Does an alderman really outrank a legislator? In Chicago, of course!

Gov. Pat Quinn has been taking some abuse in recent weeks, ever since the Illinois auditor general’s office came out with its review of an anti-violence initiative the governor concocted back in 2010.

QUINN: Thinking state terms, or city?

Some think he only did it to try to make himself look better just prior to the gubernatorial election that year (the one in which he barely beat Republican challenger, Bill Brady), and the audit says there was a lot of wasteful spending – and possibly even some fraudulent behavior.

STATE SENATE MINORITY Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, came out and said she wants the U.S. Attorney to investigate Quinn, while Brady is going around saying the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative is really just a fancy label for a “slush fund.”

Which is to be expected. A lot of Republican officials are going to try to say nasty things about Quinn so as to weaken him for whichever guy they wind up nominating come the March 18 primary.

The part that gets to me about this is the fact that some members of the Legislature’s black caucus are also joining in the rants.

It was their home neighborhoods that were the focus of the initiative, and they have been upset with the governor for a reason that comes down to their own egos being besmirched.

BECAUSE THE WAY the program worked, the state gave funds to community organizations that were picked out by the members of the Chicago City Council from those neighborhoods.

It seems that some of those aldermen (Surprise! Surprise!) selected groups that were politically connected to themselves.

RADOGNO: Playing politics!

Which means we now have the state legislators for those areas saying they warned the governor not to trust the aldermen to make honest recommendations. That he should have known better than to let the City Council get involved.

Although I really don’t think those legislators really cared about the fact. They were most likely resentful of the fact that a governor wouldn’t let the legislators make the recommendations and have funds go to groups that were their own political supporters!

AS THOUGH HE went outside the “state government” family to reward someone else. Which may be true if you try to look at state government from a purely parochial point of view.

HENDON: Not the normal move

The problem is that Quinn appears to have viewed dealing with Chicago from the viewpoint that Chicago people view it. Which is that if he had put something like this in the hands of the legislators, he would have been mocked for putting it in the hands of lesser political people.

It’s just the way things work that an alderman in Chicago outranks a state legislator. Heck, even some Cook County Board members outrank legislators. When Rickey Hendon gave up his City Council post for a seat in the state Senate in 1992, it was the ultimate political demotion.

There’s a reason why people trying to get into the political structure in Chicago start out as state legislators to gain some experience, then “move up” to a post that doesn’t require them to make the three-to-four hour drive to the Statehouse on a regular basis every spring.

AND AS FOR the ones who don’t move up and remain on the legislative scene for years to come, there’s always the exception like Michael Madigan who became the almighty (and often lambasted) Illinois House speaker.

MADIGAN: An exception to the rule

But, by and large, they’re the ones who just don’t show the promise to move up in the ranks. For a Chicagoan, a seat in Springfield truly is either the beginning or the end of a career in public office. It’s NOT the middle part of substance!

It’s the complete opposite of someone from a rural part of Illinois who gets “rewarded” with a state Legislature post for putting in time as a village or county official “back home.” Which gives them that tiny perspective on life that often dictates their actions as a “state” official.

I often wonder how much that difference in perspective about the significance of one’s post dictates how much of a mess our legislative activity can become. When combined with the partisanship between the two political parties (which is what the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative rhetoric largely is), it’s a wonder that anything ever gets done right on the Statehouse scene.

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In this year’s governor political brawl, will we be looking at running mates?

First off, let me state up front that I don’t have a clue who any candidate for governor of Illinois in next year’s election cycle is going to choose for a running mate.

I also believe that anybody who says they know how the running mates will impact the overall election is merely guessing. It will be tough to say how a choice for lieutenant governor will alter the process – now that the process itself has been altered.

FOR WE’RE GOING to have to see how it works out that candidates for governor will have to choose a running mate and run with them in the primary election – similar to how the vice president is paired up with the president in the general elections for federal office.

It won’t be quite the same, since for president the nominees don’t pick a running mate until after the primary season is over.

But in Illinois, each candidate for governor is going to have to pick someone – and the pair will run in the primary elections scheduled for March. Which means many people who aspire to be the gubernatorial replacement in the event something happens to the governor himself will wind up going down with the ship next year.

Although I’m also wondering how the choice of a running mate may be the factor that helps voters pick through the field of candidates that is still developing.

I AM SEEING a field of candidates for governor where I seriously believe the voters will wind up picking the person they despise the least. Could that mean the choice of a lieutenant governor candidate could become a factor in people deciding who they vote for?

About the only time I remember lieutenant governor being an issue before was the 1994 Democratic primary – where gubernatorial candidates Roland Burris and Richard Phelan paired themselves up with the two women seeking the lieutenant governor nomination.

Phelan’s pick, then-state Sen. Penny Severns of Decatur, wound up winning the primary, but got paired up with the one gubernatorial candidate – Dawn Clark Netsch – who didn’t pick out a preferred running mate.

Which added another layer of tensions to the general election campaign that year – one in which then-Gov. Jim Edgar used his financial advantages to emphasize her political problems and bury her come Election Day.

SO IT’S NOT like a running mate was a plus that year, either!

Could this be the election cycle that proves to be the exception to the general rule of thumb that people vote for the top of the ticket, and really don’t care about the running mate – whose purpose according to the Illinois Constitution is really to be on hand in case the top official dies or is otherwise unable to complete the term.

Just like Pat Quinn himself, who wound up being paired with Rod Blagojevich when the latter was removed from office through the impeachment process. I believe that whole fiasco showed us the value of the lieutenant governor post.

It became easier for state government officials to vote to dump a governor because there was no dispute over who would succeed him. No political fight over who gets to be the replacement governor made it seem more like electoral politics, and less like the staging of a coup d’etat.

BUT BACK TO this year’s electoral process – where the candidates will have to pick somebody to accompany on them on the ballot. Some of the candidates – including Republicans William Brady and Kirk Dillard – have hinted they will name somebody around the Labor Day holiday, while Dan Rutherford on Sunday put a note on his campaign's Facebook page saying he has made up his mind and will use a Twitter account to make his decision public sometime in the near future.

Within a couple of weeks, we could start to see a slew of lieutenant governor candidates; all paired up with the people who think they're qualified to run state government.

We may also get the fate of Kwame Raoul, the state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood who has hinted he may run for the Democratic nomination for governor. Although I wonder if the two definitive candidates (Gov. Pat Quinn and William Daley) might try to get Raoul as their running mate so as to bolster their own chances?

Or will it be the year we pick a lieutenant governor as evidence of the would-be governor’s judgment? Or just view the gubernatorial dreamer as the mill-stone around the neck of the man who gets the keys to live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield?

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Is this cheap shot deserved?

I kind of feel sorry for Republican gubernatorial nominee William Brady, who on Friday got dumped on because of the boorish behavior of somebody who ranks so far beneath him on the political evolutionary scale that it is hard to believe they’re even of the same species.

That is how low the concept of a Chicago Republican is. Nobody within the party pays them much mind. Democrats rarely bother to attack them, because it would give them more attention than they’re worth.

YET BRADY WAS put in the position of having to try to defend himself because of a Chicago GOPer who it seems likes to get a little handsy whenever he is around women.

