EXTRA: … and on a final note!

Illinois had the “blue wave” that some were predicting for the nation, although that isn’t as much of an achievement as it might sound. We already had a Democrat-leaning government. Now, it’s Democrat-dominated.

DONNELLY: He gone! from Indiana scene

But in other places across the country, it seems the status quo prevailed. Republicans in many states managed to hold on to what they had, and even gained a few spots.

THE U.S. SENATE seat from Indiana, for instance. Joe Donnelly will go down as a one-term fluke. Beating an anti-abortion extremist in 2012, he lost fairly early in the evening to Mike Braun. Although not quite as early as Bruce Rauner’s Illinois gubernatorial defeat, making his concessions call by 7:40 p.m. Which I'm sure Republican political operatives think is balanced out by Donnelly's defeat.

In Florida, where both governor and senator posts were up for grabs, Republicans were able to prevail with victories. In Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz managed to prevail with a narrow victory over Democrat Beto O'Rourke. The general overtone is that Congress will continue to be a Republican-leaning body, with not enough seats flipping for Donald Trump to face threats of power loss.

Which means I’m sure Trump will be declaring victory in the near future. Maybe he’ll even be denouncing Illinois, and Chicago in particular, as a place that can’t just get with the program of this Age of Trump we now live in.

Not a popular sentiment in some parts of U.S. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

All I know is that my gut feeling Tuesday night is similar to the one I felt on Election Night 2016 – elation that I lived in Illinois, a place that has become even more of an island of sense in a nation of ideological nonsense.

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Is Illiana going to be nothing more than a partisan tradeoff for Dems, GOP?

Both major political parties have their battle plans for the upcoming election cycle in place; mostly based of trying to connive just how many political posts they can manage to swipe away from each other.

Yet the reality is that there will be a certain amount of tradeoffs that will occur.

FOR EVERY SINGLE post that Democrats manage to swing away from the Republican column, there will be a few that manage to flip the other way.

And among the most likely flips that could take place as a result of Nov. 6 involves our very own top-ranking officials in Illinois and Indiana.

There are many political observers convinced that Bruce Rauner is likely to go following Election Day. We in Illinois will have a governor in the “Democrat” column largely by default – a majority of us feel that much contempt for the guy we’ve got now and aren’t willing to give him “four more years.”

While in Indiana, there’s the fight for a U.S. Senate seat currently held by Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from South Bend. A fact that bothers the Republican Party establishment that runs government throughout the Hoosier State.

RAUNER: Most unpopular gov seeking re-election

IS THE MIDWESTERN political scene one in which the Democrats will take a governor’s seat in Illinois, while the Republicans gain a Senate seat in Indiana?

Morning Consult has come out with various polls showing Rauner is the most unpopular governor seeking re-election this year, while Donnelly’s chances of getting re-elected are not overwhelming at this point in time.

The political party establishments in both states are inclined to think that such an outcome is appropriate, because they want to believe the fact that Rauner and Donnelly got elected in the first place is a total fluke.

They would think that picking J.B. Pritzker as Illinois governor and Mike Braun as U.S. Senator from Indiana would be a restoration of the natural order – as in the way things should be – in the two states.

DONNELLY: A big bullseye on his back?

LET’S NOT FORGET that Illinois has been a Democrat-controlled state for nearly the past two full decades, and that Rauner’s victory in the 2014 election cycle was more about apathy by the Dem establishment toward then-Gov. Pat Quinn. Rauner is the only guy who thinks he WON that election, rather than political apathy costing their candidate.

There’s no way that apathy will recur in 2018. Rauner has managed to tick off so many Democrats, and even a good-sized portion of the Republican establishment, that he has a mere 27 percent approval rating these days.

Donnelly faces similar circumstances, in that his 2012 election victory was equally fluky. He beat Richard Mourdock, the former state treasurer, because so many people became offended when Mourdock made comments during a debate about how women who become pregnant as a result of rape is “something that God intended.”

Would these two restore natural order …

That was his way of justifying not permitting abortion even in instances of sexual assault. Chances are good if Mourdock hadn’t been that dense (or if long-time Sen. Richard Lugar had won in the Republican primary), the Republican would have prevailed in the general election six years ago.

DOES ANYBODY THINK that Braun, an auto parts distribution business owner who’s wealthy enough to fund his own campaign, will be equally clueless? Donnelly would have to be the luckiest man alive to get another political break of the one that allowed him to slip past Mourdock.

