EXTRA: Electoral apathy?

A lawn sign I encountered while traipsing through the Beverly neighborhood Wednesday afternoon.

Picking nobody for president

Apparently, I'm not alone in the apathy I initially felt for all the candidates seeking the presidency in this year's election cycle. Although it seems that my ability to find some level by which I can support Hillary Clinton's candidacy is something that some people can't come to.

IT MAKES ME wonder how many of these people will be amongst the great apathetic who just won't bother to turn out to vote. Which could have the affect of resulting in the electoral victory of the candidate who likely most appalls you.

Just think if having people sit out this election cycle actually makes the great outspoken masses who adore Donald Trump no matter how piggish his behavior can be into a large-enough group that can actually win the election come Nov. 8.

Or if it just encourages the level of apathy that a growing number of our society winds up feeling toward electoral politics.

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No strike for Chicago school teachers! No pennant (not yet) for the Cubs

Believe it or not, something positive was happening in the early hours of Tuesday – even though I’m sure that segment of our city’s society determined to root for the Chicago Cubs thinks it was a miserable time.
 

LEWIS: Reached a late-night deal w/ schools

The Chicago Teachers Union was actually reaching an agreement with the Chicago Public Schools toward a new contract for public school faculty.

TUESDAY HAD BEEN the strike date previously set, meaning there was a good chance that this would have been the day in which we’d have to endure the sight of teachers walking the picket line, union President Karen Lewis taking the name of Rahm Emanuel in vain, and parents trying to figure out what to do with their kids while they go to work.

Which I’m sure would have added to the sense of depression that the Cubs-fan segment of our city would have felt; after seeing the would-be heroics of Jake Arietta and Kris Bryant erased in what became a 6-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants that meant the Cubs would have to wait a day or two before seeing if they advance in the National League playoffs.

It really was a surprise moment – the teachers deciding not to take to the picket lines, that is. I had braced myself for the thought of outraged labor rhetoric to be spewed in coming days as long-lasting tensions would come pouring out.

Heck, it was around 10 p.m. that Lewis was making public statements saying we should expect the worst to happen. Only for the decision to be made about Midnight that the sides were close enough that there would be no need for picket lines – or a strike.

OF COURSE, UNION officials made it be known that the agreement was merely a “tentative” one, meaning that things could still fall apart.

“A tentative agreement is not a final contract,” union officials said in a midnight statement. “Every active member of the Chicago Teachers Union will have an opportunity to review and vote on the agreement before a contract is ratified.”

 

EMANUEL: Mayor spared aggravation

It wasn’t sure when the union’s House of Delegates, then the full union, would take the votes that would formally approve a contract on their part.

But it ought to give us a sigh of relief that we’re not going to have to endure the rigors of a teachers’ strike in Chicago – which would have caused so many frayed tempers and I’m sure would have given pleasure to no one.

EXCEPT MAYBE DONALD Trump, who would have gleefully used it as a rhetorical excuse to bash us about some more. Heck, it’s not like anyone here was going to vote for the goober. What does he have to lose?

For the record, the agreement is for a four-year contract, meaning that Emanuel will be able to get through the rest of his current mayoral term without having labor strife from the teachers’ union. He can focus on all the other entities that want to demean him for their own various reasons.

The offer includes cost-of-living increases of 2 percent and 2.5 percent in the two final years of the deal, and does not require teachers to pay a larger share to cover the cost of their eventual pensions. Although people hired to teach in the Chicago Public Schools in the future will have to pay a larger share of their pensions. Which I’m sure they view as a problem to deal with in the future, so long as the current faculty are protected.

Money to cover the cost of the slight pay raise and pension expenses will come from tax increment finance district funds made available by the city, which Cook County Clerk David Orr said was "a short-term fix" and that, "City Hall continues to dodge a fundamental problem with TIFs."

FOR HIS PART, Emanuel acted pleased, particularly by the fact he won’t have all those p-o’ed parents to deal with. “Students across Chicago will be in school this morning and on the path to a stronger and brighter future,” the mayor told reporter-types Tuesday morning at City Hall.

 

The source of Wrigleyville's aggravation Tuesday

That part about “stronger and brighter” might be a touch of exaggeration. But I don’t doubt the sincerity of pleasure at not having the Chicago schools in the national attention because of a teachers’ strike.

Who knows? It may even turn out that not having to deal with a strike will help some of those Cubs fan-types of people deal with the fact their favorite ball club didn’t clinch its spot Monday in the next round of the National League playoffs – even though they jumped out to an early lead with that Arietta home run.

