EXTRA: Rauner, forever bitter?

“I am very scared for the people of Illinois. I believe that the folks who put Illinois into a financial quagmire are now back in complete control of the government. The policies that have created the financial mess for the state of Illinois are now the policies that will be dominating completely without any resistance whatsoever.”
--Bruce Rauner, Illinois governor, 2015-19

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RAUNER: Still peeved about electoral loss

Bruce Rauner let it be known this week that he’s not about to take the high road politically with regards to his Election Day loss earlier this month.

While Rauner wasn’t ready (still) to say much of anything about how President Donald Trump and his presence impacted the soon-to-be-former governor politically, he’s going to forever go about trashing the Democrats whom he seems to want to believe have a whole lot of nerve for challenging him in the first place.

PERSONALLY, I’M INCLINED to view the issue as one where a whole lot of Illinois people voted the way they did to replace Rauner because they saw all his politically partisan actions as the reason why our state’s financial problems got exacerbated into a calamity of historic proportions. They were “very scared” of “four more years” of partisan-motivated nothingness within our government.

Not that the actions of Rauner should have been shocking. This was a man who campaigned back in 2014 on the idea that he wanted to undermine the influence of organized labor in our government, and that IT was to blame for not kowtowing to the self interests of business and corporate America.

Of course, considering the fact that we in Illinois have a state Legislature with leadership who are protective of working people and their interests, the activity of the past few years shouldn’t have been at all surprising.

The only real shock, if you think about it, is that Rauner (who had never before held political office) ever got elected in the first place. Although that’s most likely due to apathy felt about then-Gov. Pat Quinn, and a not-so-realistic thought that ANYBODY who replaced him would be better.

NOW, WE KNOW that we were deluded in our political apathy, and took the first chance we could get to remove Rauner – regardless of what we truly think of Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker.

I don’t doubt that Republican partisans are peeved about the Election Day results in Illinois, although I suspect what really bothers them is the fact that back in 1994 when the GOP managed to take control of all the state constitutional offices and General Assembly, the Republican period of domination only lasted two years.

ROGERS: Not organized, just Democrats

By comparison, this modern-day Democrat domination of Illinois government lasted 12 years, became one of Democrat control for four years, and now has been restored to Democrat domination. It sounds more like political jealousy to me!

And to those people I know who have fantasies of Ronald Reagan-like resuscitation in Illinois, I say to keep in mind the words of Will Rogers, who once said, “the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other. While the Republicans, why they live off the Democrats." Perhaps a majority of us were tired of Rauner trying to enrich himself and his business colleagues at the expense of the rest of us.

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Positioning selves for political ‘pep rallies.’ Or, how can we Dump Trump?

I’ve only been to one presidential nominating convention – the one held in 1996 by the Democrats in Chicago. Based on that experience, I don’t feel compelled to attend another.

 

Will Dem convention be a Hillary-fest?

The problem is that the events are so heavily staged by the presumptive nominees that there is no “drama,” no “suspense.” They really are nothing more than pep rallies – one step up from those high school-staged events to get everybody all revved up for “the big game!”

EXCEPT IN THIS case, the goal is to get political operatives excited enough to go back home and turn out the vote en masse for their preferred political candidate.

Which would make this year’s presidential nominating conventions to be held in Philadelphia and Cleveland all the more important – since this is the year of “Who Do I Hate The Most?!?”

People who bother to cast ballots will be voting against the person whose presence absolutely disturbs them the most. And I don’t doubt that for every person who is absolutely bothered by the existence of Donald Trump in the political realm, there is someone else who feels equally perturbed about the Clintons – and likely has been waiting for years for the chance to vote against the idea of Hillary for president.

Which is why I’m intrigued by the nitpicking that is taking place these days in anticipation of the nominating conventions. People are trying to make sure that there’s something for people to get excited about.

OTHERWISE THE REPUBLICAN gathering in Cleveland, followed by da Dems in Philly, will be deadly dull proceedings filled with neurotic people filled with so much hate for someone else that they probably will scare people away from being interested.

 

Will Bernie Sanders play nice in Philly?

For the Democrats, there has been much speculation about the party platform – which is a formal list of ideals that Democrats claim to stand for, but then wind up ignoring whichever points they happen to disagree with.

