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.

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How likely are we to see a Madigan/Harold political brawl in '18?

How likely are we to see ...

There once was a time when political observers took seriously the possibility that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan would make a credible attempt to run for governor.

But the presence of her father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, creates so many potential headaches that Lisa has had to postpone her own political ambitions – to the point where 2018 likely will be her effort to seek re-election to a fifth term as the head attorney for state government.

 

... this political matchup on Nov. 6, 2018?

NOW, FROM THE land of academia (and crummy Big Ten football teams) known as Champaign-Urbana comes the potential for the most visible Republican challenger Lisa Madigan has ever had (does anyone really remember Steven Kim or Paul Schimpf?).

Reports starting with WCIA-TV in Champaign and spreading elsewhere indicate that local attorney Erika Harold is being contemplated for the GOP nomination for the post.

For those of you whose memories are faulty, Harold is a young woman who twice has tried running for Congress from her central Illinois district – only to lose both primaries.

Although the line that will get Harold national attention, and is the bit that Republican operatives are hoping gives her a chance to actually win against Madigan, is that back in 2003, she was Miss America.

AS IN A former Miss Illinois who bumped up to win the big prize of what officially is a scholarship pageant (and which enabled Harold herself to complete her Harvard Law School education) and spend the year wearing a tiara and making public appearances while looking glamorous at every opportunity.

For what it’s worth, she now practices law out of an office in Champaign (she probably realizes she’d be totally irrelevant if she tried moving to Chicago and becoming a part of the political scene here).

She has political ambitions. But she’s never been able to succeed. She can’t even win Republican primaries – although part of that may well be that the kind of people who vote in Republican primaries are just the type who would have a hang-up over another defining Harold characteristic.

Sexist to publish this old Harold image?

She is a light-skinned black woman. Which ought to be completely irrelevant. But in today’s Age of Trump, a political climate where people who have racial hang-ups are given a certain sense of credibility, it does.

THE TRICK WILL be to see if Harold can get a free ride through the Republican primary process in order to gain the party nomination and a chance to run against Madigan.

In which case, I’m sure Republican types will go overboard with talk about how Lisa’s time has passed (and probably never should have come about to begin with due to her father). We’ll probably also get an overdose of the glamour shots – perhaps to create the image of a more desirable woman in a political post?

And before anyone claims that’s a sexist image to create, I can’t help but notice that Harold herself uses a Facebook page to promote herself, and often digs up old photographs of herself from her Miss America days – such as the photos of herself she published just last week on Independence Day, signing autographs for soldiers at Fort Belvoir while wearing her tiara.

Recent images used on social media by Erika Harold ...

Of course, the fact that Harold has never won a thing politically means she has little else to run on other than this image that a segment of our society will find attractive – and another will find trivial.

IF ANYTHING, I find it sad that the Republican Party operatives have such a cynical view that they contemplate the need for Harold’s image – figuring that to beat a woman, they need to find one of their own. Nothing about a person’s actual qualifications for the post.

Which also is sad, because I don’t doubt that Harold has certain intellectual qualifications and probably could have been developed into a credible candidate for political office if she were treated seriously – rather than as eye candy for the electorate.

... and Lisa Madigan

Of course, as I already stated, the key will be whether Harold gets a free pass. Because if there’s some ambition type with a law degree who decides HE wants to run for Illinois attorney general, I don’t doubt that many Republican primary voters will prefer him to Harold. So we’ll have to see if a Madigan/Harold brawl ever occurs.

Although considering the anti-intellectual strain that runs through a segment of the GOP electorate these days, Harold may have to sacrifice her best credential of being a Harvard Law grad and emphasize her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois – crummy football teams and all!

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Celebrity candidates a unique breed. Would you vote for Ventura for Prez? What about Erika for Congress?

I’ll confess to not fully understanding the concept of “celebrity” political candidates.

Sen. Ditka? Who's kidding whom!

