ROBIN KELLY AND STANLEY MOORE: THE LADY AND THE TRAMP…OR TWO PEAS IN A POD?

4/12/13

Featured prominently in both Chicago newspapers this morning was the stunning news that Stanley Moore, whom the relevant ward and township committeemen chose to replace Bill Beavers on the Cook County Board (See my 3/22/13 post, COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS:   HOG WITH THE BIG NUTS, REAL LIFE FRANK PANTANGELI, OR BOTH? and the posts to which it will refer you.), has a few ethics problems.   Specifically, Mr. Moore was fined $3,000 by the state of Illinois’ Executive Ethics Committee for campaigning for the state legislature while on the clock when he was working for the Illinois Department of Transportation.  He paid $2,900 of that fine only after he was being considered for the County Board post, pleading poverty until then.   Note that Mr. Moore has been convicted of no crimes; the Ethics Committee is an extra-judicial body, if you will.

So a long time Cook County political hanger-on gets fined for campaigning for office while on the public payroll.   What, other than Mr. Moore’s actually getting fined for this transgression, is news?

Throughout the same week on which we heard this stunning news on Mr. Moore, we read breathless media commentary about Robin Kelly, who went through the electoral motions Tuesday to trounce her Democratic opponent and was sworn in yesterday as the replacement for the disgraced Jesse Jackson, Jr. (“Triple J”) as the 2^nd Congressional District’s representative in the U.S. House.   It is all, according to the media, sweetness and light with Ms. Kelly.   She is new, different, and refreshing.   She will change things in the 2^nd District.

But wait a minute…  

Robin Kelly had nearly the same ethical problems as Mr. Moore.   While she was working for State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who himself has something of a questionable past, she was campaigning to succeed her boss…while on the clock at the Treasurer’s office.   But we don’t hear much about that…she is new, smart, brilliant, compassionate, honest, etc., etc., etc….the same kind of hoping against hope, gormless bullroar we heard about Triple J and about Mel Reynolds before him.   Both left Congress in disgrace, Triple J with money problems, Mel Reynolds with teenage girl problems.   But when each of these nonentities assumed office, both with thin resumes but either a big name or a big academic pedigree, we were told by their shameless media cheerleaders that they were new, smart, brilliant, honest, etc., etc….and none of it was true.   They were both nothing but corrupt pols and we had no reason to think otherwise…other than the distastefulness, or worse, of their predecessors.  

The same is true of Robin Kelly.   There is nothing in her record of “public service,” which amounts to one spot at the public trough after another, while playing the types of games endemic to Cook County politics, to indicate that she is anything but yet another hack looking for a better place at the trough from which she can enrich herself and/or advance her career as some kind of self-imagined messiah for the benighted masses who just can’t seem to figure out the right way to live.   (See my 2/27/13 piece,  MR. SUNSHINE ON ROBIN KELLY, DEBBIE HALVORSON, AND THE ILLINOIS 2^ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT RESULTS)   Yet the media just want to believe because, one supposes, Ms. Kelly is relatively young, relatively attractive, and unceasingly spouts the liberal line on guns, taxes, and the constant necessity for more government.   Her life has been one of using other people’s money to prove her compassion and advance her career.   The same could be said for each of her predecessors…and look how they turned out.

No one is excusing Mr. Moore’s ethical transgressions.  But why is he singled out for media derision while Ms. Kelly, who is not in any substantial way different from Mr. Moore, suddenly worthy of unceasing, unflinching, and unthinking adulation?

Someone like yours truly whose memory exceeds the last few months or years, and thus has heard it all before, will reserve judgment on this latest media darling.   Perhaps she will prove to be the most ethical, the most effective, and the all around most wonderful politician to come out of the 2^nd District (a very low bar) or the Land of Lincoln (an only slightly higher bar).   A thinking person doubts it, given Ms. Kelly’s at the very best mediocre, same old same old, record.   But, believe it or not, I would be delighted if she proves me wrong; the long suffering residents of the 2^nd District badly need a break.

 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.