Are secessionists (of sort) on the rise in Illinois? Or just anti-Chi trash-talk!

It’s one of those perennial political ideas that bop about from time to time amongst the denizens of Springpatch – separate the rural parts of Illinois from Chicago.

Would this be state of Chicago symbol?

Or as these people tend to prefer thinking about it – kick Chicago out of Illinois and onto its keister. Let the “Second City” become the 51^st state of our nation.

THE IDEA ISN’T new. It seems there’s always a bill pondering the concept of separation of the Land of Lincoln. The Washington Post reported this week about the latest effort – which actually has eight state representatives willing to put their names on the measure as co-sponsors.

Not that anybody seriously thinks Illinois is on the verge of separation. Even one of those sponsors – state Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna – admits this is more about the symbolism of separation.

“This is a political bill. As the political arm of the Illinois House Republicans, it is my responsibility to remind Chicago that there is more to Illinois than Chicago,” she told the Capitol Fax newsletter.

As though the roughly 2.6 million people who live in the city proper will quake in their pants at the thought of a city just over 3,000 people sitting in cultural isolation along the Mississippi River across from Iowa doesn’t want to be associated with Chicago.

TO BE HONEST, I suspect most Chicagoans have never heard of Savanna, and probably will mistake it for Savannah, the city in Georgia.

Which is why I honestly believe that if there really was a move underfoot to split up the 12.73 million residents of Illinois into separate states, it would be more in the form of rural Illinois trying to split off into its own region. Or more likely, Chicago deciding that it no longer wants to be associated with the Land of Lincoln.

In reality, nobody’s about to split. Nobody’s going nowhere. This is one of those maneuvers that would provide no real benefit – other than allowing political people to spew all sorts of trash talk!

McCOMBIE: Should we respond to her message?

For one thing, it would turn out to be ridiculously hard to determine exactly where the border ought to be.

DO WE LITERALLY turn 119^th Street to the south (with portions of the border jutting as far out as 138^th Street) into the new Chicago/Illinois state line – something similar along the lines of 106^th Street and State Line Road now being the dividing line between Illinois and Indiana in Chicago.

Would it become the State of Cook, with Chicago as its state capitol? We’d have to wind up picking ourselves a governor. Just envision Rahm Emanuel making a political comeback as governor of the state newly-created by ideologue politicos trying to do so as some sort of political punishment.

“Cook Gov. Rahm Emanuel,” presiding over the Chicago mayor and the other 128 municipalities that comprise the county that makes up almost half of the Illinois population as things currently stand. It almost seems appropo.

Or would the reality of things remain in place, and all the people so eager to kick out Chicago wind up getting a shock of a lifetime in learning that the five surrounding counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will) would realize they have more in common with a state of Chicago than they ever would with a state of rural Illinois.

WHICH WOULD MAKE the newly created state one that comprises about two-thirds of the existing Illinois. At roughly 8 million, the new state of Chicago/Cook/collar counties would be bigger than Indiana (roughly 6.67 million people who see no shame in calling themselves Hoosiers).

Which 'state' able to claim favorite son Lincoln

While the remaining state of Rural Illinois would wind up at about 4 million – falling somewhere between Oregon and Oklahoma in population, and lagging behind Kentucky’s 4.47 million people.

Just envision all those people currently of Southern Illinois becoming the place filled with all the bumpkins that denizens of the “Bluegrass State” shudder in fear that they have living to close to their homes.

Rural Illinoisans might not be ready for that level of isolation. Particularly if they come to realize that for many Chicagoans, their contact with “downstate” is if they have a four-year stint attending a college there – where far too many are eager to rush back to “Sweet Home, Chicago” upon graduation.

  -30-

EXTRA: United mess – Oh Good grief!

I suppose it’s only inevitable that if Chicago is going to be a hub (to listen to us say it, we’re THE hub) of the nation’s transportation, that stupid incidents involving transit are going to occur in our city.

Such as the recent incident where a passenger on board a United Airlines-affiliated flight was removed by force from the seat he fully paid for just so airline employees waiting for a flight on standby could be accommodated.

