The issue that won’t die; Van Dyke fate

Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke may now be a convicted felon sentenced to serve a few years in prison (although Illinois Corrections Department officials still won’t say exactly which one) for the death of a teenager – but the racially-tinged shooting incident won’t wither away.

VAN DYKE: Case lingers on

For it seems that both the special prosecutor who oversaw the criminal case AND the Illinois attorney general’s office are considering legal maneuvers that could try to force a new prison sentence to be imposed.

SOMETHING, PERHAPS, CLOSER to the 18 to 20 years that prosecutors sought from Judge Vincent Gaughan, rather than the 6-year, 9-month sentence (of which he’s already done 3 months in the Rock Island County jail) that could see him released in a little over three years time.

Van Dyke was found guilty last autumn on a charge of murder in the second degree (implying there was some mitigating factor that could sort of justify the killing) and multiple counts of aggravated battery.

Literally one count for each of the 16 shots that Van Dyke was found to have fired at Laquan McDonald. Which theoretically could have resulted in prison time for each shot and could have added up to something close to 100 years of time,

In my own (admittedly non-law school educated) mind, that combination of charges never made sense. They conflicted with each other, and the real question to me about the sentencing that took place last week was how would Gaughan manage to reconcile the mismatch.

McDONALD: Means more in death than life

HE WOUND UP doing so by basing the sentence for Van Dyke off the second-degree murder charge and ignoring all those additional charges that could have brought about the lengthy, life-like prison term that the activist types eager to see imposed on a white cop for killing a black male who hadn’t even reached the age of maturity back on that October 2014 night that he was shot to death because he was acting erratically (his mind was messed up on illicit drugs that night) while walking around the neighborhood near a Burger King franchise.

It seems the legal minds wishing to appease those activists are wondering if the Illinois Supreme Court could issue a mandamus order – which essentially would say Gaughan screwed up and emphasized the wrong criminal charge.

Which could result in a resentencing with results more satisfactory to those people who back in autumn marched through the streets of downtown Chicago in celebration of the fact that a “cracker cop” got what he deserved by being found guilty.

RAOUL: Will he take on appeal?

We’ll have to see if Joseph McMahon (the special prosecutor brought in from suburban Kane County) or newly-elected state Attorney General Kwame Raoul wants to take on this issue – or is willing to accept the prison time that Van Dyke already must serve.

SOME WILL SAY that Van Dyke is now a former cop with a criminal record – which pretty much ruins him for any type of life he had hoped to live. They’re likely to think that prolonging this legal argument only stirs up more resentment amongst the city’s populace.

Although others will think the resentment lingers for as long as Van Dyke gets a penalty less severe than their imaginations have concocted.

This may be the real harm of the racist policies that were considered legitimate in our society in the past – they’ve created so much anger that it’s almost like we’re going to need white people to suffer unjustly in order to balance things out.

Which would only serve to ensure these racial tensions linger amongst us for decades to come – particularly fed on by nitwits in support of the Age of Trump we now live in who may well want to think that the only victim in this whole affair is Van Dyke himself!

OF COURSE, THERE will be others eager to keep the memory of this incident alive. Consider that newly-elected state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, D-Naperville, is enhancing her reputation as someone eager to draw attention to herself by ticking off the sensibilities of political people around her.

STAVA-MURRAY: Wants McDonald Act

Stava-Murray introduced as her first bill ever a measure creating the Laquan McDonald Act. A measure applying only to Chicago and creating procedures by which we could have recall elections for mayor and alderman in Chicago and state’s attorney in Cook County.

It really does come across as an attention-grabber from the freshman legislator who already has indicated she’s not seeking re-election in 2020 – and instead will challenge Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., for his post on Capitol Hill. It certainly isn’t about necessary changes to the law – the electorate dumped Anita Alvarez as state’s attorney back in 2016 and Rahm Emanuel didn’t even try to seek re-election, largely because of public disgust over what happened to Laquan.

As though we’re supposed to forever remember Laquan, and not think of that silly clown and his mediocre hamburgers every time we hear the phrase “McDonald” in the future.

  -30-

Where, oh where, will Harold go now; where, oh where, will she be?

