We don’t trust Trump? For shame!!! (Heavy sarcasm definitely intended)

You’d think President Donald J. Trump were asking us for our Social Security and credit card numbers, what with the way several states are reacting to a request for personal information about our voter registration rolls.

TRUMP: Give me your info!

Officially, the federal government says it wants to do a review of the policies in place to ensure that people are voting in legally legitimate ways. Which led to the information request from the entities in each of the 50 states that are in charge of keeping track over who is legally allowed to vote.

FOR THE RECORD, Illinois (in the form of the State Board of Elections) says it won’t provide anything to Trump.

They say we have existing laws in this state that prevent the voter roll data from being shared with political committees.

And it would seem many people are viewing this Trump-era investigation as some sort of fact-finding mission to advance the concept of there being certain people who have no such business thinking of themselves as having a right to vote.

Maybe it means that Trump finally accepts that only 46 percent of the electorate in 2016 wanted him to be president and that some 3 million more people wanted Hillary R. Clinton instead.

BUT RATHER THAN accept that a majority of the nation is displeased with him, perhaps Trump now wants to figure out a way to bolster his support by subtraction.

Find people who are not inclined to vote for him and come up with a legalese way of taking away their vote. Do enough of that, and you could take his “46 percent” and turn it into a majority.

Conniving? Less than honorable? Of course!

Donald Trump's baseball idol?

But then again, I’m sure Trump is of the Leo Durocher School (“Nice Guys Finish Last”) of politics, even though I’m sure he’s intellectually unadventurous enough to have a clue who Durocher was – or that the baseball club he once managed in Brooklyn wasn’t always a part of the Southern California scene.

SO WHY WOULD Trump-allied people want to gather up personal information about who is capable of casting a ballot? Who knows.

It brings out the most suspicion that exists in our human nature in that we’re willing to think the worst.

Which is why Illinois is saying flat-out that it won’t give any information. Many other states say they’re only going to give the most basic of details; so little that it’s likely the Trump-types won’t be capable of learning much of anything from this.

In all, some 44 of the 50 states are being less-than-cooperative in dealing with the president. Something I’m sure he will regard as a personal insult – and perhaps reason for him to consider cracking down on those states when they start asking for favors.

WHICH PROBABLY IS the way he views their requests for the funding that the federal government provides to states that they, in turn, use to support their own obligations to their residents.

I wonder if it will turn out to be something along the lines of the legal actions he is threatening against cities, including Chicago and Cook County, Ill., both of which are continuing to maintain their “sanctuary city” status with regards to immigration. Meaning the local cops won’t turn over every bit of data they stumble across to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Federal Immigration officials have to do their own legwork in their ongoing pursuit of people to face deportation.

Trump's fantasy? Except I doubt he's ever read it

It’s good to see that so many states are refusing to go along with this potentially-partisan political witch hunt – a search for anybody not inclined to worship at the Altar of The Donald. It makes me feel sorry for those people in the six states that see nothing wrong with going along with Trump on this issue.

And it is comical the efforts in some states where some people are going so far as to un-register themselves to vote – so as to ensure there is NO information on them to provide to the T-Men. Although I suspect that the Trump types will have their ways of finding out personal dirt on whomever they want – it most definitely is their style.

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Cohen thinks he’s back; I’ll believe it when I see nominating petition signatures

“Illinois needs honesty more than perfection.”

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Moreso than the stories of holding a knife to a prostitute’s throat or being a deadbeat who fell behind on child support, that line ought to be the political legacy left behind by Scott Lee Cohen, the man who for two weeks was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor.

By now, anybody who cares has heard that Cohen staged himself a press conference Monday outside the Thompson state government building to announce he is running for governor as a political independent.

SO WE NOW have people getting all worked up that Cohen is in this campaign to wreck his revenge against the Democratic Party for not standing behind him by scuttling the gubernatorial hopes of incumbent Pat Quinn.

Is Cohen, the CEO of State Pawners (the pawn shop founded by his father) the type of guy who would give the people of Illinois “Gov. William Brady” to make himself feel better about the fact that his political career ended before it ever began?

It could be. People who run for electoral office are capable of being that petty.

