PAT BRADY SURVIVES, MIKE MADIGAN SHRUGS

3/10/13

The effort to oust Pat Brady as chairman of the Illinois state Republican Party has fizzled; a Saturday meeting of the state Central Committee was cancelled, ostensibly because Mr. Brady couldn’t make it, but really because the votes to oust him weren’t there.

 

Mr. Brady was in trouble because he endorsed legislation to legalize same sex marriage in the Land of Lincoln.   Mr. Brady was careful to stipulate that he was speaking for himself, not as chairman of the Illinois party, but his denial of speaking in his official capacity got as much attention as, say, a papal declaration that the pontiff is not speaking ex cathedra.   Since Mr. Brady is chairman of the party, he is presumed to be speaking as chairman of the party whenever he says anything even remotely related to state politics or policy.   

The charge against Mr. Brady was led by Jim Oberweis, best known for his meretriciousness in seeking a spot at the public trough and purveying overpriced, though admittedly quite delectable, ice cream.  After having failed miserably, despite spending millions of his personal fortune, in attempts at offices he really wanted…U.S. Senator, Illinois governor, U.S. Congressman…Mr. Oberweis finally won a consolation prize, an Illinois Senate seat, last year.   Humility never having been his most salient quality, Mr. Oberweis has taken it upon himself, as a freshman senator, to challenge the state GOP’s leader, and one suspects that Mr. Oberweis had someone in mind to replace Mr. Brady had his attempt succeeded.

The reaction from yours truly to the Brady kerfluffle is multi-faceted.

My first impulse is to ask why in the world we are even talking about such issues as same sex marriage.   Mr. Oberweis argued that Mr. Brady’s endorsement of same-sex marriage “badly hurt the state party,” shifting attention away from weightier issues like the fact that we are broke.   Mr. Oberweis, however, did not mention that those who obsess on such issues from the other side similarly ignore issues that are both more pressing and more properly in the purview of the politicians, especially for a Party that prides itself in its full-throated defense of limited government.   Normally, I would say that fixation on either side of such relative political fluff as same sex marriage is a good thing because it diverts the pols’ attention from important issues where these popinjays can do real damage.   But with the state teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, we need some action now.   (See my 3/7/13 post,   NEWS FLASH:   GOVERNOR QUINN IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!)  Unfortunately, we have put ourselves in a position in which we have to rely on the same poltroons who got us into this mess to take measure to extricate us from the mess they have created, but right now it’s all we have.  One suspects the pols get themselves all worked up about such piffles as same sex marriage and licenses for illegals to avoid the immediate problem.   See my 1/28/13 post on the now defunct Rant Political entitled WOULD THE LAST GUY TO LEAVE ILLINOIS PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?, which I have reproduced below.

All that having been written, Pat Brady does deserve to be ousted as state chairman, but it has nothing to dwith his stance on same sex marriage.  He deserves to go because…well, look at the state of the GOP in Illinois.   The Democrats have supermajorities in both houses of the legislature and hold three of the five constitutional offices in the state.   That the GOP holds the treasurer’s and the comptroller’s offices could be considered progress; they hold no constitutional offices prior to 2010.  But what makes Mr. Brady look especially ineffective is that the Democrats won their supermajorities in 2012 despite Mr. Brady’s highly publicized “Fire Madigan” campaign in which Mr. Brady equated a vote for a Democrat in a legislative race to a vote to keep House Speaker Madigan in power.  The result was Mr. Madigan’s tightening his grip on the politics of the state by amassing enough seats in the House and the Senate to make everybody else look irrelevant.  Mr. Madigan’s success, and Mr. Brady’s failure, made Mr. Brady look pathetic.

               

 In fact, rumors are swirling that Mr. Madigan and/or his many people in this state have been working behind the scenes to keep Mr. Brady in power largely because they see him as a very weak opponent, to the extent the GOP can be considered opposition in this state, but I digress on the latter.   The GOP Central Committee’s failure to meet to remove Mr. Brady, some suspect, may be at least partially Mr. Madigan’s doing.  This may be overstating Mr. Madigan’s influence, but one can see why Mr. Madigan, his sidekick Senate President John Cullerton, and even their bete noir Governor Pat Quinn, would like to have Mr. Brady to kick around at least a little longer.

Speaking of Mr. Madigan, he is, besides being Speaker of the House and Committeeman of the 13^th Ward, State Democratic Chairman.   While Mr. Brady may be a nice man with some interesting, though probably doomed, ideas for trying to make the GOP relevant in this state, the contrast between these two party chairmen could not be more stark.  Why do the Dems put their best politicians in charge while the GOPers put up people like Mr. Brady?   Some might suggest dark forces are at work here, namely a GOP that secretly buys into Democratic dominance in the state because, after all, there is only one party in this state and the Republicans are very happy with their subordinate, yet nearly lucrative, role in this arrangement.

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 REPRODUCED POST:

WOULD THE LAST GUY TO LEAVE ILLINOIS PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?

1/28/13

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (no relation) signed legislation yesterday allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses in the Land of Lincoln.   The platform on which Mr. Quinn signed this bill into law was crowded with politicians of all ethnicities and of both parties, as if there were two parties in Illinois, but that is grist for another mill.  

Leave aside the merits of the bill, which are, despite the breathlessness of the press coverage, debatable and certainly not self-evident.   What really stunned yours truly about the signing ceremony was that the assorted pols spoke for a combined TWO HOURS in the wake of the signing.   TWO HOURS of being subjected to the bloviations of self-important politicians is enough to make even the most determined, American dream seeking immigrant turn around and head home.  

What is really illustrative about the two hours of self-congratulations, and perhaps about the bill itself, is what it says about the lilliputians we have elected in the Prairie State.   Our state’s major problem is not illegal immigration which, while affecting the lives of many throughout the state, is a federal issue.   Our state’s major problem is that it is growing broke.   Like most states, Illinois is growing broke because the politicians have figured out that, through granting generous, unaffordable benefits to public employees, they can buy today’s votes with tomorrow’s dollars, (See my 1/9/13 post  ILLINOIS PENSION PROBLEMS:   SEND THE CHECK TO MY KIDS.), hence our $95 billion unfunded pension liability.   The politicians on the dais yesterday, breaking their arms patting themselves on the back over passing into a law a bill of questionable importance and efficacy, are the same politicians who have spent the state into oblivion and the same politicians who lack the spine to do anything about the problem they created; again, see my 1/9 post.

Yet these poltroons and popinjays see fit to endlessly and tirelessly congratulate themselves over the licenses for illegals bill…and feel it necessary to take two hours of people’s valuable time to display their manifest wisdom to those on the receiving end of their largesse.   When do they appear before those on the giving end?