Perhaps it’s evidence that I don’t know everything; I was amongst those who thought there was a chance that Republican partisans might be able to band together with enough votes for one statewide victory – that of Erika Harold to be Illinois attorney general.

HAROLD: She didn't even win her home county

Harold spewed her share of rhetoric about having one Republican constitutional officer to serve as a watchdog, of sorts, over all the Democrats who won all the other offices.

INSTEAD, HAROLD WENT down to defeat just like all her other colleagues. It seems that being of the same political party as Bruce Rauner and Donald Trump was just too much to overcome.

Which now puts her in the category of political people whom we can speculate on for their future.

The one-time Miss Illinois who represented our state, and won, at the 2003 Miss America Pageant, ultimately went on to law school and has often expressed political aspirations of her own. Yet she’s never been successful in actually winning electoral office.

Election Day 2018 is the closest she ever came to victory – taking 43 percent of the vote to 54 percent for Kwame Raoul; the state senator from Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood who now will serve as state government’s legal counsel.

Lar Daly used the flag imagery to tout his campaigns, ...

IS THIS DEFEAT enough to kill off the 38-year-old’s political aspirations? Will she run again? Will she be credible in future campaigns? Or is she destined to become the fringe nut, so to speak, of Illinois politics?

A perpetual name on the ballot, something along the lines of Lar “America First” Daly or Ray “Spanky the Clown” Wardingly. Perhaps Harold could play off her Miss America persona of two decades ago while campaigning for office and trying to spread the word on her personal issues of interest – while going down to defeat.

Not that I seriously expect to see a sash & tiara-wearing candidate in the future. That would be just a tad ridiculous.

… here's hoping Erika doesn't dig up this old Miss America costume

But it has me wondering if Harold is determined enough to keep running for office until she can find one that she wins!

HAROLD IS THE woman from Champaign, Ill., who has often talked of running for office – usually focusing her attention on a seat from Congress around her home area.

In the 2014 election cycle, she went so far as to file nominating petitions and get herself on the ballot. Only to lose the Republican primary to Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill. – who, by the way, was the representative who nearly lost Tuesday night to Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan.

Then, she resurrected herself this year as an attorney general candidate; getting Bruce Rauner to kick in significant funding for her political operations and also use his political influence to dissuade any other Republican from thinking of running for the post.

Harold can count Rodney Davis and … 

Rauner liked the image that Harold brought to the Republican ticket – that of an African-American woman who didn’t come off as so dark that she’d scare all the rural white people across Illinois whom he was counting on for votes for himself.

THAT RACIAL ASPECT is always what hurt her chances of winning when she ran for central Illinois-based political posts. Insofar as considering a move to Chicago where race wouldn’t be considered a negative, that might not be realistic.

None other than Barack Obama himself in his earliest days in politics ran into opposition from local activists who didn’t like the idea that he wasn’t native-born South Side (remember he’s from Honolulu?) and that he was moving in to take a post away from “one of our own?”

… Kwame Raoul on her list of defeats

Harold would have the same problem. She’s a Republican because of her birthplace (Urbana, Ill.), but her political aspirations may be limited. Which is why this might well be her final (if not only) serious chance at winning electoral office.

Besides, there’s one other fact to consider – in Tuesday night’s vote tallies, she not only got whomped in Chicago and surrounding suburbs, she lost six downstate counties, including her own home of Champaign County. It’s hard to win an election when 51.07 percent of the votes in your home base go for the opposition.

  -30-

EXTRA: Illinois GOP strategy of “Dump Madigan!” seems to fail again

Illinois House Speaker/state Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan is the big winner of Election Night ’18 – and not just because he got re-elected to his Illinois House seat that is the base for all his political operations.

MADIGAN: Prevailed, big time!

Madigan, after all, was running unopposed for his legislative post representing the residents of Chicago who live in the area surrounding Midway Airport.

SO IT’S NOT like there was a chance he’d go off to defeat and political retirement following a career in Illinois government dating back to 1970 when he was one of many delegates who helped craft the current version of Illinois’ state Constitution.

