The issue that won’t die; Van Dyke fate

Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke may now be a convicted felon sentenced to serve a few years in prison (although Illinois Corrections Department officials still won’t say exactly which one) for the death of a teenager – but the racially-tinged shooting incident won’t wither away.

VAN DYKE: Case lingers on

For it seems that both the special prosecutor who oversaw the criminal case AND the Illinois attorney general’s office are considering legal maneuvers that could try to force a new prison sentence to be imposed.

SOMETHING, PERHAPS, CLOSER to the 18 to 20 years that prosecutors sought from Judge Vincent Gaughan, rather than the 6-year, 9-month sentence (of which he’s already done 3 months in the Rock Island County jail) that could see him released in a little over three years time.

Van Dyke was found guilty last autumn on a charge of murder in the second degree (implying there was some mitigating factor that could sort of justify the killing) and multiple counts of aggravated battery.

Literally one count for each of the 16 shots that Van Dyke was found to have fired at Laquan McDonald. Which theoretically could have resulted in prison time for each shot and could have added up to something close to 100 years of time,

In my own (admittedly non-law school educated) mind, that combination of charges never made sense. They conflicted with each other, and the real question to me about the sentencing that took place last week was how would Gaughan manage to reconcile the mismatch.

McDONALD: Means more in death than life

HE WOUND UP doing so by basing the sentence for Van Dyke off the second-degree murder charge and ignoring all those additional charges that could have brought about the lengthy, life-like prison term that the activist types eager to see imposed on a white cop for killing a black male who hadn’t even reached the age of maturity back on that October 2014 night that he was shot to death because he was acting erratically (his mind was messed up on illicit drugs that night) while walking around the neighborhood near a Burger King franchise.

It seems the legal minds wishing to appease those activists are wondering if the Illinois Supreme Court could issue a mandamus order – which essentially would say Gaughan screwed up and emphasized the wrong criminal charge.

Which could result in a resentencing with results more satisfactory to those people who back in autumn marched through the streets of downtown Chicago in celebration of the fact that a “cracker cop” got what he deserved by being found guilty.

RAOUL: Will he take on appeal?

We’ll have to see if Joseph McMahon (the special prosecutor brought in from suburban Kane County) or newly-elected state Attorney General Kwame Raoul wants to take on this issue – or is willing to accept the prison time that Van Dyke already must serve.

SOME WILL SAY that Van Dyke is now a former cop with a criminal record – which pretty much ruins him for any type of life he had hoped to live. They’re likely to think that prolonging this legal argument only stirs up more resentment amongst the city’s populace.

Although others will think the resentment lingers for as long as Van Dyke gets a penalty less severe than their imaginations have concocted.

This may be the real harm of the racist policies that were considered legitimate in our society in the past – they’ve created so much anger that it’s almost like we’re going to need white people to suffer unjustly in order to balance things out.

Which would only serve to ensure these racial tensions linger amongst us for decades to come – particularly fed on by nitwits in support of the Age of Trump we now live in who may well want to think that the only victim in this whole affair is Van Dyke himself!

OF COURSE, THERE will be others eager to keep the memory of this incident alive. Consider that newly-elected state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, D-Naperville, is enhancing her reputation as someone eager to draw attention to herself by ticking off the sensibilities of political people around her.

STAVA-MURRAY: Wants McDonald Act

Stava-Murray introduced as her first bill ever a measure creating the Laquan McDonald Act. A measure applying only to Chicago and creating procedures by which we could have recall elections for mayor and alderman in Chicago and state’s attorney in Cook County.

It really does come across as an attention-grabber from the freshman legislator who already has indicated she’s not seeking re-election in 2020 – and instead will challenge Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., for his post on Capitol Hill. It certainly isn’t about necessary changes to the law – the electorate dumped Anita Alvarez as state’s attorney back in 2016 and Rahm Emanuel didn’t even try to seek re-election, largely because of public disgust over what happened to Laquan.

As though we’re supposed to forever remember Laquan, and not think of that silly clown and his mediocre hamburgers every time we hear the phrase “McDonald” in the future.

  -30-

Who’s the new AG? How will Raoul be remembered in Illinois history?

