Illinois’ own Sen. Barack Obama is on the hustings these last days before Nov. 7, and so he’s in the news for that. But he’s in it in Chicago newspapers for taking a favor from the state’s currently best known indicted political insider.
Chi Trib’s John Kass explains it pithily here, following on yesterday’s Chi Trib reporting. Sun-Times’s Mark Brown explains it here. Upshot is, O. dipped a toe into corruption of the sort he condemned in Africa or didn’t know what he was doing, either of which tend to smudge the image that attaches to a presumably idealistic newcomer with “the flawless, unlined visage of a carefree young movie idol.”
There’s another matter, his falling into line with the presumably non-idealistic old-timers when it comes to local politics, specifically his failure to endorse a fellow Dem reform candidate in the primary last April followed by his endorsement of the feckless, reportedly hapless son of an old-timer now incapacitated and unable to run. Chi Trib’s Eric Zorn gives this the attention it deserves.
Well, I'm still speechless over the spectacle of the Maryland Democratic Party importing Barack Obama to Prince Georges County Maryland to lecture the black voters of PG that they should not vote for Republican Michael Steele (a black man) because he looks like them, but instead should vote for Ben Cardin (a white man) because a black man (Barack Obama) tells them to. I'll probably still be figuring this one out two hours after Cardin concedes to Steele tomorrow night.
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