WE GET THE distinct displeasure of having airport cops at O’Hare be the ones who got to bloody-up a doctor who was trying to get back to home in Kentucky, where he was actually expected back soon for medical reasons. Heck, even President Donald Trump was offended by such behavior, and our very own Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., is talking about Congressional hearings into the airlines’ conduct.

Because the doctor was not exactly someone who could afford to wait for another flight just because someone with the airline oversold the number of tickets intended for that specific Chicago to Louisville, Ky., flight.

Which for me is a key factor to comprehending this incident. Someone paying for a flight has a very serious expectation of getting to his/her intended destination by a scheduled time. I don’t comprehend where a pilot (the so-called captain of his airplane) gets a right to have them removed. Then again, I don’t see where a paying customer has to justify their reason for needing a flight. The airlines’ apology was cheap!

I suspect if I had been in that same situation, my reaction to being removed from the flight by force would have been remarkably similar to that of Dr. David Dao.

AND AS FOR those people who are taking seriously the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper report about the doctor’s criminal record (some drug-related offenses more than a decade ago), keep in mind that I’m going to take more seriously the outrage amongst people in China who are using the Internet to contemplate a United Airlines boycott.

They couldn’t help but notice what actually was my initial impression when I first saw the video – they picked out a “Chinese” guy to bump from the plane. It has me wondering how long until this incident becomes the equivalent of the Asian woman who claims recently she was denied a ride by one of those private car services because of her ethnicity.

My guess is that I’ll never be able to comprehend how an airline employee could have a paying customer bumped. Most businesses are like back when I worked at a suburban-based Carson, Pirie, Scott department store and we workers were told to keep our cars parked a certain distance from the store so that customers could have the prime parking lot spots.

By United Airlines logic, I could have had a paying customer’s car towed so I could have his spot, then perhaps also blamed for any damage the tow truck caused while sloppily removing the vehicle.

  -30-

Honest Abe turns a sprightly 208; 78 years since Anderson pays tribute

It has been more than two centuries since Illinois' most significant resident was born. Even though, to be honest, Abraham Lincoln was born in the backwoods of Kentucky and lived his youthful years in Indiana (our state's biggest name was a Hoosier?) before finally arriving in Illinois in his early 20s.

And choosing to remain here until he left for Washington, D.C., and the presidency in 1861, never to return (in what was an ironic bit of self-prophecy).

From 19th Century playing cards ...

LINCOLN WAS SIGNIFICANT in holding this nation together as one when many of the same tensions we still feel in 2017 reached such epic levels that people actually tried to engage in secession. Making him worthy of all the praise his backers laud on him.

So as a little Lincoln birthday tribute, here’s a video snippet of Marian Anderson, one of the greatest singers our nation has ever produced – except that certain people used the same hang-ups that exist today to try to denigrate her.

Here’s her famed performance from 1939, done appropriately enough on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. I’d like to think he’d have been proud to be the backdrop for this glorious musical moment.

,,, to 21st Century baseball cards, Abe's image appears everywhere

  -30-

Kentucky vs. Rahm – whose “victory” was likely more predictable?

Which storyline is more likely to be remembered for time to come – the near victory of Notre Dame over Kentucky in the NCAA men’s basketball tourney or the possibility that next week, mayoral challenger Jesus Garcia will come close to beating up on Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Election Day.


I say possibility because we don’t know for sure at this time how Emanuel will do come April 7. Will his political operation turn so many people off to the concept of “Mayor Chuy” that they turn out to vote for Rahm?


OR CAN GARCIA pull off a political upset that would likely be a bigger story than when Harold Washington managed to win the mayoral elections back in 1983?

My gut feeling says it won’t happen, and we’re likely to get “Four more years!” of “Mayor Emanuel,” just like in the end it was totally predictable that Kentucky (the number 1-ranked school in the tourney) beat the Fighting Irish squad that some people want to believe had no business being on the court Saturday night against the Wildcats.

But if Notre Dame had managed to hold on to the lead they had in the second half, or for that matter had not managed to let Kentucky take the lead with just a few seconds left (it was 66-66) – you just know there are Fighting Irish sports fans who will dream forevermore about “What could have been” if Notre Dame had won, and advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I tournament.

Somehow, I suspect that following next week’s Election Day, Garcia will slink back to his post on the Cook County Board (his current term runs through 2018) and only the hardest-core of political geeks will bother to remember his mayoral bid.