And now, the schoolchildren of Chicago will be able to discuss Monday night’s victory in the schoolyards of the city – that is, if they were even capable of staying up that late on a school night, just to watch a ball game.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully, by now you've figured out where to find Channel FS1. Otherwise known as Fox Sports on your cable television lineup. And if you haven't keep in mind that maybe you're being spared much anguish watching ballgames like the one Monday night.

Did Ryan really save his caucus, or dig GOP deeper into doo-doo than before?

Much is being made of the endless list of politicos who feel compelled to say they don’t really back Donald Trump for president; no matter how strongly they may have previously endorsed him.

RYAN: Did he help Grand OI' Party?

In fact, some of the strongest rhetoric has been tied to the name of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Minn., who says he’s so offended by what Trump has said about the fairer sex (even if it was supposed to be in private, and many years ago) that he won’t defend him.

RYAN SAYS HIS focus for the final four weeks leading up to Election Day is to work to ensure that Trump's presence on the Republican ballot won't wind up taking down to defeat other GOP candidates seeking Congressional seats.

Because just envision the conservative ideologue’s worst nightmare – both the Senate and House of Representatives develop Democratic majorities under a “President Hillary R. Clinton.” Which, in theory, start acting in partisan ways to shove so many so-called repulsive issues up their partisan behind.

Which actually is a myth. Largely because urban and rural Democrats have never been able to work in unison on issues the way that Republicans can. Just remember the brief times when both presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had Congresses that theoretically were aligned with them.

A whole lotta nothin’ went on, and both of those presidents wound up spending the bulk of their time with Republican-controlled Congresses that were openly hostile toward presidential interests.

BUT BACK TO Ryan, who says he fears Trump’s misogyny is now such a threat that it can’t be ignored. Not that he or other Republicans really are offended by Trump’s thoughts on gender issues. It’s more a matter of they’re upset he doesn’t understand the subtle way of expressing oneself without putting one’s foot in their mouth.

 

Speaking truth? Or his mamma didn't teach him manners?

I once remember a reporter-type colleague who, although working in Chicago, hailed from Georgia, who tried explaining to me a difference of perception on racial matters. Telling me that with regards to a certain “n----r” word, “It’s rude. Even if they think it, only the lowest form of white trash says that in public.”

Does that mean Trump is just lacking in manners; in the ways of behaving when amongst civilized company? If he had piped down what he thought of women, he’d be fine?

But the fact is that some people are, in a sense, rude. A large part of why they’re attracted to the Trump campaign no matter now stupid he sounds is because they sense he doesn’t hold it against them the way they really think.

SO THE FACT that the initial polls didn’t show any large drop of support for Trump even after we learned where he believes women should be grabbed to gain their attention?

There probably will be people who will take Ryan’s attitude as further evidence of how out-of-touch political people are! Which is the part about our society that scares me – the segment of those who equate having manners with so-called political correctness.

It means that when I do my own review of the Election Day facts and figures following Nov. 8 (and yes, I realize there are many people who only want to know “yes” or “no” as to whether their preferred presidential candidate won the election), I’m going to be checking many of these Congressional candidates.

How well did they do? How many of them got taken down? How many of them only got re-elected by the skin of their teeth? How many of them will feel the need to make post-Electoral mea culpas for their attitudes being expressed now?

 

CLINTON: Has she really won?!?

IN SHORT, HOW much of a change in the way our most narrow-minded in our society did Donald Trump’s existence as a presidential candidate wind up creating? How much “cover” did he create for them to think their thoughts – which usually focus on trying to keep everybody unlike themselves in check.

Ryan and other political people may want to view Trump as the aberration who will fade away (remember Michael Dukakis?!?) into forgottonia.

But it may be the lasting after-effect that we’ll have to devote generations to trying to fight off.

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EXTRA: Baseball history may be made elsewhere other than Land of Wrigley

For those of you who are absolutely convinced that it has to be the Chicago Cubs winning a championship this year – that there’s no way that fate and the cosmos could possibly permit any other outcome – here’s a grasp on reality.

Will it be Cleveland that gets to add a championship banner to its collection?

There were two other playoff games held Monday, with the Washington Nationals managing a victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers that puts them but one win away from advancing to the next round of National League playoffs – and closer to the first World Series appearance by a D.C. ball club in 83 seasons.
 

A World Series hero after leaving Chicago

LET ALONE THE only victory for a Washington team since 1924.