… to politics in Illinois/Indiana?

Considering that Indiana has a governor with a 52 percent approval rating with Donnelly only 41 percent (with 34 percent disapproving and 25 percent of people who can’t make up their minds), it’s likely that many people are waiting for the chance to vote against the incumbent.

Donnelly could be the guy who winds up carrying nothing more of the vote than Gary on Election Day.

Many voters in both states might think it appropriate if the two major political parties did a swap that strengthened the overall majorities – what with President Donald Trump having 38 percent approval in Illinois, but 51 percent approval in Indiana. It also would reinforce the view each state has of the other -- that of a Bizarro-world version of itself.

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Trump leads GOP tripe talk in their fight against Donnelly for Senate

Let’s be honest – it’s likely the only reason that Joe Donnelly, the Democrat who has been a U.S. senator from Indiana the past six years won that post because his Republican opponent was (in the words of '70's TV ideologue Archie Bunker) a “meathead.”

DONNELLY: Can he win in '18?

I don’t doubt that GOP partisans are resentful of the fact Donnelly beat Richard Mourdock back in 2012 – even though one could say it was their own fault for beating up on the long-time, and legendary, Sen. Richard Lugar in their primary that year.

WHICH IS WHY Donnelly is going to get dumped all over for the next few months, particularly since Republicans decided this week in the Indiana primaries just who would be their nominee would be to challenge Donnelly in the Nov. 6 general elections.

One can say that Republicans didn’t make the mistake of picking the most outspoken ideologue of the three, which means they may have learned from their mistake of ’12 when Mourdock (a former state treasurer) wound up bringing national shame on himself and the political party with his rancid rhetoric about rape and abortion.

Remember he was that guy who said women who became pregnant as a result of rape should just accept that it was God’s will, of a sort, that they have the baby?

But it’s not like nominee Mike Braun needs to say crazy and inane things for this campaign cycle to get stupid. If anything, Braun has the head GOP nincompoop in his corner to spout out nonsense-talk.

BRAUN: Can he take back Lugar's seat?

I’M TALKING ABOUT President Donald J. Trump, who Thursday night ventured to Elkhart, Ind., for a campaign rally meant to appeal to the kind of people who will forevermore think The Donald is their kind of guy – no matter what he says or does.

Which meant Donnelly was his target of choice – even though I know of many Democrats who are distrustful of the senator from South Bend, Ind., because they think he’s handling his voting record on issues to avoid taking opposition to Trump.

Donnelly doesn’t want to give Trump types political ammunition in the form of votes against the ideas they hold most dearly.

TRUMP: Getting involved in Hoosier politics

Not that it matter much what Donnelly has actually done. For Trump (and GOP partisans) are determined to demonize him no matter what is really said or done.

FOR TRUMP ON Thursday pointed out that Donnelly didn’t support all of the president’s trash talk of the Affordable Care Act and opposed that measure of last year that Trump bills as significant tax cuts for the American people.

Even though Donnelly isn’t a reliable vote for Democratic partisan issues and proposals, Trump says that the first-term senator “will do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell him to do.

Trump claims Donnelly supports, “the radical, liberal agenda. It never, ever fails.”

Which is political trash talk of the most absurd. Donnelly’s voting record has been so unpredictable from the so-called progressive stance. The true hard-core liberals view someone like Donnelly as unreliable.

A QUICK REVIEW of his record includes only 60 percent support for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 58 percent support for the League of Conservation Voters, 35 percent backing for the American Civil Liberties Union, a grade of “D” for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and an “F” for the NIAC that lobbies on behalf of Iranian-Americans.

EMANUEL: Will he help prop up Donnelly again?

If anything, it might be said that Donnelly is a person who tries thinking for himself – rather than following a knee-jerk party line of any type. But that’s exactly what the Hoosier GOP wants for themselves and for all of us – thinking they can bad-mouth Illinois because we’re the exact opposite of their partisan leanings (and possible to reinforce that following our own election for governor).

It may be that Indiana winds up balancing out Illinois on the national scene, although my own thoughts about the Hoosier senator is that I still remember the first time I ever met him – at a fundraiser put together for him by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago.

It was Chicago campaign cash that helped him run for office in 2012. It may well be people determined to undermine Chicago’s political influence (and suck up to Trump) who will be the most outspoken critics of Donnelly come November.

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