RAHM VS. THE LILLIPUTIANS

9/23/14

Fran Spielman, the City Hall reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, write a story published today (“Long shot could force runoff,” page 11) arguing that while Alderman Bob Fioretti cannot possibly win a mayoral race against Rahm Emanuel, the presence of both Mr. Fioretti and Chicago Teachers’ Union President Karen Lewis on the primary ballot could make a runoff more likely.   (See ALDERMAN BOB FIORETTI THROWS HIS HAT IN THE RING:  OH, HEART BE STILL, 9/13/14 for more illumination on Mr. Fioretti and his minuscule chances for winning the big office on the 5^th Floor.)

A brief primer on the mayoral election process in Chicago is in order here.  Chicago mayoral elections are no longer officially partisan; instead, there is a nonpartisan primary in February.  If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, s/he becomes mayor.  If no candidate wins 50% of the vote, a runoff is held in April.  Since this officially nonpartisan process was initiated in 1999, there has been no runoff election.

Ms. Spielman, like any political junky reporter, loves a good story.  She even trotted out old school independent strategist Don Rose in support of her thesis, or at least in pursuit of her story.  But Ms. Spielman is, in this case, clearly delusional.  

As I have said before (e.g., TONI PRECKWINKLE RULES OUT A RUNFOR MAYOR OF CHICAGO…MY READERSYAWN, 7/15/14), no one is going to beat Rahm Emanuel in February and there will be no April election.   Mr. Emanuel has the money, the organization, the cowering pols, the obsequious “business community,” the private sector unions, and certainly the fawning press, national and local, behind him.   Politics everywhere, but especially in Chicago, is about money and the people who make money, or can potentially make money, from politics in this city on the make are either behind Mr. Emanuel or will be wooed by promises of money, or by threats, to get behind Mr. Emanuel.  Whether Mr. Emanuel runs against one, two, or a million opponents, that will be the case.

Mr. Emanuel’s inevitability would be, if anything, enhanced by the presence of both Ms. Lewis and Mr. Fioretti on the primary ballot.  Yes, there are differences between them…professional background and race come immediately to mind.  But, fully mindful that ideology is overrated in the governance of cities, it is useful to point out that these two are ideological clones.  Their philosophies are identical…vilify and tax the wealthy in order to pander to the poor.  In a mindless jihad that could only be conceived by those with complete ignorance of economics, both Ms. Lewis and Mr. Fioretti would increase the tax and regulatory burden to make the city sort of dystopia for the productive in a gormless appeal to the baser instincts of the masses.  Hello Detroit.

If we were to join the fantasizing about the possibility of unseating the Wise and Mighty Rahm, we would do well to heed Greg Goldner, Mr. Emanuel’s campaign manager in his 2002 run for Congress, as quoted in the Spielman article, who said

“They’re (Ms. Lewis and Mr. Fioretti) almost splitting the progressive community.  That’s not the right starting point to go to the white ethnic base on the Northwest and Southwest sides that might be dissatisfied with the mayor but don’t share those leftist political views.”

If we had either Mr. Fioretti or Ms. Lewis in the race, but not both, and a candidate who could appeal to the justifiably angry voters on the Southwest and Northwest sides whom Mr. Emanuel regards as an endless parade of Mikes and Mollies, then we might have something of a race…but ultimately, at best, a race to see who gets slaughtered in the April run-off.  That other candidate, however, has not surfaced and will not surface and, as Mr. Goldner points out, those teed off people from my old neighborhood and their kindred spirits from the geographical fringes of the city are not going to back Karen Lewis or, once they’ve read more than a few paragraphs on the man, Bob Fioretti.  They’d rather hold their noses and vote for Mr. Emanuel.  So Mr. Fioretti and Ms. Lewis, if they both wind up in the race, will be battling each other for that fraction of the black and/or progressive vote that hasn’t been bought off or similarly mollified into voting for Mr. Emanuel…like two dogs fighting over a picked over bone.

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. 

“ILLUMINATING” THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS?

9/15/14

In a September 5 column, Chicago Sun-Times writer Neil Steinberg, under the cover of a disingenuous offer of “illumination” for my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered a back-handed slap to one of the world’s great universities and nearly an entire state. 

Rarely letting a slight of an institution I hold dear go unanswered, I sent the following letter to the Sun-Times.  As I anticipated, the paper didn’t print my missive and certainly won’t now that all this time has passed.  So I thought I’d post the letter on my blog for your enjoyment and consideration:

Neil Steinberg is a columnist and columnists are not supposed to be objective.  The columnist’s job is to be opinionated.   However, one can be opinionated without being extraneously nasty…and missing one’s facts in the process.

In his offer of “illumination” to my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mr. Steinberg fails on both counts.   One understands immediately that Mr. Steinberg doesn’t like the U of I, perhaps because it is too low brow for him.  But he can’t even offer the place a compliment (“bristling with programs and libraries and quirky collegiate peculiarities”) without prefacing those compliments with the back-handed slap that he expected my alma mater to be a “seedy sinkhole of downstate grimness.”   Mr. Steinberg has to go out of his way to insult not only one of the world’s great universities but the entire state of Illinois south of I-80.   But he’s only trying to help, don’t you see?

Mr. Steinberg, in his further denigration of the U of I, offers an absolutely silly criterion for judging the quality of a university:  he challenges us to name one University of Illinois professor.     How many people can name any professor anywhere?   Mr. Steinberg compounds his folly by answering his own question by citing Bill Ayers, who was on the faculty not at the University of Illinois at Champaign, the subject of his column, but at the University of Illinois at Chicago.   Perhaps a better criterion would be Nobel Prize winners; U of I has 11 Nobel laureates among its alumni and another 11 Nobel laureates among its non-alumni faculty.   Two Nobel laureates were both alums and faculty members.  Most people in my profession, investments, can name one of those faculty laureates, Franco Modigliani, the former UIUC professor who won the Nobel in Economics in 1985 primarily for his work on valuation of the firm.  Can Mr. Steinberg name any of the U of I’s Nobel winners?

