What's an endorsement worth? Or, bringing ethnicity, race into campaign!

It will be interesting to hear the rancid rhetoric that will be spewed in coming days in reaction to the two major candidates seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for Illinois governor.
 

GUTIERREZ: A Pritzker person

Both of them got endorsements from members of the state’s congressional delegation that are going to be viewed as strategically significant, yet their detractors will be eager to put their own negative spin on the support.

FOR IT SEEMS that Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is backing J.B. Pritzker for governor, while Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is a supporter of Chris Kennedy’s campaign.

 

RUSH: Backing Bobby's son

Or, as some people are already putting the spin on it, Kennedy has the backing of the militant, radical one-time member of the Black Panther Party. A real-life radical of the type that the conservative ideologues always wanted to believe that Barack Obama was.

While Pritzker has the backing of a Puerto Rican radical who has been a vocal supporter of the independence movement for the U.S. commonwealth and of the many FALN members who have turned to violence in support of that independence ideal!

KENNEDY: Trying to play catch-up

Or, if you don’t really know anything about Puerto Rico  (do you even know what FALN stands for? Or was?) and don’t want to be bothered finding out, perhaps you’d rather think of Pritzker as just an extension of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

FOR IT SEEMS that when people gathered at a Pilsen neighborhood Methodist church for the Pritzker endorsement, the backers of Gov. Bruce Rauner arranged for a man wearing a Blagojevich mask to stand outside carrying a sign reading, “Luis endorsed ME too.”

PRITZKER: Trying to bolster lead

In short, it seems that for every potential positive vote that these endorsements create for their respective candidates, there is someone who wants to create a negative perception. As though they hope the "nasty" overcomes the "positive."

In fact, that is what most captivated me about the word of these electoral announcements that were made to start off the new week.

RAUNER: Sticking his nose into Monday's antics

It would seem that some people want to think of any non-Anglo support as somehow being a negative – as though this will be the election won by the support of white people who don’t think of themselves in terms of (and, in fact, may not have any real comprehension about) their ethnic origins.

AS IN I found one website comment (anonymous, of course) that said such endorsements, “cancel one another out.” While another suggested we, “will ask JB about Oscar Lopez, right after we ask Chris about the Black Panthers.”

Some people are prepared to smudge up anything and everything, which may well be the problem with the political process – even moreso than all the millions of dollars that will be spent this election cycle by the major candidates to further spread these semi-noxious messages.

I say “semi-,” because a part of me actually thinks they’re too stupid to take seriously. The Black Panther movement of old is so far in our past I wonder how many have a clue what it ever was.

BISS: Lonely at the bottom of political pile?

While Lopez is a more recent phenomenon – Gutierrez actually offered up his support for the bid for clemency that got the FALN activist who served longer in federal prison than any other his freedom from prison in Terre Haute, Ind., back in February – and release from house arrest May 17.

BUT TO BE honest, it would be absurd to expect Gutierrez (who himself lived a part of his life on the Puerto Rican island and in his college days protested peacefully for independence) to have no opinion – or past – on this issue.

If he were truly as blank a slate as the conservative ideologues would claim he should be, then he wouldn’t be representing the constituents of his heavily-Latino district (which includes several Puerto Rican-based neighborhoods on the city’s Northwest Side).

To be honest, trying to bring up these issues into the governor’s race is absurd. It is the mentality of a campaign that can’t explain why we should possibly vote for their candidate, so they want to spend time bad-mouthing the others.

Although I will express some sympathy for whomever the schmoe was that got stuck showing up at the Pritzker event in the Blagojevich costume (which consisted of a mask and stereotypical orange prison get-up). It must have been hot and sweaty and miserable for the person spewing political garbage – which serves them right!

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EXTRA: King Kong vs. Godzilla?!?

It has been more than a full day since Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., made his criticism Thursday of Illinois’ financial situation by saying that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, are behaving in a way that makes them the equivalent of King Kong and Godzilla.

I just have one question – which one’s which? And which one would want to be which?

ALTHOUGH THE CONGRESSMAN from the South Side does have a point in that the budget battles between the two are putting Illinoisans in the same position as Tokyo residents in that 1962 film.

We’re the ones being clobbered by the partisan mess the two have created!

  -30-

You don’t know how pleased I am that we’re just one day away from Tuesday

This may have been a holy weekend of sorts (with both Easter and Passover holidays being celebrated). Yet my prayers are for Tuesday to come, and go, as quickly as possible.

Because that will mean the passing of Election Day and an end to the ranting and raging from the mayoral candidates about which of them is less incompetent/buffoonish/corrupt than the other.

THERE ARE TIMES when I wonder what we Chicagoans did to deserve any of these political people!

I want a return to a certain level of sanity in our society – except that we already have various congressional candidates declaring their candidacy for 2016. Real peace would have come if Raja Krishnamoorthi, Brad Schneider and company could have waited a bit before kicking off yet another campaign cycle.

