A 'President' Clinton needs political allies if she’s to get anything done

I have lost track of the number of e-mail messages I have received in recent weeks from political operatives – all bearing the same message.
 

BOOKER: Will try to bolster Dem support in Ind.

Cough up some campaign cash to bolster the chances of Democrats taking control of the Senate and House of Representatives, or it won’t matter by how much Hillary Clinton beats up on Donald Trump come Nov. 8.

THEY’RE ALL WRITTEN in the same depressing tone of how we people who don’t want the conservative ideologue viewpoint rammed down our throats on every issue have already lost because Republicans will likely continue their obstructionist ways when it comes to governing.

Some of these e-mails go so far as to try to “guilt trip” me, by letting me know their records show I haven’t given a dime to any candidate or political cause. Mostly because I have never made a political contribution in an effort to maintain some sort of impartiality. The ones attributed to political operative James Carville are amongst the most over-the-top in their rhetoric.

Perhaps it’s good that the allegedly-liberal interests don’t think of me as some sort of lackey. Although I suspect the ideologues read what is written here, and have already written me off as incorrigible.

But someone is going to have to come up with the kind of cash to help support the kind of people who would be inclined to ally themselves with a second Clinton presidency.

WHICH IS WHY it was intriguing to read the Washington Post’s report how the Clinton campaign itself is coming up with $1 million to support Senate and gubernatorial candidates running in the neighboring states of Indiana and Missouri.

Both are states that often lean Republican, but in the case of Missouri has shown some support for Democrats. Particularly if St. Louis and Kansas City can band together to out-vote the rural parts of the state that lie in between.

 

CLINTON: Pitching in her own campaign cash

While in Indiana, Democrats there have expressed hope that the fact that Gov. Mike Pence gave up his post to try to bolster the Trump presidential dreams means that a non-incumbent Republican can actually be beaten by Democrat John Gregg.

While the potential comeback of Evan Bayh could shift the U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in the Hoosier state come next month.

CLINTON HERSELF IS seeing a need to do something to try to build up allies in places that might otherwise turn out to be hostile to her political desires. Which is good. Because if they’re counting entirely on $3 contributions from people solicited via the Internet, they’re going nowhere.

The Indiana elections are of particular interest because it will be that part of the Hoosier state that lies just across the state line from Chicago that will decide if Democrats can actually have any influence there.

Because I don’t doubt that in places like Fort Wayne or Terre Haute, there will be voters convinced of the dreadfulness of Hillary Clinton and/or the superiority of Donald Trump in the White House.

It will be people in places like Hammond (just across the state line) and Gary (a couple towns to the east) that will decide what happens.

WHICH IS WHY local Democrats have a rally planned for Tuesday in downtown Gary where Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., will try to inspire local residents to turn out to vote.

 

PENCE: Will absence from Indiana help Dems?

Booker, the former mayor of Newark, will try to inspire locals of the similarity of their depressed communities, and how a Clinton presidency could be the factor that makes a difference.

Because there have been countless tales in recent months of just how badly Trump flopped when he tried operating a riverboat casino in Gary. Stories that may have a more negative effect in Indiana than any tale of Trump thinking he can grope any babe who happens to catch his eye.

Although it does come off as a bit depressing that we in Illinois, who will wind up providing our Electoral College votes to Clinton in a landslide, will have to rely so heavily on our neighbor states to influence the future direction of our government. Pro-Hillary, or continued obstruction!

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EXTRA: Hillary win a Hoosier miracle? Or a Democratic fantasy?

When it comes to the Great Lakes states, Illinois has become the Democratic stronghold, while the other states are the ones that can flip back and forth between the two major political parties based on the mood of the nation as a whole.

Will we unite Nov. 8? Or remain split by State Line Rd.

Then, there’s Indiana – the Hoosier state, our neighbor to the east. The one place in the Great Lakes region Republicans usually can count on to gain some support in the Electoral College presidential tally.

BARACK OBAMA WON the state when he first ran for president in 2008. But the last time before that a Democrat won the state was in 1964 – the year that Barry Goldwater showed us how “nuts” he was and lost to Lyndon B. Johnson.

It may be a key to the line of thinking amongst those Indiana residents who persist in calling themselves Democrats – mostly those people who live in or near Indianapolis and Gary.

Is Donald Trump more nuts than Goldwater to the point where Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential bid could actually take the state? Or is this just an absurd fantasy by people with too much free time on their hands to concoct screwy political theories?

