Forget about good government for a minute. Ignore messy little details like honesty, experience and human decency.
Clear your head of all those confusing, marginally true television ads. Put aside the mountain of fliers jammed into your mailbox. Hang up on those annoying taped phone calls from Gloria Steinem. Pay no attention to Chicago novelist Scott Turow’s endorsement in the governor’s race.
Instead, imagine along with us fantasy face-offs involving some of the many, many politicians running in Tuesday’s primary election.
Governor
Of the six major candidates running for this office, there are (at least) two whom you would not want to be stuck in a room alone with–unless a sharp weapon were close at hand.
For sheer amusement value, let’s hope for a matchup of Paul Vallas versus Corinne Wood.
Democrat Vallas takes everything personally. When he was chief of the Chicago Public Schools, even the smallest newspaper criticism of his performance could result in a haranguing phone call to the offending journalist.
Vallas’ monologues can be so lengthy that we know of one reporter who quietly put down the phone, went to the washroom, relieved himself and returned to find Vallas still talking.
If anybody can get a word in edgewise in a debate with Vallas and his ego, our money is on Corinne Wood. And, yes, she can stand the heat. How do we know this?
Because we saw her at a steamy GOP shindig last summer in a heavy (red, natch) long-sleeved suit. Despite the baking temperature, she stayed fresh as a fig, stoically refusing to take off her jacket.
Wood might, on rare occasion, be wrong. But she doubts it. She has spent the last four years laboring under the delusion that her job as lieutenant governor was second only to governor in importance and prestige–and being offended by those who disagreed and declined to genuflect. Besides all of these endearing qualities, she knows how to hold a grudge.
If you’ve had problems sleeping, you’ll be snoring like an innocent babe if Republican Jim Ryan were to run against Democrat Roland Burris. They’re the warm milk duo.
Burris has barely peeped during the primary debates as his fellow Dems Rod Blagojevich and Vallas worked vigorously to rip out each other’s throats. And Republican Ryan, let’s just say that he makes former snooze-meister Gov. Jim Edgar look like Robin Williams on amphetamines.
Lieutenant governor
We know almost nothing about any of these people. That’s fitting for a job so do-nothing that one fellow who held it almost quit to take a job on talk radio. Democrat Pat Quinn’s father was named Patrick. So was his grandfather and so is his oldest son. OK, that’s not interesting.
Republican state Rep. William O’Connor has complained that his running mate, Wood, is ignoring him. This shows a rather touching naivete. He expected her to treat him like she always wanted to be treated by Gov. George Ryan–as a real partner. Well, that wasn’t going to happen.
O’Connor has the best hair on the GOP ticket, thick and prematurely white, just like his old man, the late crusty TV commentator Len O’Connor. Quinn is balding. So, we’ll call these two the hair pair and let the voters choose.
Attorney general
Democratic state Sen. Lisa Madigan’s father, the powerful House Speaker Mike, has even hounded friends for their wedding invite list so he can put the arm on them for his daughter’s campaign. But Illinois has a long and vibrant tradition of political dynasties. You got a problem with that? Well, kiss the Madigans’ mistletoe.
Speaking of plant life, Republican newcomer Bob Coleman has the most amazingly landscaped yard of anyone on the ballot this Tuesday. The lawn of his River Forest estate is putting-green perfection. His flowerbeds are divine. He probably should be running for state groundskeeper.
Coleman is notable for his ad showing a baby vomiting on his suit. The pitch is that Coleman is a lousy politician, unskilled at kissing babies. Lisa Madigan could hardly be more political. Their competition would offer voters a clear choice. Puking babies at 50 paces?
Appellate Court
Imagine our surprise to learn just a couple days ago that former two-term Illinois Atty. Gen. Neil Hartigan is on the ballot this year, running for the Appellate Court. This is the very same Neil Hartigan whose smiling upper torso is currently featured in full-page Sun-Times ads for O’Brien’s Restaurant & Bar.
If you can’t trust an appeals court judge who also appears in a restaurant ad, whom can you trust?
Hartigan’s long Illinois political career has careened between cowardice and just excessive caution. This election bid is no exception. He’s unopposed.
By contrast, a candidate for a different vacancy on the appeals court is former Circuit Court Clerk Aurelia Pucinski, whose most recent political career move was the polar opposite of caution. She boldly bucked Mayor Richard Daley and switched parties to run as a Republican for Cook County Board president, challenging Daley acolyte John Stroger. She did not prevail.
It would have been a lesson in Politics 101 to watch Pucinski take on Hartigan and chew him up . . . like a juicy hamburger at O’Brien’s Restaurant & Bar.
And finally . . .
Hartigan is not the only candidate on the ballot who also appears in non-political advertising. Take Republican Elizabeth Ann Doody Gorman. Please. If you turn on Tribune-owned CLTV for an hour or so in the afternoon, you will personally want to reach into the television and throttle Ms. Doody Gorman.
She appears, repeatedly, in the same gray pantsuit and pink blouse in back-to-back ads: First, her candidacy for the Cook County Board; then for her car dealership, Midlothian Dodge. And over and over it goes. The County Board. The cars. The Board. The cars. Her perfect opponent, sadly, is not on the ballot. Anybody remember the number for the Empire Carpet Man?