But we’re at the final day of campaigning. One last round of cheap shots to see who could get in the final blow, before we go off to the polling places to cast our ballots.

Although if the figures from the Chicago Board of Elections are any indication, we had a record-high number of voters (142,344 people) use early voting centers to cast their ballots, with another 55,626 people requesting absentee ballots.

DOES THIS MEAN there will be record-high interest and intensity about whether or not we dump Rahm Emanuel as mayor and replace him with a political official whom some (such as Cheech Marin in his “Santa Claus and his Old Lady” sketch) would say was named after one of Santa Claus’ reindeer?

Or does it mean that the people who really care about the Emanuel/Jesus Garcia fight of the 2015 election cycle have already voted?

Could we wind up getting very early Election Night results on Tuesday because there weren’t a heck of a lot of ballots to count up?

Could the real intrigue for political geeks come in the aldermanic races, or perhaps in some of the suburbs where there are races for local political domination that could be settled by just a couple hundred votes difference?

SO LOW BECAUSE those suburban races tend to have pitiful voter turnout – probably less than the interest in the Chicago municipal races, which based off the February round of elections wasn’t all that high and nearly set a new standard for record low.

Remember the two-thirds of registered voters who couldn’t be bothered to show up to vote for a campaign that supposedly has the interest of all “real” Chicagoans?!?

As we stand on the verge of Election Day, my own focus is on trying to get evidence of how strong voter turnout is. In an election cycle where some people are convinced to believe our collective revulsion for Rahm is so strong, why does it feel like the true masses just don’t care?

Emanuel is the candidate for those people whose sense of the status quo in Chicago is that things could be a lot worse. While Garcia is the guy for those people who feel their concerns have long been ignored by the political establishment.

ALTHOUGH I FIND it almost amusing that various polls show that Emanuel gets political support from some Latinos, a majority of black voters and the bulk of the white vote in Chicago.

Not exactly the type of “coalition” building that Garcia’s followers want to believe he learned from the 1983 election cycle that gave us “Mayor Harold Washington” and the outburst of negativity from his opposition that has left its lasting scars on Chicago. No wonder Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., has been critical of Garcia for trying to assume the “Washington legacy” label for his own campaigning.

It won’t surprise me if Emanuel comes out with a slim majority of voter support, regardless of how strong an effort the Chicago Teachers Union and other Garcia backers put into their voter turnout efforts on Tuesday.

Because if Garcia were able to pull off an electoral victory, it would be a bigger shock to the system of Chicago than Washington in the ’83 primary – and I wonder if Washington’s aging backers would go all out on Tuesday to do whatever they deemed necessary to prevent such an event from occurring.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: How many people were more intrigued by Sunday’s national broadcast of the 2015 baseball season opener at Wrigley Field, or by the Monday afternoon first game of the season for the Chicago White Sox, than they will be by Tuesday’s municipal elections?

Some people wish Ryan, Blagojevich could just fade off into the sunset

Some people are just determined not to wither away into anonymity – no matter how much the ideologically-inclined of our society desire it.

RYAN: Beginning 'elder' statesman niche

Because I’m not as bothered as some by the fact that our former governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich both popped back into the news columns in recent days.

I ACTUALLY FOUND Ryan’s weekend appearance at the South Side church that calls Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., its pastor to be intriguing in the way that George H. was capable of calling on international ties that usually wouldn't be associated with a state official to get something done.

And as for Blagojevich’s attorneys appearing in court on Friday to argue the merits of why his convictions should be overturned (or at the very least, his 14-year prison sentence should be lessened), well, that’s part of the legal process.

He gets to appeal. For those who’d rather not allow him the opportunity to challenge the merits of his conviction, I’d argue that’s an “un-American” thought to have.

I make such a statement because I notice that the Internet commentary on both of these stories is so overwhelmingly negative. People use the anonymity of such comments to make racist comments about Ryan, while claiming that one-time first lady Patti Blagojevich and the attorneys all ought to be silenced.

REGARDLESS OF WHAT one thinks of the gubernatorial stints of both of these men, such attitudes may be more despicable than anything either man did. And let’s not forget that Blagojevich is in the early years of serving that 14-year sentence.

While Ryan wound up doing six-plus years in a federal Bureau of Prisons work camp for his acts.

In the case of Ryan, he made what is being considered his first public appearance since being released from prison earlier this year.

BLAGOJEVICH: "Free Milorod?"

It was a memorial service on the South Side for one-time activist and South Africa President Nelson Mandela, and Ryan recalled the time he got to meet with the man.

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Sun-Times, Mandela’s minions initially rejected Ryan on the grounds that he was not a national leader or other world-renowned figure.