And it’s not like Cohen was ever the typical political person. He came out of nowhere to run for an office with such a low profile that he figured he could slip into a position where he could then catapult to the top. This isn’t someone who is interested in working his way through the ranks of government and learning about public policy.

WHICH IS WHY I find it laughable that he now portrays himself as the pillar of political honesty.

That particular quote came in response to questions about whether his personal past that caused the Democratic Party to dump on him for lieutenant governor could be overcome in the minds of the voters when they decide Nov. 2 who to pick for governor.

The line that Cohen backers (they do exist, they like the idea that he ran a small-scale business and is unpolitical so much that they will ignore any sordid details about his life) tout is that it wasn’t Cohen himself who ever tried to cover anything up. Some people go so far as to try to blame newsgathering organizations for not thoroughly exposing every sordid detail of Cohen’s life, although I have to wonder how much any outfit would have been laughed at hysterically had they spent any time worrying about the lieutenant governor’s race.

After all, there was a Senate campaign on the Republican side and a gubernatorial fight for the Democrats. Plus, Chicago-area reporter-types were absolutely determined to dig up every detail possible so as to ensure that Todd Stroger didn’t pull off some sort of upset and manage to win the Feb. 2 primary for Cook County Board president.

BUT LET’S BE honest.

People didn’t pick Cohen to be the lieutenant governor nominee because they thought he had any special qualifications. He won because he ran in a field of nobodies (political observers tend to forget that real people had never heard of the so-called front-runner, long-time state Rep. Art Turner, D-Chicago) and used his personal wealth to run enough campaign advertising that his name was probably the only one many people sort of recognized.

Cohen is correct in one regard. We should get more honesty from our political people. In some ways, Cohen isn’t any more sordid than anyone else who runs for political office. I’m not even sure he’s the official with the worst reputation.

Seriously, how low do many people regard Rod Blagojevich? Or has Cohen the alleged wife-beater managed to sink even below Milorod on the Illinois political scum scale? (Which, by the way, contains people of all the major political parties).

BECAUSE OF THE fact that Cohen’s reputation is just so low, I can’t say I take seriously the idea of any independent campaign he might run.

A part of me will be amazed if he can get the 25,000 valid signatures of support required of any political independent (compared to 5,000 for someone running for an established political party’s nomination) to even get on the ballot.

Which means that Cohen’s campaign may have reached its peak on Monday, a month-and-a-half before it officially began.

How many people are going to be willing to sign one of his nominating petitions, except as something resembling a gag (just like all the people who vote for “Mickey Mouse” for president – come to think of it, didn’t he win in ’00 and ’04?).

SOMEONE WHO ISN’T convinced how hard it is to get valid petition signatures for a populist movement ought to ask the League of Women Voters what ever became of their petition drive on behalf of reforming the means by which we redistrict legislative and congressional district boundaries every 10 years.

Their deadline came and went without them even getting close. I could see the same thing happening to Scott Lee. If, by chance, it appears that he will hit the 25,000 figure, I could envision all kinds of people aligned with the Democratic Party crawling out of the woodwork to challenge his legitimacy.

He could wind up having to engage in a massive legal fight for the right to get 1 percent of the vote come Election Day.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Scott Lee Cohen will attract a certain type of person who resents government and will want to vote for anyone who thinks just like they do. People with any sense will, and in fact already are trying to, distance themselves from him.

I hope nobody claims a “mandate”

It always is sad when a newly-nominated political candidate tries claiming that the election results somehow give him a mandate – the will of the people, so to speak – to pursue a political agenda that happens to be in complete agreement with his own beliefs.

While I realize one of the perks of winning an election is that you get to pursue your own agenda, I think it is important to remember that there almost always were significant numbers of people who have their concerns, and likely will have to be “won over” to consider support.

THAT NOTION MAY be political heresy in today’s overly-partisan era, but I think it is all the more true when one looks at campaigns such as the now-complete Illinois gubernatorial primaries.

We learned on Friday that the Illinois State Board of Elections declared state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, to be the winner of the seven-candidate Republican gubernatorial primary held last month.

Brady defeated state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, by 193 votes (155,527 to 155,334, to be exact).

