Is getting elected to office really nothing more than a quirk of fate?

The whimsical nature of the electorate can truly be stunning – particularly in the way that a political candidate’s fate gets determined by factors beyond their control.

 

KIRK: Is he done already?

They can do nothing wrong, except for failing to satisfy whatever attitude is trending with voters in any particular year

TAKE THE CANDIDACY of Illinois’ junior senator. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., already has the stink of death hovering over his candidacy even though it is nearly four full months until voters have their say.

The problem is that Kirk, who prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate served in Congress from the North Shore suburbs, isn’t as ideologically-motivated as many of those who are now the leaders of the Republican caucuses in Congress.

He’s not conservative enough to appease the mentality of those individuals who actually think Donald Trump’s whims are fit to be president.

Back in 2010, Kirk’s moderate nature was the key to his electoral victory over
Democrat Alexi Giannoulias – who I’m sure is kicking himself these days wishing he could have run against Kirk this year instead of six years ago.

BECAUSE NOW, WITH Kirk’s leanings likely to be the factor that takes him down (the ideologues are emboldened in a way they weren’t in 2010), Giannoulias could actually win without doing a thing differently than he did six years ago.

 

DUCKWORTH: Perfect timing?

Instead, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., of the northwest suburbs will be the beneficiary – she gets to be the challenger who can take on a Kirk who isn’t really any different now than what we, the people of Illinois, voted for in ’10.

We’re also getting another example of a matter of timing in our neighboring state of Indiana – where one-time Gov. and Sen. Evan Bayh has decided he wants to return to electoral politics in the form of a comeback in his old Senate seat.

 

GIANNOULIAS: Wishing he could try again?

That was the post he voluntarily gave up in 2010 because of the national trends that indicated it was going to be a Republican-leaning year; and the benefits of incumbency might not have been strong enough to ensure his re-election.

BUT NOW, WITH Trump managing to offend just enough Republicans with his attitudes (including saying that Kirk is a “loser” because he doesn’t react in knee-jerk motion with Donald himself), it has Bayh thinking that now is the perfect time to return himself to office.

BAYH: A comeback?

Particularly since he’d be able to attach himself to the image of Barack Obama as president, and some people willing to vote for Democrats just because they want to vote to continue that legacy.

Speaking of Indiana, that state’s governor, John Pence, appears to be someone that Trump is taking seriously as a vice-presidential running mate. Would a governor be willing to give up his statewide post to be Donald Trump’s Number Two?

PENCE: Decisions, decisions!?!

Some think it possible because they want to believe Pence would face a tough re-election bid, and might find the prospect of being a vice presidential running mate more attractive than a losing governor. Although I wonder if Indiana is knee-jerk Republican enough to make Pence the favorite no matter who he manages to offend on the job.

BUT THE IDEA of timing one’s exit from a political post properly is not a new idea. Take Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who could easily have been the one-time Congressman from central Illinois who lost his seat 20 years ago.

DURBIN: Master of timing?

Durbin served seven terms as the Congressman from Springfield, winning narrowly for the final time in 1994. Which, of course, was the year that gave us all that “Contract with America” rhetoric and saw Newt Gingrich rise to prominence as Republicans across the nation did well.

One can argue that Durbin only won that year because opponent Bill Owens was a John Birch Society member who laid on the ideological talk a little too thick to be taken seriously. A more serious challenger could have beaten him, which motivated Durbin’s rise in 1996 to the Senate – making him a statewide official rather than a central Illinois Dem serving in a GOP-leaning district.

Hence, we still have Durbin all these years later – having served on Capitol Hill for more than a third of a century and living out the dream of just about every elected official. Which is to not humiliate themselves on an Election Day of the future!

  -30-

Will Election ’16 give us the “Battle of the War Stories” for U.S. Senate?

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., wants another term in the U.S. Senate. Whether he’s vulnerable to electoral defeat remains to be seen.

Yes, I’ll admit it is scary to be discussing this campaign now – considering there’s a year-and-10-months remaining until the November 2016 elections that will decide whether Republicans can keep the U.S. Senate seat that has flopped back and forth between the major political parties in recent years.