One of Mr. Steinberg’s prescriptions for improving the U of I’s image is to admit fewer students, to lower its acceptance rate so that “those it did admit might get the sense they had achieved something truly significant by being admitted and actually go.”  Mr. Steinberg goes on, after that slap, to say that he doesn’t want to “minimize” that “a lot of kids work like demons to get in” and that “U of I represent(s) the attainment of their dreams,” but one can clearly smell insincerity there.  And how do you think the taxpayers of this state would react if U of I turned down more stellar students?   Who hasn’t heard the stories of kids with 33+ ACTS and perfect GPAs getting turned down for the engineering or business schools at U of I?   Mr. Steinberg wants more such stories?

We get it; Neil Steinberg, even though he “could see (his) boys going there,” doesn’t think U of I is up to his high standards.  But in explaining this position, does Mr. Steinberg have to go out of his way to insult not only an institution that continues to contribute so much to the worlds of business, technology, and the cause of academic excellence, but also nearly an entire state?

THIS PARTICULAR STUPID THANKSGIVING TRADITION PREDATES THE “OPEN ON THANKSGIVING” IDIOCY

11/26/13

We are all aware of the stupid tradition of the President of the United State’s “pardoning” a turkey around Thanksgiving Day.   John Kennedy started this nonsense (as he did so much other nonsense…like Vietnam and the Great Society) back when he was darkening the White House door with his other shenanigans.  The first Bush continued the bi-partisan bout of brainlessness by making the exoneration an official presidential pardon.

A couple questions…

First, just how much time does the president, whomever he may be, have on his hands?

Second, I just learned today, in Michael Sneed’s column in the Chicago Sun-Times, that this year’s turkeys destined for pardon were trucked to Washington D.C. from a farm in Minnesota.  Who pays for this idiotic nonsense?   Please don’t tell me the taxpayers do!

People will argue “What can it cost to truck in a few turkeys?”   The first answer is “Plenty” by normal people terms.  The second answer is that, even if, in government terms, the cost of trucking the turkeys is peanuts, what’s wrong with small cuts in government spending?   Small cuts add up.  And eschewing small cuts because they are small leads to big spending.  

Blessed Thanksgiving, everybody.  And note that it’s not “Turkey Day”; it’s THANKSgiving, a day designated by President Lincoln for thanking God for the gifts He has bestowed on us.   Let’s remember that and enjoy the holiday before the almighty dollar society in which we live completely destroys this holiday...as it has done with the Holiday Formerly Known As Christmas.

TIFS: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING…TO THE POLS AND THEIR PALS

9/29/13

Today’s (i.e., Sunday, 9/29/13’s, page 6) Chicago Sun-Times contains an article by staff reporter David Roeder about tax increment financing districts (“TIF”s), which have been in use for decades now but that lately, and finally, have engendered the controversy they’ve long deserved.  People see that the city of Chicago is broke (See yesterday’s post,  CHICAGO PENSION PROBLEMS:  I’LL GLADLY PAY YOU TOMORROW FOR A HAMBURGER TODAY…AND THIS TIME, I REALLY, REALLY MEAN IT! for only the most salient manifestation of the city’s wretched financial condition.) but that Mayor Emanuel is seemingly able to summon boatloads of spondulicks from TIF funds for whatever will further his reelection and/or repay the myriad IOUs he has figuratively written to campaign contributors.  People are understandably upset; what makes TIF money so special that it is untouchable for any purposes except those that Super Rahm deems worthy?

           

The Sun-Time article states, correctly…

TIFs have been called a slush fund, a description that’s in the eye of the beholder.  But they are a mad money pot of off the books spending controlled by the mayor of Chicago based on priorities that can be mysterious.

The article goes on to describe various projects, some that have worked out and some that haven’t, that have been funded by TIF money and summarizes some recommendations for reforming the process.

Yours truly will leave the arguments regarding the pros and cons of TIFs for another post, other than to say that TIFs are another idea that makes eminent sense in theory but in practice turn into yet another mud pool for the porcines that we continue to re-elect.  However, I will take this opportunity for nearly shameless self-promotion.  In chapter 10 of my second book,   The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, I describe a meeting between developer Jack Smith, his somewhat putzy son that he is trying to break into the family business, and Linas Siliunas, an old school alderman who has replaced the book’s title character as chairman of the city council Zoning Committee.  In one especially relevant portion of that chapter, the parties discuss TIF financing and the Smiths discover that the wily Siliunas is way ahead of them on this subject and correctly describes TIFs for what they are.  This excerpt starts with the elder Smith asking Alderman Siliunas for TIF money and thinking he is somehow enlightening the unenlightened:

“Good, Alderman, because I’ll need something I didn’t need before, but only because they weren’t much in use when we did the original project.  We’re going to need a tax increment financing district so any additional property taxes go back into the project instead of to the city.   It only makes sense, Alderman; if we didn’t do the development, there wouldn’t be any additional property taxes.   Why not let them go back into the property to make it better?  Provides a little more incentive, if you know what I mean.”

Alderman Siliunas smiled.  “And we get a lot of say over where the money goes.  It’s a great deal for everyone, Jack.   It’s sort of like our little pool of money to reward our friends and screw our enemies, as my old friend, the late, great Alderman Brancato used to say.  But Jack, I’m the Chairman of the Zoning Committee.  I’ve been an alderman for over thirty years.   You sound as if I don’t know what a TIF is.”

Smith immediately backtracked.  “I’m sorry, Alderman…”

“Don’t be sorry, Jack.  I know that it’s sometimes hard to conceive that people from the neighborhood could understand something as sophisticated as a TIF.”  Smith felt sufficiently put in his place.   Siliunas continued.   “But we do.   Hell, you know, if you’ve followed what’s going on in our town, that we’ve used TIFs more than anyone else.  We love them so much that, if you hadn’t suggested one, I would have suggested, no, demanded, that you use one.   We really like TIFs.”

“So it’ll be no problem.”

“No problem at all.”

(Emphasis mine)

You should read the book if you want to learn more about TIFs and other shenanigans that politicians around here (and everywhere) use to circumvent normal political channels to get their hands on scads of cash.

In fact,

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. 

