Retired Senate President Emil Jones — Obama’s mentor — “is mounting a formidable effort to re-elect embattled Cook County Board President Todd Stroger” by gathering “business powerhouses from the black community to generate a business-based final push for the candidacy of Stroger, who needs a concerted turnout in the black community.” There was no link in her story, unfortunately, to Carol Marin and Don Moseley’s excellent investigative piece, also... 

This past weekend, President Obama’s top economic advisor, Larry Summers, said the “recession is over.”  But in the next breath he called for more government action to stimulate the economy, in particular, the pace of hiring. As far as the Administration is concerned, it is government stimulus that brought us this recovery.  Now, it’s just a matter of piling on even more government spending to generate job growth. In one sense we agree completely with Mr. Summers.  The recession is over. ... 

Political candidates are not unlike automotive tires: There are retreads, non-treads, and worn treads. The key criterion is extended use, and whether the candidate still has traction. Here are unwritten political rules regarding repeat candidacies: First, a candidate who narrowly loses, was expected to lose, but performed better than expected, gets a second chance. He or she is a viable retread. Second, a candidate who loses, but was expected to win, is a non-tread. The rubber is off the tire. There... 

In response to the Sun-Times promo for Importing Offshore Terrorists , I respond in italics. There aren’t many politicians who would push for transferring suspected terrorists to their state on the eve of a primary election. Because many (but not all) politicians are marginally sane. Inmates, asylums, running…Welcome to Illinois politics. But Gov. Quinn, to his credit, did just that, showing strong leadership by backing the federal government’s proposal to turn the Thomson Correctional... 

There has been some confusion over whom I support for governor. Let this piece clear it up. In 1960 in the midst of the very narrow Kennedy election for president, a Republican businessman won the governorship of the then heavily Democratic state of Minnesota with considerably more votes than did JFK-a spread of 20,000. He unseated Orville Freeman, Hubert Humphrey’s protege who had no expectation he would be defeated a few months later. The citizen upstart Republican winner was Elmer L. Andersen... 

Great-grandfather Adlai Stevenson I, then a student, later vice president of the United States, told of grandfather Jesse Fell proposing to Senator Stephen A. Douglas joint discussions of slavery in the territories with a young lawyer-legislator named Abraham Lincoln, and the “cordial” conversation with Lincoln that followed. After this series of debates — each lasting three hours — brought to Lincoln national attention, he wrote and gave Fell his “autobiographical sketch”...