Several female officials, including state Sen. Iris Martinez, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, held their own press conference on Friday at the Democratic Party offices downtown to demand that the state senator from Bloomington who is running for governor in the Nov. 2 elections answer for this situation which he probably didn’t know a thing about.

So there is a part of me who wants to think I’m being high-minded and idealistic by thinking that Democrats are wrong to try to make this issue about the gubernatorial campaign.

It just seems to me that any action by a Chicago Republican is so out of the party’s mainstream (so far off their radar screen) as to be irrelevant.

WHEN I READ The statement issued by the women who went on the attack against Brady, I see it as the tactical move that it is – trying to deflect much of the pompous rhetoric we have heard and will continue to hear for the next three months about how corrupt all Democratic Party loyalists are.

“After two governors who betrayed the public trust, Illinois cannot afford a repeat of the problems of the past,” the women said. “Women and all voters should be concerned that a cover up of this magnitude was perpetuated by Illinois Republicans.”

So what is at stake here, aside from these public officials trying to force a report into the campaign mindset that has bopped about various websites and got some serious attention from the Huffington Post site, but was in danger of turning into something obscure that only the most pathetic of Internet geeks would know about.

The former president of Chicago Young Republicans, a person named Jeremy Rose, wound up having to give up his positions of authority (he was a director for the Cook County Republicans at one point) when it was learned that a complaint existed that claimed he couldn’t keep his hands off a woman he met at a party function back in 2009.

THE WOMAN GAVE the Huffington Post site an e-mail containing details of her memories of being with Rose that night, but she does not seem to want to pursue this issue much further. I don’t know her name, and personally I don’t care enough about this incident to try to find it out.

Some people would argue that somebody acted like a goof, got caught, and got a punishment. They would claim that the Democrats are now trying to exploit this issue for their own gain. That literally is the tactic employed by state Republican Chairman Pat Brady, who came out with his own response to the women by saying, “this is a political stunt straight out of the Democrats’ playbook,” adding, “this is being doen at the expense of a young woman (who) … believes that this issue has been dealt with appropriately in the manner in which she requested and the issue is resolved.”

Literally, that statement is true, except for the part about the Democrats having a playbook that includes this type of tactic. This kind of cheap stunt is included in the “playbook” of any campaign that wants to do more than fight the good fight in going down to defeat.

Which ultimately is why I can’t feel too sorry for Bill Brady for having these female politicos try to bring his name into the mess, which by the way was avoided by having Pat Brady (no relation) do the actual responding.

BILL GETS TO remain above the fray, except for those moments when he decides it is worth getting trashy in dishing out dirt against opponent Pat Quinn, or the Democrats in general if it suits his political needs on that particular day.

Friday becomes one of those days that reminds me that there is a certain sordidness to the act of political campaigning. There is a degree to which no one should listen to literally to any rhetoric that comes from any campaign, because there is a certain spin to it all.

We got a bit of Democratic spin, which makes up for much of the Republican spin that we have heard for the past few months. This will be a back-and-forth process carrying us all the way to Nov. 3.

That is the “day after” Election Day when we (hopefully) will know the victors, who will then get to write their version and have it recorded as “history.” Except for the Brady campaign, which reportedly this week tried having their people re-write the Wikipedia entry about Brady in ways meant to eliminate the impresson that anyone ever disagreed with him about issues.

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Higher minimum wage doesn’t overcome Chicago’s economic and social advantages

I wonder what Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady thinks of Wal-Mart these days.

Brady is the candidate who threatened to make a mess of his campaign by actually saying some people in Illinois should have to endure a pay cut because their minimum-wage jobs pay too much money.

IT IS TRUE that Illinois has one of the highest minimum wages of any state in the nation – one that will go up again as of Thursday to $8.25 per hour (one dollar higher than what federal law requires).

Brady last week tried to appeal to those people among the Republican base who view our society from the perspective of the business owner – many of whom would have a larger profit margin if they could reduce their payroll somewhat.

But his comments that it is wrong for Illinois to think it can succeed economically by having such a higher minimum wage than the federal government literally made him appear to be callous – wanting to cut the pay of people who aren’t exactly making big bucks to begin with, and likely need every penny they’re currently taking home in order to survive.

That is what caused Brady earlier this week to backtrack somewhat.

HE SAYS IT still is wrong for Illinois to have a higher minimum wage, but he promises that if he were elected governor that there would be no further increases in the state’s minimum wage rate until the federal rate were to surpass it.

That likely will be a long ways off in the future, so what we’re learning is that people who have no options in life but to work jobs in Illinois that pay $8.25 per hour will NOT be getting a pay raise any time soon.

Unless …

They happen to live in Chicago and get a crummy paying job working for one of the Wal-Mart stores that are likely to start cropping up within the city limits.

THERE ALREADY IS a Wal-Mart in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side, and the City Council on Wednesday approved a measure that will allow Wal-Mart to build a second store – this one in the Pullman neighborhood on the city’s Far South Side.

This new Wal-Mart (along with the other proposed stores that could someday see about 20 such stores being built within Chicago) would be one of those “Super Stores” that would include a significant supermarket section along with the other goods they sell.

In fact, some have said that Wal-Mart may adapt its urban stores by focusing its attention on groceries. It could very well be that Wal-Mart sees it can make money by taking advantage of the concept of the “food desert” – the slang term for neighborhoods that just don’t have a decent modern supermarket within easy reach.

It seems that some people who live in the African-American oriented neighborhoods of that part of Chicago (Pullman, Roseland, Altgeld Gardens) aren’t that comfortable venturing into the supermarkets in surrounding neighborhoods or suburbs, and for some on the Far South Side, grocery shopping entails a lengthy trip to the Wal-Mart store that now exists in suburban Country Club Hills – a town that has developed a sizable black population in recent years.

I CAN SEE why, for someone who lives around 99th and State streets, a trip out to 167th Street and Pulaski Road is a pain in the butt.

Now how is any of this relevant to Brady or his thoughts on the minimum wage?

It seems that city officials got Wal-Mart to agree to paying a rate above Illinois’ minimum wage in order to get the city to expedite the permits necessary to allow them to build in Pullman.

City-based Wal-Mart workers will get an $8.75 per hour pay rate, along with a raise after one year on the job that will push them over $9 per hour.

WAL-MART ISN’T COMING to Chicago for any altruistic reasons about eliminating a food desert or providing benefits to the African-American communities on the Far South Side. They want to be in Chicago because they see customers who will spend their money to purchase various goods.

If in order to get these highly-desirable customers they have to pay a slightly higher wage to get workers, they will do so – even though Brady would have us believe that Illinois’ pay rate is going to cost us business.

Personally, I have always believed that one tends to get what one pays for. Perhaps it just is that we in Illinois have a higher quality of life/worker/society/etc. that makes it possible for our people to get a little bit extra.

While some businesses might very well shift to the surrounding states to try to squeeze a few extra pennies into their profit margins, businesses with sense will realize Illinois (with its dominant Chicago presence) has certain benefits those other places don’t have.

IF IT MEANS our political people ought to be thinking about how to get a larger share for our residents, then that ought to be a good thing – instead of presuming that we ought to be greatful that Wal-Mart would “bless” us with their presence within our city limits.

Which makes me wonder if Brady just can’t appreciate the concept of urban Chicago and its benefits enough to hold the top political post in Illinois state government.

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What will be Brady’s third strike?

It will be interesting to see how Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady’s latest comments play out.