Is Kwame Raoul destined to become the 21^st Century’s version of George Sangmeister or Aurelia Pucinski?

RAOUL: Can he win Tuesday night?

Sangmeister and Pucinski were on the 1986 Democratic primary ballot for lieutenant governor and secretary of state, respectively, and both lost – with the common political speculation being that all those rural voters across Illinois didn’t identify with the German or Polish ethnic roots that the two had.

AS A RESULT, the Democrats nominated Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart respectively – with the rural types thinking those names were so-much-more “American” sounding. Even though both were actually ideologically aligned with right-winger Lyndon LaRouche.

Could we get a similar reaction come Tuesday to the campaign of Kwame Raoul for Illinois attorney general?

Raoul is a state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood who is the son of parents who came to this country from Haiti. Hyde Park is exactly the type of neighborhood that thinks such people are exotic and interesting and likely takes a certain amount of pride in having Kwame representing them in the Legislature for the past 14 years.

But Raoul is being challenged by the one-time Miss America, Erika Harold of Champaign, who has often expressed political ambitions but been unable to win anything. Usually because she has ran for Congress from central Illinois-based districts where the locals were more comfortable with white men representing them.

TRUMP: Could his mentality sway voters?

BUT NOW, HAROLD is running for something statewide. Also, she’s running a campaign that focuses heavily on the theme of her being the lone Republican to hold a political post – serving as sort of a partisan political balance to all the Democrats likely to be in power.

I have no doubt Raoul will take the Chicago vote overwhelmingly. In fact, that may well be enough for him to win the political post outright.

Hart and Fairchild (below), … 

But then again, it may not. Could enough rural Illinoisans who’d rather not have a so-called “foreigner” elected to office cast their votes for Harold? Could that be sufficient for her to win Tuesday’s election.

Could the 2002 Miss Illinois who went on to Atlantic City to win the pageant the following year be able to claim a similar story as Hart and Fairchild – who will forevermore be remembered in Illinois political history as the fluke victories. Ones whose real significance is that they screwed up the political campaign of ’86 for gubernatorial hopeful Adlai Stevenson III?

… will Raoul's monicker go alongside theirs?

IN THIS AGE of Trump that we’re now in, could the anti-immigrant sentiments that some people so clearly feel and base their political decisions off of become a factor?

Maybe even those people who will forevermore remain bitter that somebody named Barack Obama could ever be elected president will be motivated to turn out to vote against Kwame (who, by the way, was Obama’s replacement in the Illinois state Senate in 2004).

All of this is cheap, petty and makes next to no sense. But it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the electorate based their vote off of something totally stupid!

Could giving Illinois a former Miss America as the chief legal counsel for state government be the consolation prize that Republicans take for themselves to deal with the heavy losses that Bruce Rauner’s presence on the ballot is likely to inflict on the rest of the party’s ticket?

AS FOR RAOUL, he was amongst the Democrats using Barack Obama’s presence at the Sunday rally in Chicago to tout himself – moreso than J.B. Pritzker, whose gubernatorial campaign was the supposed reason for the political gathering.

HAROLD: A trivial image, but may be one many carry in their minds

As Raoul described things, “I’m a proud son of Haitian who did not come from a” expletive-deleted description used by Trump himself. “I am a birthright baby.”

Considering a recent New York Times-published poll saying (amongst other things) that 46 percent of people want Republicans to retain control of Congress and an equal 46 percent want Democrats to gain control of the House of Representatives, it would seem the partisan split isn’t anywhere near as intense as we get in Illinois.

Which could make Harold the ultimate Republican consolation prize coming from Tuesday night’s vote-counting activity. Sorry Kwame!

  -30-

Illinois AG race about more than 'Obama clone' vs. 'lawyer Barbie'

By the time Kwame Raoul ...

There are times I wonder if people comprehend the purpose of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

For as I always comprehended it, the attorney general (for the past 16 years, it has been Lisa Madigan) has been the attorney for state government. Since our state is a large-scale operation, she has several assistants on her staff.