JESSE AND SANDI JACKSON: JUST HOW CLAIRVOYANT WAS H.L. MENCKEN?

8/15/13

Jesse Jackson, Jr., affectionately, or otherwise, known as “Triple J” in these parts, and his co-schemer and wife Sandi Jackson, were sentenced yesterday for their crimes involving misuse of campaign funds and failure to mention to the IRS their use of such funds for such vital campaign necessities as moose heads, furs, Eddie Van Halen guitars, Michael Jackson memorabilia, and a $43,000 watch.   Yours truly contends that anyone who spends $43 grand on a watch deserves to go to jail on general principle, but I digress.

As regular readers know, I have been deeply intrigued by this story for a long time.  (See, inter alia

JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSONEND UP UNDER THAT BUS?, 2/7/13

LET’S FINALLY TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT JESSE ANDSANDI JACKSON, 2/16/13

A SORT OF DEFENSE OFSANDI JACKSON, 2/21/13

and posts in a former blog to which they will direct you.)   So the sentencing of these two felonious finaglers merits some comment from yours truly.

First, the sentences seemed a little light:   a year for Sandi Jackson and two and a half years for Triple J, both far under the maxima under federal guidelines.   If the Chicago Sun-Times Natasha Korecki and Lynn Sweet, neither of whom could be considered hostile to the Jacksons, are to be believed, at least Triple J agrees that he got off easy.  According to Ms. Sweet and Ms. Korecki in today’s (8/15/13, page 4) Sun-Times…

Jackson, Jr., 48, who had been blowing his nose and sobbing during his remarks to the judge, appeared to break into a half-grin as the news of the sentence settled in.

And it got better for the Jackson.  Rather than both going immediately to jail (and why has it taken this long?), they will go in sequence, with Jesse going first and Sandi going after him.  And they got to decide the order of their incarcerations.   Who else gets such treatment?

Still, yours truly is kind of surprised that Sandi Jackson got any jail time at all.   It’s not that I don’t think she deserved it.  But so much of the Chicago media and political establishments had bought into the “poor, poor put-upon Sandi Jackson” line of baloney, along with the “these kids need their parents” pile of horse dump that I feared, and suspected, that Judge Amy Berman Jackson (no relation) had drunken the kool-aid.  Fortunately, she didn’t.

Second, Triple J’s still vague emotional/mental malady was taken for the line of cattle detritus that it appeared to be.  Prosecutor Matt Graves, referring to Mr. Jackson’s purported illness, stated

“It’s quite clear there’s no ‘there’ there.”

Some might reply that, of course, Mr. Graves would say that; after all, he was the prosecutor in the case.  But Judge Jackson also gave the mental health angle no credence, pointing out that there was nothing sudden about Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s, er, lapses of judgment, as would be the case if their thievery sprung from Mr. Jackson’s mental condition.   This was, the Judge pointed out, a continuing pattern of pilferage, and stated that there was

“…only once conclusion, and that is that you (Triple J) knew better.”

Yours truly is no mental health professional, but neither are the vast majority of people commenting on Triple J’s medical maladies.   Further, none of the mental health professionals the Jacksons were able to produce were all that convincing.   Maybe those of us who are, to put it mildly, suspicious of Mr. Jackson’s claims of the psychiatric equivalent of “the devil made me do it” are wrong.  Maybe Mr. Jackson really is sick.   If that really is the case, one suspects that whatever it is that Mr. Jackson has will clear up quickly…very quickly.  In fact, one suspects that his afflictions vanished as soon as his sentence was pronounced.   But they may make a temporary comeback if (when, probably) Mr. and Mrs. Jackson prepare their appeal.

Third, we have been hearing much about “wasted talent” and “a promising career” of “a young man who had the ability to go all the way” being “thrown away,” and other such bullroar from those die-hard liberals in the local and national media who “just wanna believe,” and can’t be convinced otherwise.  

Yours truly never bought into this hype.  Triple J was at best a passable Congressperson, at worst a lazy, entitled son of privilege who was clearly in over his head.   Until recently, he had a very good Congressional attendance record, but one wonders what he did other than attend.  In his 17 years in Congress, he never managed to win a committee chairmanship, despite the sycophancy most of his fellow Congressman showed him due to his last name and the perception that it carries a lot of weight with black voters.  He did manage to win a seat on the Appropriations Committee, but his record of achievement in that all-important Committee, like his overall record in Congress, was slight, at best.   He made a lot of noise about what came to be seen as his pet project, a third Chicago airport in distant Peotone, but there is still no airport growing from the cornfields in that bucolic burg.  He also proposed that each school child in America be given an i-Pad, courtesy of you, the taxpayer.   Hmm…perhaps we should be grateful that JJJ was unable to get anything done.   Even his much lauded oratory was only so much fulmination, much art and little substance, jargon and catch-lines amounting to nothing but pap and pabulum for the already converted.

When Mr. Jackson first came to Congress in 1995, all we heard about was what a terrific, wonderful, super hero of a young man he was, truly outstanding, upstanding, and all around beatific in every conceivable way.  It seemed to yours truly that such talk was just another orgiastic manifestation of the “just gotta believe” phenomenon among starry-eyed liberals with not even a passing familiarity with life on the ground in Mr. Jackson’s 2^nd Congressional District.

We had heard nearly the same kinds of hosannas about Mel Reynolds, Mr. Jackson’s predecessor as Congressman in the 2^nd District, when Mr. Reynolds defeated Gus Savage in 1992 to assume the seat.   Mr. Reynolds was described in nearly the same beatific tones as Mr. Jackson.   Mr. Reynolds was a Rhodes Scholar and he was….,well, given Mr. Reynolds’ thin resume and an inability to talk in anything but empty platitudes or understand the core of any issue, no one could come up with anything other than his Rhodes Scholarship.   In fact, Mr. Reynolds’ only qualification for Congress, let alone the sainthood his true believers seemed to be recommending him for, was that he was not his race-baiting, anti-Semitic predecessor Gus Savage.  

