July 2009 Archives

See what happens when you leave the state? If you're Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, you find yourself with a welcoming committee in the form of a primary opponent. Quinn toured Iraq and Afghanistan on a Department of Defense junket this week while state Comptroller Dan Hynes made plans to run for governor.

With the rookie governor gone for a week, did we really miss him? The Hound surely didn't. Maybe we should let the Democratic junta run Illinois and do without a governor. After all, we don't have a lieutenant governor, unless you count The Mighty Quinn himself.

Hynes, 41, the three-term comptroller whose job it is to pay the state's bills, has confided to folks he'll square off with Quinn in the Feb. 2 Democratic primary. Guess we should have seen that coming after he jabbed the governor several times during the budget mess follies in Springfield.

The Hound can't believe Quinn thought he would be spared a primary challenge. He dodged a bullet when Attorney General Lisa Madigan took a pass on running for governor. That opened the race for the Hynes gambit. Chicagoan Hynes already has $3.5 million in his campaign war chest. Quinn has a paltry $702,000, which won't buy a week's worth of TV time in the Chicago market.

A Democratic primary ballot means both candidates will need to spend, spend, spend and not watch from the sidelines as Republicans hammer each other with anvils and tongs. So far in the GOP race there's state Sens. Bill Brady, Kirk Dillard and Matt Murphy. There's also DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom, radio talking head Dan Proft and unknown businessman Adam Andrzejewski who's obviously going to have the Polish vote in his corner.

And, there may be other Democrats itching to get their licks in, such as Christopher Kennedy, he of the politically astute and financially able Kennedy clan.Many figured Kennedy to run for the U.S. Senate, but he, too, could be trouble for the guv.

Like that old Tony Orlando and Dawn song, Dan Seals is knocking "three times on the ceiling" of the 10th Congressional District. Now we know why state Sen. Susan Garrett, D-Lake Forest, passed on running in the Feb. 2 Democratic primary.

Seals will be a formidable primary opponent for the half-dozen or so candidates expected to file this fall. He's got pretty exclusive name recognition among the party faithful. That comes from losing two close runs against incumbent U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park, now seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. He's got most of his 2,500 volunteer group ready to go for another try and he can raise money.

Without a well-known Republican in the race, this swing district could go Democratic next year. Seals is a tireless campaigner and if the party nominee, will get Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee support. And probably presidential support. Taking the North Shore congressional seat once occupied by Don Rumsfeld would tickle pink a number of Inside-the-Beltway mavens.

For Seals, maybe losing twice to Kirk may lead to the third time being the charm.

You have to hand it to Congressman Mark Kirk's handlers. They're already bracing for a rough-and-tumble U.S. Senate campaign and anticipated some media scribe asking about his recent divorce. Who popped up at his senatorial announcement Monday at his boyhood home in Kenilworth? None other than the ex-Mrs. Kirk, Kimberly Vertolli, who endorsed her ex-husband: "He'd make a great senator."

If your ex endorses you, why wouldn't you win? Which brings up: Why'd you two split? Kind of like that political couple on "Brothers and Sisters"? She didn't want Rob Lowe to run; he did.

But it will get tougher down the road as the Democrats throw everything they've got to keep the seat once occupied by President Obama and now by Roland Burris, in their column. It may be hard to do. The early polling shows Highland Park Republican Kirk slightly ahead of Dem state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and Chris Kennedy, son of Sen. Robert Kennedy, of the Kennedy clan. Not bad for a congressman from the North Shore.

The same day Kirk announced, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued a release linked to a YouTube video calling Kirk a "Transformer" who voted the way of President Bush who now wants to present himself as a moderate. Other Dems are issuing white papers tagging Kirk a right-winger. He hasn't even survived a primary vote and Dems are attacking him. Looks like they're scared.

Kirk probably will have token primary opposition and there's always that newspaper maxim the geezers around here always are spouting: Short names win over ones you can't pronounce, or at least tough spelling ones. The Hound doesn't completely buy that (hello, Barack Obama), but a Kirk vs. Giannoulias matchup down the road will pose problems not only for headline writers, but voters.

If Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is looking for campaign support in Lake County, perhaps he might want to check in with one of the newest Lake County Board members, District 8 Rep. Collin O'Rourke of Waukegan. While appointed to the Democratic seat vacated by Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian because he was elected mayor, those wily county Dems uncovered that the 23-year-old O'Rourke pulled a Green Party ballot in 2008.

Whitney, an attorney in downstate Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University, is making another bid to be Illinois governor in 2010 as a member of the Green Party. In 2006, he surprised The Hound and captured more than 10 percent of the statewide vote, but still a distant third behind Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who won re-election, and the Republican challenger, then-state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka.

Whitney rode what was considered to be a wave of general dissatisfaction with the two candidates and state government in general --- sort of a "none-of-the-above" candidate. Now, with controversy swirling around the state budget and Blagojevich's arrest and removal from office, Whitney believes 2010 could be a similar revolutionary situation for the Greens.

It better be. Next year's election will be an important one for the Greens. They need to get 5 percent of the vote for the party to remain an "established" one in Illinois. Once established, they don't need as many candidate petition signatures. Because of that, they had candidates in quite a few races in '08, which is when newly christened Democrat O'Rourke turned Green.

Because Sabonjian left his County Board seat representing Waukegan's far North Side in May after getting re-elected in November 2008, O'Rourke has to stand for the seat next year. You can bet he's got a bull's-eye on his back for the Feb. 2, 2010 primary from the county Democratic organization. Democratic County Board representatives questioned O'Rourke's bona fide party credentials at the July 14 board meeting when he took over the Sabonjian seat, bringing up the Green Party vote.