Brady decided to take a stance on the minimum wage, which varies from state to state and where Illinois is scheduled for another increase come Thursday – from $8 per hour to $8.25.

WHEN THAT OCCURS, the minimum hourly salary that can be paid to an employee in Illinois will match the rates of Connecticut and the District of Columbia, and will rank only behind Oregon ($8.40) and Washington ($8.55). In short, people working in Illinois will be doing well when it comes to compensation.

Yet Brady is the guy who put himself on the record as wanting to undo Illinois’ minimum wage. He wants us to be just like those people in all the states that surround Illinois – where the state minimum wage rate matches the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Does Brady really want to be the guy who gets blamed for people whose salaries are already pathetically low having to take a pay cut? Is he a guy who really thinks places like Georgia or Wyoming are more desirable than Illinois because those states have minimum wages of $5.15 per hour?

Maybe Brady thinks Puerto Rico is the ideal (because the commonwealth’s minimum wage is only $4.10).

A PART OF me cannot believe that the state senator from Bloomington can be so out of touch that he can think the promise of a pay cut is the way to encourage people to vote for him.

Then again, I’m sure that Brady has already written off the possibility of people who have to rely on jobs that pay minimum wage would actually consider voting for him. Perhaps he thinks he can discourage people who really do have to work for a living for little compensation from voting altogether.

Actually, I think I already know the way this issue will play out in coming months. Because in the initial news reports that told of Brady’s desire to mess with the minimum wage, it came out that the person who pushed for a significant increase in Illinois was now-impeached and indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

He got the General Assembly to go along with the plan that calls for annual increases in Illinois’ minimum wage rate every July 1. That is why the current $8 hourly rate will increase on Thursday to $8.25.

IT WAS A popular move with the interests that care about people who work low-paying jobs because there aren’t many alternatives, although I’m sure the business interests that want to perceive the issue as one of cutting into their potential profit margin would be eager to see Illinois be reduced to the level of Indiana or Kentucky.

Which is why I’m sure Brady is going to go about screaming the name “Blagojevich!!!” over and over whenever this issue comes up in the future.

He’s going to want to take advantage of the public distaste for the man now on trial at the Dirksen Building by claiming that all he’s doing is repealing one of Blagojevich’s actions. Get people worked up enough to think “Blagojevich!!!” and perhaps they will overlook the fact that all he’s really doing is taking a whack at the salaries of people who often have to rely on every penny they can get in order to support themselves.

Perhaps I find this stance a little appalling because I have worked as a freelance writer, occasionally taking assignments that paid so little that – when one considers how much time I spent on them – they paid less than minimum wage.

NOW I KNOW Brady likely will be careful to bring this issue up only in situations where he is before sympathetic crowds – heavy on small business owners and where the hired help are non-existent.

But it is because of moments like this that I have not taken seriously the polls that claim Brady to be ahead of Gov. Pat Quinn when it comes to the Nov. 2 general election.

It’s not that I doubt that Quinn has his problems, or that the GOP faithful are so anxious for Election Day to come that they are determined to vote. By comparison, nearly a third of people who identify as Democrats in Illinois claim in these polls to be undecided.

Which means that if they do vote, they will wind up falling in line for Quinn, which would cut the Brady margin significantly enough to put the incumbent governor into the lead.

WHILE THERE IS a chance they may not care enough to want to vote, all it is going to take is a few more whacked out statements like wanting to cut the minimum wage at a time when people who have jobs are struggling to get them upset enough to want to vote against Brady.

Brady already is the guy who sponsored a bill to reinstate the now-illegal practice of using carbon monoxide gas chambers to euthanize pets, and now he’s the guy who wants to cut the salaries of lower-income people.

Which means the real question these days ought to be what loopy stance will Brady take on another issue – constituting his “third strike” that sends him back to the political bench against Quinn.

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DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry & Will are going to “choose sides” come Nov. 2

The reality of the upcoming general elections come Nov. 2 is that they are going to be decided in the land we often call the “collar counties.”

That’s not exactly a bold prediction on my part. Some people might say I’m merely stating the incredibly obvious – such as pointing out that the Chicago White Sox do NOT wear white socks.

BUT FOR ALL those people who want to talk about political revolutions and serious shifts of the thought process of the people across Illinois, the reality is that most people in this state will vote in predictable manners – and in ways that are completely in line with the way they previously have voted.

Considering that Barack Obama’s popularity rating ranks significantly higher in Illinois than it does the rest of the country (the Gallup Organization on Wednesday gave him a 49 percent “approval” rating nationally, with 45 percent disapproving), much of the rhetoric is about political people trying to convince themselves that everything they want to believe isn’t a whole batch of hooey.

Chicago and Cook County is going to vote for Democrats. People here (just as in 1994, the election cycle that gave us Newt Gingrich and the “Contract with America” that many Republicans want to believe is repeating itself this year) aren’t going to be as swayed by the same rhetoric that people in the rural parts of the state will be.

Why else would Democratic Cook County Board president nominee Toni Preckwinkle feel secure enough on Wednesday saying she won’t rush to repeal the sales tax increase that outgoing President Todd Stroger enacted during his time in office? The mood of the “angry electorate” may want to repudiate everything Stroger-related and go so far as to erase him from county history, but one-time state Sen. Roger Keats of the North Shore isn’t going to be able to use that as an issue against her.

OF COURSE, THE result of eight years of Democratic Party control of Illinois state government is that the rural parts that remain loyal to the Republican party get ignored. The few rural districts that have elected Democrats are going to want officials who are willing to ignore their own political party, because they’re ready to blame it for their lack of relevance in recent years.

It is those collar counties where we will have to see what happens.

These are the places that used to be solid Republican, but in the past couple of decades have seen a GOP that has in its adoption of such conservative ideology become so rural that these suburban people no longer clearly identified with it.

It is why Democratic Party organizations in those counties have made some increases (even getting significant support for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential bid in that one-time GOP bastion of DuPage County) in winning elections.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN in places like Naperville, Romeoville and Elgin? Will disgust with Chicago and urban life send them back to the GOP for this electoral cycle? Or will all of these rural types seem so alien that they will wind up sticking with their past trends – in which case, many Democratic officials likely will win re-election (albeit by smaller-than-usual margins of support).

Part of what is going to decide this is going to be the behavior of William Brady, the GOP nominee for governor who is counting on the fact that people will associate “Democrat” with “Chicago” so closely that they will revolt – essentially creating a government allied against the city and allowing them to tell the city what will happen (just like what occurred back in 1995-96, an era that saw the General Assembly push for a conservative social agenda; much of which eventually was struck down the the Illinois Supreme Court).

Much has been made of the fact that Brady comes from Bloomington, which is roughly the cultural dividing line between Illinoisans who associate with Chicago and those who despise it enough that they deliberately choose to associate with St. Louis instead.

They say he’s too different to identify with people in Chicago and the surrounding area. Which would mean a Pat Quinn electoral victory essentially by default.

BRADY HIMSELF WANTS to knock down that kind of talk. He soon will begin airing his campaign ads in the all-significant Chicago television market (which is the one that covers the area where about two-thirds of people live). The fact is that most people in Illinois don’t have the slightest clue who Bill Brady is.