But Ryan did make that trip back in the autumn of 1999 to Cuba and had met with Fidel Castro. Which meant that Ryan’s people were able to contact Castro’s people, who then contacted Mandela’s people to put in a good word.

That resulted in the initial meeting, and the fact that later when Ryan was seriously contemplating clearing Death Row of its 160-some inmates because Illinois’ capital crimes statutes were so flawed, Mandela was able to get through directly to the governor to put in his thoughts (which were in line with doing away with the death penalty).

Let’s be honest. That is a key part of why many of Ryan’s critics oppose him. Internet comments were more than willing to tie Ryan to Castro, the Mandela that was considered a “Communist” and the Bobby Rush of the Black Panther Party of old.

AN UNPLEASANT REMINDER that some people in our society are determined to live in their own little world, and wish they could force the rest of us to live in it with them – under their subjugation.

Those same people were upset that Blagojevich is able to appeal his case – in which arguments were heard before a Court of Appeals panel on Friday.

Some got all worked up over the fact that some judges on the panel were more than willing to ask questions implying that perhaps the sentence was excessive. Or that maybe the former governor’s conduct wasn’t really criminal – and that politics itself isn’t automatically bribery.

Personally, I’m inclined to think those questions came from judges who wanted to see if the attorneys would come up with a pompous or otherwise-stupid statement that would then be used to reject Blagojevich’s desire for freedom sometime before he turns 67.

BUT SOME PEOPLE are just determined to rant and rage that their desires to go overboard on Blagojevich aren’t being blindly followed.

Blagojevich may wind up spending more time in prison (even if he gets the sentenced lessened slightly). But we’re going to have to accept that Ryan is destined to become that political elder statesman with a colorful past (just like one-time Congressman Dan Rostenkowski).

This was just the first of many such public appearances he’s likely to make.

Which means I need to stock up on Tylenol for the Internet-induced comments I’m going to have to endure as a result.

  -30-

Differing perspective on “white boys”

It never fails to amuse me the way some people have trouble comprehending the fact that black people in our society have a slightly differing perspective on things than others do.

RUSH: Too loose w/ the lip?

They’re usually the first to scream “reverse racism” (or some other term) when black people don’t quite see things the same.

WHICH IS WHY some people are trying to make an issue over the fact that Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., called out Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., when the latter came up with an unrealistic idea for dealing with the problem of street gangs.

The senator would like the federal government to do the equivalent of declaring war on the Gangster Disciples, even if it means using force to arrest them all.

Rush, who was once a member of the activist Black Panther group that the government tried to take such an approach with back in the early 1970s, went so far as to lambaste Kirk in the Chicago Sun-Times for offering an, “empty, simplistic, unworkable approach,” and called Kirk himself an “elitist white boy.”

The Chicago Tribune on Monday went so far as to call Rush’s comments “repugnant” and say that he ought to be working with Kirk – instead of criticizing him.

COMPARED TO OTHERS who have been bashing Rush, the Tribune is being rather polite, courteous and respectful.

Because it seems there are some people who want to believe that it would be appropriate to have our officials start violating rights of individuals who aren’t like themselves. As though they believe the Constitution is only for themselves.

I know one individual who usually shows large amounts of common sense. But a few weeks ago, he started talking about gang problems and suggested that all suspected gang members be put on board a boat that should then be sunk in the depths of Lake Michigan.

KIRK: A solution, or another problem?

It’s nonsense to take that notion seriously. But it’s just as ridiculous as the Kirk talk about unleashing the powers of the government against these particular individuals, since street gang affiliations are rarely so simply that we can readily identify who is what.

ALTHOUGH SOME PEOPLE now want to react as though Kirk has some sort of logic in his babbling, and that Rush is just looking to provoke trouble.

Ignoring the fact that Rush speaks from a perspective of people who have seen the power of the government turned against them, and realizes how harmful this could be.

No one should think this commentary is a defense of a street gang’s activity. It isn’t. Then again, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, in fact, our whole form of government, is meant to protect everybody.

It is not supposed to be selective. If it were, we’d be just as bad as the nations of the world our society so often likes to criticize!

BUT THERE WILL be those who won’t want to hear that. They’re going to latch onto that “white boy” phrase and try to claim that it is Rush who started the dispute.

It’s way too similar to the Democratic primary for governor back in 1998, where former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris (whose record on paper was more substantial than anyone else he ran against) dismissed his challengers as “unqualified white boys.”

He was offended that so many people were willing and eager to put those challengers on an equal plane as himself. The offense experienced by potential voters to Burris’ nerve was a factor in his eventual loss to now-former Rep. Glenn Poshard (whose inexperience in dealing with anything urban caused his eventual loss in the general election that year to George Ryan).

Now, we’re living through something similar with Rush – although I doubt the backlash will hurt the long-time Congressman who remains popular with his South Side voter base.

IF ANYTHING HURTS Rush, it’s going to be his increasing age.