It is a line being speculated upon by those Indiana residents who live close enough to the Illinois/Indiana border that they’re really part of the Chicago area – even though some of them like to pretend they’re not.

HILLARY COULD ACTUALLY win Indiana’s 11 Electoral College votes. That would be a disaster to the hopes of Donald Trump since there are certain places in the country he absolutely has to prevail if he’s to have any chance of winning the Nov. 8 election.

Part of it is that the Trump camp is too ridiculously absurd to be taken seriously.

While Democrats supposedly benefit from two other factors – that the state’s candidate for a U.S. Senate seat is the well-known former governor and senator Evan Bayh who has been out of politics since 2010 but decided to go for a comeback this year.

 

Could Chicago influence in Indiana help Hillary

There’s also the fact that Gov. Mike Pence gave up his position to be Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Meaning the new Republican gubernatorial nominee is Eric Holcomb, the lieutenant governor who himself has only been in that post for a couple of months when former Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann decided that being president of a community college in Indiana was more prestigious than being a ‘lite gov.”

THOSE FACTORS COULD combine with the “Trump is nuts” line of logic to scare some Hoosiers into thinking semi-friendly toward the Democratic ticket.

As one Gary councilwoman, LaVetta Sparks-Wade, said of Trump, “The man has no filter. He doesn’t seem to have any control over what he says. He doesn’t seem to be able to control what he does.”

That is a sentiment common to political observers of all persuasions these days.

Yet still, I have to admit to being skeptical that Indiana will go for Hillary and there will be a clean sweep of the Great Lakes states for the Democrats – and not just because Trump himself is putting efforts into taking Ohio paired up with Indiana.

HILLARY WON THE vote in Lake County, Ind., back in the May primary, but Bernie Sanders took the state among those who wanted to vote Democrat. While more Indiana residents chose Republican ballots, and used them to give Trump a majority vote in the GOP primary.

Could it just be the wishful thinking of people so isolated in Gary, Ind., that they don’t see the rest of the world? Or could it be the outrage that the Trump people don’t see because they can’t comprehend the whole world doesn’t share their Hillary rage?

For as the aforementioned Sparks-Wade said, “If the people wind up deciding that a Donald Trump presidency is any good, then we (in society) are in trouble.”

Ultimately, we’ll get to see if “Illiana” truly comes together on Election Day for the Democrats. Or was it the same type of wishful thinking that made some people nearly three decades ago think that Michael Dukakis was cut of presidential timber?

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Is getting elected to office really nothing more than a quirk of fate?

The whimsical nature of the electorate can truly be stunning – particularly in the way that a political candidate’s fate gets determined by factors beyond their control.

 

KIRK: Is he done already?

They can do nothing wrong, except for failing to satisfy whatever attitude is trending with voters in any particular year

TAKE THE CANDIDACY of Illinois’ junior senator. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., already has the stink of death hovering over his candidacy even though it is nearly four full months until voters have their say.

The problem is that Kirk, who prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate served in Congress from the North Shore suburbs, isn’t as ideologically-motivated as many of those who are now the leaders of the Republican caucuses in Congress.

He’s not conservative enough to appease the mentality of those individuals who actually think Donald Trump’s whims are fit to be president.

Back in 2010, Kirk’s moderate nature was the key to his electoral victory over
Democrat Alexi Giannoulias – who I’m sure is kicking himself these days wishing he could have run against Kirk this year instead of six years ago.

BECAUSE NOW, WITH Kirk’s leanings likely to be the factor that takes him down (the ideologues are emboldened in a way they weren’t in 2010), Giannoulias could actually win without doing a thing differently than he did six years ago.

 

DUCKWORTH: Perfect timing?

Instead, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., of the northwest suburbs will be the beneficiary – she gets to be the challenger who can take on a Kirk who isn’t really any different now than what we, the people of Illinois, voted for in ’10.

We’re also getting another example of a matter of timing in our neighboring state of Indiana – where one-time Gov. and Sen. Evan Bayh has decided he wants to return to electoral politics in the form of a comeback in his old Senate seat.

 

GIANNOULIAS: Wishing he could try again?

That was the post he voluntarily gave up in 2010 because of the national trends that indicated it was going to be a Republican-leaning year; and the benefits of incumbency might not have been strong enough to ensure his re-election.

BUT NOW, WITH Trump managing to offend just enough Republicans with his attitudes (including saying that Kirk is a “loser” because he doesn’t react in knee-jerk motion with Donald himself), it has Bayh thinking that now is the perfect time to return himself to office.