But Madigan’s name has been dragged through the muck by just about every Republican running for just about every single office. The theme being that every Democrat is nothing more than a political hack who takes his (or her) marching orders from the almighty-and-powerful Illinois House speaker.

The leader in recent years of such strategy is soon-to-be former Gov. Bruce Rauner, who went through his campaign repeatedly blaming Madigan for everything that Rauner was unable to accomplish during his four years as governor.

His rhetoric often went so far over the top as to imply Madigan’s actions were criminal and that an indictment would be forthcoming, if only there were a sense of true justice in the world.

PRITZKER: $171.1 million spent for Springfield move

YET THE RAUNER defeat was so apparent that the governor made his concession call to Democrat J.B. Pritzker (who supposedly is Madigan’s hand-puppet and gay marriage spouse) less than an hour after the polls closed in Illinois. Some information sources didn’t even have preliminary vote tallies to report, yet the insider speculation was such that it wasn’t worth waiting in a sense of desperate hope that something would come up.

The man who was banking on the concept of a corrupt Madigan scaring voters away instead became a complete failure based off his strategy – which really is the same one that Republicans also tried using back in 2010 when Republican Bill Brady was defeated by Democrat Pat Quinn.

Who, by the way, told the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday he was anxious to see Rauner be replaced as governor.

RAOUL: Illinois' attorney general-elect

But like I already wrote, other candidates tried tying their opponents to Madigan, with Republican attorney general hopeful Erika Harold going so far as to say she’d never take orders from the speaker – and implied she’d use the post to conduct the investigations against Madigan that Rauner always fantasized about having done.

YET WITH THE early vote tallies in, Democrat Kwame Raoul held a solid lead, taking majorities in five of the six counties that comprise the Chicago metropolitan area. Only McHenry County seemed to prefer Harold – the one-time Miss America who can now add this defeat to her list of failed political aspirations on her part.

Then again, McHenry is also the lone Chicago-area county that liked the idea of “President Donald Trump” back in the 2016 election cycle. While in Cook County proper, Raoul had some 73 percent of the overall vote early on.

It’s going to take a real mighty blow from downstate Illinois to overcome the solid 64/34 percent lead Raoul is holding across the state over Harold Tuesday night.

There’s also candidates such as incumbent Congress members Randy Hultgren and Peter Roskam, who were lagging behind early on to Democrats Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten respectively. And in the area around Champaign/Urbana, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan had a lead over Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill.

WHICH, IF THE Dems prevail in all, would add to the total tally of politicos who would serve as counterweights to the ideological nonsense spewed by Donald Trump.

HAROLD: Another defeat, will she try again?

Casten, in particular, faced a campaign strategy of being labeled as being a mere flip side of the same Madigan political coin. Instead, perhaps it seems many saw him as a potential ally to the man who stood up to the Rauner ideological tactics of the past four years and one who could stand up to anything absurd that Trump would try to do during the next two.

I’m not saying that the electorate of Illinois is all that enthralled by Mike Madigan. I’m aware of polls showing many people think he’s just another political hack. Even though he's now one with even more power -- since it seems his Illinois House majority is even larger now and can enable him to override gubernatorial vetoes single-handedly.

But perhaps one of the lessons we learn from Election ’18 is one that truly would benefit us all – candidates are most likely to prevail if they can sway people as to why we should vote for them. Not just why we should despise the opposition.

  -30-

Who’s the new AG? How will Raoul be remembered in Illinois history?

Is Kwame Raoul destined to become the 21^st Century’s version of George Sangmeister or Aurelia Pucinski?

RAOUL: Can he win Tuesday night?

Sangmeister and Pucinski were on the 1986 Democratic primary ballot for lieutenant governor and secretary of state, respectively, and both lost – with the common political speculation being that all those rural voters across Illinois didn’t identify with the German or Polish ethnic roots that the two had.

AS A RESULT, the Democrats nominated Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart respectively – with the rural types thinking those names were so-much-more “American” sounding. Even though both were actually ideologically aligned with right-winger Lyndon LaRouche.

Could we get a similar reaction come Tuesday to the campaign of Kwame Raoul for Illinois attorney general?