Although I suspect his willingness to express that “black” viewpoint on this issue (although I’m sure there also are black people who disagree) will ensure that those voters will be willing to keep Rush in Congress until he decides to step down on his own.

  -30-

Give “hope” and “change” a 2nd chance

To me, at least, the third and final presidential debate held Monday night didn’t matter.

OBAMA: Seeking a second chance

For on Monday just a few hours prior to the event, I went to a local early voting center and cast my ballot for the Nov. 6 general elections – including a vote for Barack Obama to get a second term as U.S. president.

NOW I’M SURE people who have been reading the commentary published here throughout the years will yawn at this “pronouncement.” They probably concluded a long time ago that I’m not among the people in our society with a knee-jerk reaction against the Obama administration.

So the idea that I would cast a ballot for him over Republican nominee Mitt Romney shouldn’t be surprising.

But in the tradition of this particular weblog to offer endorsement-like explanations of my voting record as a way of expressing this site’s ideological anchoring, I will try to ‘splain myself.

And no, I won’t ramble on for more than 2,200 words (which I did back in 2008 when explaining my support for Obama over Hillary R. Clinton in the Democratic primary that year – still the longest piece of commentary I have ever written for this site).

YES, I’M MORE than willing to concede that there are people out there who backed Obama in ’08, but feel he fell short. Although I think many of those people were politically naïve in their expectations.

There always is a political opposition that desires to thwart anything an incumbent official wants to achieve.

And that opposition has been particularly fierce and outspoken when it comes to Obama. They made it clear they were appalled by his election up front, then took advantage of crummy voter turnout in the 2010 elections to get ideologically-aligned members of Congress elected.

RUSH: An 11th term in Congress?



Those officials have done little more than run interference to everything. It has been a do-nothing Congress that takes great pride in its lack of activity – because it’s not THEIR activity.

WHICH IS WHY when I stumbled across a recent editorial cartoon depicting a vision of an Obama campaign bus with a slogan painted on its site, something to the effect of, “He promises to do better in the second term,” I laughed.

Because there is an element of truth to that view of the Obama campaign.

He’s going to have to do better and be more productive if he gets a second four-year term in office. Which means he’s going to have to develop more of a political mean-streak. Perhaps the intellectual drive that some of us find appealing is going to have to accept the fact that he’s in a political “war” with his opposition.

He’s going to have to overcome them if he’s going to achieve anywhere near the goals he promised back then.

I’M SURE SOME (mostly the hard-core ideologues who have been the opposition) will argue that Obama had his chance, and should step aside to give someone else (such as themselves) a chance.

Yet I don’t buy that because it seems to me that what they’re asking for is to be rewarded politically for their obstructionism. I wonder how much better off our economy would be if we had officials trying to work together – rather than an opposition party that thinks it is acceptable for us to wait through an Obama administration of misery for them to “come to save the day” (envision Andy Kaufman’s “Mighty Mouse” routine as you read that line).

In fact, that same line of logic dictated my vote for Congress – where I live in the Illinois first Congressional district. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., has been around for two decades, and a legitimate argument could be made that it is time for him to step down – but he won’t.

He’s being challenged by long-time suburban Blue Island Mayor Donald Peloquin, who isn’t the most outrageous small-town official you could have to pick from. He has his qualifications.

YET THE PEOPLE he’d be aligned with politically would be counting on him to provide the basis for nonsense such as repealing health care reform –blatantly partisan measures meant only to “erase” the Obama image from history.

Rush gets my vote largely because I don’t want to reward the ideologues who have become the problem of our government these days. If I lived in the Illinois second Congressional district (located less than a mile from where I live), I’d cast a ballot for Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., for the same reason. Or for Tammy Duckworth if I lived in the Illinois eighth.

WASHINGTON: Similar to Barack?



There’s also the fact that this election cycle is so reminiscent of the 1987 mayoral election when Harold Washington sought re-election against (amongst others) Edward R. Vrdolyak (running on the Illinois Solidarity Party ticket).

Vrdolyak was hoping that the opposition that allowed him to defy Washington would make him mayor – where he could then go about undoing the acts of the Washington years.

ADMITTEDLY, MITT IS a political wimp compared to somebody like Vrdolyak (although some of the people reluctantly backing Mitt are capable of being despicable). But it would have been a significant step backwards for Chicago and its image if “Fast Eddie” had pulled off a victory.

Do we really want our nation to make that mistake?

  -30-

A hoodie for Bobby? Or a different type of ‘hood’ for his political opponents?

I have to confess; I have never understood the difference between a “hoodie” and a hooded sweatshirt. As far as I can tell, they’re essentially the same thing – except that the “hoodie” will have some sort of brand name that retailers will use to justify charging significantly more money than just a regular sweatshirt.

RUSH: A revolutionary, again?

