March 20 Dem primary getting closer

Tuesday was the day we, the electorate, could start signing nominating petitions to get any of the dreamers who wish to be Illinois governor an actual slot on the ballot for the March 20 primary elections.

STRATTON: Establishment Dem pick?

It will be intriguing to see who candidate Chris Kennedy comes up with to be a running mate, since as of now he's the only significant candidate who has yet to name a potential replacement candidate to serve as lieutenant governor in the event that he becomes incapacitated.

GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL J.B. Pritzker gave us Julianna Stratton -- a state representative. While candidate Ameya Pawar chose Cairo mayor Tyrone Coleman, and hopeful Daniel Biss just last week let it be known he's going with Chicago alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.

He being the one who got elected in 2015 as the first openly gay Latino alderman and who since has made a name for himself politically by shifting from the Democratic Party to the Democratic Socialists -- meaning he wants to be aligned with the political element that thinks Bernie Sanders would make a fit president of this nation.

How will Kennedy counter those choices? Since his pick is going to be studied for clues as to what kind of public official he would be if actually elected by the voters.

Kennedy, who has never held public office but was most prominently president of the company that managed the Merchandise Mart in Chicago until the Kennedy family sold the property back in 2012.

WE'RE BEING ASKED during the next couple of weeks to sign petitions for gubernatorial candidates and also for their running mates.

ROSA: Enhancing rep for future electoral bids?

Who, strictly speaking, aren't paired with their partners. For in Illinois, the lieutenant governor candidates run separately on the primary ballot. You could technically vote for Kennedy to be the Democratic nominee for governor, and Ramirez-Rosa for lieutenant governor.

It's only in the general election that the Democratic gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates get paired up to run against the Republican team of Bruce Rauner and Evelyn Sanguinetti -- who both are going to have their own political baggage weighing them down.

Unless the Democrats create so much baggage for themselves during the primary that even Rauner/Sanguinetti comes off as more appealing to Illinoisans.

ONE THING TO keep in mind as we contemplate Kennedy's pick -- which he has hinted could come some time this week. He technically doesn't have to name anybody.

COLEMAN: Voter appeal in Illinois' Egypt?'

I still recall 1994 when Dawn Clark Netsch won the Democratic primary for governor and never did name anybody as her preferred running mate, saying she thought the voters should be able to choose her potential replacement in the event of an emergency situation.

She wound up being paired with Penny Severns, a state senator from Decatur, who had been the running mate choice of Richard Phelan, the Cook County Board president who had hoped that post would be a springboard to the Executive Mansion.

Only it wasn't for him, and Netsch in her gubernatorial campaign could never shake the perception that the Netsch/Severns ticket was a mismatch.

SO WE'LL BE curious to see who Kennedy tries to anoint with the family "aura" so he can have his own "top of the ticket." Particularly curious since there have been reports indicating that many political establishment types are rejecting the idea of a Kennedy pairing, fearing he'd go down to defeat and drag them along with.

KENNEDY: Who will he add to lt. gov. mix?

It is interesting in that we're now within the time cycle where it is no longer ridiculously early to be contemplating who will be the candidates in the 2018 election cycle.

But the reality is that Rauner has been campaigning unofficially for so long it seems like this election cycle is old news. How many of us wish we could just cast our vote today and be done with it?

For some of us, the March 20 primary election and the Nov. 6, 2018 general election can't come soon enough.

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Does ethnic, racial diversity in slating really create voter candidate appeal?

It was a guiding principal of slating candidates to run for political office known as “the three I’s,” and it would seem to be in place in 21^st Century Chicago – albeit in a slightly adapted form.

VALENCIA: Keeping Latino streak alive

The “three I’s” implied that candidates have to work as a team in order get the most votes, and the “team” has to have an individual who would directly appeal to everybody – hence a perfect ticket ought to include someone who’s Irish, someone who’s Italian and also someone who’s Jewish, which for purposes of an easy label became Israel.

THE THIRD “I.”

We still have that principle in place, although now it means we need to have a white candidate, a black candidate and someone with ethnic origins in Latin America. Which doesn’t create for a cutesy label, but is the same basic idea.

It seems that Mayor Rahm Emanuel followed the principle earlier this week when he announced his appointment of a replacement city clerk – Anna Valencia, who had actually been one of his staffers before getting a post that gives her a title with some authority.