If O'Rourke is in the line of Democratic fire, it will be interesting to see if the mayor throws his support behind the neophyte or sits it out and lets him twist slowly in the cool lake breeze. Welcome to the rough-and-tumble realm of county politics, Mr. Green Dem.

It is obvious Republicans can't stop the Sonia Sotomayor Express. She undoubtedly will be confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court by the Senate in its advise and consent role. However, The Hound is troubled.

During Monday's opening session in the confirmation process before the Senate Judiciary Committee, newly seated Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., told Sotomayor that she was "the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in 100 years.'' The Hound heard Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., say the same thing earlier. But is this actually true?

A century is a long time and The Hound thinks that while Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor, the first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court, is eminently qualified, she certainly is not the most "experienced" nominee in 100 years. The Hound will cede a dozen, but a hundred?

Democrats like Franken and Durbin must have overlooked such legendary legal minds as Justices Louis Brandeis, William O. Douglas, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Hugo Black, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, and John Marshall Harlan and his grandson, John Marshall Harlan II. Indeed, some of these men also led inspirational and hard-scrabble lives, along with having varied life experiences, as has Judge Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican who grew up in the New York City projects.

So while the newest justice-to-be may be a fit for this judicial opening, let's not fawn over her as Democrats appear to be doing.

While we've elevated Michael Jackson to sainthood, The Hound believes there is only one real way to celebrate the King of Pop's legacy: A federal holiday.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put the kibosh on a House resolution honoring Jackson, who died at the fairly young age of 50. The jury, or at least the toxicology report, is still out to determine how he died. Who cares? Well, besides members of the Jackson clan.

Sister LaToya Jackson told London newspapers over the weekend that she is certain her brother was murdered by a group of conspirators trying to get hold of his fortune. She even said she knows who is responsible for his death. However, she did not name any of the people she believes were involved and did not offer any evidence to support her claim that foul play was involved in the singer's sudden death June 25.

Getting back to this federal holiday honoring Michael Jackson, The Hound believes it is a worthy goal. How else to mark this man's greatness. The Hound offers June 25 as the date to mark it because, sadly, there's no three-day holidays in June.

Oh, The Hound can hear you naysayers griping that Michael Jackson was nothing but a perv and a flashy entertainer whose career was under the radar screen unless he was indicted and in court on various charges dealing with fondling kids. So? We have a holiday in October where we celebrate the man who began the downfall of Native Americans in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The Hound isn't saying Michael Jackson's contribution to the world wasn't greater than that of Christopher Columbus, but did the Italian explorer moonwalk? That alone deserves a special day of recognition for Michael Jackson, don't you think? And, if the feds don't mark this special man with a special day, there's always Indiana and a statewide holiday for the Hoosiers.

Guess The Hound won't have Roland Burris to kick around much longer. The Senate's only black senator made official Friday what everybody knew days before: He will not seek re-election to his own six-year term. The Hound thought that with a crowded Democratic primary field in February, Burris might have snuck through.

But in the end, it was money, not politics that did in the senator appointed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Burris danced around the political minefields, but it was the fund-raising which he couldn't handle. Nobody wanted to back his run, so he'll be a lame-duck senator from now until January 2011, and will no doubt serve honorably.

Which leaves a whole bunch of candidates on both sides of the aisle ready to take the senatorial plunge. But does that include Highland Park Congressman Mark Kirk?

Republican Kirk, considered a strong campaigner and one candidate who could best a Democratic field, may be having cold feet. The Washington Post reported Friday that Kirk has decided not to seek the Senate seat from Illinois that once belonged to President Obama. However, his spokesman said the 10th District congressman is stll looking at a possible run and his timeline is open.

Can't be that open. Filing begins in October and petition circulation can begin Aug. 4. Kirk, too, just raised more than $1 million in the last campaign reporting period. Now that won't get you much for a statewide Senate campaign, but it's a chunk if you want to be assured of re-election to the House. Besides, national Republicans want that Senate seat and will pour money here behind a credible candidate, i.e., not Alan Keys.

If Kirk does decide to stay in the House, Republicans may have to resort to Plan B, whatever that is.

Watching Waukegan pols squirm since Mayor Robert Sabonjian discovered the city is $6.5 million in the hole reminds The Hound of something Will Rogers once said: "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." Unless you're a Waukegan taxpayer, this is funny.

The rate Sabonjian's going, when he finishes his four-year term, the city may be in the red by about $150 million. That is if you want to blame the freshman mayor for the fiscal fix the city is in, but he just came into office. Then again, there's plenty of blame to go around.

LIke who else knew tax revenues were sliding? Where was the City Council watchdogs, especially 6th Ward Ald. Larry TenPas, known as somewhat of a municipal financial whiz? Asleep?

Or, was it planned that way to keep a low financial profile before the spring election? And, how would former Mayor Richard Hyde address this startling turn of events?

Even Sabonjian, appearing at a function featuring mayors from other communities right after his victorious election, said he would be "instituting a system for 'strong fiscal management' by addressing debt, keeping costs down and calling in unions to review contracts." Perhaps by then he had gotten a glimpse at the books.

Or maybe, he, too, knew of the financial straights before the April election. Considering the city has seen tax revenues drop seven straight months. That would be even well before the February primary.

Regardless, it appears the elected city folks have pared that $6.5 million deficit down to a mere $3 million and 1st Ward Ald. Sam Cunningham is calling for a tax increase to avoid layoffs of police and fire. The Hound has a feeling taxpayers can think of some pols who need to be laid off.