FROM CAROL MOSELEY Braun to Peter Fitzgerald to Barack Obama (with a combination of Roland Burris and Kirk completing the Obama term when he became president); is this seat bound to flop back to Dems?

The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper that focuses on Congress, wants to believe so.

They put together a list of 10 senators they believe are most vulnerable to being defeated in the 2016 elections. Kirk is Numero Uno on that list.

Kirk, even when he was in the House of Representatives representing the North Shore suburbs, was not amongst the hard-core conservative ideologues, and that is a fact that has those people less-than-enthused about six more years for the suburban Highland Park resident in Washington.

ALTHOUGH ANYBODY WHO thinks that will result in Kirk making up for lost ideologue votes by getting support from some Democrats who can back his stances on environmental issues and gay marriage ought to think back to 2002.

That was when incumbent Gov. George Ryan had supposedly taken a series of stances on social issues that offended his alleged Republican ideologue allies.

But Democrats were so eager to elect “one of their own” that there was no talk of crossover political support. Which is how we got the concept of six years of Rod Blagojevich as governor!

I can easily see the Democratic party people, including the party hacks, all eager to show that any Republican electoral success back in November was a mere fluke, and that the presence of Bruce Rauner ought not to be regarded as any kind of trend in Illinois.

I DID NOTE that The Hill tapped four potential challengers to Kirk; including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and representatives Tammy Duckworth, Cheri Bustos and Bill Foster.

I was thankful that they didn’t include the name “Pat Quinn” in their list – as some people are trying to believe that Quinn is concocting schemes to get himself elected to another political post following his gubernatorial defeat.

Particularly at his age (early 60s), Quinn has likely lost any momentum he ever had to win a statewide election. He’s back to the guy of the 1990s who ran unsuccessfully for Illinois secretary of state, lieutenant governor and the U.S. Senate – and whose electoral bids were treated as an excuse for laughter.

But I’m not writing off Kirk at this point – particularly because it’s so early in the electoral process that I feel appalled at myself for even contemplating this issue now. So much can change between now and November of 2016 that nobody’s going to remember that Kirk was ever considered vulnerable.

ALTHOUGH I HAVEN’T forgotten the fact that Kirk didn’t take a majority of the vote (only 48 percent) when he won in 2010. It was only the presence of Green and Libertarian party candidates on the ballot that kept Democratic challenger Alexi Giannoulias (remember him?) from prevailing.

Of the challengers, I find the idea of Duckworth to be the most intriguing. The woman has a significant record of military service that certainly would match up with the record Kirk claims (he served in the Naval Reserve for many years, and it was only the stroke he suffered in 2012 that ultimately caused him to retire his rank of Commander a year later).

Could it become the “War story” campaign of 2016 – with the two trying to show who was the bigger “war hero?” Which could make for some of the most outrageous rhetoric of Election ’16!

  -30-

The campaign that died before it could begin – Alexi Giannoulias for Mayor

Alexi for mayor? Not this time

Perhaps it was a working vacation. Alexi Giannoulias left town for a few days following his loss to Mark Kirk for U.S. Senate from Illinois, and didn’t come back until Thursday.

Which means that for him to say decisively Friday afternoon that he is NOT a candidate for Chicago mayor in the Feb. 22 elections, he must have been making calls trying to drum up support while enjoying his time on a beach somewhere.

TO ME, THAT seems like a self-defeating way to recover from the frenzy of a campaign – by trying to build support for another campaign in just over three months.

Unless we want to believe that Giannoulias got back from vacation, immediately started calling up political people, and came to the realization within a few hours that getting involved in a political campaign so soon after his loss would make him look flakey.

I would hope Giannoulias would realize that just by thinking about it, and not having to contact anyone.

The bottom line is that Giannoulias is not going to be trying this weekend to gain 12,500 valid signatures of support on nominating petitions to get himself a spot on the mayoral ballot during the 2011 municipal elections.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN we won’t ever see Giannoulias in public office again. I fully expect him  to run again, and win, a future campaign for office.