The fact that he is competitive in recent polls is more a sign of some Quinn displeasure (he can appear so indecisive at times). Will Brady be able to maintain that kind of support once Chicago gets to know him as someone other than the guy who supposedly wants to euthanize pets?

Those campaign ads will be all-important, because too many people wind up getting what little they know about a candidate from those spots that try to say as little as possible while also smearing an opponent.

These spots that largely will be ignored in Chicago by political people (Quinn will win Cook County, which accounts for about 45 percent of the state’s population) will also be seen in those collar counties. Brady may play well in Peoria, but how will he play in Plainfield?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN he sets foot in a place like Aurora, where a significant Latino population will be inclined to view him in a hostile manner – even though they really don’t know him. I can’t help but notice that Brady has gone out of his way to say as little as he has to when it comes to Arizona and immigration reform.

He doesn’t want to start an outcry that would cause what popularity he has in May to tank by November, although he has to give his rural conservative backers something, otherwise they might start getting suspicious about him just like some of the ideologues are now starting to think he’s not “anti-abortion” enough because his wife won’t come out and say clearly that she also opposes the medical procedure.

It is those collar counties that make up just over 20 percent of the state’s population. Which means that as much as it will shock people who think neighborhoods such as Bridgeport or Beverly are the center of the universe, it may very well be places like Lombard and Peotone that ultimately decide who our state’s new governor will be.

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Campaign wants to live in its own world – Is that reason enough to vote ABB?

I read Friday of a new feature on the website maintained by the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper – one where readers can set things up so that reader comments from people who bother them will not turn up when the check out the website.

There are those who think it is a scary trend of the future. People can isolate themselves so thoroughly from anyone who does not agree with themselves that they can literally pretend the opposition doesn’t exist – and have that false belief reinforced by their “newspaper.”

BUT AS ONE who has watched political campaigns in recent decades, the idea of political people going out of their way to ignore the opposition is not new at all.

While the point of any political campaign is to persuade as many supporters to turn out and vote while discouraging opposition members from bothering, the trend these days is for campaigns to behave in ways that are meant to solely appeal to the supporters.

Because, after all, the opposition doesn’t really exist. So why bother catering to them, or doing anything meant to appease them? You might run the risk of turning off the people you are counting on to be your campaign’s ideological base.

The classic campaign in that mode when it comes to electoral politics in Illinois is the 1998 bid of Peter Fitzgerald for U.S. Senate.

FITZGERALD WAS A state senator who didn’t exactly have the most likeable personality, and he wasn’t the least bit blue-collar (his family owned a bank, although they managed to sell and become significantly wealthy long before economic conditions would put him in a situation similar to what is being endured these days by Democratic Senatenominee Alexi Giannoulias).

He wasn’t someone who could really relate to the masses. If Fitzgerald had been let loose to commingle amongst the Illinois population, there’s a good chance that Carol Moseley-Braun’s more charming personality would have prevailed.

So Fitzgerald was kept under heavy wraps, rarely exposed to any unsynmpathetic questioning, and would usually schedule his campaign “events” before crowds that were so controlled that they were ideological purists who were determined to dump the “stain” of anyone representing Illinois who wasn’t exactly like them.

Fitzgerald won that election, and got his one term in the U.S. Senate, where his not-so-likeable personality and a lack of interest in acting in ways to appease party leaders wound up resulting in him not seeking re-election.

NOW WHY AM I bothering to recall any of this?

It is because when I see and hear the recent actions and statements of GOP gubernatorial nominee William Brady, I can’t help but think he too is behaving in ways that are meant to get the party ideologues all worked up.

And if it means their campaign strategy is to keep the state senator from Bloomington a mystery to the bulk of Illinoisans – gambling that they won’t really care about if him if they don’t comprehend him fully – then so be it.

That probably is why many Republican partisans will now start deliberately ignoring the talk of former Gov. Jim Edgar, who in recent weeks has said he thinks Brady is wrong in thinking he can cut his way out of a $13 billion financial shortfall faced by Illinois government.

THAT IS WHY Brady probably will confine himself to events with the character of the recent Chicago tea party rallies he attended this week. He will claim he is introducing himself to Chicago, but he is picking an event so out of the character of the city’s mainstream that he’s really showing us how isolated he truly is from our city and its character.

It’s not just this issue. It’s also the matter of the income tax returns.

At least that is how I interpret Brady’s insistence that nobody has a right to see his income tax returns – despite the belief among many that people who seek political power ought to be a little more open than the typical Joe Schmoe in letting us know where their money comes from.

That is why many elected officials spent the past week making copies of their returns available. Usually, reading through these forms makes us realize that while these officials have significant goverrnment salaries, they don’t have much else. They really are living off that money – which they can lose at a moment’s notice come the next election cycle.

GOV. PAT QUINN, who says we will be allowed to see his returns sometime next week, is trying to hammer away at Brady – who claims that letting us see his full returns would give us so much information that his ties to certain businesses would be hurt.

Such stubbornness by Brady gives Quinn an issue to bang away with. But I’m sure Brady is going to go out of his way to appear only before crowds who are determined to have Anybody But Democrats win on Election Day, so they will ignore Brady’s attitude – even though I’m sure these same partisans would bash away at any Democrat arrogant enough to think that personal business connections were worth keeping secret.

Advice to Brady (although I’m sure he will ignore it): If you’re really serious about being governor, maybe you have to give up some of those business connections that your economic disclosure report hints at, but does not fully detail.

If you’re not willing to do that, then perhaps that is reason enough for the people of Illinois to vote ABB (Anyone But Brady) on Nov. 2.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Will William Brady keep himself isolated this campaign season among ideologues determined (http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/illinois/article_4de84f86-4772-5017-bb6b-47d0656edf8b.html) to ignore criticisms (http://www.sj-r.com/carousel/x1042536190/GOP-governor-candidate-wont-release-tax-returns) of the way he conducts himself?

If this were available in Illinois, we’d probably have people using it to avoid having to be made aware of this (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2010/04/ignore_user_new_web_tool_lets.php) particular commentary.

It feels like an Election Day

There is a part of me that wishes I were headed for my polling place to cast my ballot to indicate preferences for candidates for the November elections.

Today is the third Tuesday of March, which traditionally was the date upon which primary elections were conducted in Illinois – a date that in some years can coincide with St. Patrick’s Day (although this year, it misses the great green festival by one day).

BY THIS POINT, I am now ready to make the trip to my neighborhood Lutheran church (which doubles as the local polling place) to cast my votes related to the state government and U.S. senate elections, along with picking all those judges.

The only problem is that it is NOT Election Day. We (or at least the few of us who bothered) all cast our ballots in the primary election held six weeks ago. Although I find a bit of poetic justice in the fact that we didn’t figure out that Bill Brady really won the Republican primary until just over a week ago.

Is that some sort of cosmic sign saying that THIS is the time of the year when we should be deciding things. These District of Columbia residents of 1938 couldn't vote because of the local laws in the federal district. We can't vote Tuesday because our officials foolishly held our elections six weeks ago. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

In one of the few bits of evidence that our politicos aren’t completely brain-dead, Illinois is considering a return to mid-March elections. Just last week, the Illinois House of Representatives gave its final approval to a bill that shifts the elections from early February to this time of year.

NOW, IT GOES to Gov. Pat Quinn, and his aides say the governor, “looks forward” to signing the measure into law. So 2010 will be remembered not only as the title of an awful sequel, but as the final year in which we had ridiculously early elections.