PART OF WHAT discourages me about the idea of a Garcia bid succeeding – even though I don’t doubt the sincerity of the segment of Chicago’s population that absolutely detests Emanuel – is the sight of 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti feeling the need to endorse Hizzoner.

This comes following four years of Fioretti being the most outspoken critic of Emanuel on the City Council. This man spent the past four years finding just about every excuse he could think of to trash Emanuel’s professional reputation.

But the thought of Garcia as mayor supposedly is what it takes to make Fioretti think twice about Rahm and come to the conclusion that maybe he’s “ready and able to take on the tough financial challenges this city faces.”

It plays off the idea that, somehow, Garcia just isn’t capable of overseeing municipal government. Even though he is a former alderman (just like Fioretti) and, state senator, along with current county board member, none of those three decades of public service have taught him much of anything.

NOW I’M NOT going to come out and say this is some sort of ethnic hang-up; as though would-be voters simply think a “foreign” (born in Mexico, but lived the bulk of his life right here in Chicago) guy is naturally less qualified. But it does seem to be an element of the debate.

There is something about the tone of these claims that Chuy isn’t up to the task that seems reminiscent of the way certain people used to talk about why they didn’t like the idea of “Mayor Harold Washington” – but didn’t want it attributed to “racial” hang-ups.

He just didn’t have the kind of background they desired, even though Washington was just as much a part of the Chicago political organization as anybody else. Just as is Garcia!

Of course, there’s also the fact that the Democratic Party is (has been for a couple of decades, since the days of President Bill Clinton) in its own fight for its character. It’s the ‘60s activists grown older versus the activists grown up – as in having outgrown their cantankerous character and now expressing a desire to be the establishment.

THAT IS A good part of why the retirement in two years of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will result in Number Two Democrat Richard Durbin, D-Ill., (he who bad-mouthed Walgreen’s) being passed over for the leadership post for Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. – who is perceived as being more sympathetic to “Wall Street” types.

Just as I’m sure those who say Garcia isn’t qualified to be mayor are really saying they define “qualifications” as being more like Emanuel. It is why it is likely that a Garcia near-victory next week will be written off as nothing more than a loss to soon be forgotten and the masses will go back to thinking that “Chewy” is a Star Wars character.

Unlike the Notre Dame near-victory that some people will never want to forget about. After all, just think of how crushed country singer Ashley Judd (a prominent Kentucky basketball fan) would have been if the Fighting Irish had actually won?

I can’t envision anyone (not even Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, an outspoken Rahm-basher) getting that worked up if Emanuel wins.

  -30-

Is Obama ‘tempting fate’ by declaring presidential primary victory too soon?

It’s a good thing that the political people from “The West Wing” are merely fictional characters. Otherwise the conduct of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama would be causing Toby Zeigler to throw a fit.

Zeigler was the presidential speechwriter with a cantankerous temperament played by actor Richard Schiff, and in one memorable episode of that now-defunct television drama about the White House staff, Zeigler engaged in a rant against his staff prematurely celebrating the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice backed by the fictional President Bartlett.

HE KEPT TRYING to tell his staff that “bad things” happen to people who “tempt fate” by declaring victory and celebrating before the political event actually happens.

I can’t help but wonder if we should hire Schiff to reprise his Zeigler character for one day so as to give the Obama campaign a lecture about how silly they could potentially look if they proceed with plans to declare “Victory!” after the Oregon primary on Tuesday.

I don’t doubt that Obama will prevail in the Oregon election-by-mail, just like I fully expect opponent Hillary R. Clinton will be able to declare a victory that same day in Kentucky.

At this point in the primary season, the results of individual states really don’t matter much. That it why it turned out to be rather irrelevant that Obama did so poorly last week in West Virginia. His 40-plus percent loss in the heart of Appalachia did not change the delegate count significantly.

IN FACT, OBAMA has continued to gain pledges of support from super-delegates, which is really the only thing that matters any more.

The plan is for Obama to say that after Tuesday, he will have a majority of the regular delegates who go to the Democratic National Convention pledged to support a specific candidate. Unless Obama were to lose both Oregon and Kentucky by about 90 percent to 10 percent margins, he will achieve that level of support this week.