Of course, being city clerk means she’s in charge of the office that usually manages to frustrate people when they have to deal with it – particularly when it comes to that time of the year when people have to renew the vehicle registration stickers they’re required to post on their cars (and pay for) in order to legally drive.

BEING THE STICKER saleswoman may not sound like much. But it means that Valencia will have a chance to run for a city-wide government post come the 2019 election cycle.

Valencia will get her name on automobiles all across Chicago when new stickers come out

Valencia gets the post because previous Clerk Susana Mendoza gave the city office up to become the Illinois comptroller through 2018. She gained that post back in 2011 when then-Clerk Miguel del Valle ran unsuccessfully for mayor.

You literally have to go back to 2006 to find a non-Latino city clerk (it was James Laski, who had to resign following his criminal indictment and conviction),

Which put the pressure on Emanuel to appoint a replacement clerk with Latin American origins (del Valle was born in Puerto Rico and came to Chicago when he was 4, while Mendoza’s parents were immigrants from Mexico).

MENDOZA: Movin' on up from City Hall these days

OF COURSE, THERE also were those people with African-American origins who would have liked to have seen a black person put into another city-wide position. Although I doubt Emanuel would have had the nerve to take on the Latino community of Chicago (about one-quarter of the city’s population) in a political fight when he has so many other people to quarrel with.

Besides, there is city Treasurer Kurt Summers who is black, and it reinforces the idea of an ethnic/racial split of the city’s governmental power. Although I can’t help but chuckle at the confusion the old-school Irish of Chicago’s political culture feel about the notion of the “white” person (Emanuel as mayor) being represented by someone who is Jewish. And I also remember when the treasurer’s office was the one used by Miriam Santos, who was the first Latina official in Chicago city government back in the 1990s.

Insofar as Valencia is concerned, she was a city lobbyist, and also worked as a campaign manager for Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and for Reps. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Gary Peters, D-Mich. (now a senator, and NOT the one-time White Sox pitcher) with the Illinois Senate Democratic Victory Fund and for state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago.

She has worked in various posts at city, state and federal government, which is impressive. Particularly since she’s only 31 – the fact that truly catches my attention. She was a mere baby back in the days when I roamed around the city looking for news stories for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

EMANUEL: Playing by rules to keep power

BUT TIME DOES pass, and as Emanuel said himself, her youth means she’s the next generation of Chicago leadership rising through the ranks. Personally, I’m not quite ready to proclaim proclaim Valencia as the first Latina to become mayor (maybe around the 2035 election cycle?).

But it does amuse me to see how times change, while managing to incorporate some of the basic principles of maintaining political power to keep the peace.

Or else run the risk of having some trouble-making person with Republican political leanings from the Sauganash or Mount Greenwood neighborhoods from coming in and taking advantage of the resulting political dissent that could end the nearly 90-year streak of Democrats holding control of the mayor’s office.

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75 days, and counting ‘til Election Day

We’re into the new year, and as far as electoral politics is concerned it means we’re now not a long ways away from Election Day.

Just a matter of weeks until primaries in other states start taking place, and 75 days until our own state’s primary where we get to express our say as to who should be the one who gets to succeed Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

IT’S LIKELY THAT the number of people who will still be in the running will have declined by the time Illinois gets around to having a primary (and that the most significant local election in the eyes of our voters will be the Democratic primary for Cook County state’s attorney).

Which is a good thing. Because I have to confess that I don’t have a clue who I would support come Election Day. I know that other than viewing Donald Trump’s campaign as one for complete buffoons to back, I can’t say there’s anybody I could actually recommend for people to cast ballots for.

I must confess that my sister-in-law recently tried to stir up conversation with me by asking me what I think of Trump and who I would vote for.

I fear I gave her lame answers, and because I know she occasionally checks out this weblog, I’m hoping I do a better job of responding to her inquiries this time around.

THAT STRIKES ME as good a way to start out the new year as any other.

I know full well that calling Trump a buffoon isn’t going to do a thing to knock his popularity. The kind of people who are backing Trump are going to do so largely because they’re the bullies of old from the grade school who are upset that the real world came along and they got relegated to society’s dumping ground.

Trump creates a vision of a world where they can restore themselves to a place where they can dump all over everyone not exactly like themselves. Which is something that will never happen in reality.

Perhaps I’m actually an optimist. But I think the poll rankings that now have Trump atop a field of candidates is as good as he’ll ever get. Particularly since he’s counting on people to back him aren’t interested in the electoral process at all.

THEY COULD EASILY decide that turning out to vote isn’t worth their time. A whole lot of quirks could keep them out.

