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.

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EXTRA: They ALL want our money!

Come March 23, the Republicans will be in Chicago hitting us up big time for campaign cash to cover the costs of their future partisan initiatives.

RYAN: Putting together Trump resistance fund?

Which might seem like those people have a lot of nerve, asking us to tap into our wallets when all we ever hear from the federal government in this Age of Trump is how much of a hell-hole Chicago is and hints of how much we need to be taken over by the G-men (with military assistance) in order to bring us back to the ranks of civilized people.

NOT THAT PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump is ever going to actually do anything, because then he'd become responsible for the problems our city faces and eligible to receive the blame for their failures. If there's one absolute truth, is that it's NEVER Trump's fault! Always somebody else's.

But back to the fund-raiser, which actually is being held by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who plans to split the proceeds between his own fund, his Prosperity Action political action committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

According to Crain's Chicago Business which reported about the upcoming event on Monday, it will cost at least $1,000 per person for the right to set foot in the door of whichever hotel they wind up using to host the event (it's still a GOP secret). To gain the real political access, donations of up to $50,000 apiece are preferred -- although those who wish to give even more will gladly find their money accepted.

I suspect the purpose of this event is to ensure that the Republicans in Congress have money to pay for their own actions -- particularly if it turns out that they become hostile to the interests of the president and have to resist him.

COULD THIS EVENT wind up being billed as a chance to donate to an "anti-Trump" group -- which might be the only way to get significant numbers of Chicagoans to even think of giving up their money?

It will be interesting to see just how many people feel compelled to give to the Republicans these days. Although there always is the old tradition of business-oriented folks who give a bit of money to both sides of a political fight -- so as to be able to claim favors to be called in, regardless of who winds up winning.

PEREZ: Wants cash to begin political fight

On a smaller scale, I also couldn't help but be amused by an e-mail I received informing me that Monday was the first day on the job for Tom Perez as Democratic National Committee head. And wouldn't it be nice to kick in some cash because, "he's going to want to know where we stand."

The Dems are hoping they will be able to claim some 60,000 donations made during the month of February. It won't produce anywhere near the kind of cash (they're asking for donations as little as $3 per person) the GOP will get from their upcoming evening in Chicago, but I'm sure the new party boss would like to think there's some support for his upcoming efforts to resist the Tyrannosaurus Rex that is the Trump presidency.

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When is paranoia totally justified? Or, Get off yer lazy behind and Vote!!!

My step-mother’s sister, Betty, literally wagged her finger in my face this weekend while telling me it was absolutely crucial that I turn out and cast a ballot come Election Day this year.

 

TRUMP: He wants the presidential perks

She’s one of the people appalled by the existence of Donald Trump and has managed to get herself excited about the prospects of a “President Hillary Clinton” (although she flirted briefly with the idea of Bernie Sanders).

BUT SHE’S CONVINCED the natural apathy that afflicts people is going to cause too many to just sit on their fat behinds come Nov. 8.

Which, if it really happens, would enable the incredibly outspoken faction of our society that wants Trump in the White House (unless he decides the presidential mansion is unbecoming of him and he shifts operations to the Mar-A-Lago Club) to go out of his way to repudiate everything that has ever occurred that they disagree with.

Now I know some people are convinced that there are just too many checks and balances in place to allow Trump to do anywhere near the amount of damage he has pledged to do during his presidential campaigning. That line of logic is being spewed by those who seriously have their hang-ups about Hillary being anywhere near the political position once held by her husband, Bill.

But the paranoia about a Trump presidency persists – even though many (including myself) would argue there’s nothing “extreme” or “irrational” in their fear or “distrust” of “the Donald.” Even Hillary Clinton herself is more than willing to play off of it.

FOR I RECEIVED in my e-mail Sunday night a message from the Clinton campaign itself (and have since received two more similar notes), telling me how Trump’s fundraising is stepping up its work (supposedly $82 million raised during July), which boosts his chances of turning out the vote in parts of the country where the Electoral College favors them.

Trump is, “unqualified and unfit to lead our country – but the unfortunate reality we must confront is that he still might be able to win if he spends enough to convince voters otherwise,” was written on behalf of Hillary.

Of course, that e-mail then got to the real point – which wasn’t so much to remind us of how repulsive Donald Trump is but to tell us how we should donate more money to Clinton.

 

CLINTON: She wants campaign cash to stop him

The e-mail was set up in a way that I could “quick donate” as little as $3, figuring that a lot of petty donations from many people could add up to a significant amount. Of course, if I also feel compelled to be a more significant donor, they’re not about to refuse to accept my money.

NOT THAT IT’S going to influence me, because I generally don’t give money to political campaigns of any persuasion. In part because I’m cheap, but also because I don’t want any of these people thinking they can keep me on a list of individuals whom they come to expect for support. It's that old line of logic about a reporter-type person not wanting to create an impression of favoritism for anybody.

