Politics creates strange bedfellows

There are no permanent enemies in electoral politics. Or maybe the reality is there are no permanent friends – just people you’re allied with for the time being.

PRECKWINKLE: Got two endorsements

Take the mayoral campaign of Toni Preckwinkle – whom some are determined to believe is desperately clinging to life and is on the verge of political oblivion.

YET EVEN PRECKWINKLE is still capable of finding people willing to say they support her political aspirations. And not just the labor unions whom Toni had been hoping all along would be the life’s blood of her campaign for the right to work on the City Hall side of the municipal building, rather than the County Board side.

Preckwinkle picked up a pair of people who, at one time, might have been a major political coup. But now?

We’re talking about the endorsements she got from one-time state legislator and county board President Todd Stroger and from the rap music star Chance.

As in the guy who was the pulse that was the only reason anybody took seriously the mayoral aspirations of Amara Enyia. The one who kicked in the campaign cash that enabled her to actually have a campaign.

THE GUY WHOM some thought might inspire young black Chicagoans to care about this election cycle enough that perhaps Amara could have a chance of winning something.

STROGER: Sympathizing w/ Toni? Nah!

But as it turned out, Chance’s support was only good enough to get Enyia a 7 percent share of the vote in the Feb. 26 election – not even close to qualifying for one of the spots in the current run-off election.

So now, Chance has become a part of the Preckwinkle bandwagon. Which doesn’t surprise many political observers. It was always noted that one of the chairmen of the Preckwinkle campaign is Ken Bennett – a.k.a., Chance’s father.

All it means is that Chance’s mayoral preference went down the tubes, and his father convinced him to remain involved ever-so-slightly. But not as much as he was for Enyia.

BECAUSE IT SHOULD be noted that Chance’s endorsement does not come along with any campaign cash. He’s not giving Toni any money to get through the remaining days of this election cycle.

CHANCE: Won't open his wallet

I don’t know if it’s true, but there were always those predicting that Chance would wind up being swayed over to Camp Preckwinkle. Although those pundits were usually speculating a scenario in which this would unify African-American voter support for Toni against someone like William Daley.

Nobody figured this would be a Lightfoot/Preckwinkle brawl!

But this move strikes many as being more predictable than the one in which Stroger put aside his own animosities toward Preckwinkle to say he supports her. Because there are those of us who remember the 2010 election cycle in which Toni turned Todd into the ultimate example of a political hack who was unfit for office when she beat him for the county board president post he inherited when his father, John, had to step down.

COULD IT BE that Todd Stroger somehow sympathizes with the way Toni Preckwinkle’s reputation is being so thoroughly trashed by those Lightfoot backers eager to engage in demonization? Not likely.

LIGHTFOOT: Not likely losing sleep

It’s more likely that Stroger is being truthful when he says he hopes that a “Mayor Preckwinkle” will give him the time of day and be willing to listen to his concerns for things he’d like to see achieved across the city’s South Side. While a “Mayor Lightfoot,” he suspects, would be likely to turn her old federal prosecutorial instincts on him to try to find a way to get him indicted for something.

I’m not saying for sure that will happen. A part of me doesn’t think Stroger was ever ambitious enough to do something corrupt.

But it would be intriguing to see if current circumstances are such that Toni and “the Toddler” are now political allies – or will be for as long as the two see some mutual benefit to tolerating each other’s existence.

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Madigan, Rauner tried this week to outgun each other amidst the stink of livestock waste at Illinois state fair

It has been a few years since I last went to an Illinois State Fair, although it sounds like this year the politicking reached a level of intensity not often seen recently.

 

The sentiment that Democrats tried to stir up to tag all Republican candidates in this year's election cycle

Republicans, when they had their day to celebrate on the fairgrounds in Springfield, made a point of doing everything they could to downplay the existence of Donald Trump – while also playing up the looming presence of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

DEMOCRATS FOLLOWED UP the following day by doing just the reverse – making sure everybody they could tell knew that Trump was at the head of the Republican ticket of candidates who will be in the running in the Nov. 8. general election.

All too predictable. While also all too sad. Since it seems that our state government officials aren’t anywhere near being capable of working together. It is likely the political lollygagging of recent years will continue.

Particularly sad because the agreement reached back in June to come up with a budget that allows government operations to continue was only a six-month agreement.

Come January 1 when we’re all suffering hangovers and realizing the person lying next to us is not the one he or she is supposed to be, we’re going to get hit with another sucker punch – the budget nonsense that dominated the entirety of Illinois Fiscal 2016 will be back.

SO EXCUSE ME for thinking that perhaps the state fairgrounds was the perfect place for the latest attempts by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Madigan to try to one-up each other – all the livestock barns on the premises do give the place a perpetual odor of animal dung.

And if you’re not careful where you step, you can get it all over your shoes too!

 

GOP's response. Image provided by Illinois Republican Party

Poop on your shoes is about the level of the rants used by the Rauner camp, what with them circulating buttons depicting a youthful, early 1970s Madigan back when he was a freshman legislator (supposedly sent to Springfield by the original Mayor Daley in part to keep his son, the newly-elected state senator Richard M. out of trouble in the Illinois capital city). And also a version depicting an equally-youthful-looking Richard Durbin before he ever dreamed of being a U.S. senator.

The point being that his 40-plus years of legislative service is too long. And that perhaps a Republican alternative would benefit the people of Illinois.

THERE’S JUST ONE problem with that theory, or all the rhetoric of recent election cycles that try to turn the campaign into a Madigan referendum.

The only people who actually vote up or down on Madigan’s continued presence in the Illinois House of Representatives are the residents of the House 22^nd District out by Midway Airport. By and large, they’re content to keep him in Springfield, and even feel some pride that their legislator is THE BOSS and other peoples’ legislators have to follow his orders.

You can argue whether Clearing neighborhood residents or any of those people in nearby suburbs also in the district really get anything from Madigan’s presence. But there isn’t really any clamoring for Madigan’s removal from the people who could do something about it.

Take the case of Jason Gonzales, the most recent challenger who got his behind beaten on primary Election Day this year and is now filing a lawsuit challenging the legality of the overly-aggressive campaigning that Madigan did to ensure his victory.

SOLID ENOUGH THAT he took nearly two-thirds of the vote. A thrashing of the sort that some Republicans fear they could get come Nov. 8 because of the presence of Trump on the ballot.

Which is why party officials went out of their way not to talk up Trump’s candidacy – which is strange because usually the presidential bid (particularly one that motivates some people to want to vote as eagerly as Donald’s does) is the one that is counted on to stir up support for everybody.

Then again, the Trump trash talk does have a way of ticking off some people to the point where we really will study for years to come just how much of a drag he was on the ballot.

All of this back-and-forth nonsense actually makes me pleased I didn’t attend the fair (and not just because I have no desire to ever see the Husband Calling Contest again). Because it seems that the stink in the air was less offensive than the noise pollution committed by all the politicos.

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