Mr. Reynolds went on to develop, or maybe just further indulge from a position of power, proclivities toward teenage girls, especially Catholic school girls (“I think I just won the lottery,” Mr. Reynolds response when he was told by what turned out to be an informant that the informant could set him up with a girl who attended a Catholic high school, is perhaps Mr. Reynolds’ most famous utterance, but I digress.) and lie to law enforcement about it.   Consequently, he was provided lodging in a federal facility  and was replaced by the equally underqualified Mr. Jackson.  The same people who just three years before were telling us how terrific Mr. Reynolds was began telling us that we had been visited by an even more celestial personage in Mr. Jackson.  I never believed it because there was never any basis for it other than the “just gotta believe” attitude that affects those whose minds are so open their brains fall out.   But Mr. Jackson’s obsequiants may have had a point; Mr. Jackson had at least one more qualification than Mr. Reynolds:  not only was Mr. Jackson not Gus Savage; he also was not Mel Reynolds.  As H.L. Mencken, one of the truly great figures in American history said,

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will make a better soup.”

Fourth, there is much talk already about a Triple J comeback.   Don’t discount the possibility.  Young Mr. Jackson is not yet fifty and he’ll be out in about a year and a half.   He managed to win re-election by a landslide in 2012 despite his absence from both Congress and the campaign trail in the wake of suspicions regarding his dalliances with former Governor Rod Blagojevich about Barack Obama’s old senate seat and, of course, the onset of his mysterious maladies.  

Further, as H.L. Mencken also said in a widely misquoted observation…

“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

So we have not yet heard the last from Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his accomplice, Sandi Jackson.   As Mr. Mencken also said, perhaps gazing at the 2^nd District from far off Baltimore

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

And, perhaps having a vision of the not yet born Jesse and Sandi Jackson, Mr. Mencken also observed

“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are living, breathing, walking, talking manifestations of the wisdom of Mr. Mencken.

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. 

PAT QUINN SUSPENDS LEGISLATORS’ SALARIES: FOUR MORE YEARS?

7/10/13 

Governor Pat Quinn (no relation, but my happiness at not sharing a bloodline with the man seems to decrease on a daily basis) announced today that he will use his line-item veto power on the budget to suspend lawmakers’ salaries until something is done on the pension crisis that is fast driving the Land of Lincoln to bankruptcy.  (A re-read of my 6/15/13 post, WAS PAT QUINN “PUT ON THIS EARTH” TO SOLVE ILLINOIS’PENSION PROBLEMS? May be helpful in assessing Mr. Quinn’s motivations here.)

This is an absolutely brilliant move on Cousin (again, not really) Pat’s part.  

Yes, this is little more than a bit of Mr. Quinn’s customary demagoguery.  The suspension is highly unlikely to survive; either the courts will overrule Mr. Quinn, citing the Illinois Constitution’s prohibition on changing lawmakers’ salaries mid-term, or the legislature will override Mr. Quinn’s line-item veto.   And even if the suspension does survive, the impact on the budget will, of course, be virtually undetectable, and even it may not get our esteemed public servants off the dime.

However…

The symbolism is brilliant here, and symbolism is, usually sadly, very important in politics. 

As I said over a month ago, in my 6/3/13 post, THE PENSION DEBACLE IN ILLINOIS:  MR. MADGIAN AS MACHIAVELLI, MR. EMANUEL LOSESA ROUND, OR MR. QUINN GOES TO SPRINGFIELD?,

Mr. Quinn is a pretty decent politician and a smart guy.   He can, and probably will, conduct a sort of Mr. Quinn Goes to Springfield type of campaign in 2014, in which Mr. Quinn, a lifelong politician who has played “get along, go along” for the last 40 years, will be cast as a sort of St. George who battles the dragons of Mike Madigan and his minions.   The voters of Illinois might go for it; they have certainly gone for much more preposterous notions; see, as only the most salient example, the governorship of the man whom Mr. Quinn served as Lieutenant Governor, Rod Blagojevich.

In my 6/5/13 post,  PAT QUINN, PENSIONS, ANDTHE UPCOMING ILLINOIS GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY: WHAT WOULD JIMMY STEWART DO?, I followed up with

Mr. Quinn’s efforts to blame the legislature for the failure to enact pension reform and to set up the fast approaching 2014 primary as a Jimmy Stewartesque battle between the forces of sweetness and light vs. the dark side may be working.  

Governor Quinn may not be very popular, but the legislature is far less popular.  Mr. Quinn is no fool and realizes that the way to win this race is to run against the legislature and its Democratic leadership.   This latest move ramps up that campaign theme.

As I also said on 6/5,

Whether Mr. Quinn attacks subtlety or engages in a full frontal assault, he will be going after the legislature and “politics as usual” in his upcoming campaign for re-election.  It’s his only chance, and it’s a better chance than most people think.  (Emphasis mine.)

As I said then and even way before then (and, of course, even before Michael Sneed of the Sun-Times reported today (7/10/13, page 2) on the Governor’s first quarter fundraising advantage over Bill Daley and Lisa Madigan), don’t be so quick to count Mr. Quinn out of this race.   And don’t misunderstand me; I am not predicting a Quinn victory in either the primary or the general election.  But I am cautioning against dismissing the re-election chances of a politically clever incumbent, especially if this turns out to be a three way primary race.

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. 

MIKE MADIGAN, JOHN CULLERTON, AND PENSIONS: SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR?

6/19/13

The Chicago Sun-Times today ran a page 6 story, trumpeted on page 1, asking a question I asked back on May 8  (See my post of that date, THE CULLERTON PENSION PLAN:  “THE (PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS) FAMILY DON’T EVEN HAVE THAT KIND OF MUSCLE ANY MORE”???):  Is the House Speaker Mike Madigan/Senate President John Cullerton disagreement over the solution to Illinois’s public pension problem a genuine “feud,” as the Sun-Times put it, or, as I called it on May 8, “part of some Machiavellian dance to avoid doing anything about our pension problems” in order to somehow give Lisa Madigan a boost in her run for governor?