I may feel a twinge of guilt when I don’t make a donation to PBS or NPR (that's just because I'm cheap). But the campaigns are a different animal, and I don’t doubt that an operation as professional as the Clinton camp is capable of finding enough significant donors.

So their attempt to appeal to my sense of guilt and having a conscience isn’t going to get money from me. Besides, this particular e-mail reminded me that Trump has called women “fat pigs,” pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, erect that nonsensical wall along the U.S./Mexico border and boost the deportation totals from this country.

Yet nowhere did she tell us any reason why we should think she's any better.

I KNOW THE strategy of political operatives is to go nasty on the opposition until just before Election Day, at which time you bring everyone home, so to speak, by telling us how nice the candidate is.

I also don’t doubt that Trump will spend the next couple of months committing countless acts of borderline libel and slander on the Clinton reputation – and threaten to sue anyone who calls him out on his trash talk.

 

Will enough people get their sticker?

This is the time of the campaign season we’re in now, with negativity that’s only going to get worse and worse after Labor Day when political activity traditionally reaches its peak prior to Election Day.

Yet for me, the rhetoric from Clinton and Trump is something I can bear with. It may well be my “Aunt Betty” with her incessant appeals to vote (that probably won’t let up until she sees me wearing an “I voted” sticker on Nov. 8) that will be hardest to resist.

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Can you libel North Korea? Is it all a film industry plot for attention?

It is one of the old gags of being a reporter-type person who covers a lot of crime activity – “You can’t libel the mob!”


No matter how critical one is in the details they write about organized crime, what are the gangsters going to do – file a lawsuit and testify under oath that you’re wrong?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember that thought when I read an Associated Press dispatch from Seoul, South Korea, about how the North Korea government late Sunday accused the United States of spreading “reckless” rumors about its alleged involvement in a hacking of Sony Pictures computers.

The wire service reported that a National Defense Commission statement said officials planned “our toughest counteraction” against the United States, which it said is a “cesspool of terrorism.”

It also said the North Korean government has proof that it had no connection to the computer invasion that wound up disclosing sensitive information about Sony and stirred up enough attention and fear about the upcoming film “The Interview” that Sony officials decided not to release it at all.

Now I’m not going to claim to have any specific detail about U.S. foreign policy or North Korean affairs. Although it wouldn’t shock me to learn that the people who actually did break into the Sony computers are not actual government officials, but sympathizers of the Communist regime that we technically have been at war with since 1950 (although no shooting has taken place since 1953).

ALTHOUGH I DON’T expect anyone to seriously offer proof of that. Because that would involve people, possibly even Kim Jong Un, to have to “take the stand,” so to speak, and tell the truth.

It’s easier for them to spew trash talk. Just like much of our own government’s rhetoric that has blown a potentially third-rate film up into an international incident. We’re talking about putting North Korea back on the list of nations that engage in “state-sponsored terrorism.” Considering that we’re going to have to remove Cuba from that list because of the plans to restore diplomatic relations, it means there’s a vacancy to be filled.

For those of you who have been hiding away in a cave (perhaps the one that Osama bin Laden once used to hide from the U.S. military), this is the film meant to be a comedy about two men hired to assassinate Kim.

But it is a comedy because the two would-be killers are portrayed as a pair of bunglers and the film tells the story about all the things that go wrong during their escapade.

IT MAKES “GET Smart” sound downright intellectual. It sounds like something that should have starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels (the crew from “Dumb and Dumber”).

It’s a stupid laugh, and if the North Korean government had any sense, they’d use the film against us as evidence of just how far our society has declined. Instead, they took it seriously and are reacting like nitwits, which had enough people connected to the film industry in this country concerned that the release of the film on Thursday was cancelled.

Which gave us that “Saturday Night Live” sketch this weekend where Michael Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character lambasted Kim as a buffoon and a disgrace to evil leaders the world over.

It also has Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., talking about trying to get a print of the film somehow (I’m not sure if he has that kind of connections) so he can show it during the fundraisers he will have to have in coming months if he is to have enough campaign cash to get re-elected in 2016.

HOW MANY PEOPLE are now going to pay $2,000 or so per ticket to watch an allegedly verboten film? How much unwarranted attention is “The Interview” going to get?

Then again, perhaps Myers’ involvement was appropriate. Because this whole saga has taken on the inane character of a storyline from one of the Austin Powers series of parodies about James Bond-type films.

Which actually makes the conspiracy-theory portion of my intellectual makeup wonder if Sony is eternally grateful for the attention that caused them to stop the film’s distribution.

When it does finally get out, people will think they’re making a political statement by going to see it. Instead of just watching what could have turned out to be a corny story that would have been out of the movie theaters shortly after the coming of the New Year.

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