Raoul is a state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood who is the son of parents who came to this country from Haiti. Hyde Park is exactly the type of neighborhood that thinks such people are exotic and interesting and likely takes a certain amount of pride in having Kwame representing them in the Legislature for the past 14 years.

But Raoul is being challenged by the one-time Miss America, Erika Harold of Champaign, who has often expressed political ambitions but been unable to win anything. Usually because she has ran for Congress from central Illinois-based districts where the locals were more comfortable with white men representing them.

TRUMP: Could his mentality sway voters?

BUT NOW, HAROLD is running for something statewide. Also, she’s running a campaign that focuses heavily on the theme of her being the lone Republican to hold a political post – serving as sort of a partisan political balance to all the Democrats likely to be in power.

I have no doubt Raoul will take the Chicago vote overwhelmingly. In fact, that may well be enough for him to win the political post outright.

Hart and Fairchild (below), … 

But then again, it may not. Could enough rural Illinoisans who’d rather not have a so-called “foreigner” elected to office cast their votes for Harold? Could that be sufficient for her to win Tuesday’s election.

Could the 2002 Miss Illinois who went on to Atlantic City to win the pageant the following year be able to claim a similar story as Hart and Fairchild – who will forevermore be remembered in Illinois political history as the fluke victories. Ones whose real significance is that they screwed up the political campaign of ’86 for gubernatorial hopeful Adlai Stevenson III?

… will Raoul's monicker go alongside theirs?

IN THIS AGE of Trump that we’re now in, could the anti-immigrant sentiments that some people so clearly feel and base their political decisions off of become a factor?

Maybe even those people who will forevermore remain bitter that somebody named Barack Obama could ever be elected president will be motivated to turn out to vote against Kwame (who, by the way, was Obama’s replacement in the Illinois state Senate in 2004).

All of this is cheap, petty and makes next to no sense. But it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the electorate based their vote off of something totally stupid!

Could giving Illinois a former Miss America as the chief legal counsel for state government be the consolation prize that Republicans take for themselves to deal with the heavy losses that Bruce Rauner’s presence on the ballot is likely to inflict on the rest of the party’s ticket?

AS FOR RAOUL, he was amongst the Democrats using Barack Obama’s presence at the Sunday rally in Chicago to tout himself – moreso than J.B. Pritzker, whose gubernatorial campaign was the supposed reason for the political gathering.

HAROLD: A trivial image, but may be one many carry in their minds

As Raoul described things, “I’m a proud son of Haitian who did not come from a” expletive-deleted description used by Trump himself. “I am a birthright baby.”

Considering a recent New York Times-published poll saying (amongst other things) that 46 percent of people want Republicans to retain control of Congress and an equal 46 percent want Democrats to gain control of the House of Representatives, it would seem the partisan split isn’t anywhere near as intense as we get in Illinois.

Which could make Harold the ultimate Republican consolation prize coming from Tuesday night’s vote-counting activity. Sorry Kwame!

  -30-

Will we get equivalent of Trump's “lock her up” from Rauner about Madigan?

Is Gov. Rauner's re-election bid … 

Anybody with any degree of sense realizes that Gov. Bruce Rauner is full of it, so to speak, when he implies that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is engaged in criminal activities.

For if the governor really had the goods on Madigan, he’d be contacting the proper authorities in a position to do something; rather than wasting his venom on campaign tactics. He’d be pushing for something to happen prior to the Nov. 6 Election Day!

… going to try to treat Madigan … 

INSTEAD, WE’RE GETTING the rancid rhetoric as the campaign cycle heats up. We’re already getting tastes of it now, and it will continue to ramp up once we get past the Labor Day holiday.

For Rauner, who last week went on the attack during an interview with a radio station in Southern Illinois, engaged in similar trash talk during an appearance in the Chicago suburbs on Monday.

The “line” that gets all the attention?

“Clearly, he’s been doing unethical things. I hope he’s been doing something illegal, and I hope he gets prosecuted.” With Rauner speaking of the man who is approaching the half-century mark of service in the Illinois General Assembly.

