If most people only pay attention to the final month of a campaign cycle, what has been the point of the past year?

The reality of an election cycle – one that is astounding to politically-motivated people – is that real people only begin to pay attention during the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

I can't remember voting booths w/ curtains

With us being exactly four weeks away from the day we cast our ballots, that would be about now.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder if the candidates, on some level, wonder if they feel like they have wasted the past year or so that they have been out there trying to catch the attention of the public.

What is the point of making some suffer from their rancid campaign rhetoric if most of us haven’t been paying attention?

Obviously, they want to be up for any advantage they can get. So as to be able to say they’re the front-runner when people really start paying attention.

Which would make Bruce Rauner the most successful type of candidate possible. He started out as a complete no-name. I doubt anybody could have told you who he is.

THEY STILL CAN’T, really. But they would say he’s “running for governor.” They don’t know anything else about him. But that’s all he really cares about – particularly since his opposition consists of a couple of previous gubernatorial losers – and a guy in a lower office whom most people still don’t know much about.

My own theory is that outside of the sitting president, governor and mayor, nobody really knows who any of their elected officials are. Before anybody tosses out the name “Michael Madigan” to me, I’d argue that most people probably have some sense of the name, but don’t know what exactly it is he does.

So all of these elections are nothing more than a massive popularity contest. Think junior high school “Student Council” with grown-ups, and you just about have the right idea.

So with 28 days remaining before we vote (although I probably will use one of the Early Voting Centers that county Clerk David Orr’s office will maintain in the near future, and I suspect several others will, as well), what should we be thinking about Election ’14 – which truly ought to be thought of as the chance to avoid saying something stupid!

THAT SEEMS TO be the common theme of the Democratic primary for governor – where incumbent Pat Quinn is getting a challenge from activist Tio Hardiman, whose campaign is going nowhere on so many levels.

So much so that Quinn is refusing to even participate in a debate with his opponent. Not that it’s a new tactic. Candidates of Hardiman’s stature rarely get a chance to be perceived as being the equal of their incumbents on any level.

The fact that Rauner – who a year ago was just as unknown to the public as Hardiman was, and remains now – gets to be in the debates on the Republican side is because of all that campaign cash he was able to generate himself.

Money tends to buy political respect, although it is “respect” of a kind that is fleeting.

THIS REALLY IS a deadly dull election cycle, when you think about it. Rauner may be able to buy a primary, although it’s really going to test his wealth to see if he can continue to match up with the campaign cash that Quinn has accumulated – and not had to spend on his no-name primary opponent.

As for the Republican primary for U.S. Senate from Illinois, state Sen. James Oberweis of Sugar Grove may have a victory because he has an opponent as equally unknown as Hardiman.

And all the rest of the candidates for statewide office in Illinois, they’re running unopposed on March 18. Are we really supposed to get excited about speculation on the chances that Sheila Simon (the lieutenant governor who wants to be state comptroller) will be finished in electoral politics after this year?

It makes me wonder if this election cycle is going to be the one that proves the legitimacy of the old cliché; “People get the kind of government they deserve.”

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EDITOR'S NOTE: It may be 28 days until Election Day. But time is just about up for one to make sure they are properly registered to cast a ballot in the upcoming primary elections. Tuesday is the deadline. If you're not registered, you'll have to wait until the Nov. 4 general election to actually express yourself with a computer touchscreen.

Putting legal process on trial? ‘Hurry up and wait’ takes longer these days

It has been more than a couple of decades since I regularly hung around courthouses in my reporter-type person duties. Yet the general rule of thumb I remember was that it usually took a court case about two years to make its way through the legal procedure.

The Criminal Courts building looks similar in some ways. But the legal process seems to be getting more and more drawn out.

 

Back in 1989 and early 1990 when I was a regular reporter at the Criminal Courts Building, or roaming around the various suburban courthouses, I covered many a trial of events that took place in 1987.

SO IT IS with that memory in mind that I noticed a Chicago Tribune story that previewed the upcoming trial of Allan Kustok, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday at the courthouse in suburban Bridgeview.

Kustok is a man who has the image of a respectable pillar of society. Except that he now faces criminal charges for the slaying of his wife.

Back on Sept. 29, 2010!

The case is going to get its share of attention in coming weeks because Allan and his now-deceased wife Jeanie had two children who became athletes of some prominence at area universities.

BUT TO ME, the idea that this case took three-and-a-half years to get through the process so that a trial could be held is what is truly notable about this case.

