'Bipartisan cooperation' most definitely “dirty words” from the political past

I remember a moment from just over two decades ago when I overheard then-Gov. Jim Edgar engaging in political chit-chat with one of his aides.

MICHEL: Tried to bring pols together

Their subject? The retirement of long-time Peoria-area Congressman Bob Michel from Capitol Hill – including his post as leader of the House Republican caucus.

THE GIST OF their conversation? Wasn’t it a shame that Michel, who served for 38 years in Congress until his decision to retire following the 1994 election cycle, never got a chance to be Speaker of the House of Representatives?

Sure enough, the era in which Michel was a part of Illinois’ congressional delegation was one in which Democrats had control over the U.S. House the entire time.

Michel was the leader of Republicans for the final 14 years of his time in Congress, and developed a reputation as a person who could reach a deal with the opposition.

Which from his perspective meant he could achieve some goals for his constituents, even though technically he and his supposed allies were in the minority. Bipartisan cooperation as it can work, if everybody is willing to give a little and doesn’t adopt the attitude that political victory means squashing the opposing caucus into dust!

WHICH MOST DEFINITELY is the prevailing attitude of today – one that Republicans brought to bear in Washington right upon Michel’s demise. Because that election cycle in which he retired was the one in which Republicans gained a House of Representatives majority for the first time in decades.

 

TRUMP: Is his presidency the anti-Michel?

Not that anybody believes Michel should have held on for another term or two to be a boss on Capitol Hill. Because it usually is regarded by political observers that it was the change in leadership that helped cause the Republican rise to power.

Because it was the election cycle that resulted in Newt Gingrich becoming something more than just a congressman from Georgia, but a national figure who gave us the “Contract with America” that was a blatantly partisan political document meant to establish the ideals of a rural segment of our nation.

It certainly is a significant part of the path that has led our nation to our current predicament of a president openly hostile toward anyone who doesn’t share his own ideological agenda and more than willing to be vindictive to those not exactly like himself.

GINGRICH: He sides w/ Trump

I REMEMBER MICHEL being replaced in his congressional seat by Ray LaHood, his one-time chief of staff who later became Transportation secretary under President Barack Obama and, it turns out, became one of the few Republicans who rejected the Contract with America concept, and was also one of the few people amongst Republican ideologues who didn’t denounce Michel as a part of the failed concept of cooperation.

As though war and hostilities with the opposition party were the only way to achieve the goals one desired, while also crushing anything other people might want. It certainly isn’t a coincidence that the modern-day Gingrich was one of the few Republicans who openly backed Donald J. Trump’s political aspirations throughout last year’s election cycle.

Michel was a Republican, but he was one that I often heard older Democratic political operatives speak highly of – just because it was possible for things to be accomplished, unlike the age of ranting and raging that was developing then and has matured some two decades later, so to speak, into an obnoxious adulthood.

LaHOOD: At times, carried on Michel's spirit

It is one that I often wonder if it is to blame on my own generation, since it seems that many of the political operatives of today came of age back around this era and aren’t that much older than I am now. Or as Michel himself told the D.C.-based “Roll Call” newspaper in an interview not long ago, “I have to sometimes shake my head and say ‘My God.’ It is a far different place than it was in those days.”

MICHEL, OF COURSE, crops up into my mind on account of his death on Friday at age 93 following a bout with pneumonia. How amenable was he? Consider that for his 90^th birthday, a party managed to include former House speakers of both political persuasions to pay tribute to the man who once tried to bring people together. Both Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were on the guest list, along with our state’s very own Denny Hastert.

RAUNER: Could he use bipartisanship lessons?

That nature was acknowledged by Gov. Bruce Rauner, who issued his own statement praising Michel’s memory. “Best known for his bipartisan style and working cooperatively with Democrats and Republicans alike, he was beloved by all,” the governor said. Ironic, considering how much trouble the governor has in grasping the concept of bipartisan cooperation.

Perhaps the death of Michel is a moment we can use to reflect upon what has been lost by our own ability as a society to come together and use the government process to try to achieve things on behalf of our society.

In this “Age of Trump,” that seems like such an alien concept – in that the have-nots have to worry about what government intends to do TO them so as to assuage the presidential ego! And the inability to work together stretching into a third year without a state budget.

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A Dem in Trump cabinet? Not unheard-of idea, no matter what Trump-ites say

Excuse me for not being impressed by the reports coming out of Camp Trump these days that say he’s considering putting a (wait for it) Democrat in his presidential cabinet of advisers.

GABBARD: Trump's token Democrat?

The reports I read in The Hill, a D.C.-based newspaper focusing on Congress, say that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, met Monday with Trump at his offices in New York.

