WHATEVER SHE DOES, SHEILA SIMON OUGHT TO THANK PAT QUINN

2/14/13

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon announced on Wednesday that she would not be Governor Pat Quinn’s running mate when (if?) he seeks reelection in 2014.   This announcement apparently had been planned since December when Ms. Simon and Mr. Quinn (no relation) were trying to figure out a way to make it in such a manner that “nobody would come out looking bad,” and it has led to plenty of speculation about Ms. Simon’s motives and ambitions.

Most observers think Ms. Simon’s motive is to jump off the sinking ship that Mr. Quinn’s chance for reelection appears to be.   Clearly, no ambitious politician wants to be identified with a loser, and, right now, Mr. Quinn (no relation) looks like he will have a tough time getting re-nominated, let alone re-elected.  (I discussed the 2014 gubernatorial race in Illinois in one of my last posts on the now defunct Rant Political, LISA MADIGAN WOULD BE A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR ILLINOIS GOVERNOR, BUT WOULD SHE BE A GOOD GOVERNOR?, 1/23/13, which I have reproduced below.)  On the very day that Sheila Simon made her announcement, a poll by the (perhaps irony of ironies) Paul Simon Public Policy Institute showed the following preferences among Democrats for not all that hypothetical candidates for governor:

Attorney General Lisa Madigan                                                              31.9%

Governor Pat Quinn                                                                               22.9%

Former Commerce Secretary, et. al., Bill Daley                                      11.9%

The numbers don’t look good for the Governor, but they look a lot worse for Bill Daley.   Mr. Daley’s numbers surprise yours truly, but I digress.  Politics, though, is a fickle business and Mr. Quinn is, after all, the incumbent, so it’s still too early to completely dismiss Mr. Quinn’s chances.  Therefore, while one can certainly legitimately speculate that Ms. Quinn’s motives amount to the political equivalent of those of the poor souls on the ill-fated Carnival cruise wanting to get off the sailing sewer their ship has become, her motives may be simpler.

The post of Illinois Lieutenant Governor (“LG”) is even less consequential than that of Vice-President of the United States, which John Nance (“Cactus Jack”) Garner, who served in the latter post from 1933 to 1941, equated to a “warm bucket of (spit).” (Incidentally, Mr. Garner didn’t stay “spit.”  When the quote was reported, that word was substituted for another at least equally disgusting human emission because people had class in those days, but, again, I digress.)   In fact, the last Lieutenant Governor who displayed a record of accomplishment in that job was Ms. Simon’s father, who left the post in 1972 to run for governor.  The most telling evidence of the vestigiality of the LG’s office is not, as the media would have it, the resignations from that post in mid-term of Dave O’Neal in 1981 and Bob Kustra (sort of) in 1998.   No, the most telling evidence of the worthlessness of the office is that nobody missed either Mr. O’Neal or Mr. Kustra when he left.

Clearly, Sheila Simon is bored being LG, as would anyone of reasonable intelligence and sound work ethic; there is nothing to do as LG.   So there is plenty of motivation for wanting to leave that job even without taking into consideration Mr. Quinn’s unpromising chances at reelection.

What of Sheila Simon’s ambitions?

Most of the talk seems to revolve around Ms. Simon’s either challenging Judy Baar Topinka for Illinois comptroller or Ms. Simon’s running for Attorney General (“AG”) should Lisa Madigan make a run at Pat Quinn in the primary.   Both are plausible.   And, this being Illinois, one would be remiss if one discounted the possibility of a deal between Mike Madigan and Sheila Simon, something like (purely hypothetically, of course) having Ms. Simon make this announcement, further embarrassing and weakening Mr. Quinn, in return for Mike Madigan’s support in Ms. Simon’s run for AG.  And don’t even try to tell me that Sheila Simon has too much integrity to pull off such a deal.  Do you think even her father, much ballyhooed for his integrity, didn’t get involved in such dealing?   If you do, please catch a flight back to reality from the la-la land you currently inhabit, but I digress.

A more plausible scenario, if Ms. Simon seeks an Illinois constitutional office, might be a run for Secretary of State.  The current Secretary, Jesse White, one of the state’s most popular officeholders who routinely has won reelection by lopsided, even by Illinois standards, margins, is, after all, 78 years old and will be 80, and will have held the office for 16 years, in 2014.   He might want to hang it up and/or may be receptive to a “suggestion” by the likes of Mike Madigan, who runs the Illinois Democratic Party, that retirement might not be such a bad idea.   After all, Jesse White is, if nothing else, a loyal party guy.

There are other possibilities. 

Ms. Simon has said that she wants “a role where (sic) I can have an even greater impact” and “be the best advocate for the state of Illinois.”   What if the words “advocate for Illinois” were more carefully chosen than most people are assuming and indicate a desire to go to Washington to so advocate?

A seat in U.S. House, where her father ended up after losing his gubernatorial bid in 1972, does not seem realistic.  I am quite, but not completely, sure that Ms. Simon lives in the 12^th District, which has a brand new Democratic congressman in Representative Bill Enyart.   It is unlikely that she would challenge a fellow Democrat in a primary.  Her making a run in the 12^th  does remain a possibility, though.  The Simon name is magic in the southern stretches of Illinois, more than potent enough to overcome her, and her father’s, liberalism in a relatively conservative district and perhaps persuade a first term incumbent to step aside.   If I’m wrong and she lives in (or chooses to move to or run in) the 15^th  District, even the Simon name might not be enough for a Democrat to beat Republican John Shimkus in that heavily GOP district.