… and Erika Harold are through, … 

IT’S ALMOST LIKE she’s the head of a law firm whose sole client is Illinois state government. She’s there to defend the state every time someone within it screws up, while also making sure the rights our citizenry are not being violated every which way possible.

It amuses me every time I hear someone complain that the attorney general isn’t prosecuting someone, because it’s obvious to me they’re being swayed by some overbearing vision of what the post is.

Almost as though they think it’s the equivalent of the “state’s attorneys” that Illinois’ 102 counties all have. My guess is that if the attorney general ever tried to take on such tasks, there’d be a whole lot of griping from those local prosecutors about how she is grossly overstepping the bounds of her post.

All of this thought popped into my mind when reading a report recently (from Crain’s Chicago Business) about the state attorney general’s office and how its viewpoint is likely to be impacted by the elections to be held Nov. 6.

BECAUSE MADIGAN HAS made it clear she’s not staying in the post. The Democratic Party already has nominated a possible replacement (state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago), but there are some Republicans who think their nominee (Erika Harold) is the lone GOPer who has a chance to win something come Election Day.

… what will remains of Lisa Madigan's way?

The Crain’s report talks of all the lawsuits Illinois has filed, or supported, throughout the Age of Trump we’re now in that challenge the federal government on various issues.

With Raoul saying he is a “last line of defense” from a federal government that would be very eager to play partisan politics against Illinois. Meaning he’d intend to pursue all the lawsuits that come from the Madigan Era of the attorney general.

While Harold is much less committal. She’s not offering up much details, but some are reading into her words that she’d be willing to have her staff dismiss the lawsuits they’ve started against the federal government.

“I BELIEVE THE attorney general’s office should not be using their scarce resources to enter into lawsuits for purely political purposes,” she told Crain’s. “I would only sue the federal government if Illinois law has been implicated or the federal government has acted in violation of the Constitution.”

Which is a nice, text book answer that sounds like it came from a law school student trying to suck up to the professor to get a better grade.

For the reality is that way too much of the issues and the law are open to interpretation. One person’s serious cause on behalf of the public becomes an ideologue’s pet issue that they want to dump all over.

And could it be the intent of an “Attorney General Erika Harold” to back off of trying to rile up the federal government in hopes that it might get President Donald Trump to quit getting riled up against Illinois every time he has so little to do that he takes to spewing out political bile on his Twitter account.

Obama, Raoul share just a neighborhood

ALTHOUGH I DID find it interesting to read in the Crain’s report that Harold supports the state lawsuit brought about by Madigan that challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold $6.5 million in federal funds for local law enforcement in Illinois as a response to the concept of “sanctuary cities.”

All of this means we’re going to have a decision to make come Election Day when we get to the portion of the ballot related to state attorney general.

Just how much of a pain in the behind do we want our state government’s legal adviser to be? And to what degree are partisan political issues things that wind up being a part of the public good?

Perhaps an image of Harold that needs to be retired

Definitely something we voters need to give more serious thought to than believing the attorney general’s race to be nothing more than between a Barack Obama clone and a former Miss America who used her prize money to put herself through law school!

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EXTRA: Does the 'power of the press’ extend to endorsements any longer?

I couldn’t help but be amused by the Chicago Tribune editorial page on Tuesday.

FAIRLEY: Will 2 Tribune endorsements help?

The newspaper, which already has endorsed Sharon Fairley for the Democratic nomination for Illinois attorney general, felt compelled to write another editorial about the merits of the woman who helped create the current panel that oversees Chicago Police activity and investigates the doings of bad cops, and also is a former federal prosecutor in Chicago.

FAIRLEY IS ONE of eight people wishing to be the Democrat who succeeds Lisa Madigan, but the most recent poll by the We Ask America group (conducted for the Capitol Fax newsletter) shows her running fourth.

With only 3.5 percent support. This remains a political brawl between former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s comeback desires and the dreams of state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, to become something other than a Hyde Park neighborhood pol.

Fairley appears to be part of the anonymous pack, no matter what her credentials. Which led the Tribune to take another crack at influencing its readership on how to vote this week, or a week from Tuesday on Election Day.