 

Not knowing either Mike Madigan or John Cullerton, and being quite sure that even those who know either gentleman are not privy to such inner thoughts, I don’t know whether the two legislative leaders genuinely differ on pensions or are trying to pull some sort of elaborate maneuver to discredit Pat Quinn and help Lisa Madigan.  I suspect, however, that the disagreement is genuine.   Mr. Madigan is too smart to try to pull something so likely to backfire in his face and that would seemingly involve too many people (more than one) to keep very far under wraps.  Furthermore, perhaps I am naïve, but I genuinely don’t think that Mr. Madigan is so callous, so uncaring about the direction of the state, and/or so silly that he would further imperil our state’s nearly broke finances in order to hand his daughter an even more hopeless set of circumstances should she run for governor and should he be able to deliver the office for her.

The speculation that the whole Madigan/Cullerton thing is a Potemkin feud, though, gives me the opportunity to tell a story about the last time I thought two Chicago pols were putting on a fake fight worthy of the WWE….

In early 2005, Governor Rod Blagojevich shut down a landfill operated by Frank Schmidt, a cousin of Blago’s mother-in-law, Marge Mell, the wife of Dick Mell, one of Chicago’s then and now most powerful aldermen and committeemen.  The Governor contended that the landfill was taking illegal material while Mr. Schmidt was assuring shady customers who thus violated that law that there would be no trouble because of Mr. Schmidt’s connection to Mr. Mell.  This set off a public feud between Mr. Blagojevich and his father-in-law, and political Godfather, Dick Mell that reached epic proportions.

I suspected that the Mell/Blago feud was an elaborate ruse, designed to distance, for the naïve, the Governor from his father-in-law, whose reputation as a take no prisoners, old time ward boss from Chicago didn’t play well in the suburbs and downstate.   Blago would be running for reelection in 2006 and a charade of a crusading environmentalist young governor standing up to an old time, favor dispensing ward boss at enormous personal and political cost to himself would enhance his chances downstate while not hurting him in the city due to the winks, nods, and “say no mores” that would be part of such a ruse.

However, I started to hear from people who knew and worked with Mell in the 33^rd ward that the father-in-law vs. son-in-law feud was very real.  I sort of brushed off these assurances as part of the play.  One evening shortly after the fireworks started I was at a function at my old high school and heard from a Jesuit priest who was active in politics on the northwest side that the Mell/Blago feud was very real.   While this claim had more credibility, I have long adhered to my trusted formula of not trusting anybody whom I have not known for at least twenty years, and then not completely, and still thought Blago and Mell could be jerking everyone’s chains.

When Dick Mell several weeks later accused his son-in-law’s new best friend, Chris Kelly, a corrupt contractor who ultimately committed suicide at least partially due to the troubles that grew out of his association with Blago, of trading commission appointments for “$50,000 campaign contributions,” we all knew, or soon would know, that Messrs. Blagojevich and Mell were not playing some game of three card monte.   All doubt was removed by Mr. Mell’s comments regarding Mr. Kelly, which Mr. Mell doubtless regretted later and which ultimately led to his son-in-law’s taking up residence in federal housing.

That incident may have nothing at all to do with what some, including the Sun-Times, are labeling the Madigan/Cullerton “feud.”  But that quick, and wrong, presumption of Machiavellian machinations did reinforce for me something I have long known but that the more sensationalist among my fellow Chicago politics aficionados can’t seem to grasp:   sometimes things are as they seem, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…even in the labyrinthine world of Chicago politics.

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. 

“GOVERNOR BILL DALEY…SENATOR BILL DALEY. THERE JUST WASN’T THE TIME…”

6/6/13

In the last few days, both Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed have indicated that Bill Daley will run for governor of Illinois in 2014.   Ms. Sneed indicated that her information came from “sources;” Mr. Kass actually talked to Bill Daley on the phone, who said

“After what happened in Springfield last week (See my several posts on this issue, most recently yesterday’s PAT QUINN, PENSIONS, AND THE UPCOMING ILLINOIS GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY:  WHAT WOULD JIMMY STEWART DO? and the posts to which it will direct you.), I am considering (a gubernatorial run) even more strongly than before.  The inaction down there, the chaos, they’re thinking politics, but they’re not thinking about the state or the taxpayers.”

I have no sources on Mr. Daley’s aspirations, and Mr. Daley certainly doesn’t talk to me.   But I do have some thoughts on the recent talk about Bill Daley eschewing his Hamlet impersonation and getting off the proverbial pot.

Bill Daley, despite a long and distinguished political career (inter alia Commerce Secretary, Presidential chief of staff,) has never run for public office, having decided against races for both governor and U.S. senator in the past despite expectations that he would run due and entreaties to do so from people with real power.  

Yours truly has ascribed this tendency of Mr. Daley to tease potential supporters with talk of running only to leave them frustrated to a proud Daley family tradition, to wit, Daleys don’t like to run in elections that are not mere technicalities.   With a relatively, to the number of races they Daleys have run, few exceptions (Dick Daley’s failed run for sheriff in 1946 (Had he won that race, we might not remember his name today, but that is another story.), Dick Daley’s tough but successful first run in the Democratic primary for mayor in 1955, Rich Daley’s successful but difficult run for state’s attorney in 1980, and Rich Daley’s ill-fated first run for Mayor in 1983.), Daleys have only run for office when the outcome is a foregone conclusion.   So Bill Daley’s having come so close to running on several occasions but never pulling the trigger was merely following suit.

So why would Bill Daley run now when not only is the outcome not certain but when he is, indeed, a very long shot?   The last poll I saw, and admittedly it was a long time ago, showed him trailing far behind Governor Quinn (no relation) who in turn was far behind Attorney General Lisa Madigan.  Aside from polls, it’s difficult to see how Daley could possibly win against the only woman in the race or against the incumbent, especially given what is fast becoming perceived as the stench of his brother’s last term or so as Mayor. 

Could it be, as Mr. Kass indicated yesterday, that Mr. Daley has somehow determined that Lisa Madigan has decided not to run?   While it’s plausible that Ms. Madigan will not run, it would surprise the heck out of me after all the money she’s raised and all the noise that has been made about her looming candidacy.  She, too, has declined runs for both governor and U.S. senator before; if she opts out now after coming so close, she’ll look like, well, Bill “Hamlet” Daley.  And the Danish vote is not a big one in this state.  Stranger things have happened in this state, though.