SPECULATION AMONGST POLITICAL geeks is that Trump is considering Gabbard for the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Which may sound impressive (it’s the post that was held by Adlai Stevenson II during the presidency of John F. Kennedy).

But considering that many of the kind of people who made up the bulk of voters for Trump have their hang-ups about the very existence of the United Nations, this could easily be an appointment to a post that Trump won’t give the slightest thought to during his administration.

Besides, the reality is that the easiest way for a new president to make a gesture of political bipartisanship is to offer up a cabinet post to one person of the opposition political party.

It wouldn’t be something new to Trump, even though I’m fully confident that
The Donald will try to portray this as the ultimate gesture that he’s not the ideological crackpot that many people fear he will become.

SOMETHING ABOUT GUILT by association with all those people who are crackpots. Who, according to The Hill, are inclined to favor Gabbard because of her ideological stances with regards to firearms and refugees and, in particular, a willingness to be suspicious of people of the Islamic religious faith.

Besides, Gabbard was one of the people who, back during the primary, was a solid backer of Bernie Sanders’ presidential aspirations. Which Trump will spin into her opposition to Hillary Clinton ever becoming president.

Who knows? She may well wind up fitting in with Camp Trump. Or she may wind up being isolated into a position of nothingness. We’ll have to wait and see.

 

LaHOOD: The GOPer who backed Obama

I don’t think she’d be as seriously taken as Ray LaHood. Remember him?

HE WAS THE Republican picked to serve in the presidential cabinet of Barack Obama. LaHood wound up serving a few years as head of the Department of Transportation.

Obama wound up turning to his home state of Illinois when searching for someone of the GOP persuasion – LaHood was a Peoria native who had served in Congress both as a representative and also had been chief of staff to one-time House Minority Leader Robert Michel.

Of course, that made him suspicious to the hard-core ideologues who always suspected Michel of being too weak to stand up to Democrats. LaHood wound up ending his career in public service by overseeing the nation’s transportation policy – although his Congress stint is memorable for him being the guy who presided over the House of Representatives hearings that wound up impeaching then-President Bill Clinton (the Senate failed to convict him).

Not that the ideologues ever gave Obama any credit for having LaHood around. The opposition of people who think that Trump is “taking back” their country were never the type to credit Obama for anything – and are most anxious to erase his very presence from electoral politics!

NOT THAT I expect Trump’s appointment of Gabbard to run into much opposition. For now, the president-elect will have a majority to back him, and may enjoy the idea of a Democrat amongst them just to spite the bulk of Democrats. That is, if Gabbard actually gets the appointment.

I wouldn’t put it past Trump to toy with the idea of naming a Democrat to a significant post, build up hopes, then trash them! Trump is exactly the kind who will want to play with people.

 

Could the Cubs become Trump's team?

Which also is how I view the speculation that Todd Ricketts, a member of the family that initially feuded with Trump but later helped back his presidential campaign financially, met with Trump to talk about policy.

Ricketts, of course, is taking joy these days from his family ownership of the Chicago Cubs, whom whether their owners realize it or not hail from a part of Chicago that was very inclined to prefer the thought of Hillary Clinton as president – could developing too close a tie to Trump wind up hurting the ball club?

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EXTRA: Illinois gets new member of Congress, not that it’s a surprise

Nobody in metro Chicago was called upon to do their civic duty and cast a ballot on this Election Day, yet the Illinois congressional delegation got a change on Thursday.

LaHOOD: The new congressman

Voters in the central Illinois-based congressional district centered around Peoria (or at least as centered as anything is in a heavily-gerrymandered political world) were asked to pick someone to finish out the end of the term of Aaron Schock.

REMEMBER HIM? THE wunderkid whom we once thought would be a Republican candidate for governor, but now faces a criminal indictment in the U.S. District Court for central Illinois!

Thursday was the day for the special election that saw Republican Darin LaHood predictably leading Rob Mellon, a Democrat, in a congressional district that has such GOP political leanings that it was the July primary amongst LaHood and two other candidates that was the real election.

Anyway, Illinois has a new person in Congress – yet one who follows one of the oldest of political traditions. Nepotism. LaHood is the son of one-time Congressman and Transportation secretary Ray LaHood.

Or as one-time newspaper columnist Mike Royko might have put it, Ray LaHood begat Darin. Which means the next time some Republican political hack tries to claim that all Democrats are nothing more than families passing along their power to the next generation, there is something to throw back in their faces.

ALTHOUGH ANYONE WHO objectively looks at the situation ought to realize that ideological leanings don’t always get passed along.