… similar to all the 'lock her up' trash talk … 

THIS IS GOING to be the theme from here on through Election Day. Almost as though Rauner is trying to give us the political sequel to all the “Lock Her Up” trash talk and chants that the Donald Trump presidential campaign gave us in 2016.

To the point where, even though Trump quickly backed away from such talk following his election, there are still many of his backers whose only complaint about The Donald is that Hillary Clinton didn’t immediately face criminal indictment upon his election.

Rauner seems to want to get voters all riled up at the prospect of Madigan getting the traditional “Oxford education” (a stint at the federal correctional center in Oxford, Wis.) as a tactic to spur on voters and boost the turnout.

… Trump dished out to Hillary?

Perhaps it’s because Rauner has little to nothing in the way of accomplishments for himself that he thinks this is the only way he can win – particularly since Rauner’s record as governor includes several acts that have offended the ideologues he’d normally be counting on for support.

“PROSECUTE MADIGAN!” IS a phrase we’re likely to hear over and over again. And not just from Rauner himself about the House Speaker, who also doubles as the Illinois Democratic chairman.

For it is on Tuesday that Illinois attorney general candidate Erika Harold is coming out with her first statewide television campaign spot – one that highlights the notion of Madigan’s “corruption” (and even shows her standing out front of the offices used by Madigan’s law firm – the one that makes its money off tax law and allegedly getting its clients tax breaks that wind up costing the rest of the state more money).

Harold is running against Kwame Raoul, the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood whom Harold labeled in her ad as a man whose top financial donor is Madigan himself. Of course, Madigan is a top donor for many legislative candidates – since Madigan is a legislative leader.

I also find it ironic that Harold would have the nerve to complain about Raoul’s “top donor” since her top donor is the governor himself. This very spot we’re going to be inundated with in coming days is likely only available because of that $1 million contribution to Harold that Rauner made mention of last week.

THE ONE HE’S making because he wants a state attorney general who will “prosecute” Madigan – even though Harold would not really have any such authority to do IF she actually wins.

MENDOZA: Had the nerve to win in '16

It’s probably just a matter of time before Illinois comptroller candidate Darlene Senger comes up with her own spots tying incumbent Comptroller Susana Mendoza to “corruption and “Madigan!!!”

Mendoza did, after all, have the nerve to defeat Leslie Munger for the position back when it was up for grabs in a 2016 special election, thereby knocking off Rauner's lone GOP ally. How dare she!?!

Which is why Rauner is all by his lonesome these days within the state government structure – surrounded by Democrats eager to Dump Bruce! and put an end to the notion that being a Democratic partisan is, in and of itself, a criminal act!

  -30-

Illinois AG race about more than 'Obama clone' vs. 'lawyer Barbie'

By the time Kwame Raoul ...

There are times I wonder if people comprehend the purpose of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

For as I always comprehended it, the attorney general (for the past 16 years, it has been Lisa Madigan) has been the attorney for state government. Since our state is a large-scale operation, she has several assistants on her staff.

… and Erika Harold are through, … 

IT’S ALMOST LIKE she’s the head of a law firm whose sole client is Illinois state government. She’s there to defend the state every time someone within it screws up, while also making sure the rights our citizenry are not being violated every which way possible.

It amuses me every time I hear someone complain that the attorney general isn’t prosecuting someone, because it’s obvious to me they’re being swayed by some overbearing vision of what the post is.

Almost as though they think it’s the equivalent of the “state’s attorneys” that Illinois’ 102 counties all have. My guess is that if the attorney general ever tried to take on such tasks, there’d be a whole lot of griping from those local prosecutors about how she is grossly overstepping the bounds of her post.

All of this thought popped into my mind when reading a report recently (from Crain’s Chicago Business) about the state attorney general’s office and how its viewpoint is likely to be impacted by the elections to be held Nov. 6.

BECAUSE MADIGAN HAS made it clear she’s not staying in the post. The Democratic Party already has nominated a possible replacement (state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago), but there are some Republicans who think their nominee (Erika Harold) is the lone GOPer who has a chance to win something come Election Day.

… what will remains of Lisa Madigan's way?