It’s not like an Election Day loss means the end of a career doing “the people’s business.” Just look at Pat Quinn, who between serving a term as state treasurer and becoming the state’s lieutenant governor (which because of the erratic behavior of Rod Blagojevich resulted in the Mighty Quinn ascending to governor) lost bids for Illinois secretary of state, U.S. Senate and lieutenant governor.



Will Giannoulias go the Tammy Duckworth route?

There’s even Giannoulias’ one-time basketball buddy, Barack Obama, whose career recovered from that loss to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. (although, in all fairness, one must concede that Obama had his Illinois Senate seat to fall back on, he didn’t have to give up the legislative post when he ran for Congress).

In short, anybody who wants to think that Giannoulias is somehow damaged goods is being naïve.

IT’S JUST THAT the timing of a mayoral campaign was just way too soon. 2012 or 2014 are the best bets for thinking of Giannoulias as a candidate for higher office – not next year.

If anything, I wonder if some sort of government appointment is in Giannoulias’ future – to help tide over the time between now and the next election. He might wind up taking over the niche that Tammy Duckworth once had. She lost her 2006 bid for Congress from the western suburbs, yet got an Illinois Veterans Affairs Department appointment, only to turn it into a federal VA appointment as assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs – which seems to interest her more than actually running for office, considering how many times she has turned down chances to run again for political office.

Could it be Alexi who now gets considered whenever there is a vacancy?

I have to confess that in the couple of days after Giannoulias lost to Kirk, my mind concocted the scenario in which Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan were to actually decide she wanted to be a part of the Chicago mayoral mess.

IN WHICH CASE, her eventual resignation would create an appointment for the governor to fill. Quinn picking Giannoulias to be the attorney for state government?

Illinois Attorney General Alexi Giannoulias? It makes as much sense as any scenario, since Giannoulias is a law school graduate and a former state constitutional official.

Madigan, of course, has since indicated she is not going for mayor, which has some people thinking that an administrative position of sorts is bound to open up in the federal government – giving Obama a chance to put Giannoulias into a slot where he could bide his time until he makes up his mind what the next political office will be that he will seek.

Because while Giannoulias said in a statement declaring his non-candidacy for mayor that he, “didn’t get into public service just to run for office,” I can’t help but think that any guy with the kind of ambition that started his political career with a bid for Illinois treasurer, then tried to move up after only one term to be the U.S. Senate member from Illinois isn’t going to suddenly give up now.

IF ANYTHING, PERHAPS a little bit of humbling from his loss to Kirk (which – for those Republicans who want to gloat – wasn’t by that much of a victory margin) would help him with a political future.

The key will be to see if Giannoulias can follow the example of Obama – who lost in 2000 to Rush for the right to represent the South Side in Congress. Obama has since come to say that Rush “spanked me” in that campaign, and that he had to think seriously about why he was involved in public service positions.

If Giannoulias thinks in those terms, instead of obsessing about how he could have closed a roughly 75,000-vote gap, he probably will find himself taking an oath of office sometime in the near future.

  -30-

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.

  -30-

Self-promotion taints the Senate debate

It is a sentiment I am all too familiar with from my time as a reporter-type person – filing some piece of copy because its subject matter ties into some “exclusive” story that my particular news shop is claiming. Who cares if the actual copy is not newsworthy, or perhaps even downright trivial?

That sentiment was clearly at work when the two major party candidates for U.S. Senate from Illinois engaged in a debate this week, and had to be subjected to one-time White House aide-turned-ABC reporter-type George Stephanopoulos asking both Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk whether they thought Anita Hill owed an apology to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

TO THEIR CREDIT, neither man fell into the trap of trying to dignify that trivial question with a legitimate answer. Heck, I would have been prepared to write a commentary urging people to vote against someone for dignifying it with a response.

Because this was purely about the fact that ABC News trying to hype up the fact that they’re claiming to have “broken” the story that Thomas’ wife, Virginia, during the weekend called up Hill’s office (she’s a professor at Brandeis University) and left a message asking for/demanding the apology.