So I’m not really scared that Trump will get the Republican nomination for president. What actually scars me is the fact that I don’t have a clue whom I should support.

I couldn’t tell you which of the Republican dreamers are still in the running and which ones have dropped out. Nor could I tell you the names of every single person who wants to run for the Democratic nomination. I’d have to look them up. Although I suspect that most of them don’t have a serious chance of getting their dreams to come true, so looking up their names would be a waste of my time.

Besides, there’s nothing about any of them that makes me want to cast a ballot for any of them. The sentiment that causes some voters to think we need a “None of the above” option, although I realize that somebody has to win so such an option is a waste of time.

SO I HAVE to figure out a choice – and it could be someone of the Democratic persuasion. Although Bernie Sanders strikes me as someone who courts the support of people who are clueless about government and the electoral process. He’s the Paul Tsongas (remember his failed 1992 presidential bid) of 2016.

And there isn’t anything about Hillary Clinton now that also wasn’t a turn-off back in 2008 when she failed to beat Barack Obama. I’ll admit to realizing there are people in our society (including many of those Trump backers) who would be thoroughly repulsed by the thought of a “President Hillary.” That repulsion is something I would find amusing.

But is that really the reason why I want to vote for somebody for president – because some guy now wearing a “Make America great again” cap would be disgusted?

I think I’d be disgusted with myself if that’s the reason I wound up casting a ballot for Clinton come March 15!

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Presidential candidate packs looking ridiculously nondescript these days

I have to make a confession – I am a political writer who finds the upcoming election cycle for U.S. president to have the potential to be an absolute dud.

The upcoming presidential candidate field ...

Much has been made of the fact that the Republican field of presidential dreamers is overloaded with a pack of guys (and one woman, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina) who have strong enough flaws that a blowhard like Donald Trump actually has the lead in various polls.

THEN AGAIN, WHEN there are 17 candidates who have expressed interest, it doesn’t take much support to have the lead. It could easily turn out that the bulk of GOP voters turn against Trump – who may already have all the support he’s going to get.

But I don’t exactly think that Democrats have any wrap on the general election coming up in just under 15 months.

It may well be that one-time first lady and Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton gets the party’s nomination, only to have all the past negativity that existed toward the Clinton name (both her and former president Bill) come back to whack her.

Take her down and make it possible for a flawed Republican to win the general election.

I HONESTLY BELIEVE that Trump and his over-bloated ego are intense enough that he’s going to be an Election Day factor. I see him more as the independent campaign because he won’t want no stinkin’ political party telling him what he ought to do!

My bottom line is that I don’t have a clue as to who could win. Clinton for the Dems, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the GOP and Trump as the “none of the above” kind of candidate?

... has all the potential to be something  ...

It could happen. But who’s to say?

To me, the biggest question is the Democratic field. I find it intriguing that the two challengers with the strongest chance of beating Hillary are a pair of guys who aren’t even amongst the unofficial five candidates currently seeking the post.

IT IS ODD that the sitting Vice President isn’t among the five. Although I’m not sure Joe Biden is that strong a candidate. He ought to feel fortunate that the scandals of a couple of decades ago that damaged his political reputation seem to have been erased by him being Barack Obama’s “number two” guy.

And as for former Vice President Al Gore? He had his chance 15 years ago. Which is why I’m glad he’s not actively seeking the post.

Yet those two are bigger names and would draw stronger support than the other four Dems wishing to take on Clinton.

... only political geeks care about

I find the thought of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who campaigned in Chicago Monday night, to be intriguing – in the same way that Paul Tsongas (the former Massachusetts senator) was a curious sight for about five minutes before he faded away into obscurity.

AS FOR THE other Democrats – former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee – they may not be as strong as Sanders.

All of those “formers” included in their political descriptions make them sound like a batch of guys running for president because they have nothing better to do now. They need a job, and a place to live – both of which come along with the “presidential” title.

OBAMA: Not appreciated now

The only thing that may be as weak as the Republican candidate field is the Democratic one – maybe not as buffoonish, but still not the best of choices.

Which could well be the factual basis behind President Obama’s off-the-cuff comment from last month that he could “win a third term if I ran again.” More a sad commentary on the weak crop of candidates we have now; or evidence that we won’t appreciate Obama’s presidency until it is over and done with.

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Still early for mayoral debates, forums don’t matter much at this point in cycle

There are those people who are trying to portray mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel as some sort of arrogant ass for refusing to participate in the various candidate forums that are starting to be held.