I realize that criminal trials are not something to be rushed into – even though I’m sure the people who view themselves as “law and order” types (they’re really borderline fascists who want a justice system to bully others) wish they could be.

Delays can be just as lengthy at the federal complex

I also recall one of the most humorous moments I ever experienced in a courtroom was once hearing a woman tell someone else “We’re going to have a trial today” because her brother had been killed the day before.

Actually, it was just a bond hearing that day, and if I recall right, the defendant in question pleaded guilty about a year-and-a-half later. Which means there never was a trial.

BUT IT JUST seems like cases are taking longer and longer to work their way through the process. It was last month that Roy Valle, a former village clerk in suburban Lynwood, pleaded guilty to criminal charges for a February 2011 car collision that killed another woman.

He’s now a man in his mid-60s serving a six-year prison sentence. Not a pleasant experience for him, I'm sure. But it took nearly three full years for that case to get through the legal process – and it ended in a plea.

No trial necessary.

It’s not even just the Cook County Circuit Court system that has the delays. As I wrote last week, state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, faces charges in U.S. District Court based on claims by prosecutors who say he was bribed for his government actions.

IF HE IS found guilty, he will have to give up his legislative post.

Yet Smith is now on the ballot for his third term in the Illinois House of Representatives, even though he was indicted in his first term. This is now becoming the ongoing joke of the local election cycles – that an indicted legislator will continue to get himself re-elected (because the opposition can’t come up with a credible candidate)!

I find the delay to be more troubling than the re-election of an indicted goof (who, theoretically, is innocent until proven otherwise).

And yet it isn’t just these three cases.

THE CRIMINAL COURT facilities truly are nothing more than a factory these days, watching as cases creep their way through the process of discovery (by which attorneys for prosecution and defense exchange information so that everybody is properly prepared for a trial – should a case come to that).

And with many people facing the process of sitting through hours of time every time they have to show up at a courthouse, the idea that a case can get endless continuances after just a few minutes goes so far as to create the idea that these cases linger on indefinitely.

Which makes that whole legal concept of how people are entitled to a speedy trial seem like a bigger joke than the idea that the Chicago Cubs will someday win something of significance.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Currently, I do some work for one of the daily newspapers in the suburbs, and occasionally have to show up at courthouses in Cook County. My superficial observation about change is that they seem not to. In that they look grungier as if they haven’t been cleaned since the days I was a courthouse regular, and sometimes I sit in a busted courtroom seat that I could swear was busted all those decades ago too.

What does it mean that a teachers’ union (allegedly) likes Dillard?

DILLARD: Do teachers really like him?

“Yawn!!!”

That’s about all the reaction I can generate from the word that the Illinois Education Association, whose locals represent schoolteachers throughout the suburbs and rest of the state, is telling its members they should support Kirk Dillard for governor in the upcoming Republican primary election.

IT WAS NEVER a secret that groups representing education interests don’t think much of the gubernatorial candidacy of Bruce Rauner – who is targeting his campaigning to reach out to the kinds of people who like to dump on organized labor any chance they get.

The various unions have said they are interested in trying to knock out Rauner now, so as to not have him gain any strength that might bolster him in the Nov. 4 general election cycle against Gov. Pat Quinn.

So the endorsement by this particular teachers’ union really means nothing more than that they find Dillard – the state senator from Hinsdale who thinks the fact that he was once chief of staff to Gov. Jim Edgar anoints him as the front-runner – less offensive than the other Republican candidates.

Yes, it’s true that the GOP political operatives are thinking that with the lack of a competitive primary fight for governor and other political posts (does anybody think Tio Hardiman can top 10 percent of the vote on March 18?), there may be many voters ideologically leaning toward Democrats who will shift political parties for the primary to cast a vote for Dillard.

I’M JUST NOT convinced that it will be all that many people. Heck, Hardiman could wind up getting more votes than does any Republican gubernatorial candidate from a voter who usually leans Democrat!

 

RAUNER: Labor's Public Enemy No. 1?

I am convinced this is a whole lot of blather. Dillard – whom that Tribune poll earlier this week showed running dead last in the GOP primary for governor – may well be too far down for this to make any difference.

And I really believe much of the vote influenced by organized labor interests is going to remain in line with its usual thought process.

So yes, I believe that Rauner’s camp is being absurd with its own attacks on Dillard – whom he is trying to lambast for having anything to do with labor unions in any form.

AS RAUNER POINTED out in a statement he released Friday, Dillard has received campaign contributions in excess of $500,000 from unions that deal with state government during his time as an elected official.



QUINN: Will labor come back to Pat?