If Stephanopoulos had been able to get either Kirk or Giannoulias to nibble at an answer (both men essentially said that the Thomas confirmation hearings were so distant in the past they weren’t going to think about them), ABC News would then have claimed that the U.S. Senate debate held in Chicago rose to national news.

Stephanopoulos, who was one of the moderators for that particular debate, would have gained praise from his bosses for getting them an audio/video snippet that would tie directly into their alleged exclusive, which would allow them to boast about themselves.

ALL OF WHICH ignores reality, which is that most people have long-ago moved on from this issue (and the ones who still have the hang-ups, including Virginia Thomas, need to be told to get over it).

As best as I can tell, most people who watched the debate and felt the need to post their reactions while the event was taking place were little more than bewildered about why Stephanopoulos would even bring that question up.

Even by the standards of a debate moderator trying to slip in an off-beat inquiry to try to catch the candidates in a moment of honesty, this one was just strange. It may very well be the most bizarre moment I have ever heard in the roughly two-plus decades that I have covered such debates related to Illinois political candidates.

Then again, perhaps that is all too appropriate, because the Thomas confirmation hearings were so memorably bizarre in their own right. If anything, they were a sign of what our electoral politics was destined to become during the past 18 years.

SOME PEOPLE REMEMBER where they were the day John F. Kennedy was shot, while others felt something emotional and unforgettable about where they were when they learned the World Trade Center collapsed nine years-and-one month ago.

I remember the exact moment when I heard the line about pubic hairs and Coca-Cola cans that Hill testified under oath came from Thomas’ mouth when she worked for him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – I was sitting at a desk in the pressroom of what is now called the Thompson Center state government building.

It was early afternoon in Chicago and a radio was tuned to a station that was broadcasting the hearings live. Which means I got to hear the completely out-of-the-ordinary line at the moment she uttered it

It also means that I later heard live Thomas’ testimony on his own behalf, including the line about this being a “high-tech lynching.”

WHEN LOOKED AT from the perspective of today, where Republican partisans impeached one president of the Democratic persuasion and are insistent that the current chief executive is somehow “un-American” (while also trying to downplay the disaster that was the presidency of the GOPer who held the office in between the two), all of this is too predictable.

But back in the political days of “B.C.” (Before Clinton, who will be campaigning in Chicago next week on behalf of local Democratic Party candidates), this kind of reaction would have been the stuff of our worst nightmares. Surely we as civilized people knew better than to behave in such a manner?

Republican partisans are willing to look the other way at the personal peccadilloes of their people, so long as they spout the right ideological talk. When they are attacked, they go all-out to try to destroy their critics. And they are capable of holding a grudge.

The one thing I have to admire about this whole situation is Hill’s reaction to getting that call on her office voice-mail. She contacted campus police, who in turn notified the FBI. She’s not dignifying it with a pompous response.

NOW I’M NOT delusional enough to think that the “G-men” are about to haul Virginia Thomas off to jail while they build a criminal case of harassment against her. She did use a telephone, which could bring the whole concept of ‘wire fraud” into the mix. In the hands of an overly-anal prosecutor, this whole thing could become the crime of the century.

There’s just a part of me that would like to believe that Virginia now regrets making that phone call, in large part because the audio is now public – as though Hill is the one who has let this political wound fester for the past two decades.

I’d like to think she’s somewhat embarrassed by the ABC reports (which are getting picked up in way too many places).

If she’s not embarrassed, then she should be, more so than anybody else – except for George Stephanopoulos, who managed to taint the League of Women Voters’ debate between Kirk and Giannoulias with his ridiculous inquiry.

  -30-

Who won? Wanjiru – who else?

What should we think about the nationally-broadcast “debate" between Illinois’ major party nominees for U.S. Senate when that event wasn’t even seen live by the people who will have to cast a ballot for this post?

It’s true. WMAQ-TV pre-empted the Sunday broadcast of “Meet the Press” so they could devote the morning hours to live, uninterrupted broadcast coverage of the Chicago Marathon (I refuse to give the bank that is providing corporate sponsorship any free advertising by mentioning them here).