BAYH: A comeback?

Particularly since he’d be able to attach himself to the image of Barack Obama as president, and some people willing to vote for Democrats just because they want to vote to continue that legacy.

Speaking of Indiana, that state’s governor, John Pence, appears to be someone that Trump is taking seriously as a vice-presidential running mate. Would a governor be willing to give up his statewide post to be Donald Trump’s Number Two?

PENCE: Decisions, decisions!?!

Some think it possible because they want to believe Pence would face a tough re-election bid, and might find the prospect of being a vice presidential running mate more attractive than a losing governor. Although I wonder if Indiana is knee-jerk Republican enough to make Pence the favorite no matter who he manages to offend on the job.

BUT THE IDEA of timing one’s exit from a political post properly is not a new idea. Take Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who could easily have been the one-time Congressman from central Illinois who lost his seat 20 years ago.

DURBIN: Master of timing?

Durbin served seven terms as the Congressman from Springfield, winning narrowly for the final time in 1994. Which, of course, was the year that gave us all that “Contract with America” rhetoric and saw Newt Gingrich rise to prominence as Republicans across the nation did well.

One can argue that Durbin only won that year because opponent Bill Owens was a John Birch Society member who laid on the ideological talk a little too thick to be taken seriously. A more serious challenger could have beaten him, which motivated Durbin’s rise in 1996 to the Senate – making him a statewide official rather than a central Illinois Dem serving in a GOP-leaning district.

Hence, we still have Durbin all these years later – having served on Capitol Hill for more than a third of a century and living out the dream of just about every elected official. Which is to not humiliate themselves on an Election Day of the future!

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Patti Solis Doyle needs a boss

Perhaps it is evidence that Democrats are getting serious, but it seems like ages since anyone has publicly suggested that presidential hopeful Barack Obama has no choice but to choose Hillary R. Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

Either the masses who wanted a Clinton sequel in the White House are getting real, or there really will be a massive shift in Democratic voters to the campaign of Republican John McCain. Either way, the attention of those people who truly are trying to find a partner for an Obama presidency are looking to more serious candidates.

TO REHASH WHAT I have written before, I have been one of those people who always thought the idea of an Obama/Clinton (or Clinton/Obama) ticket was pointless. The two of them are identical in so many ways that the presence of one on the ballot adds nothing to the overall package that wasn’t already offered by the other.

Both Obama and Clinton are liberal enough on social issues and come from adopted urban backgrounds (Chicago vs. New York as opposed to their real homes of Honolulu vs. Park Ridge, Ill.). To come up with the traditional concept of a vice presidential running mate who helps plug the holes in the presidential nominee’s biography, Obama needs to look to anybody but Hillary.

I was always of the belief that an off-beat, but worthy, possibility for running mate would be New Mexico Gov. (and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) Bill Richardson, but that Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was a more likely choice.

He is a somewhat conservative white guy who won as a Democrat in a Republican-leaning state who would go a long way toward appealing to those people who (for whatever reason) have a problem with a candidate who is as blatantly urban as Obama is.

BUT WEBB HAS since said he is not in the running, and it is getting close to the time when Obama needs to have a partner. After all, he hired a chief of staff for the vice presidential candidate. It's about time Patti Solis Doyle learned who her boss will be.

So the Obama campaign’s professional vetters (when they weren’t coming under fire from Republican political operatives) have had to turn elsewhere.

Now around this part of the country, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who also is a former governor of the Hoosier state, is the focus of a lot of political talk.

He gets points from political geeks because he is one of them. He has held various state and federal elective offices for 22 years. Once the youngest governor in the United States, Bayh was elected to his first office in 1986 as Indiana’s secretary of state.

LITERALLY, HE HAS been an elected official since the days when Obama was a community activist working on behalf of the residents of the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s far South Side.

Yet unless Obama is suddenly willing to write off his Chicago ties of just over two decades and start portraying himself as the first Hawaiian to run for president, I can’t see the Obama/Bayh ticket. Such a ticket might take the electoral votes of the region once represented by minor league baseball’s old “Three Eye” League, but it might seem too parochial to the rest of the country.

The same might be said of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who supposedly was a favorite of Obama early on in the process. But her choice could appeal to some of the women who feel Hillary got snubbed, although I am sure there are others who will start bringing up comparisons to Geraldine Ferraro’s 1984 vice presidential bid – out of hopes they could turn Obama into the equivalent of Walter Mondale (who only won the electoral votes of his home state of Minnesota in that election).