Considering, however, that Dillard has been in elected office since 1995, that means a half million dollars during a nearly two-decade period. Which really isn’t that much – particularly since most of that sum came specifically for Dillard’s failed 2010 bid for governor.

It comes across less as an attack against Dillard and more like a whine by Rauner that he’s not the one who’s getting the money – and that someone would dare to differ with him!

That’s what happens when one flaunts their own money about for a political campaign and makes it clear they’re going to be immune to the thoughts of certain parts of the political spectrum. You gain an enemy on Election Day.

BESIDES, I THINK that when the general election comes about, many of the people who cross over to Dillard will wind up coming back to Quinn. This may well be just another reason why whoever does win the Republican primary will wind up too bloodied to wage a serious fight against Quinn.

Who’s going to be well-rested and flush with campaign cash!

This could wind up being the photographic negative image of the 1994 election cycle – where Dawn Clark Netsch blew her financial wad to win a gubernatorial primary, and Edgar wound up tagging her right away with a negative image – one that she didn’t have enough money on hand to counter.

Rauner won’t be that broke on March 19. But Quinn will launch his political attack probably at 12:01 a.m. that very day! Which may sound mean-spirited. Then again, who really roots for the rich guy to prevail on Election Day?

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FREHRICHS: The IFT-preferred pol

EDITOR’S NOTE: For what it’s worth, the Illinois Federation of Teachers (which includes the outspoken Chicago Teachers Union) isn’t backing anybody for governor on March 18. In fact, the only statewide election endorsement they have made is for Michael Frehrichs, the Democrat running unopposed for state treasurer. Which may be a bigger yawn than the IEA backing Dillard.

EXTRA: 85 years since 'massacre,' yet I just want to watch Marilyn Monroe

It has been 85 years since the violent outburst in a garage at 2121 N. Clark St. that we now think of as the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Yet all I can think of on this Friday is Marilyn Monroe.

Yes, the curvaceous beauty to whom all Hollywood glamour for all time invariably gets compared.

A PART OF me wants to pull out my copy of “Some Like It Hot” and pop it in the DVD player.

Let’s not forget that the film starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon was set largely on board a passenger train and in Miami Beach. But it started in Chicago with their two musician characters inadvertently witnessing the grisly killings.

Hence, they have to get out of town before they’re killed off. So naturally, they dress up as women, get hired by an all-girl band (Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators) and wind up encountering Sugar (played by Monroe).

Yes, it’s total nonsense. Just the other day I stumbled across a Monroe documentary that said much of the humor of the film was in the preposterous notion that Monroe’s character would not be immediately able to tell that “Josephine” and “Daphne” were really men.

BUT IT DOES put a humorous touch to that ugly day. It certainly comes across as more entertaining than the 1967 film “The St. Valentine’s Day” massacre, which was a slightly-fictionalized take on what supposedly happened.

But one that got bogged down in so much factual matter that it becomes dreary at times. It gives evidence to the old cliché, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

That film certainly did.

When it comes to the latter film, what I most note is that it gave us Jason Robards as Capone – some nine years prior to giving us the award-winning performance as the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee in “All the President’s Men.”

HE WENT FROM playing a man who later got busted by the Internal Revenue Service to being the man who helped take down a political hack of a president.

Interesting material. Although I’d still rather watch Monroe – who showed us her humor as well as her curves.

The real thing!

Even if it’s not, strictly speaking, a historic moment film. Although if there is a moment in Chicago history that I’d like to see someone try to make a film out of, it is the Chicago fire of October 1871.

I realize that 1937’s “In Old Chicago” starring Don Ameche already gave us one take. Yet I wonder what could be done now, with the additional knowledge we now have that acquits the reputation of the O’Leary family and with the visual technology that could make the burning down of nearly an entire city a true spectacle to watch.

COME TO THINK of it, I think I’d still rather see the interaction of Curtis and Lemmon in “Some Like It Hot.” It has its humorous moments.

And it also gave us what might well be the funniest ending line of a film (by comedian Joe E. Brown) ever when Lemmon’s “Daphne” character finally whips off his wig and reveals he’s a man.

“Well, nobody’s perfect!”

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Can we really reform redistricting? Is the ‘human’ element just too strong?

I always get a giggle whenever I log onto my e-mail accounts and see a prominent name as having “sent” me a message.

EDGAR: Pleading for my money

Not that I’m delusional enough to think that the aforementioned person has any clue who I am, or really cares what I think. But the way in which activist causes try to create that image can go far – particularly when they’re asking for money.