In fact, I view the idea of a “hoodie” the same way that a certain generation views the idea of drinking bottled water – why buy it from the store when you can get it “for free” (although not really) from the tap?

SO THE IDEA that the “hoodie” is now becoming some sort of symbol for justice and freedom from persecution is incredibly laughable to me, and the idea that it can be offensive to some is so pathetic.

Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., (who I must admit is my member of Congress) shows us that even though he has suffered a stroke and is 65, he still has a touch of that “revolutionary” spirit that once inspired him to wear a black beret and claim to be head of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.

For a really funny story, you should hear Rush himself explain to you just how he happened to come by that title.

But for a pathetic story, you should consider what happened to Rush when – on Wednesday – he chose to wear a “hoodie” on the floor of the House of Representatives while getting into the mood of making a speech in memoriam to Trayvon Martin – who was killed by a neighborhood-watch type in Sanford, Fla., last month while wearing a similar hood.

SOME MIGHT SAY that Rush’s actions were a lame gesture of protest. On a certain level, I’d agree. There’s nothing revolutionary about a “hoodie.” Particularly when pro basketball sensation (and local guy done good) Dwyane Wade can wear one on a basketball court last week and be regarded as "heroic."

Yet the political opposition certainly took it as revolutionary. It was Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., who brought up the point of order that a hood was not a part of the official dress code of the House of Representatives. Although if you ever saw the way some political people dress,  you’d realize that a “hoodie” is far from a fashion offense.

HARPER; Matching the stereotype?



When Rush tried proceeding with his speech despite the Harper nonsense rhetoric, he ultimately got removed by force -- as in being escorted off as though he were some intruder, instead of a two-decade member.

What is it about a “hoodie,” which in a certain fashion sense looks stupid, that can get people so worked up? I ask that particularly since it seems that “hoodies” are truly a multi-racial garb of clothing. It’s not just a black “thing” any more. Anybody who seriously thinks of it in that way is being foolish. And I use that word deliberately.

FOR IF ANYONE is going to come across looking foolish because of this incident, it is Harper. It is such a gross over-reaction.

If anything, he has confirmed for all of us to see the concept that a certain segment of our society makes irrational assumptions when they see the “hoodie.”

This incident on Wednesday became something that will gain national notoriety because of Harper. Had he just kept his mouth shut and Rush had been allowed to continue his rhetorical ramblings, chances are this moment would have received no more than a few seconds of mention on a few broadcast news programs – before the public attention moved on. It might have even warranted a “Daily Show” laugh at Rush’s expense.

It certainly would not have become a moment that likely will gain significance in the Bobby Rush life story as a time when he stood up for the people and against irrationality and prejudice, and a reason for Jon Stewart to take off on Harper.

IF SOME PEOPLE have ideological hang-ups that will cause them to believe that Rush is forevermore a radical and subversive (and as one who lives in the Illinois First Congressional District, I am aware of the extent to which that attitude exists among a few of its residents), then I’d argue Harper played down to the stereotype of a Mississippi politician.

He certainly didn’t “do right” by the people who elected him to Capitol Hill.

He acted like a buffoon, and now we’re going to have to wonder what is wrong with the people of the Mississippi Third Congressional District that they would give this guy two terms in Congress – and likely a third after the Nov. 6 elections.

He turned what should have been a trivial, even laughable moment on Rush’s part into a controversy.

HE GOT ALL worked up over a hood, which I’ll be honest I don’t like to wear just because I don’t like the feel of it over my head (I don’t care much for hats, either, to tell the truth).

And for those who want to claim that the gesture Rush was trying to make by wearing a “hoodie” is somehow offensive to those with a law-and-order mentality, at least I’d say he was wearing his hood in public.

Unlike certain other people who have served in the House of Representatives during its history who chose to wear their “hoods” (you know what I mean) after hours in the presence of a lit cross when they thought nobody was watching.

  -30-

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?

  -30-

What’s to become of lt. gov?

My initial reaction to learning that several members of the Democratic Party’s state central committee sent a letter to Illinois House Speaker/state Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, complaining of the way he took it upon himself to sponsor a proposed constitutional amendment doing away with the position of lieutenant governor was to feel a sense of local pleasure.

That letter was signed by seven of the 38 members of the party’s central committee, including both of the people who were elected from my home district – the Illinois First Congressional.

SO THAT MEANS both Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and state Rep. Connie Howard, D-Chicago, are in line with my thoughts on the issue – which are that the people who are eager to abolish the position are being a bit short-sighted in the way they think.

I have written previously that I like the idea of knowing exactly who will be first-in-line to take over state government in the event that some calamity befalls the governor. I like the idea of it being someone who was elected for that specific purpose, rather than someone who moves up the line of succession after being elected for another government post.