AS MUCH AS I’d like to excoriate some local broadcast executive for deciding that this “debate” (actually, a detailed interview by “Meet the Press” host David Gregory) could be delayed, a part of me honestly has to admit that this person probably was more in line with the actual desires of many local people.

By the time we in the Chicago broadcast market got to see the program on television, the event itself was already over – and Republican nominee Mark Kirk had already arrogantly issued a statement declaring himself to be the debate’s winner.

“He is better equipped to handle the issues voters care about – turning the economy around and creating jobs,” Kirk’s statement about himself read.

Which makes me wonder if the Kirk camp is so insecure about his real performance that they felt the need to do this self-righteous, overly pompous attempt at political spin.

IT ALSO MEANS that in my book, the real winner is Olympian Sammy Wanjiru. He’s the guy who, for the second consecutive year, won the Chicago Marathon, finishing the course in just over two hours.

So what should we think of the actual forum, which gave the rest of the country a chance to see the scraps we get to pick from in choosing a junior senator?

This is supposedly the election cycle where voters want to punish incumbents because of the economic troubles of recent years. Yet I don’t feel that either candidate got beyond “talking points” to say what they would do if they get elected to the Senate to try to create jobs.

“Real people can’t afford a Washington lobbyist to find them stimulus money,” said Kirk, while opponent Alexi Giannoulias responded, “if you are thrilled with out-of-control spending, then Congressman Kirk is your man.”

THAT WASN’T EVEN Giannoulias’ only dig against Kirk. He cited a litany of votes Kirk made that Giannoulias claims increased government spending, and said, “he says he is a fiscal hawk. He has told some whoppers, but this is the biggest.”

Of course, both candidates have their baggage. To listen to their critics, Kirk is a liar when it comes to talking about his military record, while Giannoulias’ family ran a bank that gave money to organized crime figures.

I will credit Kirk for not getting snotty when being questioned about the exaggerations to his military record (he’s in the Naval Reserves as an intelligence officer, when not representing the North Shore suburbs in Congress).

“There certainly should be a level of scrutiny, it is appropriate that this is brought up,” Kirk said, then going into the litany that says he has already apologized for this.

“I MADE MISTAKES with regard to military statements,” Kirk said. “I was careless, I learned painful and humbling lessons.”

By comparison, Giannoulias discussed the failure of the now-former Broadway Bank and his involvement there by trying to turn the questioning into an account of his immigrant father opening a bank that “helped thousands of people achieve the American dream,” but was done in by “the devastating recession” that we have recently completed.

Insofar as the accounts that people with ties to organized crime received their financing from Broadway Bank, Giannoulias tried to claim it was a non-issue. “When a bank decides who to give a loan to, they look at someone’s credit worthiness, their credit score,” Giannoulias said. “Some individuals may have a colorful past.”

It was only after repeated questioning by Gregory that Giannoulias finally acknowledged the point of questions in saying, “I didn’t know the extent of” the personal records of certain loan recipients, while then adding, “this isn’t what real people are talking about.”

SO I SUPPOSE Kirk addressed his “flaws” with a little less gobbledygook than did Giannoulias.

But I can’t  say that I heard anything come from either man that I hadn’t heard hundreds of times previously during this campaign cycle.

Which means my honest gut reaction is less to proclaim either of these guys the debate “winner” and instead to feel a bit of shame over the thought that the rest of the United States got to see just how mediocre Illinois’ junior senator will be – regardless of who wins come Nov. 2.

Which means that Wanjiru’s providing of a “yes” answer to the question, “Can Wanjiru repeat as Chicago Marathon champ” probably was the most interesting thing that we would see on Chicago television Sunday morning.

  -30-

Why is Barack Obama so politically active in this year’s Chicago election cycle?

President Barack Obama made yet another appearance in Chicago earlier this week to help tout the campaign of Democratic Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias, which amuses me because of all the pompous rhetoric we got earlier this year from conservative political pundits who wanted to believe that Obama wouldn’t come anywhere near Illinois during this election cycle.

The spin those political gas-bags put on Obama was that he was toxic, and that Giannoulias wouldn’t want to have anything to do with his one-time basketball buddy trying to campaign on his behalf.

