Chicago Daily Observer

Nobody much speaks for me this election cycle. Democrats believe we can tax our way to prosperity, achieve peace through weakness, and find nirvana by replacing every healthy social institution with a government bureaucracy. Congressional Republicans don’t believe in much of anything. Like a desperate lover in a deteriorating relationship they offer to be whatever we want, apparently oblivious that the problem is that there is no there there any more. John McCain agrees with the left as often as he does the right. He is liable to toss his most fundamental principles to the curb when he gets to hankering for the New York Times to talk nice about him.

A friend, commenting on my complaints, suggested we have entered a political Bermuda Triangle. All the dials are spinning wildly as our guidance systems have gone haywire, leaving many of us disoriented, confused and disheartened. It is an apt ... Read More...

The coming clash between Barack Obama and John McCain is, the pundits tell us, a struggle between two Americas: liberal and conservative; black and white; young and old. But it is also a confrontation between two very different cities – Obama’s Chicago and McCain’s Phoenix – and their richly opposing political traditions.

As Upton Sinclair so brutally, brilliantly chronicled in The Jungle, Chicago, Illinois – nicknamed the “Windy City” just as much for its politics as the icy blasts tearing off Lake Michigan – has long been a crucible for US socialism. Together with Philadelphia and Baltimore, it was the premier city of organised labour and radical activism in the late 19th century

Almost everyone I know in the netherworld of political hipsterdom either agonizes or exults or plunges into deep swami-like meditation with every presidential poll that pops up on the internet or TV screen.

My advice to all, on either side of the aisle, is save yourself the agony and forego the ecstasy. Worry about gasoline prices, paying off your mortgage, the state or nonstate of your love-life—anything but the polls.

Forget them.

They have no meaning now whatsoever. Do not permit your shorts to get into a bunch about something so fleeting and ultimately without merit as a poll nearly five months from Election Day.

Remember how far ahead of the pack Hillary Clinton was just five months ago? And how Rudy Guiliani was a shoo-in?

So most of the polls show Barack Obama ahead by four to six points. If this were November 1 that might be meaningful. But ... Read More...

Since both John McCain and Barack Obama purport to be persons of faith and prayer, I have devised a little prayer for both of them. It goes:

“Lord, save me from my friends—I can cope perfectly well with my enemies.”

Oddly enough, some of the friends plaguing or having plagued both candidates are themselves persons of faith and prayer.

We need no further reminders, do we, of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and more recently Father Michael Pfleger and the varying degrees of damage they have inflicted on Obama?

“Poof!” declares Obama, quite wisely, “they are no longer my friends.”

Then there are the Reverends John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Until very recently they were McCain’s newest best friends of convenience, vigorously courted to calm the qualms of the fundamentalist evangelical constituency so necessary to Republican victory. Trouble is, their historic histrionics seriously offended other necessary constituencies.

“Poof,” declares McCain, quite wisely, ... Read More...

Martin Luther High School, Home of the Spartans, in Greendale Wisconsin was the site of Senator John McCain’s Straight-Talk Express Town Hall Meeting. In south suburban Milwaukee, Martin Luther High School stands as a tribute to people who value Faith-based education as a choice over America’s declining public schools that call for greater tax burdens to shore up declining performance.
Martin Luther High School is associated with the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod and is not a School Choice high school as it is situated outside of Metro Milwaukee.
I traveled to Greendale to ask Senator John McCain about his campaign’s leadership in Education reform with its emphasis on asking the States to push School Choice initiatives, especially vouchers.
A crowd of about 2,000 people were gathered to welcome the Straight Talk Express and Martin Luther High School students acted as ushers and facilitators. They were mature, helpful, ... Read More...

Among our longest-standing political clichés is that Social Security is the third rail in American politics—threaten it and you will be politically electrocuted. This could easily happen to John McCain come general election time, and here’s why:

A few years ago, 2005 to be exact, George W. Bush sidled up to the issue by proposing the creation of private social security investment accounts to supplement the present system—in effect partially privatizing the system. It didn’t take the public long to recognize that this was the first stage of the ultraconservative agenda to ultimately do away with Social Security and similar entitlements.

The response was somewhat slow to build, but soon the uproar knocked the administration back on its heels.

They tried fitfully to change the name “private” accounts to “personal” accounts, but it was too late. An overwhelming majority of the country saw privatization as a threat to the lifeline ... Read More...

For this jaded politician-watcher who has been in the peanut galleries for more than 50 years—as journalist, speech-writer, state official, federal official, foreign service officer, corporate executive, university lecturer, radio host and now journalist again—John McCain’s Columbus, Ohio speech yesterday goes down as easily the finest in recent times, equaling the greatest Republican campaign speech made in the 20th century, Ronald Reagan’s 1976 address to the Republican convention in Kansas City that nominated Gerald Ford.

