She has four years to “shake off” the taint that she now carries.

Which means that Alvarez and Trotter could very well be in the running for the “comeback politico of the year” come the 2016 election cycle.

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Gay marriage fight (or lack thereof) not something to be taken for granted

Perhaps it’s because I remember that period in the mid-1990s when Republican officials willing to do the bidding of ideologues used their control of state government to ram through a partisan agenda.

ALVAREZ: Backing her county's clerk

Including a new law that made it explicitly clear that marriage in Illinois had nothing to do with couples of the same gender.

AS WAS OFTEN pointed out back then, state law always said that marriage applied only to couples of opposite sex. But the Republicans back in the days of Pate and Lee Daniels and Gov. Jim Edgar felt the need to take a pot shot at gay activists who might be thinking in terms of advancing any thoughts on the issue.

A part of me always wondered if Edgar (in private) was embarrassed about his political party feeling the need to act on this – although it didn’t stop him from signing that measure into law.

Although I recall he picked a day in May when the Legislature was particularly busy, and the amount of space devoted in newspapers and airtime on television to this issue was minimal.

There were more important issues to fight for, unless one wants to let ideology dominate their thoughts.

NOW, WE COME to the present day, where that law approved by the then-GOP state Legislature remains in effect.

But there are same gender couples who are disgusted that their partnerships can’t have the legal benefits of marriage that other couples can get when they say, “I do.”

And they have one advantage that didn’t exist nearly two decades ago – legal officials who are sympathetic on a certain level.

MADIGAN: Taking a stance

It was earlier this month that Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez let it be known that her office, which in theory is supposed to defend the county whenever it gets sued, wasn’t going to put up much of a defense. Which is what her county's clerk has been saying for years should be done.

ALVAREZ’ STAFF SHOULD have been working to defend the county clerk’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Instead, she was saying she’d like to see a court rule that the county’s actions are illegal because the state’s law is improper.

That didn’t amaze me as much as the actions earlier this week when Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan also let it be known that her legal staff wasn’t going to do much to defend the law that state government implemented back in the days of Pate & Co.

Her office may well have to wind up appointing some private legal counsel to take up this cause, although that will be tainted because the attorneys in question will inevitably have the taint of political partisanship on their shoulders.

It will hurt their credibility with the courts – unless this case winds up before a judge who is eager to rule on conservative partisan grounds. In which case, THAT will be what causes the stink of politics to waft through the air.

BUT I DO realize that it should not be perceived as automatic that attorneys for government would realize there is a problem and would act according to what they believe is the “right” thing (as in proper, not ideological) to do.

For I remember when the whole death penalty debate was at its peak. There were times when officials would make the argument that the state attorney general’s office should be leading the fight – instead of putting up defenses of the capital crimes statutes that existed.

Madigan had no trouble back then hinting that while she personally might sympathize with death penalty opponents, there was a law she still had to help enforce.

Then again, those of us who remember her professional background from before she got elected to government office know that she was an attorney who specialized in cases of sexual harassment.

BUT SHE WORKED for a law firm that was often hired by the companies that were being ACCUSED of improper behavior. Which often meant that Madigan was the one trying to advise companies how to make themselves look less offensive when they had their “day in court.”

So Madigan, on a certain level, has no problem with defending a position she might not personally believe in. The fact that she is willing to take a stance on this issue is something that truly is unique.

So what will be the end result of this particular legal battle? I have no doubt that any court decision locally that upholds the current state law on this issue will wind up being an unpopular one among the masses that someday will be regarded as mistaken.

This just feels like an issue whose time has come! Perhaps that recognition is what is truly at stake with the actions of those two government attorneys.

IF IT TURNS out that the state restrictions against non-heterosexual marriage wind up falling by the wayside, somehow I suspect the only people who truly will be offended will be that group whom state Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, spoke to earlier this week when he talked of “pushing” Chicago out into the lake with Gov. Pat Quinn “on the nose of the boat.”

Because if isolated Southern Illinois ever tried something like that, they’d find out just how quickly they would be the ones who got shoved back, and South, down into Kentucky.

How quickly would they come back, begging us for readmission?

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Casting the election cycle ’12 ballot

I’m not really someone who has undying faith in the political establishment. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the trend established when I cast my ballot on Monday for the upcoming primary elections.

THEIS: Should neighbor cost her election?



Yes, I used a couple of free hours I had during the afternoon to run some personal errands – including a visit to one of the early-voting centers so I could earn my right to complain about our government for the next four years.

SO OUT OF my continuing sense of giving you all a clue as to where I stand on assorted issues, I will confess to requesting a Democratic Party ballot. Those of you who were hoping I’d help you pick a Republican for president will have to figure that one out for yourself.

I couldn’t possibly bring myself to vote for any of them – even if a part of me thinks the concept of a “President Newt” would provide for high entertainment when it comes to political reporting.

Instead, I cast my vote for the 11 individuals on the ballot from my congressional district (the Illinois first) who want to go to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., to formally make Barack Obama the nominee for U.S. president.

In my district, those delegates include Kwame Raoul, the Hyde Park neighborhood state legislator who took over for Obama when he left the Springfield scene to be a U.S. senator for four years.

BUT THOSE WERE the predictable votes. No one else appeared on my ballot to run for president, other than Obama and his 11 delegates.