 
By that, I mean the type of person who has accomplished something in some field that put them in the public eye. Which makes them think they can turn that public attention into votes to get themselves elected to political office.

HECK, THE PEOPLE of Minnesota got one-time pro wrestler Jesse Ventura for four years as their governor – and he’s inspired enough by that victory that he’s now going around talking about wanting to run for president come 2016.

With broadcaster Howard Stern as his vice-presidential running mate, nonetheless. Although I’ve also heard speculation that rocker Ted Nugent also is contemplating a presidential bid to espouse his love of firearms.

I don’t see either one of them seriously being capable of holding elective office, although I’m sure there are some knuckleheads in our society who will cast ballots for them just for kicks.

Which is what it all comes down to with these types of campaigns. I’m sure some will try to claim that Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns are the same thing in that he developed celebrity status while on the campaign trail that encouraged some to vote for him – but they really aren’t.

BUT THE FACT remains that we occasionally get these types of people thinking they are somehow fit for public office. And I can’t always predict how seriously they will be taken.

Take Mike Ditka, who actually had some Republican operatives back in 2004 trying to encourage him to run for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois after GOP nominee Jack Ryan’s campaign fizzled out (due to the actions that occurred during his marriage to celebrity actress Jeri Ryan).

Ditka didn’t take the bait – thereby sparing himself a likely defeat to the very same Obama in his pre-presidential days who had already begun to establish the aura that has persuaded many people to cast their votes for him.



The Libertarian duo?

Although I find it humorous that Ditka in recent days has felt compelled to spew rhetoric implying he should have run – because he could have somehow spared us all the concept of a “President Obama.”

DOES DITKA THINK that sucking up to the ideologues by feeding their fantasies will somehow encourage the political operatives to consider him as a candidate for office in some future election cycle?

Or was Ditka just bored enough to the point where he felt compelled to share his fantasies with all of us. My own fantasies involve a Pulitzer Prize or two, but I don’t feel compelled to write rants telling you about the stories I could have covered that might have won me that top prize!

It makes me wonder why some people feel compelled to spout nonsense. Although I realize they’re trying to appeal to the kinds of people who don’t really understand government operations and probably resent the fact that government has influence over their lives.

Dumbing it down to the level of voting for a Ventura, or contemplating a Ditka may simplify it in their own minds – even if it would do nothing for public policy.

YET THE STANDARDS of fluff fluctuate.

 

I suspect many of the same people who want to take seriously the idea of a “Sen. Mike Ditka” are the same ones who are dumping on the congressional campaign of Erika Harold.

HAROLD: Seeking a higher title

She is the Miss America from 2003 (2002’s “Miss Illinois”) who has since graduated from Harvard, worked for a time as an attorney in Chicago, and has since returned to her hometown of Urbana so that she can seriously run as a Republican for Congress.

We in Chicago would have treated her like a complete joke if she had run a GOP campaign for one of the city’s congressional districts.

THE DENIZENS OF east-central Illinois are getting all worked up over the thought that Harold would take on freshman Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill. The ideologues want him to be able to build up seniority instead of having Harold dump him – even though any serious reading of her own philosophical beliefs indicate she sides with them on so many issues.

Davis, of course, is one of the GOP Congress members who faces harm due to the federal government shutdown. Which makes me wonder if Harold could capitalize on this.

 

Too bad she didn't wear an Illini t-shirt

Or will it be one of the Democrats seeking that post who will manage to prevail.

Because it seems that some people are just having too much trouble taking seriously the notion of a “Miss America” in the House of Representatives. I can’t figure if it’s her racial background (she’s not lily white) or just her gender (they’d love her as a politician’s spouse).

ALTHOUGH IT PROBABLY makes as much sense (if not more, considering Harold’s actual education and work experiences) than having a one-time New Orleans Saint coach in the Senate – which would have only one possible benefit.

It is about the only way we in Illinois would ever get a “Saint” amongst any of our government officials.

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