Since
there will be an open seat on the ballot for Attorney General this year, I
thought it would be best to make a special post about the election in question.
We should be lucky that we get to vote as to who this person will be instead of
it being appointed and approved by people we vote for instead, giving us no say
into who the person will be.
For
reasons largely unknown at the time, Lisa Madigan, the incumbent attorney
general, is not running for another term she was likely to win. Why would she
do this? I don’t know. Maybe she wants to distance herself from her
step-father, Illinois Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan. Or, and I want to
stress that this is 100% speculation, Mike could be under investigation or need
to be investigated and she wouldn’t want to do that. But Lisa could have a
future in politics doing something else entirely. She could even go on to be
president. But enough about her. Let’s look towards the candidates in the race,
starting with the Democrats.
Pat
Quinn is the former governor of this state. I still have no idea if the rumors
that he was under investigation were complete BS or not. They might have been.
I don’t know if he should return to public office or not. While I’m thinking
that he wasn’t as bad a person now, I might be seeing things in rose colored
glasses now that we have a new mess. In the state of Illinois, it is worth
remembering that attorney general is third in line to the governorship. I don’t
think that he should have this power of office, but that’s just me. Still, I
don’t think he would win anyways.
Renato
Mariotti is a former prosecutor who seemingly has not held elective office
before. But this is a race where one shouldn’t need the experience of elected
office in order to do a good job. But there is something that he or someone in
his team did that really annoyed me. I didn’t know who he was and randomly
wound up getting emails from him that I know I didn’t sign up for. I don’t even
know how he got one of my email addresses. This is a major black spot for me
against him. I don’t know if I’d vote for him if he wins the primary and I
wouldn’t vote for him in the primary myself. Besides, as good as it is to be
against the incumbent governor of Illinois and president of this country, I’d
need more of a platform than that. At least he was a prosecutor at one point in
time.
Scott
Drury is an Illinois House member. He seems like he’s an anti-Democrat
Democrat. Now that’s not a bad thing per say. It would be if he was still
running for governor. But he’s not. When it comes to needing to prosecute the
law breakers of the state, he’ll need to go after members of his own party. He
could be the best person in this race.
Sharon
Fairley doesn’t seem to have any political experience. She seems to go after
police officers in some way, based on what her current job is. You might find
more information about her online. (I think this is a her, but I might be
wrong.) In the age of black lives matter, with many problems regarding police
brutality, maybe making sure that police are held responsible isn’t that bad an
idea. But we can’t go after people who we know normally protect lives. Are
there some dirty cops in the system? Yes. Are there cops shooting people who
they shouldn’t be? Yes. But we should remember that most of them are good
people already. And don’t believe all of the television and movie stories.
Aaron
Goldstein might be the person in the race with the biggest black spot against
him, which is saying something since Pat Quinn is also in the race. I don’t
think that he did anything bad, but he was Rod Blagojevich’s lawyer. Well,
someone had to defend him. And Aaron might have put far more effort into the
case than Rod ever did. (Then again, he might have seen this as an easy, open
and shut case and was surprised like everyone was that the first case ended in
a mistrial.) I don’t know if he should be granted the best of all the lawyer
jobs in the state (and one that would be the opposite of what a defense
attorney does), but I don’t know much about him. I’d still pass on him, though.
Kwame
Raoul is an Illinois senator and has had experience prosecuting cases. But
there is an issue with him regarding a potential conflict of interest regarding
a tobacco company that was making contributes to him while they are at odds with
the current attorney general. He might be a good candidate in the race, but I
can’t tell for sure.
Nancy
Rotering is the mayor of Highland Park. I can’t find any other information
about her. One of the important parts to note that I’ll get to more on later is
whether someone who has political experience or someone who has prosecution
experience in the courtroom. I can’t find any proof that she was ever in the
courtroom as a lawyer. That doesn’t mean that she wasn’t. I just have limited
information and I’m not doing as much research as I probably could.
Jesse
Ruiz is the Chicago Park District president. That’s all that I know about him
or her. I don’t even know for sure the gender of some of these people as that’s
how limited my information is. So I’ll switch to the two Republicans in the
race.
Erika
Harold is an attorney and may as well be the nominee with all the endorsements
she has gotten from the Republican Party. Whether or not she’ll win the general
election if she does win the primary might be her time in the Bush campaign,
but I don’t know if people will care that much about the former president.
Indeed, she may not prove much of an impact on the race that might as well a
Democratic primary baring any potential problem from its winner.
Gary
Grasso is a former mayor and current county board member. I did a poll that was
clearly not in support of him and raised some good points about why he
shouldn’t be elected, although I don’t remember what they are offhand. The
Republican primary will come down in my mind to if people want someone with
courtroom experience or someone who has held elective office. In most cases, I
think that someone with experience should win. But attorney general might be
the better choice to ignore if they’ve ever held office.
As
I close this blog post, I might as well get to who I think should win from each
side. I think that if you are voting in the Democratic primary, you should vote
for Scott Drury, although Kwame Raoul might be a good choice too. On the
Republican side, I’d vote for Erika Harold and not because she has a ton of
endorsements. Remember that the primary is on March 20th. And as you
vote, wonder if it should be state attorney generals like I think that it
should be, or if it should be state attorneys general like so many places
write.
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