EMANUEL: Forums are Rahm-less



For his part, Emanuel has promised to partake in only one such event with his opponents – a debate that will be aired on WTTW-TV, although he has left open the possibility that he would cooperate with a couple of other candidate debates prior to the Feb. 22 elections.

I’M NOT NECESSARILY an Emanuel supporter (I honestly don’t know which of these clowns I would back on Election Day). But this is a case where I can’t help but think that Emanuel is being sensible.

The political people who are bashing Rahm about are trying to make these forums appear to be the equivalent of a debate – which is a significant event in the cycle of every campaign. They’re really not. They don’t matter as much, and there’s also the fact that it is still early for debate-type activity.

The head-to-head confrontations ought to be forthcoming in February, where the mis-statements, gaffes and bumbling rhetoric will have a chance to be fresh in everyone’s mind when they walk into the polling place to cast a ballot.

Anything that comes out of the forums that are being held this week is going to be so long forgotten by the time votes are cast.

IN FACT, I am surprised to hear so many of Emanuel’s opponents jumping onto the bandwagon of saying that Rahm won’t participate in a forum with them. It has become my rule of thumb in covering political campaigns that the ones that complain about debates/forums/whatever are the losers.

Does this mean that Emanuel’s opponents are the type of people who honestly believe in their own hearts that they can’t defeat Rahm? If that’s the case, then they had better hope that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners in its own hearings to be held this month finds a way to throw Emanuel off the ballot.

The issue of Rahm’s residency ultimately will be resolved by the courts. But it would mean that the court fight would be one of Emanuel trying to restore himself to the ballot, rather than Emanuel critics trying to find a way to give him the boot – when the elections board already refused to do so.

The simple fact I have encountered in covering court fights over elections board activities throughout the years is that judges generally respect the rulings of elections boards. There will have to be an egregious error committed to get an Illinois appeals court panel to seriously think of overruling them.

I HAVE STUMBLED across some arguments from political observers, claiming that Emanuel’s activity with regards to candidate forums is not only arrogant, but disrespectful to Chicago political tradition.

They argue that the forums may be stupid and pointless, but they are a part of the local political process and that the candidates should acknowledge them if they want to be taken seriously as legitimate candidates.

Anybody who seriously pays attention to the city’s political process knows that is nonsense.

If anything, too many Chicagoans show their respect to the officials who have a touch of arrogance to them. Emanuel’s refusal to get involved in every single forum that crops up during the next two-and-a-half months won’t be seen as any different than Mayor Richard M. Daley’s refusal to acknowledge his opposition during any of his own campaigns. Yes, I do believe that had Daley chosen to run, he would have won – regardless of those polls that show we may not like the man as much as we used to.

I’D ARGUE THAT for every single person who publicly says they see this particular election cycle as a chance to get someone less autocratic working on the Fifth Floor of City Hall, there probably are a half dozen who are silently assessing the candidate field to figure out which of the candidates would be most “like” Daley the younger.

If people like Gery Chico, James Meeks and Carol Moseley-Braun, to name just a few of the mayoral hopefuls, want to spend their time taking each other on, they ought to be free to do so. Because the mode of this particular election cycle, sadly enough, has become one where we’re trying to see which candidate makes it into the April 5 run-off election against Emanuel. I doubt anyone who is taking the forums seriously (which pretty much means only the groups that are staging them) cares what Emanuel would say.

I don’t think skipping out on these forums now will mean much, particularly since all the election cycle attention is on Emanuel for his residency status.

Everything else is of less significance. Everyone else might as well be irrelevant.

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92 days, and counting, until Election Day

To me, the final day of the time period for filing nominating petitions is always more interesting than the first day.

Admittedly, that first day always sees a mad rush of potential candidates or their aides (the would-be politicos wouldn’t want to risk catching a cold) waiting at the Elections Board office when it first opens that Monday morning – all in hopes of getting that first spot on the ballot.

THE DAYS IN between (which this time consisted of all of last week) usually attract the fringe candidates who didn’t get their nominating petitions in order by Monday morning.

So the fact that fringe mayoral candidates Tyrone Carter and Jay Stone filed on Tuesday and Thursday of last week ought to be reason enough to discount their chances (that, and the fact that Stone's petitions didn't even come close to the minimal support required to survive an electoral challenge). Even fringe candidate M. Tricia Lee managed to be ready to file for her spot on the Feb. 22 ballot by first thing Monday morning.