I know that a part of Lisa Madigan would like to be governor of Illinois someday, but I’d rather see her get the post because she ran a statewide campaign for it, rather than being bumped up from attorney general because something happened to Pat Quinn.

Madigan’s father, the aforementioned House speaker/state party chairman (who in the Chicago-centric world of Illinois politics is less important than the party chairman for Cook County), appears to be willing to have that scenario, even though the constitutional amendment he proposed that would have to be voted on by the General Assembly and by voters statewide would not take effect until 2015.

WHICH MEANS THE Democratic Party still needs to find a replacement for Scott Lee Cohen, whose letter formally declining the party’s nomination for the post officially was received Tuesday by the State Board of Elections, for the Nov. 2 general election, where the yet-to-be-chosen nominee will run against the 27-year-old GOP nominee with what appears to be an incredibly inflated resume.

The letter sent to Madigan this week said there should be a “uniform, comprehensive and transparent” process by which a lieutenant governor nominee should be picked by the party. Even the party insiders see that what is happening here is they ultimately will be pressured to pick whomever Madigan (as in Michael) wants for the post.

And if Madigan’s past electoral record is any indication, it is obvious that the lieutenant governor nominee ultimately will be someone whose appearance on the ballot does not hurt the chances of getting people to vote for a Democrat to represent them in the Illinois House of Representatives.

Forget about whether the person would be fit to govern Illinois if something bad happened to Quinn, or if they bolster the regional or ethnic diversity of the Democratic ticket for state constitutional offices.

THOSE COMMITTEEMEN IN their letter said they think the party’s officials should have been consulted about something as serious as abolishing the lieutenant governor’s post, although Madigan’s aides responded by telling reporter-types that it is absurd to think an individual legislator has to consult with the party bigwigs before he can introduce a bill for the Legislature’s consideration.

I’d take that argument much more seriously if Madigan were just another political schnook. If he were some freshman legislator serving his first term, or someone who came from a part of the state with little political clout, it would make sense that he could do what he wanted, and the people would be free to ignore his desire if they so wished.

But the reality is that anything with the Mike Madigan name on it is going to get high profile just because of its sponsor. Any Democratic legislator who dares to vote against this proposed amendment can probably count on his/her political career withering away into dust.

I remember one time back during the 1990s when Mayor Richard M. Daley reached an agreement with certain legislative leaders to advance a measure the city desired, only for it to die in the Illinois House just after Madigan himself said it was not wise to exclude him from the pre-vote negotiations.

ENVISION THOSE OLD “Chiffon” margarine commercials from the 1970s where “Mother Nature” unleashes lightning bolts because she was “fooled” into thinking that margarine was really butter. Only set them in the House chambers in Springfield.

My point is that you don’t mess with Madigan. He doesn’t even have to say anything intimidating to get support for his measures.

Once it gets to the general public, it becomes a different matter. Will people see this as a “good government” move to abolish an electoral office? Or will it be seen as an attempt by the speaker/party leader to dictate policy to the people.

Which is why I’m glad to learn that some of the state central committeemen (including, among others, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., whom some speculate would like to see his wife, Sandi, currently a Chicago alderman, get the post) is willing to go on record in writing that maybe Madigan is wrong.

AND THE FACT that both Rush and Howard were willing to put their names on this letter makes me feel a bit better about the fact that I voted for them for those central committeeman posts in recent elections.

At least two votes I cast were for people who occasionally can say the right thing.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: African-American members of the Democratic State Central committee that ostensibly will pick (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-lt-gov-madigan-0216-20100216,0,5895822.story) the new lieutenant governor nominee have their problems with actions that make it seem that Mike Madigan will single-handedly make the choice himself.

Jason Plummer sounds like someone with a bright future. Perhaps he should be the Republican nominee (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/02/pawnbrokers-withdrawal-official-for-democrats-gop-governor-race-still-counting.html) for governor in 2024 (rather than for lieutenant governor this year) once his real life catches up with his resume.

Who should regulate cemeteries?

It is the knee-jerk reaction for a government official. When there is a problem, hold a hearing.

Allow a group of political people to sit in a row with microphones in front of their faces, so they can hear “testimony” from individuals who have suffered. It creates the image that something is being done.

AT THE VERY least, it makes people feel like someone is listening. But is this really the way that anything gets done?

The latest “controversy” to be dealt with in such a manner involves the situation at Burr Oak Cemetery, a historically African-American cemetery in southwest suburban Alsip, where it is suspected that bodies were being dug up so that the land used by the graves could be resold to newly deceased people.

While there is the chance that some of these people were buried at the cemetery under agreements that allowed their bodies to be moved to a mass grave after a few decades had passed, the fact is that nobody seems to know for sure.

Officials investigating the situation say the records at Burr Oak are so bad they really can’t tell who was buried under what terms. And when officials start finding body parts such as bone fragments out in the open, it would appear that the agreement to move to a mass grave was not being kept according to the letter of the law.