The Crain’s report talks of all the lawsuits Illinois has filed, or supported, throughout the Age of Trump we’re now in that challenge the federal government on various issues.

With Raoul saying he is a “last line of defense” from a federal government that would be very eager to play partisan politics against Illinois. Meaning he’d intend to pursue all the lawsuits that come from the Madigan Era of the attorney general.

While Harold is much less committal. She’s not offering up much details, but some are reading into her words that she’d be willing to have her staff dismiss the lawsuits they’ve started against the federal government.

“I BELIEVE THE attorney general’s office should not be using their scarce resources to enter into lawsuits for purely political purposes,” she told Crain’s. “I would only sue the federal government if Illinois law has been implicated or the federal government has acted in violation of the Constitution.”

Which is a nice, text book answer that sounds like it came from a law school student trying to suck up to the professor to get a better grade.

For the reality is that way too much of the issues and the law are open to interpretation. One person’s serious cause on behalf of the public becomes an ideologue’s pet issue that they want to dump all over.

And could it be the intent of an “Attorney General Erika Harold” to back off of trying to rile up the federal government in hopes that it might get President Donald Trump to quit getting riled up against Illinois every time he has so little to do that he takes to spewing out political bile on his Twitter account.

Obama, Raoul share just a neighborhood

ALTHOUGH I DID find it interesting to read in the Crain’s report that Harold supports the state lawsuit brought about by Madigan that challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold $6.5 million in federal funds for local law enforcement in Illinois as a response to the concept of “sanctuary cities.”

All of this means we’re going to have a decision to make come Election Day when we get to the portion of the ballot related to state attorney general.

Just how much of a pain in the behind do we want our state government’s legal adviser to be? And to what degree are partisan political issues things that wind up being a part of the public good?

Perhaps an image of Harold that needs to be retired

Definitely something we voters need to give more serious thought to than believing the attorney general’s race to be nothing more than between a Barack Obama clone and a former Miss America who used her prize money to put herself through law school!

  -30-

Does downstate Illinois really love Quinn now? Or just afraid of unknown?

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University came out with its own poll recently for the upcoming primary elections, and there’s little surprising about its conclusion that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker are the favorites for victory come March 20.

Has downstate forgiven Pat Quinn?

But I did find one aspect amusing – the portion that relates to the Illinois attorney general’s office.

ON THE SURFACE, it would indicate that Kwame Raoul, a state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood, and Erika Harold, of Champaign, would be the favorites – although not by much. In a sense, a University of Chicago vs. University of Illinois election.

On the Republican side, it seems that nearly two-thirds of would-be GOP voters don’t have a clue who either Harold or challenger Gary Grasso are.

For the Democrats, there are eight candidates, but only two of them have any sizable following. As in Raoul and none other than Pat Quinn, our state’s former governor, who’s hoping to use the attorney general post as a way of achieving a political comeback.

According to the poll, Raoul has 22 percent support, compared to 18 percent for Quinn – with none of the others above 10 percent, and some 39 percent undecided.

BUT WHAT INTRIGUES me is the part that tried showing the regional breakdowns – where Raoul has 25 percent support in Chicago and 24 percent support in the suburbs. But Quinn is the leader in downstate Illinois.

Will it wind up being a Raoul vs. ...

The Mighty Quinn has some 25 percent support of downstate voters who will cast ballots in the Democratic primary, compared to 10 percent for Raoul.

“So what!,” you may ask. It might seem obvious that a lowly state legislator with little-to-no name recognition outside of his specific Senate district on the South Side would lag behind a guy who has been a part of the political scene for nearly as long as Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, himself.

Which is true, since Quinn served on the staff of then-Gov. Dan Walker back in the early 1970s, before going on to other roles – including the “cut back” action that reduced the Illinois House by one-third in the early 1980s.

... Harold brawl following the March 20 primary?

BUT IF ONE remembers back to 2014, the reason that Quinn lost to Rauner is supposedly because he was weak in downstate Illinois.

Actually, despised is more the word that was used to describe why rural voters were willing to back a rich guy from the North Shore suburbs over Quinn. The only county out of Illinois’ 102 that Quinn won was Cook. The rest of the state map from November 2014 was a solid shade of red.