There are those who point out the fact that the margin of victory was 0.25 percent of the overall number of ballots cast – making this one of Illinois’ most historically close elections. Gov. James R. Thompson defeating Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson III in 1982 had an equally small margin of victory, percentagewise.

BUT TO ME, those “facts” are less important than one other statistic I derived from the State Board of Elections figures that were released on Friday.

456,624.

That is the number of people across Illinois who chose a Republican Party primary ballot to vote for governor, and chose somebody other than either Brady or Dillard.

It comes to 59.496 percent of Republican voters didn’t want either of these guys – a percent close enough that it legitimately rounds off upward to 60 percent.

THREE OF EVERY five Republicans didn’t get what they wanted. And this comes from a political party whose base in recent years has become stubborn enough to revolt when they don’t get their way.

Now I’m not implying that such a revolt will happen come the Nov. 2 general election. I think many people who are ideologically inclined to vote Republican are going to be so eager to have someone of their political party as governor that they will vote for the “R” following Brady’s name.

But my point is to Brady and his backers, who had better remember that they didn’t accomplish some historic victory – even though some people will want to compare it to the Thompson/Stevenson election of 28 years ago.

That was a head-to-head electoral matchup, Brady versus the six dwarfs merely means there is no concensus amongst the party faithful.

BRADY, IF HE is to have a chance of overcoming the Democratic Party tendencies of the mass of Illinois’ urban population that leans toward that political party, has to remember the numbers of would-be GOP voters who didn’t want him.

He is going to have to make some adjustments, because the candidate of old that has run for elective office in McLean County, Ill., is not going to play statewide.

It didn’t during the primary. I couldn’t help but checking out DuPage County’s final totals for governor, since that west suburban county (the only one in Illinois aside from Cook that can claim more than 1 million residents) has always considered itself to be the heart of the modern-day Illinois Republican Party.

In the Land of DuPage, Brady got 5,246 votes – about one-quarter of the number of votes that county gave to Dillard (21,566) and Andrew McKenna (18,412). Heck, even Dan Proft, the conservative pundit whom nobody thought had a serious chance of winning the election, got more votes in DuPage (7,817) than did Brady.

IT’S NOT LIKE any of those guys managed to win in DuPage. If the county that likes to claim Red Grange, Bob Woodward and John Belushi as its favorite sons had had its way, the Republican nominee for Illinois governor would be the county’s former state’s attorney, Jim Ryan (who got 27,408 votes, and 130,785 statewide).

Now none of this is truly new. It was clear from the unofficial tallies that we have known for the past month that the reason Brady was the likely winner of the primary was because he was the candidate of choice for Illinoisans who live outside of the Chicago or St. Louis metro east areas.

Brady racked up massive vote tallies in all the rural counties (in his home county, Brady got 10,260 votes, compared to 6,228 votes for everybody else combined) from voters who hate the idea of DuPage County reigning supreme over the GOP because it is too close to Chicago for their taste.

But he’s going to have to accept that he’s now running on a much larger stage, and has his own adaptations to make if he is to succeed.

IN SHORT, I’M sure there are some Republican partisans who think that a Brady campaign that consists of cheap shots against Pat Quinn, combined with a continued screeching of the name “Blagojevich!” is the ticket to victory.

For his sake, I hope he realizes that he also has to give the people of the state, including the 60 percent of Republicans who earlier this year had a vision for Illinois’ future that didn’t include either him or Dillard, a reason to vote for him.

Otherwise, Quinn and Democrats likely will clean up on him by constantly reminding us of morbid stuff, such as Brady’s bill that called for mass euthanasia for abandoned pets.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Does newly “coronated” Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady realize that the political high road is the way to counter the likely Democratic attacks he will face in coming months, such as reminding us of this “letter to the editor” (http://www.pantagraph.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_52e08ac2-27e5-11df-8b6d-001cc4c002e0.html) published in Brady’s hometown daily newspaper?

Kirk Dillard became reflective upon his electoral loss. Or at least that's the way his hometown (http://www.pioneerlocal.com/hinsdale/news/2085888,do-dillardloss-030510-s1.article) Hinsdale Doings newspaper prefers to perceive his concession statement Friday.