But how about the Senate?   Though Senator Mark Kirk is recovering and we all hope his recovery continues and he can continue to serve, it’s tough to recover from a massive stroke and fulfill the duties of a U.S. Senator.  (Even getting one’s hindquarters continually smooched and calling it a living is hard if one is sufficiently debilitated by  a stroke.)  His term lasts until 2016, and one assumes that the ambitious Sheila Simon does not want to wait that long to run for her next office.   But if Mr. Kirk’s medical challenges force, or persuade, him to leave office early, the Governor gets to pick his replacement.  That governor will be Pat Quinn until 2014 and, chances are, at least at this juncture, will be Democrat until 2018.   What better job is there than U.S. Senator?   And, in the proud tradition of Illinois politics, Sheila Simon’s following her late father to the Senate would keep it in the family.

Whatever she does, Ms. Simon ought to be grateful to Mr. Quinn.   Before he selected her as his running mate, even though she was his third choice, she was a former member of the city council in Carbondale with few political prospects, a bleak political future, and little going for her but a famous and popular name.   Now she is a serious contender for some jobs that would make far more seasoned pols salivate.   Hopefully, she will treat Mr. Quinn with the gratitude and respect such magnanimity deserves.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.  

PROMISED FORMER POST:

LISA MADIGAN WOULD BE A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR ILLINOIS GOVERNOR, BUT WOULD SHE BE A GOOD GOVERNOR?

1/23/13

Chicago Sun-Times columnist and political reporter Lynn Sweet indicated today what many have long suspected:   Attorney General Lisa Madigan is “seriously thinking” about running in the 2014 primary for Illinois Governor against unpopular incumbent Pat Quinn (no relation) and maybe former Commerce Secretary and Presidential Chief of Staff Bill Daley.   (See my 1/16/13 post, BILL DALEY:  POLITICIANS SACRIFICE MORE THAN THE REST OF US COULD EVER IMAGINE.) As usual, Ms. Sweet makes some great points and I would advise anyone interested in the byzantine politics of the Land of Lincoln and its largest city to read her column on page 2 of today’s (i.e., Wednesday, 1/23/13’s) Sun-Times.

Two additional comments, including some historical perspective, on a Lisa Madigan candidacy on which Ms. Sweet did not touch:

--Lisa Madigan would be a formidable candidate for governor, or senator, simply because she gets such fantastic press and hence has garnered accolades, or at least approval, from voters across the political spectrum.   Though Ms. Madigan is at least a reasonably liberal Democrat, even the most rock-ribbed conservatives find little bad to say about her.

One could attribute Ms. Madigan’s popularity to the good job she has done as Aspiring Governor (er, sorry…Attorney General) rather than to the good press that yours truly sees as the source of her sky high approval ratings.  The problem with ascribing her popularity to her skill as AG, though, is that it is difficult to garner ill-will, or to distinguish one’s self one way or the other, in that office.   The Attorney General in the State of Illinois is not a prosecutorial office.  It is primarily, as far as the public sees, a consumer protection office, bringing civil actions against big time polluters, purveyors of shoddy products, or sellers of flim-flam services.  It is hard to anger people when one is ostensibly standing up for the little guy against the evil designs of the darker quarters of corporate America.   Therefore, it would be hard for Lisa Madigan, or for any other Attorney General in this state, to look bad.

Even those people who could get upset with the Attorney General…alleged bad actors in the corporate community…are afraid to speak out vociferously, if at all, against Ms. Madigan because of the power of her father, House Speaker Mike Madigan.  (See, inter alia, my 1/9/13 post, ILLINOIS PENSION PROBLEMS:   SEND THE CHECK TO MY KIDS.)

While it is easy to predict that Lisa Madigan would be a formidable candidate for governor, because of the nature of her current office, it is difficult to determine how good a governor she would be.   That she has appeared to do a good job in an office in which it is virtually impossible to do a bad job is no indication that she would do a good job in an office in which it is virtually impossible to a good job.

--While it is possible to see a Quinn/Daley/Madigan race work to Lisa Madigan’s advantage because she is a woman, it is nearly as easy to see such a three way race working to Governor Quinn’s advantage because he is the incumbent.

However…

While incumbency, even an unpopular incumbency, such as Pat Quinn’s, is formidable, those of us who study, or even just remember, Chicago politics know that incumbency is not insurmountable, even with a divided opposition.   Remember the Democratic mayoral primary in 1983, when unpopular incumbent Jane Byrne was challenged by Cook County State’s Attorney Rich Daley (Bill’s brother) and U.S. Representative Harold Washington.   The results were as follows:

Harold Washington                   37%

Jane Byrne                               33%

Rich Daley                                30%

The dynamics of that race, especially in its racial overtones, were clearly different.   Nonetheless, its results should give pause to those who assume that an incumbent has a big edge, even in a primary, when his or her opposition, is divided.