For as Will Rogers once said, “Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.”

Democratic political operatives who used their influence to ensure that the Bernie Sanders for president campaign could never go anywhere are now all eager to put together a platform filled with ideals that are “Berned” into the brains of the Vermont senator’s minds – a $15 per hour minimum wage, no death penalty, and prioritizing renewable energy.

 

Is Will Rogers the ultimate political philosopher?

THEY’LL LOOK NICE when written out on paper, but will be largely ignored by Democratic government officials when it comes time to act and create public policy.

It will be a lot of wasted ink being used to write up documents taking stances that no one will make much of an effort to impose – all out of the hopes that the Sanders supporters might actually consider flopping on board with the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Rather than just sitting out this presidential election cycle and fulfilling Trump’s most intense fantasies – which is that his overly-vocal band of followers would actually be enough people to win a national election!

But Trump has his own problems what with all the establishment Republican operatives claiming they’re not going to even bother with the convention.

IT SEEMS THE people who originally fantasized that they could ignore the will of all those primaries held in recent months and pick somebody else to be the GOP nominee for president are still conspiring.

It seems they want to be able to tell Trump who his vice presidential running mate will be. Which might be possible, since so many political people interested in having an electoral future are refusing to be considered. We could seriously wind up with a Republican ticket of Trump and Newt Gingrich – the one-time House speaker who managed in his own way to tick off the ideological nitwits of the world.

 

A tainted taco bowl?

The problem is that most people don’t bother to take the vice president into account, unless they’re using it as a reason to vote against the ticket. Which makes me wonder if the GOP establishment types are engaging in their own conspiracy to Dump Trump – and have a running mate of their preference in place to become “Da Prez!”

Does this mean what Trump needs more than anything else these days is an official food taster to make sure his so-called allies don’t try to taint his taco bowls?

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Dems try to use Obama impeachment talk to bolster their own fund raising

Personally, I saw the likelihood of Republicans trying to impeach President Barack Obama coming from the day in November 2012 that he managed to get re-elected to a second (and final) term as president.

If certain ideologues get their way, they will be printing up similar tickets for Barack Obama

 

Because Obama is not capable of running for another term as president (and would not want to seek a lower government post once he leaves the White House in January 2017), it means the only way that the hard-core conservative ideologues can bring the Obama legacy to a close in disgrace is to bring up the concept of impeachment.

EVEN IF OBAMA were to be impeached by the House of Representatives, then acquitted by the Senate (which is what happened to Bill Clinton, and what would occur if tried on Obama), they’d still be able to say that Obama was “impeached.”

Which sounds much more onerous than it really is. Then again, who cares about specifics?

Not the people who want the Republican Party to be the mechanism that enforces their conservative vision of what they want our society to be.

And apparently, not the Democrats – who are more than willing to use talk about the “I” word to try to raise money.

THE WASHINGTON POST reported earlier this month that certain Republican officials have talked of impeachment and have started the earliest procedural steps in that direction. It’s still at such an early point that it may go nowhere, and few are taking it seriously.

Except for those Dems – who sent out e-mails this weekend letting us know of screwball quotes from certain officials (Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich.; and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas) – who want campaign contributions so as to bolster the chance of electing 17 more Democrats to the House of Representatives in the 2014 election cycle.

CLINTON: Impeached, but acquitted

That is, after all, the number needed to give Obama a Democrat-leaning House, in addition to a favorable Senate.

The e-mail, of which I received a copy, says this is a matter of giving Obama, “a Congress that has his back.”

I’LL BE THE first to admit that bringing up impeachment to score political points is sleazy. Although a part of me thinks it is equally tacky to bring the issue up to solicit campaign cash. And “No,” I don’t plan to make a financial contribution.

Particularly since we ought to keep in mind that Obama had Democrat-controlled House and Senate legislative bodies during his first two years as president – only to have Democrats (particularly those from rural parts of the United States) in Congress be willing to go against Obama’s desires! It might not make ANY difference.

ROGERS: A 'realistic' Dem?

It’s why I wonder at times if early 20^th Century humorist Will Rogers ought to be regarded as the ultimate political scientist.

He may have hit it right on the head when he said, amongst other things, “Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”

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