Of all the names that have been tossed out as possible vice presidential candidates for the Democrats, the one that most intrigues me is Joe Biden, the long-time senator from Delaware.

HE MAY HAVE the national security credentials from his experience on various Senate committees during his 36 years in Washington. But this is also the man whose own presidential dreams were toppled due to a pair of so-called scandals.

Let’s not forget his so-called plagiarism of 1988 in campaign speeches (he got sloppy with his attribution in using lines once spoken by Neil Kinnock of Great Britain’s Labour Party), and the comments he made last year about Obama’s “articulate and bright and clean” nature that were interpreted by some people as a slur against African-American people.

While I always thought people were making too much of an issue out of Biden’s lame attempt to lavish trivial praise on Obama, it would be a test to see how an Obama/Biden pairing could co-exist. Has Obama truly forgiven the gentleman from Delaware, or is there some lingering hostility?

It would be ironic if Biden, whose career beyond his home state was supposedly left for dead, were to be resurrected beyond belief by becoming the vice presidential run ning mate, literally only a heartbeat away from the top job that he would desire for himself.

I CAN ALREADY hear the wisecracks from political people who find humor in jokes about a president needing an official food taster to protect him from his running mate. Think I’m kidding? Similar jokes are told in Illinois political circles with regard to lieutenant governor Patrick Quinn, who during the past six years has developed a strained relationship with Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

But on a serious note, I would take the presence of Biden as the ultimate evidence that no one (regardless of what kind of stupid thing they say or do) should ever be left for dead. Political redemption is always possible.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is Joe Biden out of the political doghouse? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/joe-biden-obamas-vice-pre_n_115457.html)

Aides to Barack Obama are traveling about the nation in hopes of finding the perfect running mate (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/DN-vicesquad_30pol.ART.State.Edition1.4dce3c1.html) who will not have some skeleton in his life’s closet (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30veep.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin) that would cause embarrassment for Obama and defeat for the Democrats in the Nov. 4 elections.

Obama already has hired a chief of staff for his vice presidential running mate. All he needs now (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902451.html) is the running mate.

Replacement lists too parochial to take seriously

They already have been popping up in newspapers and broadcast news programs, and they will continue to occur throughout the campaign season.

“They,” in this case, are stories that speculate about future political maneuvering that will take place, if such and such a politician is successful in his or her bid to win a higher office.

SPECIFICALLY, WE IN Chicago are subjected to the stories of who would replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, should he actually succeed in being elected the 44th president of the United States.

For those of us who live in parts of Chicago or Illinois near the Great Land of Hoosiers, we get their overflow stories, most of which are trying to tout the concept that a President Hillary R. Clinton would want Evan Bayh – the former Indiana governor and current senator from Indiana who also is the son of a long-time Hoosier politico – to be her running mate.

I’m going to reveal one of the great “secrets” of political reporting – such stories are a crock. They fill newspaper space or broadcast airtime, and they appear to be filled with substance. But they are little more than lucky guesses. Hoosier voters would like to believe that this is the face of the next vice president. Photograph provided by U.S. Senate.

Should it turn out that Bayh does become vice president under President Clinton the second, or that Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes does move up to the U.S. Senate to be an ally of President Obama, there will be reporters who will tout out their yellowing clips as evidence that they somehow knew way before everybody else what was going to happen.

IN REALITY, NOBODY knows how these maneuvers are going to work out because it is way too premature to be seriously expending brainpower on such issues. You could come up with just as accurate a guess on how future political succession would take place by merely throwing a dart at a board with the names of various politicos written on scraps of paper.

Whoever you hit is the person you can say you’re predicting for greater things (or maybe you want to use your dart points to “kill” the political aspirations of government officials you can’t stand).

What got me going on this topic was the big story in Monday’s editions of the Munster, Ind.-based Times of Northwest Indiana, which wants to think that one of the next great politicos in this country will be someone they have been covering for years.

Their story touted the work Bayh has done to push the Clinton campaign across Indiana, with the possible end result that Clinton (not Obama) would actually win the Hoosier primary on May 6 (deadline for Indianans to register to vote was Monday). His reward, the newspaper would like us to think, would be the V-P slot for the next four years.

TO HIS CREDIT, Bayh isn’t trying to claim the political prize (which really requires nothing more than a pulse, on the off-chance that the president ceases to have one). He told the Times, “She should be totally focused on winning the nomination. It would be wrong for me to even speculate about anything like that.”