IT WOULD SEEM the situation at Burr Oak is a mess. And it would seem that stories emanating from Burr Oak are causing people at other cemeteries to start looking more closely at conditions.

Just this weekend, police began investigating the situation at Mount Glenwood Memory Gardens cemetery (also in the south suburbs), where a roughly 10-inch-long bone was found lying on the ground near a burial vault.

All of these stories are providing the motivation for Congress to get involved. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., (whose district includes Burr Oak) headed up a panel on Monday at the Dirksen Federal Building that spent its time trying to look concerned while giving people whose relatives are buried at Burr Oak a chance to tell their tales in public.

Now I’m glad to hear that political people want to be concerned. I’m just not sure what was accomplished with Monday’s hearings, because this strikes me as one of those issues where the federal government is probably the least qualified to do anything to address the problem.

CURRENTLY, THE STATE provides the Illinois comptroller’s office with limited authority to regulate cemeteries. The entity that cuts checks to pay the state’s bills has a few regulators who can impose fines and issue orders if they find cemeteries that are ill kept or otherwise poorly maintained.

When it comes to such instances, we’re usually talking about old graveyards that no longer accept human remains and where the owner either does not properly maintain the grounds, or perhaps so much time has passed that there is legitimate confusion as to who is responsible for keeping the cemetery from turning into a weed field.

The point is that cemetery maintenance is a local issue. It is one that involves people who are actually in the community making sure that the space used for burials does not somehow provide a health threat to the surviving public, and that the deceased’s remains are being accorded the respect they are entitled to.

After all, these were once human beings whose families put them there out of the belief they would have some sort of “eternal rest,” so to speak.

I JUST DON’T see the federal officials answering to people on Capitol Hill as being the best qualified to address the issue.

If anything, this might be an issue where the county governments are the ones best able to provide oversight. After all, they have a sense of being able to look at the “big picture,” while also being close enough to the situation in the communities to sense the local mood.

Yet within Cook County, we have our officials complaining about the cost of the investigations thus far (as of last week, the sheriff’s police said they had already spent $326,000 because of Burr Oak, expected to spend much more, and were already trying to figure out how to get some other government entity to reimburse them for the expense).

That entity is the state, which already has limited oversight authority through the comptroller’s office.

YET WE HAVE a state government complaining about how tight its finances are, and has already managed to show it can’t come up with a balanced budget for the complete fiscal year. Why else will they have to return in January to approve a budget for the rest of Fiscal ’10 – which runs through June 30?

This could very well become one of those areas where the state ought to provide some funding, but will use its financial problems to get out of it – thereby sticking the county with the bill.

In fact, that might be the only logical reason to get the federal government involved in this issue. It is an area where the state and county are likely to battle over who gets stuck with the bill for investigating who did what – and was it criminal in nature, or just venal? But that seems like a poor reason to get the feds involved in a local matter.

In short, this could wind up becoming a classic political situation – everybody wants to appear as though they are concerned about a problem, but they all want someone else to have to deal with it.

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Obama’s Chicago political past ought to help him in his Oval Office future

The first product of City Hall and the Statehouse Scene in Springpatch to win a U.S. presidential election takes the Oath of Office in just a few hours.

Tuesday is the day that Barack Obama gets to drop the “-elect” from his title, and gets to challenge Hank Aaron and Reggie Jackson for being the biggest name associated with the number “44.”

YET ON THIS day, all that I as an observer of the Statehouse and City Hall scenes can do is think back to the past for one last dose of reminiscing about just how it came to be that Obama rose to a position where the electorate would take seriously the thought of him as President of the United States.

Now I know the real hard-core political people, particularly those who realize that the neighborhoods of the South Side are not to be ignored, can tell you stories about community activist Barack, or socially-concerned Obama when he chose to bypass the law firms that could have made him a wealthy junior executive and instead chose to be the type of attorney who did “poor people’s law” on behalf of the public.

I’m not one of those people.

The first time I became aware of the existence of Barack Obama was back in the spring of 1996. I was a Statehouse-based reporter-type in those days, and I heard stories in Springfield about this newcomer who had the nerve to get an incumbent senator kicked off the ballot so he could have her seat in the state Senate.

This is the official image of new President Barack H. Obama, who is now the first Chicagoan who gets to live (instead of merely work) in the White House.

MY UNDERSTANDING IS that Alice Palmer is still miffed that her public service career ended with Obama getting her knocked off politically because she submitted sloppy nominating petitions that her staff rushed to put together because she had originally spent considerable time thinking about running for Congress.

In the world of Chicago politics, giving an incumbent a pass for something that would have been used to kill a political dreamer before he could drift off to sleep would have been considered common courtesy.

In the world of goo goo politics, letting her remain on the ballot then trying to engage her in high-minded political debate on “the issues” would have been the thing to do.