LaHOOD: The man who begat Darin

Ray LaHood was the guy who served in Congress during the overly-partisan era of Newt Gingrich as House Speaker, yet always tried to behave in a more conciliatory and non-partisan manner.

Similar to his mentor, former House Speaker Bob Michel (for whom Ray was a chief of staff).

It is what made Ray LaHood a pick of Barack Obama when the president put together his cabinet and decided he wanted a taste of bipartisanship. Which is how Ray got the transportation secretary post that he held for a few years before retiring as a public servant.

NOT THAT WE should think Darin will keep up such a bipartisan trend. His voting record in the Illinois Senate (the post he held, and gave up to run in Thursday’s special election) is more traditional Republican.

MADIGAN: Also differs with her father

And he made a point of talking during the campaign cycle about how much more conservative he is than papa Ray.

Some might think that’s just talk. But it is possible for stances to change with the passage of power to a new generation. My own thoughts on this come to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and daughter Lisa (a.k.a., the Illinois attorney general).

Madigan, as in Mr. Speaker, was always the kind of guy who was a Democrat because of his support for organized labor. He can be a force for them to use.

BUT PEOPLE WHO bring up social issues from a liberal perspective can tell you tales of getting the perpetual run-around from Madigan, who will want to be overly cautious before pushing such measures up for a vote.

By comparison, the Madigan daughter is a more liberal-minded person on those social issues. A part of me would like to someday hear the two of them go at it (the speaker against, the A.G. for) on abortion. It could be as feisty a fight as any we’ve ever heard between a Planned Parenthood official and a Bible-thumpin’ preacher-man.

MADIGAN: Has his critics

Could the LaHoods be the Republican counterpart for Illinois political observers?

So here’s wondering what kind of Congressman Darin LaHood will make as he follows his father’s footsteps in federal government.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE Darin is breathing a sigh of relief upon his victory. Now that he’s no longer a state senator from Peoria, he no longer has to be involved in figuring out the mess that has become our state’s lack of a balanced budget.

Anytime that federal government comes across as being governed more sanely and logically than the state, you know you have problems!

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EXTRA: Infuriating the ideologues

I always got a kick out of the presence of Ray LaHood in the cabinet of President Barack Obama -- largely because I knew how much his presence infuriated the conservative ideologues.

LaHOOD: A rarity in partisan politics

LaHood was supposed to be Obama's gesture of bipartisan cooperation when he put together his cabinet for his first term in office. He was, is, and likely always will be, a member of the Republican Party.

AND HE WAS a downstate Illinois presence in what some considered to be Obama's overloaded Chicago influence amongst his top advisers.

But the one-time member of Congress from Peoria who went on to serve as Transportation secretary was never the rigidly ideological type who would appease the conservatives.

Heck, he is a Republican official whom I have actually voted for (during my time working and living in Springfield, Ill., he was my member of Congress, as opposed to Bobby L. Rush now).

But he also was a chief of staff to Robert Michel back in the days when the congressman from Peoria was leader of the entire Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.

OF COURSE, MICHEL was never Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was the long-time minority leader, and it was his retirement that opened up the vacancy that allowed Newt Gingrich of Georgia to become House speaker.

Remember the Contract with America that pushed the ideological  agenda down the throats of the rest of the country? LaHood as a member of Congress thought there were portions that made sense, but others that did not.

He was one of the few Republicans back in that era who didn't sign the deal, and tried to be a little more rational rather than the rigid partisanship that Gingrich tried to enforce.

The result is that I know the ideologues who despised Michel always thought just as little of LaHood.

THAT SENSE OF having to acknowledge that not everyone is just like you, and that those people have just as much a right to expect something of the government as you do. It is an attitude that has been lacking in our political people in recent years.

Which is why I have been pleased with the idea of LaHood in the transportation position. Considering that Chicago, because of its location, is such a transportation hub, it has come across as pleasing that someone who comprehends our Midwest region would have a say in determining federal aid for highway and other transit projects.

But now, LaHood is leaving. He's 67, and it seems would like to retire. Besides, the mid-point of a presidency is usually when a lot of transition takes place (nobody except for Obama himself stays the entire eight years).

So learning that LaHood made it official on Tuesday that he wants to step down isn't a surprise. Particularly since he tossed hints out right after Election Day and Obama's victory last year.

LAHOOD WILL BE missed, even though I'm sure the ideologues will find a way to spew rancid rhetoric and trash his reputation.

Let's just hope that the real majority of our nation have enough sense to see through such nonsense-speak. And let's hope that Obama can come up with a new transportation secretary who can handle himself in as professional a manner as LaHood -- who has referred to himself as one of the highest-ranking Lebanese-American officials in government.