It will be odd if Fairley is the candidate who had the official endorsements of both the Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times (along with a few other publications, including the State Journal-Register of Springfield) but couldn’t rise above the pack. Probably more evidence of the declining influence that newspaper endorsements carry, although I still think they serve a purpose in helping to clarify a publication’s perspective and judging the honesty and objectivity of its reporting.

  -30-

Quinn won’t wither away, lack of $$$ won’t stop his political desires

I’m not surprised to learn that former Gov. Pat Quinn, in his political bid to become Illinois attorney general, is lagging far behind the other candidates seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the post.

How many candidates have official state portrait?

The reality is that Quinn, in his decades as a candidate for political office, has never been a fantastic fundraiser. If anything, he’s the kind of outspoken guy who ticks off the kind of people who actually make sizable contributions.

HE’S THE KIND of guy who attracts the money of some hard-core political lightweights – the kind of people who might make $20 donations. Piece enough of them together, and you might get a dollar figure of some size.

Then again, one prominent donor or special-interest group can easily cough up the same amount of cash with one contribution check.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday about the amount of money the candidates for attorney general have raised. It shouldn’t be surprising that the guy who’s likely the frontrunner (state Sen. Kwame Raoul of the Hyde Park neighborhood) has the most money.

He had $406,000 already, and managed to raise another $540,000 during the past three months.

BY COMPARISON, QUINN added some $81,000 to the $232,000 he already had in an existing campaign fund.

How pathetic is that? According to the Tribune report, about the only Democratic dreamer for attorney general doing worse is Aaron Goldstein, who reported having $194,000 in contributions – of which about $185,000 is money he donated to himself.

Candidates such as state Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highwood, Chicago Park District President Jesse Ruiz and Highland Park mayor Nancy Rotering all have raised more than the former governor.

RAOUL: The 'big bucks" AG candidate

But as I’ve already implied, this is not a new trend for Quinn – who never has been the big-money candidate with unlimited funds to pay for all the advertising and other stunts that a political campaign engages in to attract attention and try to sway people to actually vote for them.

HE HAS ALWAYS managed to achieve whatever success he has gained on the Illinois political scene by swaying voters that he’s somehow different from the standard-issue government official.

Whether that can continue to work for him remains to be seen. Standard lines of logic would indicate that Quinn’s time has passed. He’s a political has-been who should come to his senses and drop out – be a retired pol who can claim to have achieved the rank of Illinois governor.

Of course, standard lines of logic would indicate that Quinn’s time had passed after his one term as Illinois treasurer. The one that ended after his 1994 defeat for Illinois secretary of state.

Between that electoral loss and his victory paired up with Rod Blagojevich in 2002 as his lieutenant governor running mate, Quinn ran for U.S. Senate seats and the lieutenant governor post on his own and continually lost. Largely because his campaigns were as poorly funded as this campaign appears to be.

BUT QUINN IS the type not easily discouraged. All those losses of the mid-1990s to the early 2000s didn’t discourage him from running again. Just as his 2014 loss to Bruce Rauner and his millions of dollars in personal wealth that he pumped into his campaign doesn’t seem to have discouraged him from trying yet again to be a part of state government.

Anybody can outspend Quinn, not just Rauner

I don’t know if Quinn can actually win. Perhaps he figures there’s so many people on the ballot (eight candidates on the Democratic side) that he figures he could get a quarter of the vote and the other seven could split up the majority into small-enough chunks he could still win.

As for those others, all of them have limited name recognition outside of their home regions. Whether any one of them could catch on with the masses has yet to be determined.

And even if Quinn loses the primary come March 20, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him try running yet again for political office – maybe he’ll go for Illinois comptroller and be able to say he ran for all the statewide constitutional posts. He may be 69 (his birthday was in mid-December) and getting up there in years, but I suspect Quinn is exactly the kind of guy who won’t quit trying to be a part of public policy until the day he passes on.

  -30-

It’s about time – ’18 election cycle’s “put up-or-shut up” moment arrives

Friday was the day retail fanatics felt compelled to queue up outside of their favorite stores in search of particularly-good sales for holiday shopping.

Never-was gubernatorial candidate Ameya Pawar will have counterparts following this week's nominating petition filing period.