But it is that last day, which this year occurs today, that has the potential for intrigue.

Because there is always a serious candidate who decides to play the game of wanting to have his name appear last on the list of candidates running for a particular office. This year, it is the mayoral bid of Rev./state Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, who is trying that gambit.

THE REVEREND COULD make a big splash IF he were to show up just before the Chicago Board of Elections offices were to close, and file his nominating petitions at the last possible second. But what if someone were to get stuck in traffic, and the reverend’s people were to show up just seconds after the office door were locked?

The death of a credible campaign on a fluke? It could happen.

Monday is the final day to file the nominating petitions that let someone run for the right to be the Big Man (or Woman) who walks these halls.



Or what if the reverend’s people show up late in the day and file, only to have someone else manage to slip in at the (literal) last minute to file their own nominating petitions for a ballot slot to run for mayor?

When I look at the list of nine people who as of the weekend had filed their nominating petitions to get on the mayoral ballot, I first notice the absence of the name Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins. She’s the woman who caught my Election Night attention earlier this month by having her radio campaign spots run over and over and over again on WBBM-AM radio, making themselves prominent among all the reports of Mark Kirk’s narrow victory for U.S. Senate, or Pat Quinn’s even closer win for Illinois governor.

I DON’T KNOW definitively what Van Pelt-Watkins is planning to do. Maybe she has given up. Or she may file those petitions and get herself a ballot slot. Could this be a race between the CEO and the pastor to see who can come in last?

And what about that guy who’s living in mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel’s house, is refusing to move out, and a couple of weeks ago tossed out hints that he may run his own campaign for mayor?

If he’s serious about that notion, he has to get those petitions in today – or else he’s as full of hot air as any other political dreamer.

I’m sure some people will be doing a body-watch for him to show up with nominating petitions, although I have to admit to not having too much interest in whether or not he runs.

IF HE DOES manage to get on the ballot, it would be just another fringe candidate on the mayoral ballot. We have enough of those (I’m sorry that I can’t take Stone’s mayoral bid more seriously, because not even his alderman father plans to support him), and I don’t think we need many more.

If there is a real story to that guy’s presence (I’m deliberately not naming him because I don’t want to publicize his ego any more than necessary), it would be to find out who put the idea of a mayoral bid into his head to begin with.

Just as I believe one story we reporter-types should be pursuing related to this mayoral campaign is to find out who is paying the bills that are accumulating related to the attempt to get the courts to knock Emanuel off the ballot on the grounds that he has not (according to the letter of the law) been a Chicago resident for a current-enough period to qualify for a political campaign this election cycle.

Thus far, we have heard about how attorney Burt Odelson and his legal colleague James Nally are handling this particular effort (claiming Emanuel gave up his Chicago residency when he went off to Washington to be President Barack Obama’s chief of staff for 20 months).

PROFESSIONALLY, I RESPECT the legal skills and the work of Odelson – who I have watched for just over two decades. He is an expert at election law, and he is good at getting things done for his clients.

But whose client is he in handling this particular case? I can’t envision he’s taking on this case pro bono just for his own curiosity, although I have heard him identified in recent weeks as being an “adviser” to Meeks’ campaign.

Who is paying the legal expenses for Odelson to work his hardest to knock off Emanuel, and what are the partisan leanings of those particular individuals?

In my mind, I can’t figure if it is just some conservative partisan who dreads the idea of Rahm-bo continuing to be politically relevant (the ideologues would want Emanuel to be unemployed and living on food stamps, so they could then label him a welfare cheat)?

OR ARE WE talking about someone who wants to clear the path for another of the mayoral hopefuls? Does the reverend want Emanuel out of the way so that this becomes the all-African-American political battle?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. I must admit to being more curious about learning those facts, rather than listening to the rhetorical nonsense that we’re going to hear in coming weeks from all the candidates as they try to convince us they deserve the chance to be the person who has to take the blame for being unable to resolve the fiscal mess that confronts city government these days.

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I need to turn off the TV!

This election cycle is delving to a level of trash and triviality, and I don’t mean the soon-to-be complete cycle of debates (where Gov. Pat Quinn gave us a fortune cookie-like line when he said, “99 percent of life is showing up”).

I’m talking about all those campaign ads that pop up in bunches – one right after the other – on our local television, giving the candidates a chance to tout themselves and smack each other, while also letting the partisan committees in Washington come up with statements that would be downright slanderous any other time of the year.