It also is evidence that some of our political peoples’ stupidest gestures can be undone.

I remember thinking that the Illinois Legislature was being incredibly short-sighted when this change was made. Somehow, the desired goal of giving homestate politico Barack Obama an advantage didn’t seem worth it.

In the end, moving the primary in 2008 to early February wound up resulting in exactly what state officials were trying to avoid – our state’s primary that year got lost in the shuffle.

HOW ELSE TO explain the fact that the Illinois primary was held the same day as New York and California? The national attention wound up going to California because it was the one state that wasn’t home to a Democratic presidential hopeful.

Considering how the Democratic primary for the presidential nomination that year turned into a drawn-out fiasco that wasn’t resolved until the whole process ended in June, Indiana with its ridiculously-late May primary wound up having more influence than Illinois.

Some will argue that 2008 was a bizarre election year that should not be used as a standard for analyzing anything. I’d agree. To me, the more dangerous after-effect of an early February primary is what occurred this year.

The early Election Day date contributed to the fact that record-low voter turnouts were registered in many counties across the state. Nobody wanted to be bothered with thinking about voting for anything (not even something as important as senator or governor) at that early date.

IT ALSO CREATED such a short primary season (barely a month of campaigning) that I honestly believe most people didn’t have a clue who they were voting for.

Anybody who looks at the primaries in both major political parties for lieutenant governor would have to admit that candidates with actual records would have had time to get the word out – instead of people picking the candidates who had money to appear often in television campaign ads.

Perhaps we could have avoided Scott Lee Cohen or Jason Plummer if we had more time to study the candidates? Of course, those candidates might have been able to use their financial advantage to burn their impressions so strong into the public conscience that people might have cared more that Cohen could win an election and still get shoved aside by his political party “allies.”

Of course, I’m not saying lieutenant governor was the only affected office by the early Election day this year.

I WONDER IF a few more weeks would have enabled one of the Republican gubernatorial dreamers to do better. Could six more weeks have allowed state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, to find 194 more votes – thereby making him the winner?

On the Democratic side, I will always be convinced that the one big winner of an early Election Day this year was Quinn himself. Six more weeks of having to campaign, and perhaps departing Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes would have overcome the Mighty Quinn.

Hynes versus Dillard, if only we had held this year’s primary elections (and I write this as one who actually voted last month for Quinn) at the right time? It will be one of the all-time Could Have Been issues that our political watchers will discuss for years.

It’s too bad Quinn couldn’t actually sign this particular bill into law on Tuesday. It wouldn’t do a thing to undo this year’s election results (apparently, only Cohen-like behavior can undo an election).

BUT IT WOULD eliminate a significant flaw in the political process that we built into the system a couple of years ago. Now, we can go back to complaining about the candidates themselves being incompetent and out-of-touch.

What could be more “All-American” than that?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Bill Black, a legislator from Danville, always has a knack for being blunt-spoken and honest (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2010/03/illinois-primary-election-headed-back-to-march.html), particularly his assessment (http://www.sj-r.com/state/x673415277/Later-primary-bill-now-heads-to-governor) that February primaries were “a disaster.”

I hope nobody claims a “mandate”

It always is sad when a newly-nominated political candidate tries claiming that the election results somehow give him a mandate – the will of the people, so to speak – to pursue a political agenda that happens to be in complete agreement with his own beliefs.

While I realize one of the perks of winning an election is that you get to pursue your own agenda, I think it is important to remember that there almost always were significant numbers of people who have their concerns, and likely will have to be “won over” to consider support.

THAT NOTION MAY be political heresy in today’s overly-partisan era, but I think it is all the more true when one looks at campaigns such as the now-complete Illinois gubernatorial primaries.

We learned on Friday that the Illinois State Board of Elections declared state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, to be the winner of the seven-candidate Republican gubernatorial primary held last month.

Brady defeated state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, by 193 votes (155,527 to 155,334, to be exact).

There are those who point out the fact that the margin of victory was 0.25 percent of the overall number of ballots cast – making this one of Illinois’ most historically close elections. Gov. James R. Thompson defeating Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson III in 1982 had an equally small margin of victory, percentagewise.

BUT TO ME, those “facts” are less important than one other statistic I derived from the State Board of Elections figures that were released on Friday.

456,624.

That is the number of people across Illinois who chose a Republican Party primary ballot to vote for governor, and chose somebody other than either Brady or Dillard.

It comes to 59.496 percent of Republican voters didn’t want either of these guys – a percent close enough that it legitimately rounds off upward to 60 percent.

THREE OF EVERY five Republicans didn’t get what they wanted. And this comes from a political party whose base in recent years has become stubborn enough to revolt when they don’t get their way.

Now I’m not implying that such a revolt will happen come the Nov. 2 general election. I think many people who are ideologically inclined to vote Republican are going to be so eager to have someone of their political party as governor that they will vote for the “R” following Brady’s name.

But my point is to Brady and his backers, who had better remember that they didn’t accomplish some historic victory – even though some people will want to compare it to the Thompson/Stevenson election of 28 years ago.

That was a head-to-head electoral matchup, Brady versus the six dwarfs merely means there is no concensus amongst the party faithful.

BRADY, IF HE is to have a chance of overcoming the Democratic Party tendencies of the mass of Illinois’ urban population that leans toward that political party, has to remember the numbers of would-be GOP voters who didn’t want him.

He is going to have to make some adjustments, because the candidate of old that has run for elective office in McLean County, Ill., is not going to play statewide.

It didn’t during the primary. I couldn’t help but checking out DuPage County’s final totals for governor, since that west suburban county (the only one in Illinois aside from Cook that can claim more than 1 million residents) has always considered itself to be the heart of the modern-day Illinois Republican Party.

In the Land of DuPage, Brady got 5,246 votes – about one-quarter of the number of votes that county gave to Dillard (21,566) and Andrew McKenna (18,412). Heck, even Dan Proft, the conservative pundit whom nobody thought had a serious chance of winning the election, got more votes in DuPage (7,817) than did Brady.

IT’S NOT LIKE any of those guys managed to win in DuPage. If the county that likes to claim Red Grange, Bob Woodward and John Belushi as its favorite sons had had its way, the Republican nominee for Illinois governor would be the county’s former state’s attorney, Jim Ryan (who got 27,408 votes, and 130,785 statewide).

Now none of this is truly new. It was clear from the unofficial tallies that we have known for the past month that the reason Brady was the likely winner of the primary was because he was the candidate of choice for Illinoisans who live outside of the Chicago or St. Louis metro east areas.

Brady racked up massive vote tallies in all the rural counties (in his home county, Brady got 10,260 votes, compared to 6,228 votes for everybody else combined) from voters who hate the idea of DuPage County reigning supreme over the GOP because it is too close to Chicago for their taste.

But he’s going to have to accept that he’s now running on a much larger stage, and has his own adaptations to make if he is to succeed.

IN SHORT, I’M sure there are some Republican partisans who think that a Brady campaign that consists of cheap shots against Pat Quinn, combined with a continued screeching of the name “Blagojevich!” is the ticket to victory.

For his sake, I hope he realizes that he also has to give the people of the state, including the 60 percent of Republicans who earlier this year had a vision for Illinois’ future that didn’t include either him or Dillard, a reason to vote for him.