They’re not even alone in the trying-to-make-history category!

Because at about the same time that the Cubs were taking on the San Francisco Giants in the first inning of what they hope is the final game of this round of playoffs, the Cleveland Indians were managing to pull off the final inning of their 4-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox.

Thereby clinching this round of playoffs for the Indians; who haven’t had a World Series title since 1948. We don’t have to have a Chicago Cubs team in the World Series for it to have historic overtones this season.

Hall of Fame-bound, but first a World Series 'goat'

AND AT THE very least, the Red Sox’ defeat ensures we won’t get the Fenway/Wrigley ballpark series that some baseball fans fantasize about way too much for it to be healthy.

Of course, none of this is at all set in stone. A Washington team would have to get past the Cubs to advance, and the Indians will have to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in order to win an American League championship.

Maybe we’re not even meant to have anything historic about this year. Maybe we’re destined for a Toronto/Los Angeles World Series.

A baseball brawl between ball clubs that think they’re long-suffering because they haven’t won a World Series since 1993 and 1988 respectively. The series that allowed Joe Carter and Kirk Gibson their moments of baseball immortality.

Will Capitol Hill scene get to celebrate a local championship in '16?

THEY’RE ALSO ONES that cause their own twinges of grief when viewed by Chicago baseball fans. For Carter was once a Cub whom some fans are convinced team should never have traded away. While Gibson’s home run came off former Cubs pitcher Dennis Eckersley.

Besides, any White Sox fan with sense knows that if there were really any sense of justice in the world of baseball, that ’93 American League pennant would have been flying over New Comiskey Park all these years instead of inside Skydome.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Cubs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead as of when this commentary was written. Whether they’ll be able to hold it, or blow it and have to return for another game Tuesday in San Francisco will be seen.

Hurricane ‘Donald’ whomps ‘Matthew’ out of the public eye. Will he knock GOP out of Election Day as well?

“Matthew” blowing along the southeast Atlantic and wrecking havoc wherever he went could have been the talk of the nation this weekend. Instead, we got “Donald” showing us that his garish behavior goes on and on and on.

 

TRUMP: Probably thinks he's being picked on

I’m referring, of course, to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, whom anybody who was paying attention throughout the years knew he treated women like toys to be played with. But we now have tapes showing us just how crudely he behaved. He makes Hugh Hefner seem like a sophisticated, refined gentleman.

CLINTON: How will she play this issue?

THE TRUMP WHO comes through on tape – talking about how he grabs a woman’s most private parts and kisses them anytime he wants because they all want him – is not only an egomaniac, but also a pig. As in the kind of guy who thinks women exist solely to service him.

And they’d better be blonde with big jugs (or otherwise be in the running for the Miss U.S.A. pageant that Trump owns), or else The Donald will deem them unworthy of existence and treat them as objects of ridicule. Perhaps the proper penalty is some sort of court order banning Trump from the pageant premises in the future.

Anybody who had been paying attention to the gauche public persona that Trump has portrayed during his time in the public eye already knew he was on Wife Number Three, in addition to many female flings in his younger years.

We’re now being told tales of Trump’s boorish and grotesque behavior (seriously does anybody else behave this way?) that the GOP politicos and other operatives are fighting their way to be at the head of the line of officials now eager to say they don’t back his presidential bid.

OF COURSE, IT won’t change his standing amongst the element of our society that was the only reason Trump had a credible campaign to begin with. The “basket of deplorables” probably think that Trump is merely a “man’s man,” and it is the reason a Morning Consult tracking poll showed Trump dropping only from 39 percent support to 38 percent.

'Matthew' has 16 U.S. casualties before going out to sea; 'Donald' has 29 more days

With Democrat Hillary Clinton leading by 42 percent. Big surprise, the people to whom this election cycle is all about dumping all over “that hag Hillary” aren’t going to let anything change their mindset.

What is important to realize is how small that segment of the electorate truly is – even though they shout so loud to try to make us believe they’re really a majority.

The odd part of this tale coming out is that I have no doubt that Trump, in his own fantasy way of viewing life, probably thinks he’s supposed to be the one making the allegations – putting the pressure on Clinton to defend the fact that her own husband has a history of adulterous behavior.

INSTEAD, IT WAS Melania Trump who felt compelled to issue the statement this weekend saying she finds his behavior “unacceptable and offensive,” yet also finds it within her heart to forgive him.