YET WHILE SOME Democrats of more conservative ideological bearings have gone out of their way to maintain distance between themselves and the sitting president, Giannoulias has not.

The president appeared at the Drake Hotel for a private dinner that allegedly raised nearly $800,000, of which half went to the Giannoulias campaign and the other half went to the national committee that is working to elect Democrats across the country to the Senate – primarily by coming up with incredibly nasty campaign ads against their GOP opponents.

It would seem that the conservative ideologues were wrong about how much Giannoulias would want help from Obama, and how much Obama would be willing to help his buddy who wants to move up from Illinois treasurer to the U.S. Senate.

So now, we’re getting a new line of rhetoric from the ideologues – why is Obama coming to Illinois so much, unless he realizes that his buddy is a loser in need of anything to give him a jolt.

ILLINOIS GOP CHAIRMAN Pat Brady (no relation to gubernatorial nominee William) went so far as to say Obama’s repeated presence was evidence that he fears a Republican “landslide” in elections across the nation.

Yet I’m just trying to imagine the kind of rhetoric we’d be hearing from Brady if Obama wasn’t showing his face in his home city – it would probably be something along the lines of “Obama is in hiding because he’s afraid of the Republican ‘juggernaut’” that they think they have amassed.

In short, it is merely evidence that some people are determined to put a nasty spin on Obama, and aren’t particularly interested in what kinds of facts they use to back up their political venom.

If anything, I am inclined to think that Democratic political operative David Plouffe is correct when he says that Obama wouldn’t be spending any time in Chicago, let alone Illinois, unless they thought that it could influence enough people to remember who they loved two years ago, and to turn out enough Democratic votes to win.

THAT WOULD SEEM to coincide with the polls that show the various campaigns tightening up in support – although when one considers how much the Chicago metro area dominates the state, it is truthful to say that anything other than a Democratic blowout should be embarrassing for the party.

The fact that Republicans are running competitive in a state that is rigged against them says something. Although it doesn’t necessary say what the GOP operatives want to think it says.

So when Obama told the big-money crowds that, “most of the polls say the same thing, Alexi will win, Pat Quinn will win, the entire ticket will win,” I will be the first to admit he is exaggerating.

Anybody with sense knows that a few Republican candidates will get their act together and take back some influence within Illinois state government. The real significance is will the Republican gains be sufficient that their partisan officials can demand some control over public policy.

I’M NOT ABOUT to try predicting who will win the Nov. 2 general elections in Illinois. Like I have written on other occasions, it will depend on the Chicago and surrounding suburbs voter turnout.

This election cycle truly is in Chicago’s hands. A strong turnout here negates any of the ridiculous rhetoric we have been hearing for the past several months. A weak turnout means that people here didn’t care enough, and perhaps should not be complaining about anything that gets done to them during the next two to four years.

Which is why it was significant to learn that the Chicago Board of Elections reported this week there are 60,000 fewer registered voters within the city, compared to increases in the collar county suburbs where people are most likely to identify with the Republican Party as the entity that will stand up to Chicago Democrats on their behalf (I’d argue that they are the people most likely to hold Illinois back, but that is a debate for a different day).

It is more evidence that the people who are taking this election cycle most seriously are the ones who want their own perception of society to prevail – those who are inclined to think that Obama and his election two years ago was a step in the wrong direction. Which means that Obama sticking his two cents in to tell us otherwise is probably the least he should be doing in this election cycle.

  -30-

Does Giannoulias want military veneer?

It strikes me as a bit odd that Democratic Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias is so eager these days to campaign with people of military backgrounds.

Last week, he made an appearance in Chicago with retired General Wesley Clark, while on Tuesday he is scheduled to make appearances in Chicago and Champaign with Tammy Duckworth – an assistant secretary with the Veterans Affairs administration who also was once director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

MY GUESS IS that he wants to smack down those people who want to criticize him for the fact that in his short life, he never served in any branch of the military.