At Kansas City Reagan, though defeated, set the parameters for his 1980 speech by articulating a matchless vision that Ford and no other Republican could have matched, sending delegates home with buyers’ remorse, feeling they had just nominated the wrong man. In his speech, Reagan told the story that became almost immortally tied to him. He was ... Read More...

Pastor John Hagee sent a letter today [click here] to Catholic League president Bill Donohue that effectively ends the dispute the two men have had. Donohue comments as follows:

“After weeks of meeting with various Catholic leaders, and accessing scholarly literature on Catholic-Jewish relations, Pastor John Hagee has demonstrated an improved understanding of the Catholic Church and its history. In his letter to me, Hagee says, ‘I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.’ He specifically cites his emphasis of ‘the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews,’ and has pledged to provide a more complete and balanced portrayal going forward that will not reinforce mischaracterizations of the Catholic Church. And while he stresses that his invocation of terms like ‘apostate church’ and the ‘great whore’ were never meant by him to describe the Catholic Church, he ... Read More...

Jeremiah Wright is still a stone around Barack Obama’s neck and his supporters want to lay the same weight on John McCain by using Rev. John Hagee, televangelist and pastor of a Texas mega church who endorsed McCain at McCain’s request.

Jeremiah Wright has made it impossible to pretend that he was quoted out of context so Obama’s supporters have given the candidate a pass and taken to attacking those who told you the truth about Wright in the first place.

I hear the same thing from some callers and e-mailers to my show on WLS in Chicago, hometown to Wright and Obama. Rich and the callers are wrong in their belief that the ... Read More...

Peotone—This column has long been loud in its fanfare for John McCain, but—at least in the sounds coming from Huffington Post —some cacaphony is being orchestrated.

Here, of course, McCain is wildly popular in the ‘clingingly bitter community—garnering 48%percent of the vote in the official Republicans in Will County—and seems to have captured the hearts of the Peotonese as well. I suspect he could be elected King of Will County Fair in a landslide.

But since Pennsylvania, McCain has not been forced to battle four opponents at once—two Clintons and Obama frontally, plus the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Billy Boy Ayers from the rear. It has not thrown McCain’s campaign even somewhat off course and there is no sense that he has been brought down to earth – by that fat-assed Texas Preacher that Allan Colmes insists is just like Rev. Wright. Musically challenged, McCain’s soaring with oldies hits, the ... Read More...

Here’s a likely presidential scenario:

Barack Obama goes to the Denver Democratic convention, beginning Aug. 25, with a few more delegates than Hillary Clinton. At present, Obama leads in the delegate hunt by 1,617–1,498. Amid much discord, and much controversy about the non-elected super-delegates, Obama is nominated. Blacks and white liberals are ecstatic. Obama proclaims the “end of racism.”
Critics, however, proclaim the end of the Democratic coalition. Huge numbers of Hispanics and working-class whites gasp and gag – and resolve to vote Republican. They will not back a black for president.

Likewise, huge numbers of baby-boomer women, who crave a female president in their lifetime, are enraged that Obama has snuffed their dream.

As a result, John McCain wins the presidency, with the Republicans snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. But blacks are infuriated by Obama’s loss, and America’s so-called “racial divide,” which Obama attempted to bridge, ... Read More...

Not long ago John McCain was almost boasting that he knew little about economics. That kind of candor, a distinctive McCain trait, is likable but has its limits. His days of making jokes about his ignorance appear to be over. Worries about the economy began to dominate public opinion even before the current slowdown was properly under way.

Why confine the choice to eliminating the Bush tax cuts entirely or preserving them as they stand?

Between now and November, those worries will only mount: The faltering economy is likely to get worse before it gets better. McCain is going to need an economic program, and he had better get used to talking about this subject as though it matters.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, say the military fruit-salads in Obama’s camp in the latest Salon.com – redacting the Salon.com piece is Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman.

The Salon.com piece is a re-hash of the ‘McCain’s Rage’ straw-dog. Mean People Suck – is a Deadhead bumper sticker. This piece of second guessing on McCain’s leadership in support of the Iraq surge has all the snappy zest, spice and Howard Dean Yeeeowwweee as a mouthful of Hellman’s Mayo.

A couple of weeks ago, John McCain was straining to ingratiate himself with the activists gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference. It was an uphill climb: By that point, some movement icons had publicly renounced the presumptive Republican nominee, and attendees were urged not to boo him. Some did anyway, and McCain was left to ponder the possibility of being abandoned by much of his party’s base.