Which is a factor I will consider in making up my own mind about this predicament – largely because I think the real victim in such cases is the spouse who has to deal with the trash becoming public. If she doesn’t want to publicly penalize him, that’s her prerogative and we should respect that.

Soon to be popular?

Just as I used to sarcastically joke that if Hillary wanted to take a Sammy Sosa model Louisville Slugger upside her husband’s head after his behavior, we should stand back and let her. Instead, she managed to find it within herself to move ahead in life – making those people who can’t move on with regards to Bill Clinton all the more pathetic.

I suspect that in Trump’s mind, the outrageous part of these disclosures about his behavior is that he now cannot credibly say or do anything negative about the Clintons. It will get thrown back in his face.

ALTHOUGH IT WASN’T a secret. Trump has always maintained a public persona (because he thinks we all inherently care about him), and the failure of his other marriages was known.

Will Bill get the last laugh?

Particularly that of his first wife (and mother of three of his kids) Ivana. Any Republican who now argues that they can’t support Trump because of the way he treats women is full of it – you knew all along, yet chose to ignore it because you hoped he could pull off an electoral victory that you could leech off of for partisan political reasons.

They’re almost repulsive and absurd as the political operatives who tried using the line of logic that Trump was registered as a Democrat back when he made such remarks.

And we can now speculate as to whether Hurricane Donald will do more damage to the Republican Party and its Election Day chances than Hurricane Matthew managed to do down in Florida and up to the Carolinas.

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How many got confused trying to find Cubs Friday night on television?

A part of me felt sorry for my step-grandmother, who had her plans to park herself in front of a television set Friday night and watch for herself if the Chicago Cubs were capable of actually winning a playoff ballgame.
 

How many Cubs fans nearly soiled themselves?

For she literally got caught up in the confusion of trying to figure out which of those high-numbered television stations she never pays attention to was the Fox Sports channel that was actually carrying the ballgame.

I’M NOT SURE if she ever managed to figure out the channel number (where I was based, it was channel 652). Although I wonder if the pitchers’ duel would have been so stressful that she was better off not seeing it.

For the record, the Cubs managed to get a 1-0 victory. Two more wins against the San Francisco Giants, and the Cubs will manage to advance to the next round of the playoffs – which would mean they would have accomplished as much as they did last year.

Now I’ve made it clear before I’m not rooting for the Cubs to win a thing. I’m an American League fan, and my interest is in seeing which ball club there manages to win the league championship – then go on to the World Series to beat up on the National League chump.

If it’s the Cubs, that’s cute. If it’s not, it won’t matter much.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit to feeling a bit of compassion for Cubs fan-types who I’m sure felt a second of agony; what with the way Buster Posey came oh so close to hitting a game-tying home run for the Giants with two out in the ninth inning.

Valparaiso, Ind. native to pitch against Cubs on Sat.

You have to admit it would be so Chicago Cub-ish for the baby blue bears to lead their fans so close to victory, only to have it pulled away.

But the Cubs managed to win, giving them a jump toward trying to win their first National League championship in 71 years.

Which ought to be the target the team focuses on at this point. Win the league championship, then worry about which American League powerhouse you’d have to face come the World Series.

I’LL BE HONEST. A part of me thinks the multiple rounds of playoffs we now have is so excessive – and not just because it results in ballgames being broadcast on obscure channels that most of us never knew we had access to.

I long for the days when the regular season’s best ball clubs went straight to the World Series. Heck, even Cubs fans ought to wish that was the way things remained today.

For if they were, the World Series would be a facedown between the Texas Rangers and the Chicago Cubs – which would contain a certain amount of irony considering that when the Chicago White Sox back in 2005 made the first World Series appearance by a Chicago team in 46 seasons, they played against the Houston Astros.

Another Chicagoan vs. Texan matchup would be intriguing. Although considering that the Rangers managed to lose a second playoff game Friday to the Toronto Blue Jays. One more loss – which could come as soon as Sunday – and the “best team” in the American League will be outta dere!

AND AS FOR those people who are fantasizing about the all-decrepit ballpark World Series between the Cubs and the Boston Red Sox? I’m sure New Englanders are hoping that Fenway Park creates some sense of magic, or else they’re only one more loss away from letting the Cleveland Indians advance.

 

"Big Hurt" giving us his baseball insights on FS1

What happens if this becomes the year that Cleveland wins its first World Series in nearly 60 years, or if the Washington Nationals wind up bringing capital city baseball fans their first World Series victory since 1924?