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Who will the alleged “Party of Lincoln’s” home base choose from?

I must admit to being curious who will even make the ballot come March 20 for Republican voters to pick from for their political party’s presidential nomination.

GINGRICH: Will Newt be moot?



Just because someone says they are a candidate does not mean you’re going to have a chance to cast a vote for them. Not even if they have a big, shiny bus that has taken them from place to place about the country in pursuit of the goal of who can shake the most hands without catching some sort of virus.

SO IT IS LIKELY that when the Illinois operations of the various presidential campaigns get around to filing their nominating petitions with the Illinois State Board of Elections to get their ballot spots – along with slots for their delegate slates (the vote that actually matters) at least a few of the now-candidates will be gone.

That is most likely the lesson we should learn from Virginia – where only two campaigns were able to get ballot spots.

Virginia voters will be asked to pick between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. All of the rest of the candidates are pretenders, as far as the Commonwealth of Virginia is concerned.

ROMNEY: Winner, by default?



Will Illinois have an equally-restrictive list of people to pick from when we get around to casting our votes?

I’LL BE THE first to admit that this exercise will be largely theoretical for me. It is likely that I will take a Democratic Party primary ballot, which means my presidential “choice” will be to make my mark next to the name of Barack Obama, and the slate of delegates that he sends to the Democratic National Convention (Sept. 3-6, in Charlotte, N.C., to be specific).



Only if I want to believe the conspiracy theories being peddled by the Weekly World News (which is running a headline claiming that Bill Clinton is urging spouse Hillary to challenge Obama come ’12) will there be a choice for me, or the bulk of Illinoisans who WILL choose a Dem ballot come March.

LaHOOD: Still speaking to his son?

But for the GOP faithful (which means largely the one-third of the population that likes to think itself more significant than it really does because it is spread across 96 Illinois counties), it will be curious to see how many of the candidates will fail to get on the ballot.

Will Newt Gingrich throw another hissy fit if he fails to get on the Illinois ballot, similar to how he did when he failed in Virginia? What about Michele Bachmann!

I THINK HIS line about his failure being equivalent of “Pearl Harbor” (as in both were allegedly surprises that were distressing to the American people) is way over-the-top. Will he manage to come up with even more ridiculous rhetoric if he fails in Illinois?

We’ll have to wait and see. For if a recent Chicago Tribune report is at all accurate, it would seem that Gingrich doesn’t exactly have the largest base of support in Illinois – and may NOT have enough time to build one up among our state’s residents. Newt may be moot in the Land of Lincoln.

Although I did get a kick out of learning that state Sen. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, is among those willing to be a Gingrich delegate. It’s not amusing because his father, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is a part of the Obama administration.

It’s absurd because of the fact that LaHood, the elder, was chief of staff to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Peoria – a man whose sense of moderation was so thoroughly denounced by Gingrich’s rise to House speaker in the mid-1990s.

TO HAVE A “LaHood” now backing a “Gingrich” is just too much to take in all in one fell swoop – although it isn’t completely unheard of for a political sibling to disagree with the parent. Ask Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and daughter Lisa (a.k.a., Illinois attorney general) where they stand on abortion – if you want an equal-sized ideological gap.

OBAMA: Is GOP primary his 'wish come true?'



But this may be all a moot point if Gingrich can’t get on the Illinois ballot. In fact, what if that Illinois ballot winds up only having a couple of names on it just like in Virginia. It would really make the whole Republican primary seem like such an afterthought.

Particularly if it turns out that Romney winds up being about the only candidate who can get on the ballot in all 50 states.

Because the sense I get from watching campaign-type activity across the nation is that there probably is about 25 percent to 30 percent of the people who will vote Republican who want Mitt to be president.

THE REMAINDER OF the GOP electorate desperately wants Anybody But Mitt, and I’m not sure how enthused they’re going to be if he winds up being the only choice (which is how one reader of the State Journal-Register newspaper wound up colorfully phrasing it recently).

This has become the electoral cycle where the people will vote for who they hate less. But what happens if we go to the polls on March 20, then again on Nov. 6, and decide that we don’t like anybody?

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Tax rhetoric not only blatantly partisan, but also reminiscent of the political past

Andrew McKenna, the newly-minted gubernatorial favorite of the Chicago Tribune, went on the attack against primary opponent Jim Ryan this week with a statement that sounded all too familiar.

McKenna had his campaign issue a statement that was a re-issue of the Americans for Tax Reform group, which has a problem with the fact that candidate Jim Ryan refuses to sign their “Taxpayer Reform Pledge.”

