Political people all ‘talk’ these days about Connecticut. But will they learn?

One of many at half-staff

I’m having a hard time getting all worked up over the tragedy that occurred last week in Newtown, Conn.

Honestly. I hear all the political people at every conceivable level of government going out of their way to make statements about how horrific it is to have in excess of two dozen people (most of them young children) dead, and my initial reaction in every case is to think that the political people are being shameless in their efforts to gain themselves some favorable attention.

SOME MAY TAKE comfort in the idea that a government official who lives nowhere near Connecticut and has no votes to gain from the locals whose lives are directly impacted by the actions at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

But I see it as tacky, if not overkill.

A part of me wants to tell every politician who feels the need to build up their good will by drawing attention to the suffering of others to “stifle” themselves. Who said the “Archie Bunker” character didn’t have some redeeming value?

I’ve seen so many flags flown at half-staff, sat through several “moments of silence” prior to government board meetings, and heard several of the candidates wishing to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress make their own appeals to remember the deceased in Connecticut.

I EVEN HEARD a clergy member start off a Cook County Board meeting this week with a reference to the Dec. 14 tragedy. “Today, we pray that we never see a day like last Friday,” said Monsignor Dan Mayall of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral.

I fully agree. I hope we never see such a day again, as well. Then again, I’m honest enough to realize we probably will.

To the point where the name “Sandy Hook” is going to recede in our collective memories as a label that we know bears some significance – something “bad” happened there.

But we’ll probably have to look it up to retain the specifics. Just like “Aurora, Colo.,” “Columbine High School,” and “Hubbard Woods Elementary School.”

I THREW THAT last label in on purpose.

DANN: Too many similarities

Because it was at the school in suburban Winnetka that my mind initially revisited when I first heard last week of what happened in Connecticut.

For back in 1988, that was the school entered by Laurie Dann, a nice, sweet Jewish girl from the North Shore suburbs who – it turns out – was mentally unstable.

Her problems, however, were overlooked, and her actions rose to the point of entering that school building, walking into a second grade classroom and firing her weapons.

LATER IN THE day, she shot at another man she encountered, before she ultimately shot herself to death. Although her “reign” continued for days as packages started arriving at various places, loaded with edibles that had been laced with arsenic or other poisons – all put in the mail by Dann.

Laurie’s mindset on that fateful day (I was a reporter-type for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago that day) was bent on a killing spree on so many fronts. Perhaps we should feel fortunately that she failed so badly.

I know some people are going to try to claim that these incidents have nothing in common.

Laurie only killed one student (while wounding about a half-dozen others), while in Connecticut, the body count of children is 20!

BUT THE SPIRIT is the same – a person with alleged mental instabilities walking into a school with firearms and deciding that children whom s/he had no personal tie to were somehow worthy targets.

The fact that Adam Lanza appears to have had access to a larger arsenal of weapons than Laurie Dann did doesn’t really make it any different. That is just quibbling over details.

Listening to political people try to speak about the issue in recent days has caused me to hear many officials talk about the need for greater restrictions on people with potential mental problems.

Particularly when it comes to their ability to obtain a firearm legally.

YET I RECALL the exact same talk occurring in the months following Dann.

Maybe I’m getting old. But it seems like all the handwringing we went through 24 years ago is resurrecting itself these days. The cynic wonders if we learned nothing from what happened in suburban Winnetka – assuming, that is, there is anything we could learn that could prevent such tragic incidents from occurring.

Which makes it seem like all the political posturing might be well-meaning rhetoric, but ultimately all for naught. More evidence that "talk is cheap" when it comes from a government official.

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“Stealth” Daley? An “advisor?” Or just a guy who likes to sleep in his own bed

You ask the typical person about the name “Daley,” and you’re probably going to get a lot of cheap rhetoric about Richard.

Cook County Commissioner John Daley at "work" with his South Side county board colleagues. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 

The real old among us will go back to “J.” While the bulk of us will be more likely to think of “M.,” as in the son who actually wound up surpassing his father’s stint as longest-serving mayor by just over a year.

FOR THOSE OF us who like to think we’re a little more politically astute, we’ll probably bring up William – the Daley son (and brother) who has been a presidential cabinet member (under Bill Clinton) and chief of staff (under Barack Obama).

He even likes to talk periodically about how he’d like to run for governor – even though he never seems to have the will to actually put together a campaign and run for the post on Election Day.

It’s only the most hard-core of parochial political geeks who will bring up John.

Yet he was the one who was celebrated on Tuesday.