IN THE LATEST instance, I got a message on Thursday from former Gov. Jim Edgar – who apparently is now part of the Yes for Independent Maps crusade.

They’re a group that looks at the sorry situation we have where partisan politics has completely taken over the way things get done, and thinks the key to breaking up such political hard-headedness is to change the way in which legislative and congressional district boundaries get drawn.

After all, if political people don’t have such a strong influence in determining that their districts are drawn in ways to include only supporters and their opponents’ districts containing all the opposition, then maybe people might have more of a say.

As Edgar put it in the e-mail, the current redistricting measures, “harms communities across the state and creates a system where we, the people of Illinois, are no longer choosing their representatives.”

NOW I’M AWARE this is a generic form letter sent out by the group to many people who wound up on their e-mail lists (you should see the ones I constantly get from allies of Barack Obama, and even a few of Obama’s harshest political critics).

The real thing they want is for me to donate money. This latest e-mail contained a convenient link so I could easily whip out a credit card and make a contribution to the Yes for Independent Maps group (based in Chicago).

I don’t really believe that Edgar has given me any thought since the day he ceased being governor back in January 1999 (and I doubt he gave me much thought even when he was governor and I was one of the Statehouse reporter-type people who tried to document his every political move).

A noble cause?!?

But maybe he is sincere about this latest involvement in redistricting reform.

BECAUSE I REMEMBER that while he had a generally sympathetic Illinois Senate when he was governor (and for one brief two-year period had complete Republican control of state government), it was often those alleged political allies of the GOP who were his most outspoken critics.

And some of them who now wish he’d just go away as a relic of the past, rather than trying to influence current political policy.

When it comes to this particular issue, it really is a flaw of both sides. We hear a lot of complaining about how Democrats have used their influence over state government to disregard a significant swath of the state.

Yet I also recall that two-year period as one in which Republicans did exactly the same thing to the people they wanted to perceive as their opposition.

I CAN’T SYMPATHIZE with those GOPers who think they’re being dumped upon now by Democrats because it always comes across that they’re not interested in fairness as much as being able to be the ones who do the dumping on others.

The only problem I have with these activist-types who say they want to reform the process is that I’m not sure if we’re just going to get political geek-types with their own ideological hang-ups drawing boundaries.

For those who say the process should be done by a computer program that draws maps without regard to special interests, I’d wonder if the person who writes the program has his own hang-ups to deal with.

Because some of those “interests” – particularly all of those concerning districts promoting the interest of certain non-white persons in our society – do have to be acknowledged.

SO WHEN SOMEONE comes up with a way that can seriously disregard bias by all to prepare political boundaries, perhaps then I could get on board in support.

Until then, I won’t be taking up Edgar’s e-mail plea to donate my money. I’m skeptical.

And yes, I’m also cheap!

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It's all about the name recognition

The Chicago Tribune gave us its traditional polls every campaign season, giving us as thorough an understanding of where the major campaigns stand in the primary elections coming up just a month from now.

RAUNER: Bought the primary?

If those polls are to be taken seriously, it will be Bruce Rauner and James Oberweis at the top of the Republican ticket, challenging Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Richard Durbin, respectively, and leading the efforts of all Republicans across Illinois trying to get elected to government office.

NOW I’M NOT terribly interested in writing about whether Rauner and Oberweis really are the best bets to seriously challenge Quinn and Durbin in the November general election. There will be plenty of time to do that in coming months.

It’s just that reading the details of those polls, it becomes quite apparent that despite all the talk amongst Republicans about how voters are energized by their candidates to clobber Dems come November, the opposite seems to be true.

I don’t think anybody in this candidate field has really captured the public’s love and affection, so to speak.

Rauner, the venture capitalist whom some GOPers think is too close and personal to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is the one who has used his personal wealth to advertise his existence.

WHICH MAKES IT very likely that to many would-be voters who probably just now are starting to pay any attention to the election cycle, Rauner is the only one they may have heard of.

The other three candidates may well be unknowns – which is a blow to the 2010 campaign between Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard, who don’t seem to gain anything from having run before.

OBERWEIS: On way to a win?

And as for Dan Rutherford, he’s only now starting to get public recognition – but for a subject matter that makes decent people squeamish! Something that only the sleaziest amongst us takes any pleasure in observing.

Rauner may well succeed in buying enough name recognition early on that there just isn’t enough time for the opposition to catch up. Since if the Tribune poll published earlier this week turns out to bear any resemblance to reality, nearly all the undecided voters would have to swing to Brady for him to prevail.