Which means the real votes “of interest” were the ones where there was a sense of choice. And I found myself, by-and-large, picking the incumbent out of a sense that none of the other choices had done or said anything to indicate that we should take them any more seriously than we do the current politico.

MUNOZ: A replacement?

That certainly goes for the five Democrats challenging Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., for his seat in Congress. If anything, somebody looking for a serious challenger to Rush ought to shift attention to the Republican ballot, where perhaps Blue Island Mayor Donald Peloquin has the background and ability to be a credible challenger.

But no one on the Democratic primary ballot deserves to be thought of in that class. So I picked Bobby for a term that, if the one-time Black Panther activist-turned-alderman gets it, would have him start his third decade of service on Capitol Hill.

THAT WAS MY same attitude when it came to picking someone for a seat on the Supreme Court of Illinois.

Mary Jane Theis is one of four Democrats and one Republican who wish a 10-year term on the state’s high court from the district that represents Cook County. If you’re a legal geek familiar with Cook County judges, some of the names might seem familiar.

But my guess is that to the average schmoe (of which I myself can be one), this is the campaign between Theis and Aurelia Pucinski.

She’s the daughter of one-time Congressman and Alderman Roman Pucinski who eventually worked her way up to being Cook County Court clerk before getting her current post on an Illinois appellate court for the Chicago area.

BUT SHE’S ALSO one of those political people who has swayed from the Democratic to the Republican parties – although political reality in Cook County has caused her to once again be a Democrat.

If it reads like I’m not sure what to make of people who swing around all over the place politically, that might be part of the reason I didn’t vote for her. But it is more because I haven’t heard anything to indicate why we should dump Theis – except some partisan rhetoric that is just too hard to take seriously.

Such as the claims that Theis should not have participated in the Illinois Supreme Court ruling that reinstated Rahm Emanuel to the ballot for the 2011 mayoral election. Both Emanuel and Theis live on the same block.

I’m not swayed.

ALTHOUGH IT DOES shock me to learn that there is one thing Pucinski says that could be construed as me agreeing with her.

For Pucinski has gone so far as to make an endorsement for the county court clerk position. She’s backing Ricardo Munoz for the office, using a forum by the Anti-Defamation League to say that incumbent Dorothy Brown has “made a mess of that office” – which Pucinski ran for 12 years.

Of course, Brown has accused Pucinski of being “vengeful” and claims she is the one who made a mess of the office that she has spent three terms trying to fix.

RUSH: No challengers, yet!



Yet I can’t help but think that, if after three terms, there is still a sense that the office is messed up, perhaps it comes down to a question of whether someone else should be given a chance.

THAT IS WHAT caused me to cast a vote for Munoz – who is giving up the City Council seat he has held for nearly two full decades to try to get himself a county-wide political post.

I’ll even be willing to forgive Munoz for that knuckleheaded vote of a few years ago when he went along with the plan to privatize the city’s parking meters – depriving city government of potential income for the future. It certainly didn't stop such prominent public officials as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle from formally endorsing his campaign.

Oh, and by the way, I also cast votes for Barack Obama for president and Anita Alvarez for state’s attorney.

But considering that both are running unopposed, what choice did I really have?

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Election Day is (finally) here!

When I take a walk later today to my neighborhood polling place to cast my ballot, I will be voting for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to have a third term, and also for Anita Alvarez to be the new state’s attorney for Cook County.

In the case of Durbin, he hasn’t offended me enough to want to dump him from public life, while Alvarez’ opponent strikes me as someone who’s more interested in using this campaign season to bolster his own professional status for future campaigns – rather than work toward the public good.

SO PERHAPS MY vote for a state’s attorney is more about voting against Tony Peraica than anything else, although I’m not convinced by those people who argue that Alvarez is just a political hack who never did anything in her two decades as a prosecutor to warrant being given the top post.

Insofar as the rest of my ballot is concerned, the votes are fairly straightforward. My state legislators are both Democrats who have only token Republican opposition, and I’ve made it clear in previous commentaries why I’m opposed to having another Constitutional Convention.

My member of Congress, Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., is running so far ahead of his GOP opponent, Cook County Jail guard Antoine Members, that it was only on Monday that Members got onto the airwaves. The spot I saw during the morning news on CNN was so absurd (featuring rough footage of Rush speaking that appeared as though Members himself shot it with a cellular telephone’s video camera) that it was laughable.

Now I’m not under some delusion that I think anybody particularly cares how I vote, or that anyone will be influenced enough by a Chicago Argus “endorsement” to change their ballot to reflect my preferences.

THIS COMMENTARY IS more about laying out my preferences, so as to give people a sense of my own biases with regard to my writing and reporting.

From the looks of my ballot, it will lean heavily Democrat – which is mostly because I have an urban perspective on life, and the modern-day Republican Party has focused itself on rural America.

But I realize that we all have our own differing opinions, and my respect ultimately goes to anyone who takes the time to cast a ballot – regardless of whom they vote for. The only people who deserve our ridicule are the ones who are too lazy to show up on Election Day. With absentee ballot or early voting options, there’s no legitimate reason to not vote.

Oh, by the way, I’ll also cast that ballot for Barack Obama, who has run what will be the most legitimate presidential campaign of any of the Chicago or Illinois political people whom I have covered during the past two decades of being a reporter-type person.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: My reasons for supporting the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama haven’t changed much (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/02/after-much-consideration-its-obama.html) since (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-meant-for-bigger-playing-fields.html) the Illinois primary in February.