The narrative that Mr. Daley seems to be advancing is that he doesn’t care if Ms. Madigan is runs and/or that he is tired of waiting for her to make what many of us have considered only a formal declaration of her intent to run.  He is so concerned about the fiscal state of our state, and so convinced that he is capable of addressing our money problems, that he is going ahead with a race.  He doesn’t care that many of us think that such a campaign, while perhaps not quixotic, looks nearly impossible with Ms. Madigan in it and far from easy even without her; Mr. Quinn is, after all, the incumbent, and again see yesterday’s post on his strategy.

Yours truly finds it hard to believe that Mr. Daley is so concerned about our state that he would throw political considerations out the window and charge ahead despite the long odds against him defeating both Mr. Quinn and Ms. Madigan in the Democratic primary.  That’s why I still think he will only run if he somehow knows Lisa Madigan will stay out of the race, which I can’t see happening.  

If I’m wrong, though, and Mr. Daley runs despite the near impossibility of winning in a three way race, I would give him more credit than I already do.  Though we’ve always had our differences (politically and ideologically, not personally; I don’t know Mr. Daley and have never met Mr. Daley, which is unfortunate for both of us, but I digress), I’ve always respected Bill Daley.  He is smart, hardworking, imbued by his parents with some great values, and knows the art of politics which is, after all, bringing people together to get things done.   He’s consequently been quite effective in whatever he has attempted.  He is the kind of guy we should want in public office. 

One more thing.  As I prepared this post, and as write it, a crazy thought occurred to me:   Could Bill Daley, realizing that his chances are nearly nil in a primary involving Pat Quinn and Lisa Madigan, and not having gotten wind of some Lisa Madigan plan to eschew a run for governor, be planning an independent run for governor?   Yes, a Daley running as an independent is a long shot….  But don’t dismiss it yet. Technically, Rich Daley ran as an independent for mayor in 1999, 2003, and 2007, admittedly only because, starting in 1999. the law dictated that the mayoral race be non-partisan.  Further, other Democratic stalwarts have abandoned the party to run for mayor as independents (Tom Hynes in 1987 (See my 5/17/13 piece, DEPAUL AND THE McARENA:  WHERE’S THE RETURN ON DEPAUL’S INVESTMENT IN CLOUT?)) and even Republicans (e.g., Ed Vrdolyak in 1989).   If memory serves yours truly correctly, Mr. Vrdolyak even served briefly as Cook County Republican Chairman. 

Admittedly, the names “Hynes” and “Vrdolyak” are not as synonymous with “Democrat” as is “Daley.”  But wouldn’t running as an independent make sense for a guy, like Bill Daley, who is claiming to run because he is disgusted by the way the Democrats have run the state?    And, yes, I had the same thought you might be having now…might such a rationale for running lead Bill Daley to run as a Republican?   Let’s not get crazy, or any crazier, here!

There is no doubt, though, that things will continue to be interesting in Illinois politics, all the more reason to 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. 

JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSON END UP UNDER THAT BUS?

2/7/13

What was long known for a long time among close political observers is now official, or as official as such things can be:   federal investigators have opened a probe, separate but not distinct from that of her husband, of former 7th Ward absentee Alderman Sandi Jackson.  

The probe centers on financial transfers between the Congressional campaign fund of former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (affectionately known in these parts as Triple J) and the aldermanic campaign fund of former Alderman Jackson.  Investigators are also looking into undocumented credit card charges on one or both of the funds.   It is not at all difficult to guess that the well-grounded suspicion of the federal investigators is that both campaign funds were used as piggy-banks by the Jacksons, and not always, or even all that often, for political purposes.  It apparently wasn’t just Triple J’s buying expensive watches for his paramours and providing the transportation necessary to make his, er, romantic encounters possible; it also appeared to be Sandi Jackson’s using the campaign funds, which seemingly were fungible in the minds of the Jacksons, for whatever happened to strike her fancy.  Whether the Jacksons have actually done anything illegal is up to the feds to prove, but the whole situation certainly looks bad.

Regular readers know that yours truly has no special sympathy or affection for the Jacksons and finds laughable, or pathetic, Sandi Jackson’s pose, much abetted by the local and national media, as the put upon victim in this episode.   (See, inter alia, my 1/13/13 post on the now defunct Rant Political, COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS ON ALDERMAN SANDI JACKSON:  DIOGENES, PUT DOWN YOUR LANTERN, and my 11/22/12 post on the same cite, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT, both reproduced below.)   But even an objective observers might question why this probe of the either sloppy or fraudulent bookkeeping of the Alderman’s campaign fund is even necessary.

No one denies that Alderman Jackson was paid $5,000 per month from Congressman Jackson’s campaign fund, through a “consulting” firm, Donatella & Associates, in which Alderman Jackson had a large ownership interest.  These payments, ostensibly for campaign consulting services, followed one of the oldest, most time worn, but somehow still in use and effective practices in the annals of Chicago politics:  Put one’s spouse on the payroll, one way or the other, of one’s campaign fund, thus allowing “campaign” contributions from those seeking a larger space at the pubic trough to flow, like water through a sieve, into one’s pockets though those of his or her spouse.

If the feds could prove that nothing was done in exchange for the payments made to Sandi Jackson’s Donatella & Associates by Congressman Jackson’s campaign funds, it would seem that they would have proven their case that the campaign funds were funneled to the Jacksons for personal use, or so it seems at least to this non-lawyer.  And it shouldn’t be hard to prove that nothing was done for the payment to Donatella; the payments were made each month, whether the Congressman, who held one of the safest seats in Congress, was campaigning or not.  Further, the payments continued during that period of time during which Mr. Jackson could not campaign because he was being treated, in-house, for a curious assortment of psychological and emotional maladies, which seemed to intensify with federal scrutiny of his actions.  

Transfers between the campaign funds of the Alderman and the Congressman and kinky credit card charges might add to the body of evidence against the Jacksons, but the most transparent abuse of “campaign contributions” seems to have involved the payments to Donatella & Associates.