RUTHERFORD AND DILLARD are just too far behind to catch up to Rauner, it would seem.

Will Hardiman do worse ...

This may well become the gubernatorial race between a pair of Chicago residents – a concept that is bound to repulse many among the voters from rural parts of the state who are determined to dump Quinn because they think he’s too urban in his perspective on life.

The same seems to be holding up in the Senate primary, where Oberweis has such a large lead that he’s already the Election Day winner – provided that the poll results turn out to be real.

Then again, Oberweis is the guy who has run past campaigns for governor, senator and representative – before finally winning a seat in the Illinois state Senate.

AFTER ALL THAT, he had better be known to more voters than just about any other candidate (the Tribune poll indicates he has 88 percent name recognition). Although there are those who wonder if his recognition is for such negative past activity that it will kill him – and other Republican candidates on the ticket – come November.

What it does mean is that Doug Truax, a business executive from suburban Downers Grove, hasn’t done much in the way of getting his name out to the public. Because there are those who would like to have an alternative to vote for March 18.
 

... than Truax on Election Day?

Although what may become the most interesting aspect of the primary is one that will be of interest only to political geeks – will Truax become the biggest political nobody of the day? Or will he get topped (or should it be bottomed) by Tio Hardiman – who is the token challenger against Quinn.

Nobody seems to give Hardiman any chance to actually beat Quinn. Although I wonder if he winds up getting more support in that campaign than Truax does against the man whose dairy company, admittedly, does make some fine ice cream.

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Madigan backing Smith to be expected. I'm more upset by lack of a federal trial

I remember once having an Illinois House of Representatives of the Democratic persuasion try to dispute the notion that all of the House Dems were just lackies who voted the way Speaker Michael Madigan told them to.

SMITH: He's still around

This legislator told me that the only hard-and-fast commitment she had to make in exchange for Madigan’s support (including the periodic transfers of cash from Madigan’s campaign funds that keep many legislative campaigns alive) was to promise that she’d vote in support of measures to keep Madigan in his leadership post.

TO THE BEST of my knowledge, state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, complied with that demand. He never did anything that would have challenged Madigan’s authority to be House speaker (without which Madigan would be just another schlub legislator from the Southwest Side).

So should it be any surprise that Madigan is backing Smith’s bid for re-election come the March 18 primary over other candidates. Madigan aides themselves admit that the speaker is supporting Smith because he’s the incumbent – and for no other reason.

Yet there are those who are acting “shocked, shocked to learn” that Smith can be endorsed by anybody for re-election.

Smith, after all, is the guy who got booted from the Illinois House two years ago when he was indicted by federal prosecutors on claims that the cash he took for his government activity amounts to bribes.

BUT IN WHAT was the quirk of the 2012 election cycle, Smith managed to get re-elected to a two-year term – one that will soon come to an end. Because the federal court system is one that takes time to work one’s way through, he has yet to be found guilty of anything.

So, he’s running for re-election to another two-year term in this year’s election cycle. The reality of our political set-up is that incumbents have a lot of advantages, no matter how inept or sleazy we may perceive them as being.

He’s going to keep getting re-elected until the very day that a “guilty” verdict is rendered. I don’t really like that idea, but I accept that it is reality.

MADIGAN: Merely playing politics

So I’m not so concerned about the fact that Smith probably will win the Democratic primary AND the general election in November.

THE REAL QUESTION is whether “the feds” can get their act together to obtain a conviction of some type against Smith.

Perhaps those of us who are all upset that Madigan would think to support Smith – instead of trying to pick a no-name and rise him from the muck to a position of authority in the Illinois House – ought to focus our attention on why it takes so long for a criminal case to actually come to trial.

For a case that is supposedly as obviously a “guilty” verdict as some political people would like us to believe, perhaps this should happened long ago.

For those who have already forgotten the specifics of this case, it involves a $7,000 payment he received after writing a letter supporting a day care operation that sought a $50,000 grant from state government.

I’M SURE HE’LL argue that he was just making a recommendation about something proposed for his West Side-based legislative district, just like any other legislator would do. This will become a case – when it finally goes to trial – that will become a matter of how much we actually trust anything Smith says.

Now I’m not writing this commentary in defense of Smith. It’s more a criticism of those people trying to score more cheap political points off of a pending indictment.

What's taking them so long?

I expect Madigan to keep supporting Smith so long as he fulfills Madigan’s interests.

What disgusts me is that Smith, if he really is as guilty as prosecutors want us to believe, isn’t in a prison cell already. And if he isn’t guilty, that a criminal charge has lingered over him for so long!

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