He shouldn’t have worried. All it took to rally conservatives behind him was the intervention of The New York Times. Thursday, it published a flimsy, anonymously sourced story suggesting that nine years ago, McCain may have canoodled with a female lobbyist whose clients had business before his committee. How bad was the article? Years from now, if you type into Google, “Why do people hate the news media?” this story will pop up.

Just when the presidential campaign had degenerated into arcane bickering over who stole whose words…whether Hillary pilfered Obama’s “I’m fired up!” rhetoric or how Obama appropriated the catchwords of the Massachusetts governor to defend his (Obama’s) reliance on vague, misty poetic allusions, the campaign has turned exciting with the prospect of a real sex scandal. Huzzza!

The “New York Times” uncovers the a supposedly good looking female lobbyist, a partner at Alkcade & Fay, Vicki Iseman, had spent a good deal of time hanging around McCain’s office eight years ago. And she accompanied him on her client’s (Home Shopping Network chief) Lowell Paxon’s corporate jet. There is even a hint of romantic interest by the two although both deny it.

Way back in the 1970’s Ronald Reagan embraced the principles developed by America’s greatest 20th century conservative thinker, Dr. Russell Kirk of Mecosta, Michigan. . Kirk was long-time fixture at Michigan state university and developed a cogent argument for American Cultural and Political Thought.

I met Dr. Russell Kirk and his wife Annette, when I taught and coached at La Lumiere School, LaPorte, Indiana. – the alma mater of Chief Justice John Roberts. A social studies teacher by the name of Tracey Elliot, now a banking officer in South Bend, was a devoted student of Dr. Kirk and made the introductions – “‘Mr. Hickey is a Daley Democrat and therefore not unfamiliar with the principles of American conservatism. “ ‘Dr. Kirk was a wonderful conversationalist and a generous humorist. Dr. Kirk’s heart and head live in the Russell Kirk Center at his home on Piety Hill.

Kirk’s genius is lost ... Read More...

For Illinois Republicans used to coalescing early around an easy presidential winner, 2008 is turning out to be a different kind of year.

Even before Mitt Romney’s win in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, Illinois’ business and GOP establishment was dividing its money and support among no fewer than four candidates, with a fifth, Mike Huckabee, appealing to social conservatives, if not LaSalle Street lawyers and bankers.

It’s a current cliché to opine that Republicans aren’t happy with their field of presidential candidates, but the Iowa results reinforce the concept, regardless of what happens in New Hampshire. The Republican Party is perilously fractured.

Out went Mitt Romney, one of the important establishment guys—and in came Mike Huckabee, the most outsiderish of the lot. Even if Romney recovers in New Hampshire, a die has been cast that suggests even more problems for the Grand Old Party.

To wit: all the candidates were either badly wounded or exposed serious sores that will be rubbed raw in the general election to come.

Huckabee’s incredible gaffes and displays of ignorance will not garner him the independent or crossover Democratic votes he would need in what is already an unlikely year for Republicans. Yes, he was able to inspire evangelicals and just enough traditional Republicans in Iowa to make the numbers look ... Read More...

Projections by Fox News as of 8: 50 p.m. Iowa time were for the Democrats: Obama…37%; Edwards…30.9%...Clinton…29.68%.

For the Republicans: Huckabee…34%;; Romney…25%; Thompson…14%; McCain …13%...Giuliani…11%....Paul…10%.

I will assume these numbers hold or at least aren’t turned upside down by some quirk. If so, I want to take the Democrats first because the numbers will affect the Republican choice ultimately as well. We must remember that all along, Republicans have been facing the specter of 2008 being a variant of 1974 after Watergate. But the rise of Barack Obama gives us the chance to forestall that calamity.

That is because, given the makeup of the Democratic party today, Obama runs as very-very strong chance of taking the Democratic nomination. The reason I have been writing so tediously (to some people’s minds about McCarthy and ... Read More...

A year ago John McCain was the certain GOP nominee and almost a shoo-in for election—the one guy who could cross party lines and lure Democrats in a Reagan rerun.
That was then. This is now.

The Arizona senator slid down the slippery slope of immigration reform faster than an Olympic bobsled.

Yes, he was and probably still is the strongest supporter of and apologist for Bush’s war—though Giuliani runs a close second—but he also supported Bush’s “amnesty” immigration plan along with Ted Kennedy. This, the one seriously acceptable social program the administration ever proposed, remains a live third rail among Republican voters and poor McCain electrocuted himself.

A couple of months ago his funds were drying up, his staff disassembling and the punditocracy said it was all over for the Viet war hero. Likely it is—he’s just an asterisk below the Guiliani-Romney-Thompson-Huckabee leadership tier—but there is ... Read More...