One more thing…

According to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times Michael Sneed, whose column is a must for those who follow Chicago politics, Sandi Jackson is complaining, according to sources, that she “was thrown under the bus by her husband.”   Given Sandi Jackson’s apparent culpability in this ever expanding caper, unless Triple J is singing on his wife (a not implausible turn of events, given the former Congressman’s shortcomings of character, er, sorry, “mistakes”), she has only wound up under the bus because she dove under it with great vigor and enthusiasm.

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 this subject.

PROMISED REPRODUCTIONS OF PAST ARTICLES:

COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS ON ALDERMAN SANDI JACKSON:  DIOGENES, PUT DOWN YOUR LANTERN

1/13/13

Chicagoans, and Illinoisans in general, are far too tolerant of corruption in our politicians.  We continually complain about our high and increasing taxes, our so-so level of services, the crime in our streets, and the enormous public pension and health care liabilities that will soon make our state financially uninhabitable.   But we continue to elect the same scalawags, rogues, or worse.

On the other hand…

It has long been my contention that a corrupt local pol looking to put some ill-gotten dough in his pocket is far less dangerous than a national pol, or even a local pol with a national reputation and ambitions, who comes to his job with a messianic complex and the unwavering certainty that s/he knows what is good for “the people,” despite his or her never having had a real job.   Further, at least our corrupt local pols provide plenty of entertainment value and provide us with much of the swagger that we feel is our inherent right as Chicagoans.   As we like to say when someone speaks of the latest manifestation of corruption,  “Hey, this ain’t Minneapolis.”  The problem of late, is that the price of this corruption has been exceeding its entertainment value, and the taxpayers are justifiably displaying some at least rhetorical opposition.  But I digress.

As loyal readers know, I’ve so far written novels about the politics of my hometown, The Chairman and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge.   While these books are widely read and enjoyed even by people who have no special affinity for politics, let alone Chicago politics, because of the searing insight they provide into the human condition and their often page turning plot lines, those who have some knowledge of the politics of this most American of cities enjoy trying to determine who the characters are in “real life.”   On more than one occasion, I have been asked if the fictional Alderman Isaiah Parker is indeed Cook County Commissioner and former 7^th Ward Alderman, Bill Beavers.  The answer, of course, is no; Isaiah Parker is a lot of people, as are all the characters in my book.  But it would be hard to make up a character more colorful, or more reflective of Chicago politics, than Bill Beavers.

I met Commissioner Beavers, a large, imposing man who refers to himself as “the hog with the big nuts,” maybe twenty years ago, when he was 7^th Ward alderman.   He was appearing before a small group of Chicago civic leaders to discuss, among other things, the gang crime problem at the time that, in the retrospective light of today’s problems in that area, seems akin to a jaywalking problem in the city.   Then Alderman Beavers, who was a Chicago police officer earlier in life, displayed an amazingly intricate degree of knowledge, down to the street corners over which various factions of gangs presided in and around his 7^th Ward, of the problem and had plenty of ideas on how to address it.   He was one of the most impressive of the many politicians yours truly has ever met.

On the other hand, Bill Beavers has never been very shy about turning public office, and political power, into cash.   Such a propensity has finally landed the Commissioner in serious trouble; he is currently under federal indictment for misuse of campaign funds and related tax evasion.   The 77 year old Mr. Beavers contends that he is guilty of only honest bookkeeping mistakes and that the feds brought the charges only to pressure him to wear a wire on fellow Cook County Commissioner, County Finance Committee Chairman, and 11^th Ward Democratic Committeeman John Daley.    When he refused to give them what they wanted, Beavers contends, the U.S. Attorney’s people indicted him.   Mr. Beaver’s most succinct comment on the indictment is that it’s “horses—t that I’m not worried about.”   He went on to call Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney whose office indicted him, a “rooster with no nuts.”

It is this degree of willingness to speak his mind where lesser men flee for cover that, in perhaps a strange way, endears Bill Beavers to people, including yours truly.   Such honesty and fearlessness has surfaced most recently in the wake of the resignation of 7^th Ward Alderman Sandi Jackson, who claims that her abandonment of her office arises out of concern for her ailing husband, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who contracted his mysterious malady about the time the federal government started sniffing around his many apparent ethical lapses, including his role in trying to buy the Senate seat once held by President Obama.   (See my 11/11/12 post, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT)   While not yet facing heat on those matters, he is under federal investigation for misuse of campaign funds.   One of the many areas of federal interest just happens to be the hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars paid to a firm controlled by, you guessed it, Sandi Jackson, for consulting services.  Another area is the thousands of dollars he spent on gifts for female “friends.”

So while in the wake of Alderman Jackson’s resignation, the Chicago media, which can’t seem to decide whether it swoons more energetically for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (See my 12/28/12 piece, RAHM EMANUEL:  MAYOR FOR LIFE…OR UNTIL HE BECOMES PRESIDENT) or Alderman Sandi Jackson, swallows whole such drivel from Alderman Jackson as

“I am unapologetically a wife and a mother and I cannot deny my commitment to those most important personal responsibilities,"

and such a reputed straight talking tough guy as Mayor Emanuel utters such fluff as

“As Sandi takes this time to focus on her family, we give her our deepest thanks and support for her service to our city and the residents of her ward.  Her leadership has been greatly appreciated in the Chicago City Council,”

Commissioner Beavers tells the truth about Sandi Jackson:

“She was a ghost alderman.   She was never here.   She always lived in Washington.  People come in my office to find out where she’s located.  I have pre-printed information with her office address and phone number.   They’re coming to me for aldermanic issues that I don’t handle because they can’t find her.”

“She wasn’t very effective because she was never there.  She never attended any meetings and, when she came to a meeting, she left right away.  I don’t feel sorry for her.  I’ve got my own problems.   I think she’s gonna be part of it and Jesse Jr. is cutting a deal to save her.”  (Emphasis mine)

Some will argue that Commissioner Beavers has an axe to grind, and he does.   He was 7^th Ward Alderman until he left to run for the County Board to watch over young Todd Stroger, who surely needed, but clearly refused, Mr. Beavers’ help.   When Bill Beavers left his aldermanic post, he installed his daughter, Darcel, in that office.   Darcel Beavers lost that job to Sandi Jackson in 2007 on the strength of the name of the family into which Sandi Jackson married.   So, yes, Mr. Beavers has reason to dislike Sandi Jackson, but can anyone deny the truth, or the honesty, of his contentions?  As Jackie Hudson, a lifelong resident of the 7^th Ward and a constituent of both Sandi Jackson and Bill Beavers, said of Mrs. Jackson’s resignation

“It’s a good thing.  She doesn’t do anything over here.  She was just riding her husband’s coattails.”