In fact, the people with too much free time on their hands have in recent weeks been peddling a story that claims Giannoulias – who after finishing college in the United States went to Greece to play professional basketball – somehow dodged a legal obligation to serve time in the army in that nation.

Not that I think the people who want to believe this trite talk really care whether or not he ever served in the Greek army. They just want to enhance the image that Democrats don’t serve in the military, and therefore are opposed to it.

It’s trash talk that deserves to be dumped in the waste basket of life.

BUT THE SUDDEN interest in appearing with people who have devoted their lives to the U.S. military makes me wonder if Giannoulias is taking this kind of rhetoric seriously. I’d hope not, because it is a battle he can’t win.

In fact, about the only way a political candidate of the Democratic Party can deal with this “issue” is to turn it into a non-issue. Ignore it. Let it go away. Because in the end, it really doesn’t matter.

Now I will be the first to admit that neither I nor my brother served in the military. Although we have cousins who did. I also remember the last time I saw an old childhood friend, much of our “catching-up” conversation centered around his oldest son, who was then in the army.

So I appreciate that some people take this seriously. I also realize that for some people (such as one of my cousins who served five years in the Army, including a few months in Kuwait during the Gulf War of the early 1990s), military service is probably their best option for getting ahead in life.

I’M NOT ANTI-military. But I am anti- the idea that it should somehow be a requirement for any sort of advancement in public life. If anything, we probably need a healthy mixture of people in electoral politics who have both served and NOT served in a military uniform of sorts.

The reality of this issue is that perception is everything. Republican candidates get the perception that they are pro-military, and that the Democrats are the opposition to that view. There is little that can be done to change that.

What Giannoulias risks doing by appearing to cuddle up to too many people in uniform is trying to create the illusion that he somehow has some sort of military viewpoint. The truth is that he does not.

If people start thinking that he’s trying to pretend to have more of a military view than he really does, then people who in theory should be his supporters will turn on him. It can hurt him.

BECAUSE PRETENDING TO have some sort of soldiering viewpoint won’t help him gain any kind of traction among would-be Republican voters. The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections ought to be the ultimate evidence of that fact.

George W. Bush ran twice for president against candidates who actually served in the army during the Vietnam conflict. They had legitimate records. Yet the Republican partisans who were determined to put Bush into office went out of their way to denigrate the true military people in favor of the guy who used his connections to avoid having to serve in a combat zone in Vietnam.

Not that I blame him. I wonder if I were alive and of military age back then (I was 2 back in the summer of 1967) if I would have engaged in similar actions.

But as much as the Republican base claims they respect the military, what it really amounts to is that they respect only a certain type of person who serves. Giannoulias isn’t that type of person. He never will be.

TRYING TO PRETEND in any way can only hurt him.

So when Giannoulias makes his appearances with Duckworth, I hope he doesn’t overdo it. In fact, the biggest surprise to me is that Duckworth (who served in Iraq and was wounded in 2004, losing both of her legs and partial use of an arm) is willing to be so visually present.

With the way many people are convinced this is going to be the “gloom and doom” year for Democratic candidates across Illinois (I expect some losses, but not the total annihilation that some GOP partisans have wet dreams about), I’d almost expect her to loom as far into the political background as she could.

So either Duckworth is expecting some political goodwill in return should she decide in the future to run for elective office. Or perhaps she knows something about the public mood that the rest of us are overlooking?

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There are only 57 more days to for us to “ponder” until we reach Election Day

We’re at a special day for that particular subspecies of geeky types known as political observers.

It’s Labor Day, and while some of us have an interest in celebrating a holiday meant to pay tribute to the workers of our society (and some of us are ideologically inclined to think that we ought to be celebrating management instead), what gets us intrigued is that this is the time of year when the public at large will actually start thinking about the election cycle that some of us have been overanalyzing ever since Feb. 3.

WE’RE NO LONGER alone in having an interest in trying to figure out what the candidates stand for, or what their chances are of actually putting together the type of campaign that can actually win.

Now, instead of us being a tad eccentric (if not downright loopy) for caring about the Nov. 2 elections, it will be those few people who persist in trying to ignore the upcoming elections who will be of questionable mental capacity.

