Oppo dump!
Wednesday, Nov 15, 2017 </b>
* Tribune…
Mickey Straub, the village president of Burr Ridge, says he’s challenging House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs in the March primary. And when you contemplate a primary bid against a sitting legislative leader, things you wrote in the past can quickly come bubbling back up.
Take Straub’s May 1997 letter to the editor in the suburban Daily Herald. At the time, then-Illinois Supreme Court Justice James Heiple stood accused of abusing his position to get out of traffic stops.
* Click here for the 20-year-old letter…
I may not have followed every detail in the Justice James Heiple case, but it sure looks to me like we’ve wasted a lot of time and money, our money, raking somebody over the coals for doing something we’re all probably guilty of to some extent. I just don’t get it. Surely there are more important events the high court can be dealing with, and the media reporting.
Here’s my point. We’ve all been guilty of expecting special treatment because of who or what we know at one time or another, or because of the “bennies” (benefits) of a particular position. I bet if you know the owner of a restaurant, you get better seats, or someone who sells tickets, you get better tickets. Whether you are in the dry cleaning, landscaping or automobile business, selling dishes or doughnuts, “influencing” goes on from cradle to grave.
I bet the owner of a doughnut shop gets the freshest doughnuts. Do you think if a police officer got pulled over for speeding, he/she wouldn’t flash the badge or drop hints for special treatment? Would you? Of course we would, and this is as it should be. To impeach someone because of it is to deny human nature, and the benefits of relationships.
OK, maybe he overdid it. A distorted view of our own self-importance should probably get us in trouble. But censuring, an impeachment hearing, losing your job? Isn’t this going a little bit too far? Let’s not waste our valuable time and money, and instead funnel our efforts into things that can make this world a better place to live.
Mickey Straub
Burr Ridge
* Why is this ancient letter important or relevant? Well, as I’ve been telling subscribers for quite a while now, Straub is gonna be a tougher candidate than the Republicans first expected…
Straub’s candidacy is getting some unlikely support from the political arm of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150. Durkin’s camp is a aware of the union’s actions, a result of the House GOP leader keeping his caucus from backing an override of legislation vetoed by Gov. Rauner that would have banned municipalities from enacting local “right-to-work” ordinances.
Though many of Rauner’s vetoes were overridden amid Republican pique with the governor among the GOP’s rank-and-file, Rauner and Durkin had made upholding the “right-to-work” ban a priority.
Straub is being backed by the political operation of talk show host and failed 2010 GOP governor primary candidate Dan Proft.
Subscribers know much more about this.
- Posted by Rich Miller
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