Instead, Obama went for the kill, showing he was never as wimpy a liberal as some of those social conservatives tried to make us believe during the general election campaign season last year.

PALMER, WHO CAMPAIGNED openly for Hillary R. Clinton in Illinois and northwest Indiana, made the mistake of thinking that Obama would get out of her way for her legislative seat after realizing there was no way she could win a seat in Congress in the 1996 elections. For Obama, his political “mistake” was not coming to the same realization as Palmer when he challenged Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., a few years later.

It was 2000, and in the first year of the millennium, Obama took on Rush in the Democratic primary for the first congressional district of Illinois. It was a district that long represented the African-American majority of Chicago’s South Side.

Winning it would have put Obama in a political legacy with people like Harold Washington and Bill Dawson, both of whom had a streak of viewing themselves as representing black peoples’ interests in Washington.

And Rush managed to clean Obama’s clock by peddling the image of an Ivy League elitist who didn’t understand black people (and probably wished he could be white instead of merely bi-racial).

IN SHORT, THAT was the election he lost because he was NOT the kind of person whom the conservative activists last year tried to make him out to be – the “black power” type who takes literally every single word that came from the mouth of his long-time preacher – Jeremiah Wright.

That experience molded him in a sense of realizing he would have to turn his bi-racial, exposure to many classes of people, background into a plus. Instead of thinking he could build up overwhelming support among any one group and ride that to victory (which is what many of our local political geeks do), he was going to have to reach out to get votes from many types of people.

I have always thought Obama’s ability to do just that is the reason why he, instead of any of the other people who populate the Chicago and Illinois political scenes, was able to rise above the ranks of our local politics and become a credible presidential candidate.

Not that I’m claiming I knew way back when that he would be president some day. I still remember the 1988 presidential dreams of Paul Simon. The senator from Southern Illinois was respected, but his campaign caught the imagination of no one outside of Illinois. With a couple fewer breaks, Obama's '08 campaign could easily have turned out the same.

WHEN I FIRST met Obama face-to-face on the day in January 1997 that he became a state senator, my impression was of an intellect that would take him up and out from the Statehouse scene. But President? Maybe a president will pick him someday for a Cabinet post (Attorney General Obama? Shows you how little I know).

But I don’t think it is possible to predict with any certainty just which of our political geeks ought to be taken seriously when it comes to presidential aspirations. There are just too many factors that have to break any given way for the event to occur.

Take into account that some people used to take seriously the notion that Rod Blagojevich would someday be a U.S. president (or at least a Democratic Party nominee). Does anyone outside of Milorod’s mindset still harbor such delusions?

So the fact that the White House will now be staffed with many people who gained their experience working at City Hall and the Statehouse is not the only reason that Chicago political observers will see a familiar tone to the antics that will now take place in and around the Oval Office.

LEARNING TO PLAY hardball politics in the Second City has molded him in a way that will seem familiar to anyone who has ever spent time at City Hall, although I think his intellect and personality will make him more than just a carbon copy of “Richard M. Daley does D.C.”

Despite this moment of reminiscing, I am not likely to be among the people parked in front of a television intending to observe every single second of “the event,” followed up with tons of analysis about the significance of what I just saw.

As it turns out, I am a freelance writer who scraps together various writing assignments in hopes of bringing in enough money to earn a living. On Tuesday, I will be chasing stories for a suburban newspaper about upcoming elections for municipal office.

In short, my attention will be on the future. Because that is when solutions to the problems our nation faces will have to be discovered. An Obama victory last November means little if his term turns into a big fat nothing.

PERHAPS THAT IS something everybody ought to keep in mind as they watch Obama take the oath of office, try to utter the inaugural address phrase that puts him in the history books alongside John F. Kennedy, or dances a waltz with first lady Michelle at one of the many balls at which he will make a perfunctory appearance.

Tuesday’s festivities are cute. But the majority of voters chose Obama over John McCain because they want him to try to dig this country out of the mass they perceive it is in due to the antics of departing President George W. Bush.

If he fails, it won’t matter how inspirational his words were, how lovely Michelle’s evening gown was, or what it was that Sasha said or did that struck the nation as cute but which she will find forevermore embarrassing when it is thrown in her face 20 years from now.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Here’s hoping on behalf of Chicago political observers everywhere (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/04/11/obamas-years-in-chicago-politics-shaped-his-presidential-candidacy.html) that Barack Obama doesn’t do something during the next four (or eight) years in the White House that specifically reflects badly upon the Second City.

Some people know how (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/once-obamas-men.html) to carry a grudge.

Before he became the man who helped turn Roland Burris’ Senate appointment into a racial issue (but long after he was a Black Panther), Bobby Rush was the man who gave Obama (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/us/politics/09obama.html) a political whuppin’ that made him a better candidate in the future.