Even in the primary election held in March of that year, there was evidence that Quinn was not the preferred candidate outside of Chicago.

Quinn actually managed to lose the vote in a few counties of Southern Illinois, where the distaste for Quinn was such that they voted for opponent Tio Hardiman – even though I suspect they knew nothing about him, and when they eventually learned of his views on gun control (he’s heavily concerned about urban violence – head of the CeaseFire Illinois group), they wished they could vote for nobody.

HARDIMAN IS ACTUALLY trying again to run for governor this time, and the Simon Institute poll shows him running last out of the six candidates with zero percent in downstate Illinois. Even perpetual fringe candidate Robert Marshall manages with 1 percent support.

How many of Tio's '14 backers still support him for gov?

So what does it say that many of the people eager to dump Quinn back in ’14 now seem to be supporting him? Should we regard that election cycle as a fluke? Or is the fluke the election cycle occurring now?

Is Quinn being forgiven for the misdeeds people constantly accused him of four years ago. Or perhaps it is the sight of what we replaced Quinn with for the past few years that makes some people think perhaps he ought to be given another chance.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this eight-way electoral fight manages to turn out, since it will be possible for someone with only about 25 percent support to win the Democratic nomination. Which could wind up being Raoul – although I’ll admit the thought of a Quinn/Harold debate come October is one I’d find amusing.

  -30-

Quinn won’t wither away, lack of $$$ won’t stop his political desires

I’m not surprised to learn that former Gov. Pat Quinn, in his political bid to become Illinois attorney general, is lagging far behind the other candidates seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the post.

How many candidates have official state portrait?

The reality is that Quinn, in his decades as a candidate for political office, has never been a fantastic fundraiser. If anything, he’s the kind of outspoken guy who ticks off the kind of people who actually make sizable contributions.

HE’S THE KIND of guy who attracts the money of some hard-core political lightweights – the kind of people who might make $20 donations. Piece enough of them together, and you might get a dollar figure of some size.

Then again, one prominent donor or special-interest group can easily cough up the same amount of cash with one contribution check.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday about the amount of money the candidates for attorney general have raised. It shouldn’t be surprising that the guy who’s likely the frontrunner (state Sen. Kwame Raoul of the Hyde Park neighborhood) has the most money.

He had $406,000 already, and managed to raise another $540,000 during the past three months.

BY COMPARISON, QUINN added some $81,000 to the $232,000 he already had in an existing campaign fund.

How pathetic is that? According to the Tribune report, about the only Democratic dreamer for attorney general doing worse is Aaron Goldstein, who reported having $194,000 in contributions – of which about $185,000 is money he donated to himself.

Candidates such as state Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highwood, Chicago Park District President Jesse Ruiz and Highland Park mayor Nancy Rotering all have raised more than the former governor.

RAOUL: The 'big bucks" AG candidate

But as I’ve already implied, this is not a new trend for Quinn – who never has been the big-money candidate with unlimited funds to pay for all the advertising and other stunts that a political campaign engages in to attract attention and try to sway people to actually vote for them.

HE HAS ALWAYS managed to achieve whatever success he has gained on the Illinois political scene by swaying voters that he’s somehow different from the standard-issue government official.

Whether that can continue to work for him remains to be seen. Standard lines of logic would indicate that Quinn’s time has passed. He’s a political has-been who should come to his senses and drop out – be a retired pol who can claim to have achieved the rank of Illinois governor.

Of course, standard lines of logic would indicate that Quinn’s time had passed after his one term as Illinois treasurer. The one that ended after his 1994 defeat for Illinois secretary of state.

Between that electoral loss and his victory paired up with Rod Blagojevich in 2002 as his lieutenant governor running mate, Quinn ran for U.S. Senate seats and the lieutenant governor post on his own and continually lost. Largely because his campaigns were as poorly funded as this campaign appears to be.

BUT QUINN IS the type not easily discouraged. All those losses of the mid-1990s to the early 2000s didn’t discourage him from running again. Just as his 2014 loss to Bruce Rauner and his millions of dollars in personal wealth that he pumped into his campaign doesn’t seem to have discouraged him from trying yet again to be a part of state government.