Monday will see similar lines of political geeks – candidates in some cases, their operatives in others. Although those lines will be at Illinois State Board of Elections offices, as it’s finally time for people wanting to run for political office to file the nominating petitions to gain themselves spots on the March 20 primary ballots.

FOR ALL THOSE people who have been going about throwing out hints that they want to be candidates for electoral office, they’re going to have to show the required support levels indicating they’re deserving of a ballot slot.

Between 8 a.m. Monday and 5 p.m. Dec. 4 (a.k.a., next Monday), the candidates will file their petitions showing signatures of support from people indicating they’d actually vote for this person.

Now I know some people think this is unfair – they think it ought to be easier to actually get on the ballot. Let everybody on the ballot (they’d say); let the voters decide on Election Day.

Yet I think there is too much clutter in these early stages, and candidates for office ought to be capable of defending their ballot existence by showing some support.

JUST THINK THAT there are about eight people saying they want to be the Democrat running next year for Illinois governor and for state attorney general.

DAIBER: Will he continue to exist?

Most of us can’t even come close to naming all of them, and the only people who truly want all of them hanging around are the ones interested in causing political confusion.

As in the only way they can win is if enough people cast votes for them without knowing who they’re supporting. Which may sound ludicrous, but does anyone seriously think Mark Fairchild or Janice Hart would have won Democratic primaries back in 1986 based on their merits?

Yes, those are the two followers of Lyndon LaRouche who managed to win that year’s gubernatorial and Illinois secretary of state primaries, with voters not realizing their tie to the would-be presidential hopeful that some consider more fascist than Democrat.

MY POINT IS that there have been people trying to talk themselves up as candidates even though there’s really no evidence anybody wants them or would support them.

RAOUL: How many opponents will remain?

As for one-time gubernatorial hopeful Ameya Pawar who came to the realization a few weeks ago he couldn’t win the Democratic primary, he’s alone. Although it’s quite possible that many of the other seven people who think they’re going to be running for the office will fail to meet the standard to get on the ballot.

Their campaigns will end before they even began. Will Bob Daiber (the regional schools superintendent from the part of Illinois down near St. Louis) still be around?

Or will this officially become a less-cluttered J.B. Pritzker/Chris Kennedy political brawl? We’ll see come next week.

JUST AS MOST of us likely can’t even come close to naming all of the Illinois attorney general dreamers on the Democratic side. If a few of them disappear before ever becoming official, it will be more comprehensible to the electorate.

STROGER: Will he have valid signatures?

It will be the same for many other political offices. Personally, I’m curious to see the Democratic primary for Cook County Board president, where Toni Preckwinkle has two challengers talking up long-shot campaigns against her.

But Todd Stroger has only declared himself a candidate as of last week. Can he truly produce nominating petitions with enough valid signatures of support by this week?

Anything’s possible, but I’m sure that Preckwinkle operatives are counting on Stroger doing a sloppy-enough job that they can challenge his petitions and keep him off the ballot that way. Which means the serious politicking can get underway following this coming week, rather than the stupid speculation we've been engaging in up to this point.

  -30-

Political memories continue to crop up in our present-day public reality

OBAMA: Deciding one's guilt, or innocence

Election Day losses, or term limits, don’t necessarily mean the end of our political people in the public eye. Some of them just keep cropping up, no matter how much some of us want to forget them.

Take the cases of Barack Obama and Pat Quinn. It wasn’t all that long ago that these were the sitting president and Illinois governor, respectively. It would be expected for them to have their every utterances recorded for posterity.

QUINN: Wants to be the governor's lawyer?

THEY’RE NOW BOTH in political retirement – Obama because he served his two-term maximum allowed for any individual to be president, and Quinn because even with the advantages of incumbency, he couldn’t even beat Bruce Rauner for governor come the last state government election cycle.

But they’re both the subject of idle chit-chat amongst people who wish to think they’re saying something intelligent about our political structure.

For Obama, who’s living along with former first lady Michelle out in the District of Columbia, he’s going to have a return to our local scene. For the Obamas still own their home in the Kenwood neighborhood and maintain local voter registration – along with driver’s licenses.