When is a candidate’s refusal to concede nothing more than a political hissy fit?

It isn’t loud or imposing, but it is shrill and demanding.

I am referring to those people across Illinois who are paying attention to the recent Republican primary for governor, where it appears that state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, has defeated state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, and several other candidates for the right to challenge Gov. Pat Quinn come Nov. 2.

FOR THOSE OF us who have already erased primary Election Night from their minds, both Brady and Dillard managed to get 20 percent of the vote. If this were a typical election, that kind of support would be reason for humiliation, ridicule and eternal shame.

But in a seven-candidate field of less-than-prominent names, it is enough to win. Both Dillard and Brady got the same percentage, but it seems that Brady’s “20 percent” was about 200-plus votes more than Dillard’s “20 percent.”

Dillard has said that if the final official count (which won’t determined until next week – Friday, March 5, to be exact) shows him within 100 votes, then he’d be willing to consider paying the millions of dollars for a court challenge that could result in a re-count, and a delay in the official naming of a winner.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think it makes any difference. If I were a part of the Brady campaign, I would have taken the same tactic that Quinn used earlier this month – he declared himself the primary election victor even before his primary opponent was willing to concede.

BRADY OUGHT TO just move forward. Even if by some miraculous occurance there was a change in vote tallies that flipped the election, I don’t think anyone would believe Brady acted irrationally.

But by the same token, I don’t blame Dillard for refusing to make the concession speech, which is an event that I always have considered to be so overrated.

The election is over when the votes are counted. It really doesn’t matter if Dillard ever makes a public statement admitting to that fact. In fact, so long as he doesn’t make bitter, shrill remarks of his own to attack Brady (and thus far, he has refused to say anything along those lines), I don’t think Republicans have any reason to gripe.

So long as Dillard, if he ultimately loses, withers away into the background and doesn’t do anything to attack his political party’s nominee (even though the Democratic Party partisan in me would get a kick out of seeing and hearing that), I don’t think GOP people have a right to complain.

WHAT MY THOUGHTS on this issue ultimately come down to is the fact that I have always realized that elections are never decided officially on Election Day – no matter how much the average person on the street thinks so.

I realize that most people don’t pay as much attention to the minutia of election law and campaign procedures as I do, but I have always thought it ridiculous that people believe the elections for public office are wrapped up all nice and neat just in time for the extended evening newscasts.

There may be some campaigns where the loser knew by 9 p.m. what was going to happen so that they could make a “concession” speech that got broadcast live by local television stations.

But there are elections that run so close that we really do have to wait until every single vote from absentee ballots and those citizens/registered voters living overseas and military personnel can be counted.

MARCH 5 IS the key date this year (and not just because it’s my brother’s birthday, and I’m still not sure what to get him for a gift). It is the date on which the State Board of Elections will certify all those local elections results that had to be completed by Tuesday. I would just as soon prefer that none of the candidates talk about concession.

Let Brady begin the process of trying to build political ties with suburban Chicago residents who by-and-large were not enthused by his campaigns for governor or U.S. senator (in 2006). Let Dillard ponder whether it is worth the hassle (and eternal political enemies he will make) if he seriously tries to extend this campaign process beyond next week by demanding a recount.

If anything, I am encouraged by the fact that we don’t have a loud outcry and that most people are not getting worked up.

I’m realistic enough to know that is because of all the major political offices (president, Chicago mayor, U.S. senator and Illinois governor), governor is the one that the typical Chicago-area voter cares the least about.

BUT FOR A few moments, I’m going to delude myself into thinking it is because we learned the lesson of 2000 and close elections and recounts. Maybe we realize now how absurdly some of us behaved, and how we might have been better off if we could have just had a recount that would have settled the issue once and for all – instead of leaving us with eternal questions about what the “real” vote tallies were and the perception that the Supreme Court of the United States behaved in a partisan manner by ending the matter when it did.

In short, the one thing I am thankful for is that we in Illinois are not creating a local political encore to the electoral nonsense of the presidential elections of 10 years ago. That would be more embarrassing than anything done by Rod Blagojevich or any other official engaged in alleged political corruption.

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