FOR JOHN DALEY is the political person who serves on the Cook County Board – representing the Southwest Side and some surrounding suburban portions. And now, he’s been in that position for 20 years.

The county board on Tuesday gave Daley the political equivalent of a “surprise party.” They put together a resolution praising him, and arranged for his family to be present – all without him knowing (although he admits he should have suspected something when he saw his wife and daughter leave the house early on Tuesday).

Which led them to give him an emotional shock, then partake in an endless round of “debate” that seemed to be a competition amongst county board members to see who could plant the biggest rhetorical smooch on the Daley cheek.

Personally, I got a kick out of Commissioner Larry Suffredin, of suburban Evanston, calling him the “stealth Daley.”

WHICH IS TRUE enough. His political brothers are the ones who tend to make it onto the front pages. Plus the fact that Cook County government often gets ignored when it comes to the public perception. Everybody seems more interested in what happens on the west side of the block-sized building that houses City Hall AND the county government.

But hanging on to a county board post for two decades (and presiding over the board’s finance committee for 18 of them) is a way to get familiar with the gritty details of how government works.

Where the bodies are buried, so to speak. Although I’m not implying that Daley has buried any of them.

Some got amusement from the irony of listening to Commissioner William Beavers (from the far Southeast Side and suburbs such as Calumet City), who faces criminal indictment these days on federal tax charges.

BEAVERS IS THE one who claims the only reason he’s being prosecuted is because he refused to wear a wiretap for federal investigators to gain evidence against John Daley himself.

On Tuesday, Beavers offered up a brief “congratulations” for enduring the “back and forth” of 20 years at the county building, to which Daley quipped back, “You always try to advise me.”

Personally when I regard the Daley political people, I realize that they’re hard-core Democratic Party types. But I have also realized that these aren’t flaming liberals – no matter what trash-talk the ideologues try to spew.

Which is why I thought it accurate of Commissioner Timothy Schneider of suburban Elk Grove Village to say, “Your left toe leans a little bit right. You always try to reach a compromise on issues.”

PERSONALLY, I FIRST dealt with Daley back at the beginning of my stint as a Statehouse reporter in Springfield – he was still in the Illinois state Senate representing the Bridgeport neighborhood and surrounding communities.

He admits his wife has enjoyed having him back in Chicago, rather than having to live part-time each year in the Illinois capital city.

Although that desire to be “back home” seems to be why John Daley has never sought the higher political offices that his brothers aspired to.

As Daley put it himself on Tuesday why he didn’t run for higher office, “I enjoy sleeping in my own bed.”

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Will gun control be the new “gay marriage” issue that divides us?

To watch the superficial evidence around us, along with assorted polls, the public is more accepting of the concept of gay couples being able to marry. Even those people who are appalled at the concept seem to be conceding – on some level – that the battle is lost and it eventually will become legally acceptable everywhere.

EMANUEL: The 'face' of gun control?

Which means we now need a new “issue” that divides us as a society and gets everybody all ticked off into a frenzy. A new dividing line that cannot be crossed!

AND I’M SUSPECTING that it’s going to be firearms and gun control.

I look at the situation in my home state of Illinois, which is the only state that tries to completely restrict the ability of people to carry firearms in public. Some other states have such harsh restrictions on who can get the permits letting themselves carry a firearm that they might as well just ban them like we do.

But the ideologues always like to claim Illinois is the exception. And now, they have a federal Appeals Court panel saying that Illinois’ restrictions are too harsh.

They have to go!

THE ILLINOIS GENERAL Assembly has six months to figure out a new law that will let people have permits allowing people to pack a pistol in a shoulder holster, or a purse, for their personal protection.

The firearms proponents are taking this as justification that they were right all along, and that Illinois is going to have to start doing away with its restrictive attitude – brought on largely by city officials in Chicago.

These NRA-types were the ones who were constantly demonizing former Mayor Richard M. Daley and weren’t the least bit sorry to see him go.

And I’m sure they’re equally appalled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Who is turning out to be equally hard-headed with regards to the issue.

HE’S MADE IT clear the city will cooperate with any effort by the state Attorney General’s office to appeal the Appeals Court ruling – even though Attorney General Lisa Madigan herself has been reluctant to say she would take such action.

And on Monday, Emanuel took aim (yes, it’s a tacky use of  cliché) at the NRA types. Speaking to the new graduating class of the Police Academy, Emanuel said he wants both state and federal laws banning assault weapons.

He also said he wants a “vote of conscience” by the Congress on some sort of action in response to the shooting of schoolchildren in Connecticut.