Could Obama do jury duty in shadow of Picasso?

Which means that Obama’s name is in the pool of people who can be called upon to serve on a jury. The exact circumstances of which have occurred.

OFFICIALS ARE GOING out of their way not to let it be publicly known when Obama will return to Cook County to do his day of jury duty, although the former president is trying to appear as regular-guyish as possible in saying he won’t try to get out of such duty.

He’ll show up, watch that decades-old film of one-time WBBM-TV news anchor Lester Holt explaining the way the court system works, and will be kept in seclusion from the criminals who pervade the halls of the county courthouses, to see if he gets picked to be on a jury.

Which most people would think is a long-shot. I suspect any attorney trying to put together a jury to benefit their client (or a prosecutor seeking to nail his hide to the wall) is going to view Obama as a distraction. Something that could draw massive amounts of attention to an otherwise-trivial case.

Or in suburban Markham, a few blocks from Hazel Crest-based Obama school?

Better to just bounce him, give him his $17.20 check for one day’s service to the county, and send him along home. For what it’s worth, that amount of money is meant to cover the cost of mass transit to a courthouse, along with lunch. Nothing more!

BUT WHEN IT happens, Obama’s presence will cause a political circus – even though county officials say they’ll get him into and out of the courthouse in a way meant to draw as little attention to himself as possible.

Which is just the opposite of former Gov. Quinn – who in coming months is going to want to draw as much attention to himself as possible. He says he’s going to be amongst the many Dems wishing to run for Illinois attorney general.

Not that it’s surprising Quinn would try to seek a state office after losing his governor’s post in 2014. Quinn previously served as Illinois treasurer from 1991-95, and I lost track of the number of political posts he ran for unsuccessfully until he finally became lieutenant governor following the 2002 election cycle.

“The Mighty Quinn” isn’t really satisfied unless he’s running for office and using his campaigns as forums for making political statements about what he thinks is for the good of our society.

AS FAR AS why attorney general, it’s because the post is open; what with Lisa Madigan saying she won’t seek re-election in next year’s cycle. With some half-dozen or so Dems expressing interest in the post, perhaps Quinn thinks he could win a primary with some 25 percent voter support.

Could Harold give Quinn a fight for AG?

Although I’m skeptical he could even get that much. But it is a wide-open primary, meaning anything screwy could happen.

I have to admit it would be odd if Quinn were to wind up being the Democratic nominee running against possible GOP challenger Erika Harold. Could the man who gave us the cutback amendment and reduced by one-third the size of the Illinois House of Representatives compete against a one-time Miss America?

I’m sure Harold’s campaign is going to portray herself as an ultimate political outsider out to instigate change – yet one could argue she’d be taking on the ultimate political pain in the derriere who doesn’t care much what the political insiders think of him.

  -30-

Who will make GOP bid for AG?

With Lisa Madigan making it public that 20 years of public service in state government is enough (for now) for her, it will be intriguing who decides to try to fill the state attorney general vacancy she has created.
 

MADIGAN: Who will replace her?

Various reports are speculating on the same names of government officials with ambition – the state Sen. Kwame Raoul (whom some like to think of as a Barack Obama clone), former Chicago Public Schools and Illinois State Board of Education official Gery Chico and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart are amongst the predictable picks for this post.

YET ALL OF the speculation is coming on the Democratic Party side – who will get the AG nomination for the right to try to replace Madigan. I’ll have to admit to being more intrigued by what will happen on the Republican side of the equation.

Thus far, there’s only one person indicating a desire to run for the GOP nomination for attorney general. That’s Erika Harold, an Urbana-based attorney who has one major credential to her name.

Some 15 years ago, she was chosen as Miss America (the last time someone from Illinois won that beauty/scholarship pageant title). She’s the one who (based off the impression she gives of herself on her Facebook page) expects those old photos of her in sash and tiara to create a lovable image that people will cast ballots for her to be Illinois government’s attorney.

 
I remember a few months ago when I first heard Harold was in the running I checked out their Facebook and Twitter account images, and found the dueling visuals of Harold with a U.S. soldier in uniform – compared to Madigan marching in Chicago’s Pride Parade.