But pledged delegates are not the complete story.

The simple fact is that neither of the Democrats will have enough support to automatically take the presidential nomination – not even after June 1 when Puerto Rico has its primary or June 3 when the primary season comes to an end in Montana and South Dakota (where Clinton and Obama likely will win another split of states).

THIS IS GOING to be the Year of the Super-delegate, where the party bigwigs’ worst nightmare will come true – they will have to put themselves on the record and actually pick a presidential nominee (thereby irritating half of the political party).

So it is going to be “a lie” when Obama says he has won the primary. It is going to sound as ridiculous as when Hillary has claimed in recent weeks she has a majority of the national popular vote.

That’s only true if one counts the disputed Michigan and Florida primary elections where Obama didn’t even run in one state (voters couldn’t pick him) and he did not campaign in the other (in accordance with the national party leadership’s desires).

Hillary Clinton has had to take some ridicule from people who say she is so desperate to make herself not look like a loser that she’s twisting the truth. Now, Obama is going to be guilty of the same offense.

THIS IS GOING to be the nominating process that won’t end until the Democratic convention in late August.

While I can understand why Obama wants to create the perception that he has “won” the race and can now divert his campaign’s attention to knocking around Republican opponent John McCain, it just has too much potential to go bad.

For one thing, it’s not necessary.

Obama already has created the perception amongst Democrats that he has won (or that the negatives that popped up about him came too late to overcome the early wave of Obama-mania that struck the country and caused a 12-state primary or caucus victory string).

HE CAN ALREADY focus on McCain in a credible manner. Some people think he already has done so, with the way he went after both McCain and President Bush the younger last week to reinforce the perception that the two are linked politically when it comes to Bush’s unpopular policies concerning the no-end-in-sight Iraq War.

Obama ought to keep hammering away with facts, not engaging in silly spin tactics that merely reinforce the disgust level felt by people who wanted Hillary for president and may turn out to be sore losers who sit out the Nov. 4 elections.

More dangerous is whether some other tidbit that the social conservatives opposed to Obama could distort into a “scandal” could come up, thereby causing Democratic super-delegates to support Clinton.

Obama may be gaining verbal pledges from these super-delegates that they will back Barack come the convention. But there is nothing legally binding them to their word – they can change their mind.

ANYBODY WHO EXPECTS a politico’s word now to hold for a convention floor vote to be taken in August is naïve. Making some statement this week that could be turned around into a premature comment would make Obama look like one of the most ridiculous creatures in the history of U.S. electoral politics.

So what will happen?

Obama is likely this week to have a press conference/rally, where he will formally claim a moral victory of sorts from the American people. He’ll be able to do it because the Oregon primary is a mail-in event, and most people have already cast their votes. The Obama campaign’s work is already done – there’s no need for him to be in Portland, and he certainly doesn’t want to be in Louisville Tuesday night.

The speculation is whether the victory declaration would take place in Iowa (the scene of his first primary victory) or in his adopted hometown of Chicago. For those of us Chicago political geeks, being able to attend the “victory” announcement (or watch it on television at a location we recognize) will be our one moment of election glory, since the Illinois primary got lost in the shuffle of Tsunami Tuesday.

OBAMA WANTS TO create the perception that if the Democratic Party later turns around and gives the nomination to Clinton, it will be an act against the will of the American people and a greater injustice than that which denied the U.S. eight years (or at least four) of President Al Gore.

For those who want Hillary back on Pennsylvania Avenue, the moment will motivate them to want to make Barack eat his words.

And for those of us who cast ballots for Obama, we will literally be saying our prayers that this act of “tempting fate” does not come back to bite us in the behind, just like Toby Zeigler so many years ago said it always does.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: The Brits are more willing to buy into the spin that Barack Obama (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3953669.ece) can legitimately declare victory this week.

Obama already is hitting back against John McCain – engaging in the aggressive campaigning required if he is to take full advantage of McCain’s uncertain support (http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/obama_bushmccain_have_a_lot_to.php) among the social conservatives who make up the base of the Republican Party these days.

Obama should learn a lesson from the fictional “West Wing” if he ever hopes to work (http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/six-meetings-before-lunch/episode/805/recap.html) in the White House’s real West Wing.