Cubs fans may want to believe they hold a monopoly on losing. But what happens if nobody manages to break a losing streak this year?

It would be the cruelest possible cosmic joke if the Giants manage to rebound and go all the way to win the World Series – adding to their victories of 2010, ’12 and ’14. Which would mean we’d all be better if we can’t find the games on television, even though it means we’d miss seeing one-time Chicago White Sox star Frank Thomas offering his baseball analysis to the broadcast; such as telling us that Cubs fans will become so unbearable if the Cubs actually win that he'll have to spend his winter at his Las Vegas home.

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Will Latino vote be our savior and devastate Trump camp come Nov. 8?

I’m not surprised by the tidbit from this week’s vice presidential debate that had Republican running mate Mike Pence trying to dismiss his Democratic opponent Tim Kaine’s repeated criticism of GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s attitudes toward Mexico as “that Mexican thing.”
 

PENCE: Wants us to back off 'Mexican thing'

As in wanting us all to think that Trump’s comments aren’t significant, and that we should disregard what may well be the most outrageous views put forth by the New York real estate developer as he tries to become our nation’s president.

A PART OF me knows we shouldn’t take Trump too seriously with regards to his comments about Mexicans now living in this country being “rapists” and “drug dealers,” along with the idea of a federal court judge from Indiana not being fair to him in a lawsuit because the judge is of Mexican ethnic descent.

The part of me that thinks of electoral politics in a purely strategic manner knows this is something that Trump said to catch the attention of the segment of the nativists and xenophobes in our electorate who he thinks can put him over the top come Election Day.

Trump may not have as irrational a hang-up with regards to Mexicans, or Latinos in general, as his rhetoric would indicate. He may even think more highly of us than he does of fat chicks, or any other group that he has chosen to demonize. Who's to say which of Trump's nonsense-statements ought to be taken seriously?

In short, we’re the political punching bag being used so that Trump can get the support of the would-be voters whom Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has dismissed as the “basket of deplorables.”

WHICH MAKES THE significance of the 2016 electoral cycle that we determine whether such tactics can continue to work in our ever-evolving society.

 

A key factor come Nov. 8?

There once would have been a time when it would have appeared to be common-sense political science strategy to single out Latino voters – they didn’t vote in large-enough numbers enough to matter.

Which brings up the comparisons to George Wallace, the Alabama governor of old who made his own presidential bids trying to get the votes of those people who yearned to keep the segregated way of life in this country.

How else to interpret, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

 

Too many similarities between Wallace and Trump

WALLACE LATER IN life said of his own racially-charged rhetoric that it was a lesson he learned early in politics when he lost a campaign because his opponent tagged him with a label of being too friendly to black people.

As Wallace put it, his offensive rhetoric was because, “I will never be out-niggered again.” Does Trump think he won’t be “out-beaner’ed” this time around and thinks there are enough votes of people who’d encourage such thought?

The reality is that those kind of people often do live in such isolation, and really want to believe they’re the only ones that matter. Which means a Hillary Clinton presidential victory could be an earth-shattering event to their mentality; with some of them, I’m sure, still trying to recover from the shock of the past year years of having a president with too much melanin for their sensibilities.

Then again, it does mean that as much as Trump thinks he has hard-core supporters, he also has outraged enemies.

PARTICULARLY FROM THE Latino vote, which the Miami-based Latino Decisions group has said will be nearly insignificant for Trump. They said Thursday his Latino support will be somewhere between 9.5 percent and 20.5 percent, with next to no Latinos bothering with Libertarian or Green candidates.

Not just Madonna's kid breaking a piñata

Which means Hillary gains Latino votes – largely because we find the GOP opponent to be too much of un pavo to take seriously, except perhaps as part of a Thanksgiving Day dinner. Which may be the way we celebrate a Trump defeat and being spared the misery of such an egomaniac gaining electoral office.

The study says Clinton could very well take more than 72 percent of the Latino vote – which is what her husband, Bill, took in 1996. Or the 71 percent that Barack Obama received in 2012. Actually, 76 percent to 82 percent is figured most likely. Many Latino activist-types may wind up being praised for saving us from xenophobes shoving a Trump presidency down our throats – even if it means backing the woman who aroused our laughter when she absurdly tried comparing herself to a Latina grandma.

If only Trump could have kept his mouth shut about Mexicans, perhaps he might have had a chance. But then again, an ego-less, non-arrogant Trump would be about as real a concept as the 2016 World Series champion New York Mets.

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