Otherwise, Quinn and Democrats likely will clean up on him by constantly reminding us of morbid stuff, such as Brady’s bill that called for mass euthanasia for abandoned pets.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Does newly “coronated” Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady realize that the political high road is the way to counter the likely Democratic attacks he will face in coming months, such as reminding us of this “letter to the editor” (http://www.pantagraph.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_52e08ac2-27e5-11df-8b6d-001cc4c002e0.html) published in Brady’s hometown daily newspaper?

Kirk Dillard became reflective upon his electoral loss. Or at least that's the way his hometown (http://www.pioneerlocal.com/hinsdale/news/2085888,do-dillardloss-030510-s1.article) Hinsdale Doings newspaper prefers to perceive his concession statement Friday.

When is a candidate’s refusal to concede nothing more than a political hissy fit?

It isn’t loud or imposing, but it is shrill and demanding.

I am referring to those people across Illinois who are paying attention to the recent Republican primary for governor, where it appears that state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, has defeated state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, and several other candidates for the right to challenge Gov. Pat Quinn come Nov. 2.

FOR THOSE OF us who have already erased primary Election Night from their minds, both Brady and Dillard managed to get 20 percent of the vote. If this were a typical election, that kind of support would be reason for humiliation, ridicule and eternal shame.

But in a seven-candidate field of less-than-prominent names, it is enough to win. Both Dillard and Brady got the same percentage, but it seems that Brady’s “20 percent” was about 200-plus votes more than Dillard’s “20 percent.”

Dillard has said that if the final official count (which won’t determined until next week – Friday, March 5, to be exact) shows him within 100 votes, then he’d be willing to consider paying the millions of dollars for a court challenge that could result in a re-count, and a delay in the official naming of a winner.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think it makes any difference. If I were a part of the Brady campaign, I would have taken the same tactic that Quinn used earlier this month – he declared himself the primary election victor even before his primary opponent was willing to concede.

BRADY OUGHT TO just move forward. Even if by some miraculous occurance there was a change in vote tallies that flipped the election, I don’t think anyone would believe Brady acted irrationally.

But by the same token, I don’t blame Dillard for refusing to make the concession speech, which is an event that I always have considered to be so overrated.

The election is over when the votes are counted. It really doesn’t matter if Dillard ever makes a public statement admitting to that fact. In fact, so long as he doesn’t make bitter, shrill remarks of his own to attack Brady (and thus far, he has refused to say anything along those lines), I don’t think Republicans have any reason to gripe.

So long as Dillard, if he ultimately loses, withers away into the background and doesn’t do anything to attack his political party’s nominee (even though the Democratic Party partisan in me would get a kick out of seeing and hearing that), I don’t think GOP people have a right to complain.

WHAT MY THOUGHTS on this issue ultimately come down to is the fact that I have always realized that elections are never decided officially on Election Day – no matter how much the average person on the street thinks so.

I realize that most people don’t pay as much attention to the minutia of election law and campaign procedures as I do, but I have always thought it ridiculous that people believe the elections for public office are wrapped up all nice and neat just in time for the extended evening newscasts.

There may be some campaigns where the loser knew by 9 p.m. what was going to happen so that they could make a “concession” speech that got broadcast live by local television stations.

But there are elections that run so close that we really do have to wait until every single vote from absentee ballots and those citizens/registered voters living overseas and military personnel can be counted.

MARCH 5 IS the key date this year (and not just because it’s my brother’s birthday, and I’m still not sure what to get him for a gift). It is the date on which the State Board of Elections will certify all those local elections results that had to be completed by Tuesday. I would just as soon prefer that none of the candidates talk about concession.

Let Brady begin the process of trying to build political ties with suburban Chicago residents who by-and-large were not enthused by his campaigns for governor or U.S. senator (in 2006). Let Dillard ponder whether it is worth the hassle (and eternal political enemies he will make) if he seriously tries to extend this campaign process beyond next week by demanding a recount.

If anything, I am encouraged by the fact that we don’t have a loud outcry and that most people are not getting worked up.

I’m realistic enough to know that is because of all the major political offices (president, Chicago mayor, U.S. senator and Illinois governor), governor is the one that the typical Chicago-area voter cares the least about.

BUT FOR A few moments, I’m going to delude myself into thinking it is because we learned the lesson of 2000 and close elections and recounts. Maybe we realize now how absurdly some of us behaved, and how we might have been better off if we could have just had a recount that would have settled the issue once and for all – instead of leaving us with eternal questions about what the “real” vote tallies were and the perception that the Supreme Court of the United States behaved in a partisan manner by ending the matter when it did.

In short, the one thing I am thankful for is that we in Illinois are not creating a local political encore to the electoral nonsense of the presidential elections of 10 years ago. That would be more embarrassing than anything done by Rod Blagojevich or any other official engaged in alleged political corruption.

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Too conservative for “urban” Illinois? That’s what Dems want to think of Brady

With two-thirds of Illinois residents living in the Chicago metro area and another 8 percent coming from the St. Louis Metro East area, we literally get nearly three-quarters of the state’s population being people who think of themselves as “urban” residents.

Democratic campaigns for political office come the November general elections are desperately counting on that fact to stave off the fact that Republican voters (according to various polls) seem more excited about being able to cast ballots this year than do Dems.

THAT WAS WHAT popped into my head when I read recent reports coming from the GOP’s likely gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady (nothing will be official until next month). The Chicago Sun-Times devoted a few inches of space Thursday to letting us know some of Brady’s thoughts for the future.

They highlighted gay marriage, knowing that such a headline would capture attention. Brady, it seems, wants the Illinois Constitution amended so as to make marriage between non-hetero couples illegal, and he also wants to do away with the concept of “civil unions.”

This story is going to be repeated many times in coming months in places where the populace is more accepting of gay couples, as a way of trying to make Brady come off as too isolated in his home region (although his hometown of Bloomington is one of the few communities to have local ordinances offering civil rights protections for gay people) to understand the concerns of all of Illinois.

Now when trying to discuss this issue intelligently, it is important to realize that intelligence really is not a factor here.

STATEMENTS LIKE THESE are more about causing a visceral reaction amongst certain voters. In this case, Brady wants the more rural portions of the state to think of him as the candidate who will stick up for their way of thinking. I don’t think he expects to sway anyone’s thoughts about who they will vote for.

He’s trying to give people that nominally should be in his camp all the more reason to get enthused about turning out to vote on Election Day (or sooner, if they use an early voting center come October).

For the law in Illinois has always been clear that marriage is legal between hetero-sexual couples. In fact, back in the mid-1990s era when the Republican Party had a domination over state government, they passed laws making the issue all the more clear that non-heterosexual marriage is NOT acceptable in Illinois.

In theory, writing it into the state’s constitution would make it harder for a future Legislature to make any kind of change in this issue – even if the sentiment of the future continues to change and the people who become vehemently opposed to gay couples having the same legal rights of marriage as other couples become more and more outside the mainstream of our 21st Century society.

THINK I’M EXAGGERATING?

There are many Southern states that wrote segregationist principles into their state constitutions, which made the effort to get with the program in the late 20th Century with regards to civil rights and African-American people all the more complicated – and sometimes still confuses things whenever antiquated ordinances are discovered to still remain on the books.