He’s out for the kill against the weapons with their large magazines that are capable of taking out dozens of people in a matter of seconds! He’s looking to assess blame against people for the rising level of violence in our society.

AND HE’S POINTING the finger at the very people who last week probably thought they were getting a legal victory that would let them start chipping away at gun control measures in general!

It isn’t going to be that simple.

The firearms proponents (who like to think they’re portraying the views of hunters and ‘sportsmen’ who enjoy the technical abilities of certain firearms) are going to find a stone wall more impenetrable than the one many of them probably fantasize about building along the U.S./Mexico border when it comes to this issue.

Much of the opposition isn’t going to die down.

I’M ALSO NOT convinced that in six months, Illinois will be in contempt of a federal appeals court for not being able to come to some conclusion on what should be done with the “concealed carry” aspect of the whole firearms debate.

A part of me wonders if the tactic by which the entire 7^th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (based in Chicago) could be asked to review the opinion reached by a three-member panel – of whom two agreed and one dissented – could wind up turning back this fight.

Or are we destined to have a new issue that will arouse the anger of just about everybody – albeit in differing fashions – whenever it is brought up for discussion?

And if the ideologues can come up with a catch phrase anything along the lines of "Adam and Steve" in terms of complete vapidity when they talk about firearms?

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Illinois 2nd Congressional – a flood, or a dearth, of qualified candidates?

Some 16 people made their plea to Democratic Party officials to be the preferred candidate to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress, and yet all of them in their own way fall short of the man who was forced from office last month.

JACKSON: No new "Jr." in candidate field

Which sets up the big question. Are the people of the Far South Side, its surrounding suburbs and the rural areas that immediately border it facing a dearth of quality choices to pick from?

OR DO WE have a flood of quality and we’re just too blind to see it?

There have been some pundits around the country who are spewing out trash-talk these days about all the mediocrities that are crawling out of the woodwork to try to get themselves a “job” in Congress.

After all, if the official who wins the 2013 special elections manages to handle themselves right, this could be the government post that defines their professional careers in electoral politics.

Of course, many of these pundit types are the ones who are looking to be malcontents. They want to gripe, and they’re going to do so regardless of what the “facts” actually are. Some people just like to hear themselves complain.

ALTHOUGH WE OUGHT to admit that any of the potential candidates for the post are going to appear diminished compared to the man they’re replacing. Because in a sense, the namesake son of the civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson sets a standard that none of them can meet.

 

State Sen. Donne Trotter pleads with Dem Party officials to be the "present" in Congress. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

He was, in a sense, one of the “celebrity” types serving in Congress. He was, at one point, a legitimate candidate to move up to one of the top (mayor, U.S. Senate or governor) political posts.

If anything, it was the thought that his personal predicament created a situation in which all he had to look forward to was being representative of the Illinois Second Congressional district for another two decades (after having had the post for 17 years) that may have caused him to decide to chuck it.

It was probably that sense that Jackson was unique as a public official that caused at least some of those votes in the Nov. 6 general election (they were hoping there was a way he’d get around his legal predicament). Of course, there also were those who saw the mediocrity of the Jackson challengers last month who decided that Jackson and a special election in the future was preferable.

IN THAT SENSE, a Congressman Donne Trotter or Toi Hutchinson or Robin Kelly or Anthony Beale or David Miller is going to fall short. None of them are likely to have that national name recognition ever during their lives – especially not on the first day they approach Capitol Hill to serve.

Presuming, of course, that they win on Feb. 26 AND April 9.

But these aren’t exactly  no-names. We’re talking a long-time legislative leader in Trotter and a promising young legislator in Hutchinson (at 39, she could be around for a while and rise to levels of significance in Congressional status).

HUTCHINSON: The future?

Even the others have significant experience in Cook County government, the City Council or the state Legislature. They wouldn’t exactly be amateurs – even though former Rep. Debbie Halvorson tries to claim she’d be the only one who could get things done immediately.

IT IS THE reason why even those Democrats who have their preferred candidates aren’t badmouthing the opposition, and why you have party leadership talking about the quality of candidates that people will get to pick from as they try to replace Jackson in Washington.

And why we should all be watching closely come the first week of the new year – which is when these candidates have to “put up or shut up,” so to speak, and file nominating petitions.

The real candidates will weed out the fringe ones who were looking this weekend for their 5 minutes of fame in speaking before the Democratic slating committee.

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EXTRA: Promontory Point – the ‘third rail’ of Democratic slating session?

What Hyde Parkers dream about having with 'the Point.' Photograph by Inetours.com

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. – Anti-labor proposals. Abortion. Gay marriage. Foreign aid to countries like Israel.