Of course, Bayh as V-P would be a moot point should Obama manage to keep his delegate and popular vote leads and ultimately go on to claim the presidential nomination for himself at the Democratic convention in Denver.

But a “President Obama” would create his own set of political speculations – who would replace him in the U.S. Senate?

A Senate seat in Washington is one of the top political prizes for a government official whose focus is on Illinois (Chicago mayor and Illinois governor are the others). Getting the right to finish up the last two years of Obama’s term in office and go into the next election cycle as an incumbent would be a significant career boost.

UNDER STATE LAW, the Illinois governor gets to pick the successor – and there are no set guidelines he must follow for picking an Obama replacement. He can go for whomever he wants, for whatever reason he thinks is worthy.

I’ve heard the speculation of Hynes or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan getting picked by Blagojevich. Both hold high-enough ranking posts within Illinois government that tabbing either for the U.S. Senate would not look like a Blagojevich joke, and it also would have the bonus for Blagojevich of eliminating potential rivals for the gubernatorial post.

Particularly in the case of Madigan, that would be a factor, since political observers have long speculated that the reason her father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, groomed her so carefully for political office (an Illinois Senate seat for a few years, then the attorney general’s post) was so she could someday be Illinois governor.

Of course, there’s always the possibility of promoting an Illinois politician who already is a part of the Washington scene – one of the members of the House of Representatives could be shifted over to the Senate, which would then lead to speculation about who would be the new U.S. House member from Illinois.

REPS JESSE JACKSON Jr. and Jan Schakowsky (the latter of whom knows Blagojevich from when both served in the Illinois House in the mid-1990s) are considered the favorites there. Either would make a qualified senator, and the advantage of a Jackson selection is that picking the namesake son of the civil rights leader would stir up the anger of many a social conservative who would see it as the ultimate evidence that Illinois politics is little more than a sewer.

If I had to pick who would get sent to Washington to replace a “Senator Obama,” I literally would put those names on the dartboard, then start throwing with my awkward right-handed motion that quickly reveals why I never got to pitch for the New York Yankees.

It really is too soon to seriously speculate about this. We really have to wait until after the nominating convention in August before we can seriously guess who might get picked. Anything before then is just a wild guess.

In fact, there’s only one possibility that has come up in recent weeks that I will go so far as to comment on definitively – anybody who seriously thinks that Rod Blagojevich is going to pick himself to serve as U.S. senator from Illinois is delusional – quite possibly from not taking their medications.

IT’S TRUE THAT Blagojevich theoretically could pick himself. But it makes no sense.

A post in Washington, to the Chicago political mentality, is a move “up and out.” In other words, it is a “promotion” to a political world that has little to no say in the day to day operations of Chicago politics. These are the reason why Rod Blagojevich would never seriously consider appointing himself to replace Barack Obama in the Senate, should Obama succeed in winning election to the presidency. Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

Why would a governor give up his post to move to Washington? He already ranks among the Top Four politicos (currently, Richard M. Daley, Richard Durbin, Obama and Blagojevich – all Democrats) from Illinois.

There’s also the fact that Blagojevich has already done the “D.C. Scene.” He served six years in the U.S. House of Representatives from Chicago’s Northwest Side, and gave up any chance of moving up in the Congressional hierarchy in large part because he and wife Patricia wanted to live in Chicago.

BLAGOJEVICH ALREADY GETS enough grief for being the governor who doesn’t want to live with his family in Springfield – even though the state provides a fully funded and staffed residence for its governor.

There’s no way he could ever get away with being the Senator who won’t live in the District of Columbia. And his wife (the daughter of Chicago alderman Dick Mell) would kill him if he seriously tried to move the family to the D.C. suburbs.

So, sorry folks. For those of you who despise Blagojevich and were hoping an Obama victory could be an excuse to get rid of him, it just won’t work that way. You have a better chance of getting a “recall” election for Blagojevich, than you do of someday seeing “Senator Rod.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., already has a place to live (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/880337,CST-NWS-senate06.article) in Washington, unlike Lisa Madigan or Rod Blagojevich. She’d like to move up to the Senate.

Some Hoosier political observers would like to see if they can reduce Birch Bayh from a long-time D.C. powerbroker in his own right to nothing more than the father (http://nwi.com/articles/2008/04/07/news/top_news/doca7a5ca844213521486257423007ec4a5.txt) of a vice president.

Rod Blagojevich wasn’t exactly the most anonymous politico Chicagoans have sent to Congress (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000518/), but he wasn’t exactly a Washington power hitter either.