HAROLD: Will GOP replace her?

WHICH HAD ME wondering if the conservative ideologues who have come to dominate the Republican Party in Illinois were planning on a borderline sexist and homophobic campaign style to try to knock votes off the Lisa Madigan tally.

Considering that Harold herself has made several unsuccessful electoral bids in the past for congressional seats from her central Illinois native region, it gave me the impression of Harold as someone intended to fill a ballot spot running against someone the Republican Party didn’t really think it had a chance of beating.

 
It certainly isn’t Harold’s legal credentials that will inspire many people to vote for her. The University of Illinois alumna is also a Harvard Law School graduate, and also is a member of the state Supreme Court committee on equality and the commission on professionalism.

Is there a yet-to-be-determined GOPer in race?

Which isn’t irrelevant. But it’s not exactly the standing in the legal community that’s going to make people think she ought to be the chief attorney who defends Illinois state government when it gets into trouble.

THAT TIARA AND sash are going to be the primary images that will get her whatever political support she manages to gain.

She certainly was named publicly this summer as the Republican preference for attorney general at the Illinois State Fair, when the GOP had its own political rallies to drum up support for the ticket.

But now that it won’t be a four-term incumbent (who also served a term in the Illinois Senate from the Ravenswood neighborhood) to run against, it has me wondering how quickly the Republican Party’s political operatives will try to come up with an alternate candidate.

RAOUL: Wanting to move up pol ladder?

I know the Republican Attorneys General Association issued a statement last week indicating that Harold is the GOP choice for the post and spewed predictable rhetoric about “lead(ing) the fight against public corruption and bring(ing) integrity to the Attorney General’s office,” I can’t help but think it is empty rhetoric.

PARTICULARLY THE LINES about how Lisa Madigan supposedly dropped out in fear of Harold’s pending campaign, which is, “so strong, in fact, that Lisa Madigan has decided she doesn’t want to run a campaign for re-election.”

DART: Giving up sheriff post for attorney?

A line that was the chuckle of the week last week for political operatives across Illinois of all persuasions.

Of course, Republicans do have to show some care in the way they handle this. Because if they’re too blunt in their approach, they could wind up triggering a brawl within the party ranks that could wind up making everybody look foolish and wind up tainting whoever does manage to win the GOP AG nomination.

Which may well be the ultimate fantasy of Raoul or Dart (whom I can remember the days decades ago when political people speculated he’d probably try to be Chicago mayor someday, along with Lisa Madigan as Illinois governor) or whoever ultimately winds up being chosen in the March 20 Democratic primary for the nomination.

  -30-

Does GOP in Illinois of Rauner era not take candidate recruitment seriously?

I’m not sure whether to be intrigued or offended by the rumor mills that say the Illinois Republican Party is contemplating running black people for the posts of Attorney General and Secretary of State come next year’s elections.

GRIFFIN: Is that medal his sole credential?

I’d like to think it means that Republican officials in our state have reached a certain level of enlightenment, and perhaps have even managed to look past a person’s melanin content to see the whole person. But then I think realistically, and snicker at the very notion.

BECAUSE THE CYNIC in me thinks the particular individuals allegedly under consideration for the posts were picked because of specific characteristics in their backgrounds that somehow makes them acceptable to the hard-core of GOPdom who otherwise wouldn’t consider casting a ballot for such a person.

For attorney general, the Republicans reportedly are considering Erika Harold (the one-time Miss America from Illinois) to run against incumbent Lisa Madigan. She is, indeed, a graduate of Harvard Law School (just like Barack Obama).

While for secretary of state, 19-year veteran of the post Jesse White may be challenged by Josh “J.C.” Griffin.

Who’s he?

IT SEEMS HE served five years in the Air Force, served a combat stint in Iraq, and worked a little bit for state government during the era of Pat Quinn as governor.

 

HAROLD: Rumored to challenge Madigan, L.?

But Republicans seem willing to disregard that potential character flaw (at least that’s the way they’d perceive it) because Griffin, a one-time native of suburban Olympia Fields, declared himself a Republican when registering himself to vote following his military service.