All were among the issues that were brought up Saturday when Democrats tried unsuccessfully to come up with a single candidate for next year’s special elections to fill the vacancy created when Jesse Jackson, Jr., resigned from Congress.

YET WHAT WAS the issue that wound up creating the biggest stink, and may well have been the “kiss of death” for at least one Congressional dreamer?

Promontory Point!

Yes, I’m referring to that man-made place that juts out into Lake Michigan at 55^th Street in the Hyde Park neighborhood, and that offers up some of the most unique views of the lake and of the downtown skyline. It is a place that every Chicagoan ought to check out (I’ve only been there once in my life), yet many don’t even realize exists.

And it was the issue that 5^th Ward Committeeman Leslie Hairston turned into her ultimate weapon against the candidates who partook in the slating session held Saturday in the south suburbs.

FOR HAIRSTON DEMANDED that all 16 of those who wished to be slated give her an answer as to what kind of help the candidate would offer from Congress for the restoration of Promontory Point – which has been a hot-button issue in Hyde Park for the past decade.

It didn’t matter where in the 2^nd Congressional District (it stretches as far south as the Kankakee/Iroquois County border) one came from. She demanded an answer.

HAIRSTON: All had to answer about "the Point"

“If these people want to represent my community, I want to know where they stand on an issue of concern to us,” she said.

For his part, would-be Congressional candidate Donne Trotter (the state senator who once lived in Hyde Park) describes the point as, “the place where we went to have fun when we were young,” with a wicked laugh as he said it.

FOR THE RECORD, Hairston said she thinks Jackson was negligent in doing anything about the issue during his time in Congress. She also wants the Point rebuilt with limestone – as opposed to those people who would prefer a cheaper alternative such as concrete.

“Limestone” became the magic word. Anybody who wouldn’t say they would support rebuilding with it was dead in the water, as far as Hairston was concerned.

It almost became humorous at times, such as when would-be Congressional candidate Joyce Washington guessed “limestone. I got it right?,” she said, while people watching the slating hearing applauded.

And when former state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood tried saying he would “support what the people want” without being specific, she ultimately pressured him into saying, “limestone.”

“GOOD CHOICE,” HAIRSTON told him.

Did 'Point' kill Williams?

This issue may also have become the death of perennial candidate Rev. Anthony Williams, who admitted he wasn’t familiar with the issue, and refused to take a guess at what it was that Hairston wanted to hear. “I don’t have a position,” he said.

 

Although for others, his comment against building an airport in Peotone and spending the money to revitalize such southern suburbs as Dixmoor, Harvey and Dolton was likely the kiss of death. Of a new Chicago-area airport near Peotone, Williams said, "Gary/Chicago is your third airport."

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Anita Alvarez – How far she’s fallen!

It wasn’t all that long ago that Anita Alvarez was actually a respected public official. Which makes the amount of hostile rhetoric she’s getting these days somewhat surprising.

ALVAREZ: Complaining to CBS

She may well be getting hit with more abuse than state Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, the congressional candidate who had hopes of an easy ride to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress until his recent arrest at O’Hare International Airport.

WE DEFINITELY HAVE in Alvarez and Trotter the “first couple” of abused Chicago political people.

Both have gone “national” in their political embarrassment. For the Cook County state’s attorney, her embarrassment came from a recently-aired episode of “60 Minutes” that portrayed her office as abusing the rights of defendants to extort false confessions out of them.

After several days of refusing to comment, Alvarez is now claiming the report was a “misrepresentation of the facts,’ and she says she sent a formal letter of complaint to the chairman of CBS News.

Which strikes me as being about as weak a gesture as on the old “Happy Days” show, when actor Ron Howard’s “Richie Cunningham” character would respond to any issue out outrage by saying he was going to, “send a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal.”

NO MATTER WHAT complaints she tries making, there are bound to be some people for whom the label “The False Confession Capital” (courtesy of “60 Minutes”) will stick to Chicago and Cook County.

When combined with the stink that is emanating from Cook County courts concerning the death of a young man allegedly caused by a nephew to former Mayor Richard M. Daley, Alvarez is coming across as someone who can only appeal to the “law and order” crowd who don’t care about the abuse of a person’s civil rights.

Following years of inaction in the 2004 incident, a special prosecutor had to be brought in from the outside (former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb) in order for any activity to occur in the courts.

TROTTER: A race to the bottom?

I find all of this interesting because I remember the impression she created among some people back in 2008 when she first got elected as state’s attorney.

SHE WAS THE breath of fresh air from a field of political hacks who ran for the office that year when Richard Devine decided it was time to retire.