Another constituent, Dianna Mott, added

“I’m in total shock, and I’m looking for some answers.  I want to know the real motivation behind her leaving.  We understand what’s happening to you (Alderman Jackson) and your family, but where does that leave us?   What happens to the ward?”

While the local media mavens want to make us believe that poor, put-upon Sandi Jackson ought to be pitied for enduring so much and our supposedly tough guy Mayor utters inane praise of an absentee alderman for fear of alienating some imagined constituency concocted in his north side yuppie head, south side old school pol Bill Beavers tells it like it is…and doesn’t give a damn what people think about it.

Hog with big nuts indeed.   Bill Beavers is indeed the last of a breed and I, for one, will miss his like when he is gone.

JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT

11/22/12

Jesse Jackson, Jr., the now former Congressman with a big name, little accomplishment, and a parade of ethical lapses finally resigned from his sinecure in Washington before trouble with federal law enforcement would have forced him to give up his Congressional pension.  Despite his having left the government payroll, one suspects that the federal government will soon be once again picking up most of his living expenses; an indictment is in the offing and any deal looks likely to involve some time as a federal guest.

While last week I discussed Triple J’s landslide reelection despite being under a very dark and heavy federal cloud (See DUMB AND DUMBER:  REELECTING JESSE JACKSON, JR. AND FURTHER ENTRENCHING MIKE MADIGAN, 11/12/12), I have more thoughts in the wake of Mr. Jackson’s finally doing the inevitable.

--Mr. Jackson’s resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner contained so many references to “mistakes” that one suspects Triple J’s typewriter had, or has developed, a key for that entire word.   Mr. Jackson’s referring to his moral failings and ethical transgressions as “mistakes” continues a troubling trend toward confusing not only terms but ramifications and motivations.   Taking a left turn when one meant to take a right turn is a mistake.   Cheating on one’s wife with comely cocktail waitresses who moonlight as bikini models, using campaign funds for personal reasons, and dealing with corrupt governors for Senatorial seats are moral failings and ethical transgressions.  But our society seems to see no differences between mere mental oversights and horrendous violations of long established and well grounded moral codes.  Then we wonder why people commit so many of the latter.

--Jesse Jackson, Jr. was a Congressman of little accomplishment.  In his seventeen years in Congress, he did little more than make an occasional decent speech, accept undeserved congratulations, and plot to gain his next political office.   This made him no different from most politicians, but young Mr. Jackson didn’t even manage to gain a committee chairmanship or a seat on the Appropriations committee for his otherwise pointless and unproductive efforts.   Perhaps this was because Mr. Jackson was so focused, or some might say obsessed, with the notion of a “third” Chicago airport in the far southern reaches of his district, the merits of which were very limited at best and a reflection of the corruption that pervades Chicago politics at worst.

At any rate, the people of Illinois’s 2^nd district will have a hard time replacing Mr. Jackson with a representative of less accomplishment.

--Two congressmen before Jesse Jackson, Jr., the voters of the 2^nd district were represented by one Gus Savage, a crude anti-Semite and racist (He didn’t like white people, even those he represented.) who got caught up in a sex scandal.   Mr. Savage was replaced by Mel Reynolds, a young guy who had a great academic resume that included degrees from the University of Illinois-Champaign and the U of I of the east, Harvard, along with a Rhodes Scholarship.   Beyond the academic resume, though, Mr. Reynolds was little more than a clean slate on which the people of the district, and well-meaning liberals who lived well beyond the district but who made a point, and sometimes a profession, of expressing concern and a misguided and grossly inflated sense of solidarity with those who had to deal with the vicissitudes of life in much of the 2^nd district on a daily basis, could pin whatever groundless hopes and aspirations they had for the man.   Mr. Reynolds ended up leaving Congress after being convicted of twelve counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography…and being recorded while extolling the sexual attractiveness of Catholic high school girls.

Then came Mr. Jackson, whose resume was even thinner than that of Mr. Reynolds but who had the overwhelming virtue of his father’s having been born before him.  Again, the same crowd of political hacks, downtown and north shore professional liberals, and political guns for hire looking for work were endless in their praise of this empty suit…in nearly the exact same words they used for Mr. Reynolds when he took over the seat from Mr. Savage.   And now Mr. Jackson has left office in the wake of a sex scandal, a scandal involving the purchase of public office from a corrupt governor, and federal law enforcement matters tangentially related to the first but not the second of the aforementioned.   One would think people would learn.

Let’s just hope that whoever replaces Mr. Jackson (grist for another mill; there are, of course, plenty of candidates, the most intriguing of which is Sam Adam, Jr., who lives in my old neighborhood, is a great and bombastic attorney (He was the guy who represented Rod Blagojevich the time he (almost) won, a nice guy, and the very definition of the word “character.”  Sam would liven up the House a bit.  But I digress.), s/he is a person of sufficient background and accomplishment that s/he will serve the district well and will serve as more than a Rorschach blot for the well meaning who love to express sympathy for Chicago’s south side from the comfort of their gated communities or doorman manned high rises miles and miles from the boundaries of the district.

--Now Illinois has two governors in jail and a Congressman headed there.   I would say we are a national laughingstock but we’ve been that for years.   Yet we keep electing these people and, more sadly, the people who pull their strings.  Again, see DUMB AND DUMBER:  REELECTING JESSE JACKSON, JR. AND FURTHER ENTRENCHING MIKE MADIGAN, 11/12/12.   And those of you who want to understand the appalling yet intriguing politics of my home town that produces such notables would do well to read both my books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics, and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, available at, among many other places, Amazon.com.  Nobody explains how we do things around here better or more entertainingly.