SOME OF YOU, I’m sure, are shaking your head and wondering to yourselves, “Where have you been?” I know that campaign ads are as inaccurate as libel laws permit – the tiny nugget of truth is very well buried under a message of slime.

It’s just that I had an experience earlier this week that reinforced the tackiness level of such advertising – I was stuck in a doctor’s office.

In my case, my mother had a medical appointment and needed a ride to her doctor out in southwest suburban Alsip. Which means that for the two hours I was stuck in the waiting room, I had a choice of paying attention to the waiting-room television set, or reading the months-old magazines sitting in a basket.

Which means I FINALLY got around to reading in-full Time magazine’s weeks-old piece about the growth of militias who are preparing for the day when an Obama-like president will try to thoroughly subvert their vision of what this country should be about.

BUT THAT ONLY lasted so long, which means my attention eventually had to swing up to the television set, which was tuned to WGN-TV and their morning programming line-up (Regis & Kelly, Rachael Ray, etc.).

During the commercial breaks, we got the overload of campaign advertising – minutes-long spurts of campaign after campaign taking their best pot-shots at the opposition.

I was reduced to the level of being the crazy person talking back to the television screen at the points when I knew the factual background behind the “charges” and exactly how much of a distortion (such as trying to say that GOP gubernatorial hopeful William Brady is some sort of tax deadbeat or cheat because he went a couple of years without owing any federal taxes) the candidates were trying to push off on the electorate.

I’m sure there is a receptionist who thinks I have “lost it.” Fortunately for me, she was polite enough not to call me out on my behavior.

SOMETIMES, MY PROBLEM is that the images are just too goofy for anyone to take any message seriously. Such as the ad depicting Democratic congressional hopeful Dan Seals as a bobbing-head doll, bopping along in perfect unison with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

I’m not aware that the two are particularly close, unless one wants to buy the logic that every member of the Democratic caucus is somehow Pelosi’s servant – existing solely to take orders from “her Royal highness” herself.

Then, there seems to be some disagreement among the candidates as to how to attack specific individuals. Take Alexi Giannoulias, the current Illinois treasurer who wants to be the new U.S. Senate member from Illinois.

I saw him get smacked in two consecutive ads – one by Republican Senate opponent Mark Kirk and another by GOP state Treasurer hopeful Dan Rutherford – because of the fact that the program overseen by the treasurer’s office to help parents pay for their children’s future college educations lost money under his watch.

KIRK TELLS US that “your kids’ college funds were lost by Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias,” while Rutherford tells us that he would do better than the “state college fund lost by the treasurer’s office.”

Only Kirk, who’s taking on Giannoulias, pinned the level of financial loss at $73 million, while Rutherford put the loss at $150 million.

I’m sure that both of these clowns could come up with a line of logic that backs up their particular figure. But the juxtaposition of these two spots made me wonder why these two politicos – who theoretically are partisan allies – couldn’t compare notes and pick a dollar figure.

Because I doubt that I’m the only one who saw those two spots, noted the contradiction, and made a mental conclusion that maybe neither one of these people knows what they’re talking about.

NOT THAT ALL the rancid rhetoric came from Republican political people. I got several viewings of the Quinn ad that claims Brady, “a millionaire” doesn’t pay federal taxes. It’s true, because his construction company did so poorly in recent years that the tax write-offs he is legally entitled to take wiped out any tax obligation he would have had.

I’ll give Brady the benefit of the doubt in assuming that if he had his choice, he’d rather have a thriving company and pay personal taxes, rather than have to rely on write-offs.

But it does seem that the bulk of the rhetoric is coming from the GOP side of the aisle – such as the spot that has a narrator asking Giannoulias countless questions, the answer to all of them being Giannoulias’ voice saying, “We need an income tax increase.”

The fact that it was recorded with a particularly cheap machine means that the voice has a particularly creepy tone to it, which I’m sure is what the GOP political operatives who put the spot together particularly enjoy about it.

IN FACT, I have to confess that only one candidate truly stood out in my mind based on this advertising spurt – Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

I got to see the same spot three times in a two-hour period detailing the accomplishments of Madigan as head of state government’s legal department. Those images of schoolchildren aplenty, and not one mention of her Election Day opponent.

In a broadcast sea of sludge, Madigan was downright refreshing, and I’m all the more glad I cast my ballot for her when I voted earlier this week. It’s too bad other campaigns couldn’t follow her lead.

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