Anybody can outspend Quinn, not just Rauner

I don’t know if Quinn can actually win. Perhaps he figures there’s so many people on the ballot (eight candidates on the Democratic side) that he figures he could get a quarter of the vote and the other seven could split up the majority into small-enough chunks he could still win.

As for those others, all of them have limited name recognition outside of their home regions. Whether any one of them could catch on with the masses has yet to be determined.

And even if Quinn loses the primary come March 20, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him try running yet again for political office – maybe he’ll go for Illinois comptroller and be able to say he ran for all the statewide constitutional posts. He may be 69 (his birthday was in mid-December) and getting up there in years, but I suspect Quinn is exactly the kind of guy who won’t quit trying to be a part of public policy until the day he passes on.

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EXTRA: Another ‘foreign guy’ vs. ‘Miss America’ for Ill. atty general?

The campaign in next year’s election cycle for Illinois attorney general is already shaping up as one to see who will be capable of out-trivializing the other.

Kwame Raoul likely to get as many insults ...

For the Cook County Democratic Party on Friday officially picked state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, as its preference amongst the seven other political people expressing a desire to be the party’s slated candidate to replace Lisa Madigan – who is giving up the post following four terms in office.

MEANWHILE, REPUBLICAN PREFERENCE Erika Harold was able to issue a statement earlier this week indicating that Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon decided not to run for office.

Meaning that the woman who once served as Miss America and later went to law school likely will run in the Republican primary unopposed.

And since the Democratic primary usually is dominated by the Cook County vote, we ought to start thinking of the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood as the favorite.

So when it comes to picking a replacement for Lisa Madigan, it could likely be Raoul versus Harold. Which has so much potential for ignorant thoughts and trivial expressions to be concocted. It truly could become a campaign of which candidate can sink to the lower level of intellectual thought.

... as will Erika Harold

FOR THOSE OF you to whom the name Kwame Raoul is alien, he’s a state senator who has served for over a decade. When Barack Obama made the move up from representing Hyde Park and Kenwood in the state Legislature to the state of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Raoul was the guy who replaced him.

Amongst the rank-and-file of the Illinois General Assembly he has shown himself to be a competent legislator. Although there are those who dismiss him as just another funny-sounding name like Obama.

But while Obama was Hawaii-born and Ivy League-educated, Raoul is a Chicago native with a DePaul University education and Chicago-Kent School of Law background. Something that theoretically ought to sound like many of the masses.

QUINN: Not the Cook Co. preference

Except that some won’t be able to get past the non-Anglo name and will want to presume that because they come out of the same neighborhood that they’ll want to tag him in the same way they still try to do with Obama.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T doubt that Harold will have to deal with her own share of attacks during the upcoming election cycle. She is an Urbana native with a University of Illinois bachelor’s degree, to go along with the Harvard Law School degree she has (paid for in large part through the scholarship funds the Miss America organization provided to her after she won the top title in 2003 and did her year of wearing the tiara as an example of American femininity.

She is a licensed attorney and has served on various legal commissions. But you just know it’s a matter of time before she gets dismissed as the airhead beauty queen. Heck, Raoul himself has already had to issue some apologies for the way he has dismissed her as merely “Miss America.”

The trash talk will be spewed for several months. Who’s to say how ugly this campaign will get – or how ridiculous?

I actually wonder if the fight for attorney general will wind up being even more stupid and ridiculous than the brawl for governor – the one with the multi-millionaires capable of self-funding their own attacks on each other.

 

McMAHON: Dropped out of GOP running

IT ALMOST MAKES me wonder if things would turn out to be more sane if former Gov. Pat Quinn’s desire for a political comeback would lead to a better outcome if it were to occur.

Not that it is likely to happen. The Cook County Democratic Party, in its slating effort, specifically rejected Quinn’s pleas for support, or for even an effort to remain neutral so that any of the eight would-be Dems could have a chance of winning the March 20 primary.

All of which makes me wonder if it is just me approaching advancing age, or if our level of political intellect is just taking a ? I fear it’s the latter.

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