So what we’re basically saying is that Republicans are putting up Miss America and G.I. Joe to challenge two long-term state officials. They’re putting up stereotype images because they don’t necessarily have candidates in mind who could run credible campaigns for those particular posts.

Republicans will be asked to cast ballots for those images, and against any kind of government experience (although I’m sure that at age 83, they’re going to make a serious argument that the people of Illinois ought to send the one-time Cubs minor league ballplayer into political retirement).

WHITE: Will GOP make age an issue in '18 campaign?

IF ANYTHING THIS may be the evidence of how low the Republican Party has declined in Illinois. They have the governor’s post, and Bruce Rauner seems determined to blow a large chunk of his personal wealth to remind us to “Blame Madigan!” for everything and vote for him.

Beyond that, what are Republican-types casting votes for? The same old nonsense pitting Chicago against the rest of the state? Which really does little more than to persuade Chicago voters to cast ballots against the rest of Illinois?

Which means we all lose with that line of logic. To really revive Illinois, we have to move beyond such parochial ways of thinking.

As for Harold, I’ll say the same thing I’ve written before. It’s a shame she isn’t developed into a credible candidate – instead of one who has to rely upon the fact she wore a sash and tiara some 15 years ago.

AND AS FOR Griffin, I can’t help but think that his so-called credentials (five years of military service and a stint in a combat zone) actually matches up with my own cousin Carlos, who did five years in the Army and had his combat stint during that “first” Gulf War (remember 1990 in Kuwait?).

RAUNER: Does he like being lone GOPer?

Somehow, I don’t think anybody would take seriously the notion of my cousin returning to Illinois to run for elective office. I suspect the snickering would be deafening.

So here’s hoping that the rumor-mill (for what it’s worth, Griffin was non-committal when he was interviewed on the subject by WCIA-TV in Champaign) turns out to be erroneous.

Unless the GOP really is surrendering any chance of winning government posts other than that of governor. Does Bruce Rauner fantasize about a government where he’s the lone official – and everybody just shuts up and does what he says?

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EXTRA: Trump literally tells someone “You’re Fired!,” acting AG loses job

It took Richard M. Nixon some five years into his presidency before he gave us the “Saturday Night Massacre” – the Oct. 20, 1973, incident where the Attorney General and deputy were fired for refusing to fire a special prosecutor who dug a little too close into the Watergate break-in for Nixon’s comfort.

YATES: Can hold her head up high

It took Donald J. Trump only 10 days to commit the offense that I’m sure many with a historic or political perspective will compare it to.

TRUMP ON MONDAY ordered the dismissal of Sally Yates, who had been Attorney General since Jan. 20. She took actions Monday saying her office, which serves as the legal representation for federal government, to stop defending the United States against any legal challenges to the Trump executive order that caused so much chaos at airports across the nation, including Chicago's O'Hare International.

The one meant to make it difficult, if not impossible, for people from select Middle Eastern nations to get into this country.

Trump, of course, will take no such insolence – particularly from someone like Yates, who had been a deputy A.G. since 2015 and previously was a U.S. attorney for Northern Georgia.

She only had the top post on an interim basis because Trump didn’t want Attorney General Loretta Lynch remaining in the top post any longer than necessary. She was, after all, a Barack Obama appointee.

I’M SURE THAT as far as Trump is concerned, Yates was someone who came from the Obama era, and he would have replaced her anyway.

 

NIXON: Not long for Trump to invoke memory

The fact that she was publicly saying a Trump order was wrong? It’s not a shock she’s the first to get a public “You’re Fired!” from Trump, the president. It would be like a gangster firing his attorney who tried to plead him "guilty." Remember how the "Al Capone" character played by Robert DiNiro beat his attorney for doing just that in the 1987 film "The Untouchables" starring Kevin Costner?

Although considering that Yates was merely reflecting the same attitude as a majority of the people who have watched the federal government’s actions this weekend with a sense of shame for their home nation probably means she can now breathe a sigh of relief.

She no longer has to pretend to be a Trump-type person and can now move on with her life. While Trump adds to his reputation as nothing more than a political bully.

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