I’d hate to think Brady wants to get Illinois bogged down in some future legal mess. I honestly believe he’s just trying to sew up a part of the conservative voter base that Republicans rely upon.

But that also will hurt him with regards to the rest of the state, which has turned solidly Democrat in the past two decades because those suburban areas that used to see the Republican Party as their defense mechanism against Democratic Chicago now identify themselves more with the city than they do the rural portions of the state that the GOP seems more concerned with these days.

THERE ARE MANY people who view this issue like I do – as a matter of butting out of someone else’s private business (which is what many conservative Republicans claim they stand for, at times).

So is this story going to be one we’re going to hear many allusions to in coming months?

Particularly since it also calls for state Constitution restrictions on the Legislature passing tax increases (I think each instance should be considered separately, rather than have harsh restrictions on all) and term limits for state legislators (I think such limits are short-sighted because some people have much to offer in public service, while others don’t even deserve one term).

Those too are issues that could bolster his image among certain voters, while hurt with the bulk of the state.

BUT BEFORE IT comes off like this commentary is a complete trashing of Brady, he did have one worth-while point to make – he would like to see the Illinois State Board of Elections put in charge of redrawing political boundaries for the state Legislature and Illinois’ congressional delegation, believing that the bi-partisan board would do a more fair job than the self-interests of the General Assembly.

I’m not sure how it would work but it is an idea worth considering, since the people on the elections board usually are more knowledgable about the realities of elections and the state as a whole than the legislators – most of whom can’t comprehend anything that happens beyond their own home neighborhood.

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POLY SCI 101: Keep Lt. Gov.

The political process that will soon be undertaken by Democrats to pick a new nominee for lieutenant governor is stirring up the rhetoric from those people who want to believe that this state would somehow be better off if the political post were merely eliminated.

Of course, these people are usually the kinds who have some ideological hangup about the concept of government in general. They usually rant about “term limits,” not realizing how shortsighted it can be to arbitrarily boot some people from office, and also usually can’t tell the difference between a partisan and a non-partisan election (they’re the ones who want runoff elections in cases that would be totally inapropriate).

SO EXCUSE ME for thinking their rhetoric is a lot of hot air, and also for being thankful that it is a very difficult process that one has to go through to amend the Illinois Constitution – which is what it would take if one were to want to eliminate the lieutenant governor’s post in this state. Even with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, introducing a bill calling for such an amendment to do away with the post in 2015, it is a long shot.

I’ll admit it.

I am a defender of the concept of lieutenant governor. Those people who say the state has managed just fine the past year without a lieutenant governor are missing the point (and not just that the state is not doing “fine” these days, but that is a commentary for another day).

My big reason for opposing the elimination of the post is that I think it is a benefit that when we have elections for governor of Illinois, we also learn exactly who will replace that person should there be some sort of tragedy that befalls them.

SOME PEOPLE WILL argue that we ought to just rely on the line of succession (which under the current Illinois Constitution puts the state attorney general next in line after the lieutenant governor to take over the state in the event that something happens to both of the top-ranking state government officials.

They will argue the Illinois attorney general could just take over state government in the event that something happens to the governor.

Now I don’t get as hung up as some people do about the concept of how such a move could result in a partisan political shift in mid-term (when the day comes that we have a Democrat governor and GOP A.G., or vice versa).

That would be awkward, but partisan shifts are a part of what electoral politics is all about.

WHAT I DON’T like is that it means that if something were to happen to a future governor and there was no lieutenant governor in place, we’d have not only a shakeup within the governor’s office, but also in the office of the attorney general.

I don’t like the idea of that much chaos in that many places within state government at one time (although some smart-alecks will quip that we have nothing but chaos spread throughout all of Illinois government these days).

To me, one of the factors in terms of picking a governor ought to be whether or not one can accept the person who is put in line to succeed him in case of an emergency.

If there is a factor in Illinois’ use of the lieutenant governor position that ought to be changed, it is the fact that the position runs separately during the primary elections from the top post. It ought to be a pair all the way through – although it is not uncommon for informal pairings to develop, such as how Andrew McKenna’s gubernatorial campaign this year made a point of telling its supporters to choose Matt Murphy to be his running mate.

IT GOES BACK to the older days of Illinois when the two top posts used to run separately throughout the entire election process. Usually, the mood of the state was such that the same political party won both positions in any given election year.

Except for 1968, when Dick Ogilvie won governor as a Republican, but had to put up with Democrat Paul Simon as his lieutenant governor. Needless to say, Simon was trusted with nothing by his superior. That fact that it was around that same time that Illinois was undergoing another Constitutional Convention to put together a new document meant that the issue was so fresh in peoples’ minds that changes were made.

That is when we got the current setup of candidates running separately during the primary but paired together in the general election. Not even the chaos of the 1986 Democratic primary that paired Adlai Stevenson III with Lyndon LaRouche follower Mark Fairchild has been enough to get political people in Illinois to make a further change – which would be to copy the presidential process by which nominees get to pick their own running mate.

I think that is good because the “choice” often gives us some insight into the top candidate’s character. It can become an issue. As recently as 2008, how many people were inclined to think favorably of the McCain campaign until the senator from Arizona picked “that woman” to be his running mate.

I LIKE IT. I wish we had something similar for Illinois. But we don’t.

Which is why we’re now in a process where the Democratic Party bigwigs are going to pick the new running mate (although primary election winner Scott Lee Cohen’s followers make a point of saying he doesn’t have to formally resign his claim to the nomination until August). Those political party people say they will try to respect the wishes of Quinn, who will get a rare chance to actually influence the choice of his running mate.

Which makes me wonder how long it will be before Republican partisans start their bellyaching about how unfair it is that Quinn may get to pick his running mate, while their apparent nominee, state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, is stuck running with the 27-year-old neophyte with more than $1 million in family cash who defeated five other Republicans who also wanted the political post that once was described as not worth “a bucket of warm spit,” or words to that effect.

Maybe we'd be better off making the post worth more than "spit."

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Who’s more confused?

As much as people want to focus on the political fight for lieutenant governor on the Democratic side, we can’t forget that the Republican Party in this state has his own potential messes in terms of their newly-elected slate of candidates for the November general election.

If it reads like I think the GOP may have its own problems to cope with come Election Day, you’d be correct.

AS OF RIGHT now, I don’t know who I’d consider to be the front-runner for any campaign – even though I have heard the partisan political rhetoric coming from both sides about how they think their side is the favorite.

I look at the Republican primary and see the squabble now taking place all too similar to what happened to the Democrats back in 1998. That was the year that several candidates from Chicago proper were defeated in the primary because the congressman from Southern Illinois – Glenn Poshard – was able to dominate in the parts of Illinois outside of Chicago.

It sounds a lot like what happened this year with the Republicans, where the state senator from Bloomington was the only candidate in the seven-person field who came from outside the Chicago-area.

Bill Brady (who I must admit I get a bit of a kick out of the idea that he comes from my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University - although he graduated from there just a few months before I was an incoming freshman) was the preference of many Republican voters outside of Chicago who like the idea of a state chief executive without political ties to the Second City.

THAT IS WHAT helped him get that 20 percent of the vote that is 400-some votes more than the 20 percent total for state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, who was the reverse image of Brady – he was the preference of the Chicago suburbs voters, although the other Chicago-area candidates were able to pick away at that same voter base to the point where Brady creeped out into the lead.