She went through a Democratic primary with a half dozen candidates wishing to replace Devine in the post, and I still have in my collection of political memorabilia/junk a campaign card that portrays all of the candidates as playing card characters – going out of its way to trash everybody.

Except Alvarez, who apparently the publisher of the campaign card considered to be too insignificant to be included. Better to trash people like Howard Brookins and Tony Peraica!

So perhaps she won that primary based on the idea that all the other candidates were trashing each other so hard that she slipped under the radar. And she won a general election against then-Cook County Board member Peraica because he had the potential for such a surly personality that there were a number of people (including myself) who thought, “Anybody But Tony” when casting our ballots four years ago.

THOSE PEOPLE WHO were paying attention to Alvarez did include a few naysayers who claimed that her work in the state’s attorney’s office included nothing to indicate that she was qualified to be put in charge.

I’m sure those people who were screaming “Political Hack!” (and other harsher, more unprintable labels) toward Alvarez are now feeling self-satisfied with her fate.

Personally, I’m a little more concerned with where we go from here.

Many political people think Trotter’s career as an elected official will recover (even though Alvarez’ staff is talking about hauling Trotter’s case before a grand jury to get an indictment on assorted criminal charges), even if his chances of winning this particular special election may wither away in coming weeks. His performance before Democratic Party officials on Saturday in terms of seeking party slating for his campaign could give him a significant boost!

FOR ALVAREZ, IT might be harder – although she has the advantage of having just won re-election. She has four years to “shake off” the taint that she now carries.

Which means that Alvarez and Trotter could very well be in the running for the “comeback politico of the year” come the 2016 election cycle.

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Alderman wants to stop Chicago from becoming set to a sequel of “The Birds”

What is it about the idea of living creatures other than human beings in urban areas that gets our City Council all worked up?

I always thought the most outrageous fight was the one of many years ago when an alderman seriously tried to push through an ordinance that would have required horses in the city to wear diapers.

HE WAS REFERRING to all those horses that pull those quaint buggies around the Near North Side and Streeterville streets as a tourist attraction (and romantic evening out for couples). Because the horses were dumping their feces in their paths.

Because these are city streets, it means they occasionally get covered in the manure.

And as one who has had accidental moments stepping in the horse poop (from a mounted police officer’s horse, to be specific), I realize how disgusting it can be to deal with.

But the idea of diapers was overkill. It would have looked ridiculous. It definitely reeked of someone who had way too much free time on his hands to even contemplate this measure.

WHICH IS THE same feeling I’m having about 46^th Ward Alderman James Cappleman – who this week said he wants a new ordinance that would make it a municipal violation for people to feed pigeons.

Anybody who does so could get hit with a significant fine, and up to six months in the Cook County Jail if they’re really persistent.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Cappleman said he has residents in his ward (which includes the Uptown neighborhood) who like to bring several pounds of bread with them to feed the fowl.

Cappleman said the end result is that the pigeons now think that Uptown welcomes them, and they’re coming back in greater numbers. And their feces is cluttering up the streets of Uptown even more than the horses dump on North Michigan Avenue.

YES, IT’S DISGUSTING. Yes, it’s stupid. Yes, I think anybody who goes out of their way to encourage pigeons is probably a little bit “off,” to put it politely.

But the idea that police who already struggle to patrol the streets are now going to have to start cracking down on people with nothing better to do than feeding the little birdies (which is probably how they view their actions)?

That’s even more “off.”

This is a measure that can only end in disaster. Here’s hoping the rest of the City Council manages to find a way to make this proposal go away.

THIS WOULD BE one time when the best thing that could happen in the interest of the people is to let this proposed ordinance get stuck in the mechanizations of the political process to the point where it gets lost and becomes forgotten!

By Cappleman’s own admission, he tells the newspaper that he suspects many of the people who are feeding pigeons in his neighborhood are not mentally stable. Just envision the potential for an arrest to blow up into a full-blown confrontation – particularly if police feel threatened enough to use force.

A public relations disaster for the city.

Plus the fact that there are so many other issues of much more significance than the fact that some people are worked up over pigeon poop.

I’D THINK THOSE city officials who have always pushed for stricter gun control measures would want to be focusing on what the city needs to do now that a federal appeals court panel in Chicago has given Illinois state government six months to craft a measure that will allow people to carry pistols in public.

That’s going to be an ugly political brawl, and it’s very likely that the city (for a time, at least) could get a policy it despises imposed upon it.

If that happens, the idea of pigeon poop on the streets up Uptown will seem so petty by comparison.

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