THE GROUP PORTRAYS its pledge as a simple demand – politicians promise not to support tax increases if they get elected to federal office.

Yet only a complete simpleton believes the issue of taxes and government funding is that simple. Ryan, who served eight years as state attorney general and previously ran for Illinois governor, knows better. That’s why he’s not about to commit himself to the group’s politically partisan stunt.

He went so far as to tell the Daily Herald newspaper of Arlington Heights that the group’s pledge is “phony.” So they’re trashing Ryan, and McKenna is more than willing to pass along that attack – hoping that it gets the ideologues of the GOP worked up enough to consider voting for him in numbers significant enough to overcome the Ryan lead in early polls that was as much past name recognition as anything else.

To further reinforce this message, McKenna’s campaign is taking out radio advertisements that trash both Ryan and Kirk Dillard (who on Friday bercame the GOP gubernatorial favorite of the Chicago Sun-Times).

ILLINOIS: OVERSPENT, NEARLY broke. Yet Jim Ryan and Kirk Dillard won’t rule out tax hikes, the radio spot goes.

What is my problem with this? I have noticed that many Republican candidates are going out of their way to sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, in hopes that this stunt gains their campaigns some attention.

Because that ultimately is all this is. Some cheap rhetoric that is totally unrealistic, but meant to provide a punch line for voters when looking for someone to back on Election Day.

Why do I call it a punch line? Because the joke will be on those voters who seriously think that someone can automatically think “no” whenever the issue of taxes or revenue comes up for government.

THE REALITY OF the situation is that the Americans for Tax Reform is a misnomer. The group headed by long-time anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is a conservative organization that has its problems with many government programs, and figures the best way to eliminate those functions for which it has ideological objections is to reduce the amount of money the federal government has to the point where it can no longer afford to do anything.

Norquist is the man who once literally said he wants to reduce the federal government down to a size, “where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Unfortunately, government has obligations that must be met for the protection (if not the betterment) of society. Which means that people who automatically want to say “no” without giving the issue or circumstances any thought are absurd, if not downright irresponsible.

Personally, I think anybody who signs this pledge and gives it any legitimacy ought to be someone we specifically cross off our lists of candidates we would consider voting for.

IF I WERE inclined to pick up a Republican ballot come Feb. 2, Dillard is a candidate I would consider backing. Although I have to admit, I may have gained a little bit of respect for Ryan after learning of McKenna’s attempt at an attack.

I also have to admit the whole issue reminds me of 1994 in one aspect.

That was the year that Republicans were able to play off rural objections to the Clintons and their attempt at health care reform to win an exhorbitant number of Congressional elections – thereby giving them Congressional control that pretty much thwarted any serious governing that the Clinton Administration was capable of doing.

That was the year of the “Contract with America,” which consisted of a series of goals that a GOP-dominated government would use its partisan muscle to impose on the nation. As a political agenda, it went far beyond the Taxpayer Reform Pledge.

BUT MANY POLITICAL people running that year on the GOP side of the equation were eager to use the contract’s rhetoric to campaign with.

Yet I remember one official who didn’t.

Ray LaHood, who at the time was chief of staff to House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., was running to replace his boss in representing the Peoria area in Congress. As someone who had been a state legislator before going on a congressional staff, he was more aware of the daily realities of managing a government that lives up to its responsibilities to the people.

I can remember he specifically refused to sign the “Contract with America” even though he admitted there were parts of its rhetoric he agreed with and that could have been useful to his campaigning.

ADMITTEDLY, THERE WERE some people who never forgave him. There was always a subsect of the Republican Party in Illinois that didn’t trust LaHood. For all I know, the fact that he now serves under a Democratic president as Secretary of Transportation probably reinforces their mistrust.

All I know, however, is that LaHood won that election, and wound up getting re-elected to serve 14 years in all in Congress. In the end, it didn’t seem to hurt him.

Could it be that this latest round of cheap rhetoric about Ryan and Dillard is just the same, coming from someone who’s counting on an ideological minority of our state’s population to exceed its influence and somehow magically elect him to office?

I’d have an easier time believing that the Tribune endorsement is going to sway a significant number of voters to McKenna’s side – and I fully realize how impotent individual newspaper endorsements have become in terms of turning out the vote on Election Day.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: You figure whether the Americans for Tax Reform rhetoric is worth anything more (http://www.atr.org/taxpayer-protection-pledge-a2882) than empty rhetoric.

It appears that the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page endorsement policies have reverted back to tradition (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/chi-100108gop-endorse-link,0,3243757.story), which makes me wonder if the Sun-Times endorsement was more about being different (http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/endorsements/1980076,CST-EDT-edit08.article) than anything else.