There have been “Unity Breakfast” events and some attempts in recent days at the rhetoric that implies everybody is kissing and making up. But I can recall the same rhetoric from the ’98 Dems in the days following the primary election.

The bottom line is that many Chicago Democrats that year never got over the fact that they were being asked to vote for someone whose life perspective was so radically different from theirs. His margin of victory in Chicago in the general election that year was pathetic for a Democratic candidate, and he lost in the suburbs by a wide margin.

Downstate Illinois alone wasn’t enough to win an election for Glenn Poshard (now president of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, near his home in Carterville).

ARE THE REPUBLICAN partisans of this year’s election cycle going to find out the same thing? While I realize that Republican-leaning central Illinois can provide more of a voter base than Democrat-leaning Southern Illinois did for Poshard in ’98, there is the strong possibility that Democrats won’t have that much trouble winning the gubernatorial election come November.

As of Friday, Dillard was refusing to accept defeat. While I understand the need to count all the votes when it comes to an election this close, there also is a time to move on with life. Dillard, who is the type of Republican I personally could consider voting for, has to accept the need to move on with his life.

The longer he keeps this up, the harder it will be for GOPers to unite, and the more likely that ’10 is the year that Illinois gets to see the political reincarnation of the ’98 Dems.

Of course, I’m keeping in mind the fact that the Republican opposition to Poshard in ’98 was a fully-funded campaign for George Ryan, much stronger than the ’10 campaign that will be backing Pat Quinn. Ryan that year was a solid lock to beat up on just about anybody he would have faced.

QUINN HAS THE uncertainty over who will be his running mate, although this state has had so many past instances where a governor could not stand the person he got saddled with for lieutenant governor (most recently, Rod Blagojevich despised Quinn and froze him out) that I don’t think the issue matters much to voters.

Scott Lee Cohen may well have won that primary (although with only 26 percent of the vote, it is not a strong support). But the people who are bitter about his defeat of four legislators and an electrician seem to want to find some way to replace him.

While I find some of the things that have come out about Cohen to be tacky behavior (although not necessarily secret, details were known – if not fully paid attention to), what I find offensive is the notion that people who are upset with an election’s outcome think they can bully the winner into backing away.

It just sounds so un-American. Would these same people be arguing just as vehemously if state Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, and his outspoken mouth had won the primary? For all I know, they might.

PERSONALLY, I WON’T blame Cohen in the least if he decides to fight for his right to remain on the Democratic ticket. I realize that kind of chaos would hurt the Dems if it stretched throughout the next nine months until Election Day.

But I can also see the inexperienced lieutenant governor nominee who will face Cohen in the general election suffering from some of the same candidate flaws (both politically inexperienced who think their business experience is superior when it comes to running government) who only got the nomination because they were able to buy more television attention than their better-qualified opponents.

And on a final note, I have to admit I got my kick out of the Chicago Sun-Times’ cartoonist, Jack Higgins, whose editorial cartoon Friday showed two boxers knocked out in the ring, with the referee counting out the “Republican boxer” complaining that his count-down was being drowned out by the “Democratic boxer’s” count-down.

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What is the worth of a “friendship” on Facebook with a political person?

I am now “friends” with Pat Quinn.

Yes, that Pat Quinn. The guy who gets to call himself governor of Illinois for just over one more year (five more, if he's lucky).

NOW I DON’T mean to use the word “friends” in its true meaning. While I have known of Quinn and first met him nearly two decades ago, our true relationship is one of reporter-type person/political-type person (even though I’m sure there’s a part of him that would detest being lumped in with political people).

But when I woke up Tuesday morning and booted up the laptop to check on a couple of things, I noticed in my e-mail a request from Quinn to be my “friend” on Facebook.

Since I am of the type who is willing to be a Facebook “friend” with just about anybody, I accepted. So now I can read the personal details that Quinn has put up about himself (most of which are rather generic biographical details – no good “dirt” here).

I can also see that Quinn mostly uses his Facebook page to give people a chance to post comments about him and questions to him. My favorite is the from the man who wants the governor of Illinois to crack down on all the perverts who use public computers at the Harold Washington Library to view pornographic pictures and video snippets.

I GUESS IT never occurred to someone to complain to library officials. Go to the governor!

I shouldn’t mock this person so much. After all, he’s merely using the page for what Quinn wants him to – to feel like he has a direct contact, and Quinn as of Tuesday had 1,417 “friends” (22 of whom are also among my Facebook “friends”).

But can one seriously envision Quinn being among those people who use their every spare moment of time (and a lot of time they really don’t have to spare) playing those ridiculous games like “Mob Wars!” or taking the survey to figure out which Chicago street best (I’m “Avenue O”) fits their personality?

Everybody has their own use for a Facebook page.

PERSONALLY, THE REASON I use it is to provide yet another way for people to read the commentaries I write and publish at the Chicago Argus. It’s self-promotion, and if people want to use my page to send me comments about how moronic my commentary is (rather than post a comment on the weblog itself or send me an e-mail at the address published on this weblot), then so be it.

A part of me wants to be read, and I’m using this fad (who’s to say if anyone will pay attention to Facebook five years from now?) to make it easier to be read.

Quinn and other political people who use Facebook to promote themselves are doing the same thing. Only instead of wanting more people reading my weblog, they want more people to vote for them on future Election Days.

So yes, I realize just how pompous it is to make the statement that led off this commentary. It sounds like I’m claiming a personal relationship with the governor, which really has nothing to do with it.

IN FACT, I took a look at the list of Facebook “friends” I have managed to compile in a rather haphazard manner. Some are political operatives, while others are reporter-types who I once worked with or against but haven’t seen in years. A few are old school “chums,” while a few are people who for whatever reason picked me out at random as a Facebook “friend,” and I accepted.

But it turns out that seven of my “friends” are elected government officials, and one is a former elected official (one-time state Rep. Bill Edley, D-Canton).

Aside from Quinn, I can claim Facebook “friendship” with Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, state Reps. Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, and Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, state Sens. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, John E. Bradley, D-Marion, and Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston.

Not that I’m claiming to be overly close to any of them.

BUT IT CAN be useful to figure out what a political person is up to by reading the snippets about themselves that they are willing to post publicly.

And if they are willing to let me read what is up, I will take advantage of it.

Yet the degree to which these officials use Facebook is interesting. I can’t remember the last time I heard anything from Bradley, yet Brady now makes daily appearances in my e-mail.

His every campaign stunt winds up in my box. Hynes is running for the same office on the Democratic Party side of the election, yet I can’t say he’s been anywhere near as active on Facebook. (Of course, getting the endorsements of several organized labor groups and having strong financial support means he doesn’t have to do as much).

BY COMPARISON, BRADY is one of the six Republicans who has dreams of becoming governor, so he has every motivation to get his name out there – since the GOP field is one that is largely unknown to the general public.

Only the most hard-core of political geeks who specializes in Democratic criticism would be able to claim in honesty that he/she knows who all six are in any detail (most of what I know about Brady is that we both attended Illinois Wesleyan University, although he was there a few years ahead of me).

But it could be intriguing if Brady’s heavy use of Facebook helped get his name out to his 1,490 “friends”, who spread his name about to their “friends” – and maybe even to their real-life friends as well.

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