We’re literally at the point where we have 57 more days to “shop” for candidates before we make our Election Day purchase (or fewer days, if you’re so enthused about the prospect of voting that you seek out an early polling place to cast your ballot in advance.

It is with this knowledge that the typical person isn’t taking any of this election minutia as seriously as I am (and the ones who are probably need a dose of psychological therapy) that I read the results of those polls the Chicago Tribune commissioned for what are the two top races in this season’s election cycle – U.S. Senate from Illinois, and Illinois governor.

FOR GOVERNOR, REPUBLICAN William Brady has a lead that becomes insignificant when one considers the factor of statistical ties and margins of error. Meanwhile, for U.S. Senate, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk have a literal tie.

Nobody is running away with this, which if anything shows the level of discontent among the Illinois electorate with the current incarnation of the Democratic Party. This is a state whose political and electoral layout is rigged in favor of the Democrats.

Chicago metro so overwhelms the rest of the state that would always prefer the GOP that by all rights, Democratic candidates (regardless of who they are) ought to be doing some serious butt-kicking – particularly since the GOP gubernatorial hopeful came into this having no name recognition beyond McLean County, and the Senate hopeful has the ideologues who dominate the Republicans these days upset that he’s not conservative enough, and many other people concerned that he’s some sort of prevaricator (particularly when it comes to talking about his military record).

In a purely traditional sense, they’re both flawed candidates. Yet they are holding their own in this election cycle where the people who always had an ideological hangup (and for some, it’s racial as well) to Barack Obama are thinking in terms of THIS year being THE year they use Election Day to take things back.

I’M NOT ABOUT to predict what will happen come Nov. 2, other than to say it literally will center around Chicago. If voter turnout is significant in the city and the surrounding inner suburbs (meaning Cook County as a whole), then we’re going to get a significant voter turnout of people who will favor the Democratic Party.

If the urban voter bloc takes the attitude that this election cycle isn’t all that important (a reality among certain types of voters who think only Chicago municipal elections for mayor and aldermen matter), then there will be a sense of the rest of Illinois swelling up to put in place a vocal opposition to the city for the next two years.

Which means that if people in Chicago insist on complaining about partisan political actions taken against our interests by Congress and in Springfield during the next couple of years, it will simply be our own faults if we don’t turn out and vote in significant-enough numbers this year.

I’m not predicting, because I’m not writing anybody off.

I LOOK AT those poll results published during the holiday weekend by the Chicago Tribune, and I see an emphasis on the wrong numbers. I’m not as interested in what percentage of the vote each candidate has now, as much as what percentage of the voters haven’t made up their mind yet.

According to those two polls, it is 19 percent for the gubernatorial campaign, and 22 percent in the U.S. Senate race. Considering that none of these major candidates has a sizable lead, it means this is very much a pair of open political races – and now we have a whole new mass of potential voters who will start paying attention.

It also struck me as interesting that Republican Brady, whom the ideologue pundits would have us think has gained a huge advantage by aggressively campaigning during the summer months, still has a ways to go to get his name recognition up.

That poll has him at 40 percent of surveyed people having “no” opinion of him, and 13 percent claiming to have never heard of him. That is more than half (compared to a combined 32 percent figure for Gov. Pat Quinn – whom only 2 percent of those surveyed claimed to have never heard of.

WHICH MEANS THERE is a mass of people that Quinn can reach out to in order to gain more votes – unless Quinn really thinks he can get away with employing a “rose garden” strategy and assume people are looking to him because he’s the governor.

That would be a mistake. And a part of me can’t help but think that the Pat Quinn of old (the political gadfly who slashed the size of the Illinois House of Representatives by one-third and was regarded as a pest by just about everybody) would be the first to agree with me.

So in the same way I think that Chicago voters will only have themselves to blame if a Republican ideological slate of candidates takes control of Illinois government and tries to use that influence to dump on urban interests (just like they did in 1995), I have to say that if Pat Quinn loses, he has no one to blame but himself.

That is as close as I will come to making a Nov. 2 prediction at this point in time.

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