Chicagoania

BACKGROUND ON ILLINOIS

Illinois is a pretty middle-of-the-road state, as far as politics goes. The state is basically split into three parts – machine-driven, Democratic Chicago, the Republican suburbs, and mostly-Democratic (but far more conservative than Chicago) downstate.

Over the years there has been a balance of sorts between the Democrats and the Republicans; the Republicans usually held the governors office and the Democrats held one or both of the state legislative bodies.   In Illinois there are also myriad governmental units, from massive counties like Cook County (the home of Chicago, O’Hare and many suburbs), to the City of Chicago, to large suburbs like Naperville at approximately150,000 residents, which also wield power, clout, and jobs.   These bodies are run by the same general principles listed above; Chicago is always Democratic (although Bernie Epton almost captured 50% of the vote against Harold Washington in the 80’s as a Republican), and the suburbs almost always Republican.   Our House seats in congress are heavily gerrymandered; here is my take on my local representative in a post titled “Making Sure My Vote Doesn’t Count“.

However, in recent years, the Republicans in Illinois reminds me of Will Rogers famous quote “I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Democrat”.   The Republican party in Illinois has famously exploded; some examples include:

– We hound our incumbent Republican senator, Peter Fitzgerald, out of office (by fellow Republicans) in 2005 for having the temerity to appoint Patrick Fitzgerald, a non-corrupt, non-machine outsider, as US Attorney for Illinois, who actively goes after corruption including…
– Governor Ryan, who as an ostensible Republican, lets everyone off death row, is convicted for corruption (by Patrick Fitzgerald, above), and sent to prison
– For Peter Fitzgerald’s open seat, Jack Ryan is nominated, who seems to be a rich and viable candidate (can self-finance).   He is married to a famous actress (don’t want the traffic) and in his divorce information comes out that he took her to s*x clubs and other items that lead to him withdrawing from the race.   He is replaced by…
– Alan Keyes, who is pretty much bonkers and not even from Chicago, who is blasted out of the election by Obama.   Even I had to think twice before I’d vote for Keyes…

After all this, I have pretty much given up on the Republicans in their current state.   There are many opportunities for them to come back as an anti-corruption party, given all of the scandals and onerous problems in the state, but as of late they remain moribund.

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