Yesterday, I took the Rock Island Metra from 103rd to La Salle Street station for an 11:30 luncheon of the Finance Committtee of Ives for Illinois. I was flattered to be invited, because I do not have two-nickels to rub together.
I helped Chicago Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan form the Irish for Ives which will host a fundraiser at Reilly's Daughter on Monday, March 5th between 5-7PM. That will be a great event, where traditional Democrats like me can ask Jeanne Ives about their public service pensions, Bosco Rauner's lie, that Representative Ives shovels Mike Madigan's snow covered sidewalks over on Kedvale & 64th and how she plans to get Illinois back on its feet.I passed out some fliers to my fellow passengers who either accepted them, or politely declined. Most took them. One woman chatted me up and said that she will probably go to the event.
Jeanne Ives has nowhere near the money to respond to Governor "Bosco" Rauner's calumnies. This same place-holding creep, tried to hijack the funeral of Commander Paul Bauer and equated drinking chocolate milk to solving race relations. As such many 19th Ward residents are buying the ads from Governor Bosco, like they were words coming from a burning bush:
She's a Madigan crony!
She is hateful, bigoted and wants my pension
All without any examples given other than repetitions of Eric Zorn, or Sun Times talking points.
The worst comes from a shirt-tail cousin of mine with a swell County job, who will be working to re-elect Toni Preckwinkle shortly.
If you see the "Irish for Ives" posters up on the South Side, let the businesses know you won't support them. I saw one on 111th in Mt Greenwood today and they immediately agreed to take it down. There's supposed to be a fundraiser for her at Reilly's Daughter Oak Lawn. Let them know too.He attached a smear piece from Daily Kos 2013 about Ives the Union Buster though the same Union Buster has been supported by IUEO 150. Jeanne Ives must be scaring the hell out of people who want to keep things going the way they are. They know if Ives knocks Rauner out in the primary, JB Pritzker will not have the planned can of tomatoes in the 15 round bout in November. Nor, do they want Jeanne Ives to face Chris Kennedy, let alone Progressive Boy Toy Biss. So union leaders who were all-in for Rahm want Rauner to lay down in November for them all.
The rank and file union membership are stuck with the property taxes, the water bills, the lousy schools and are told who not to vote for.
Union voters must declare in a primary polling place and people have big ears, adapted to the slightest volume thanks to street cash and Rauner has plenty. I takes a very special kind integrity to take an unsanctioned ballot in Chicago.
Tearing down posters and threatening business boycotts? These same union loyalists shop at WalMart and regularly cross picket lines to snag an Italian beef. Hey, it's a free country. . .still.
I arrived at the Union League Club and was asked to man the greeter's table for a few minutes, which I did and introduced myself while I handed out name tags.
A gentleman by the name of Mike Schultz was carrying a huge briefcase and asked me, " I suppose Ives is a Democrat, this being Illinois. I am coming from Wisconsin and satyed here over night."
I explained that Jeanne Ives was running against Gov. Bruce Rauner in the March Primary as a Republican and he asked me about her. I explained that Ives is the only Pro-Life candidate for the office of Governor by either Party, was a comon sense fiscal conservative who wants to halt the run-away pension crisis while easing the pain of the victims of former Governor Jim Edgar's IOU briberies, a West Point grad and Army officer, mother of five children two of whom serve in the armed forses and honest,tough and good humored, happy person.
Jeanne Ives came up the stairs and we met for the first time, " Pat Hickey, it's nice to see a Facebook person in person."
I introduced the Guv to Mr. Schultz.
Mr. Schultz is a dreamer, of German, Irish and Japanese blood, who grew up in Bridgeport. His grandmother lived two doors down from the real Mayor - Richard J. Daley. Schultz went on to explain that he was selling a product that he helped developed - a pain relieving lotion made from hemp oil. He is searching States for the expansion of his business and is skipping Illinois as toxic to innovation and industry.
Mike Schultz gave me a bottle of the lotion for my retired carpenter brother who is crippled up with artheritis in his knees, hands, shoulders and ankle. He is no fan of Trump, Rauner, or Ives. I am a huge fan of Jeanne Ives.
Mr. Schultz bid farewell and said, " I am very impressed with you, Mrs. Ives. Best of luck!"
We were called into lunch/
I knew Dan Proft and was astonished to see him with whiskers. I was introduced to Jeanne's husband Rich, who is an engineer and a West Point man. He had been with Kenny Construction, when the great flood washed through the Loop. Rich is like . . .every guy I know in this neighborhood, funny, embarassed to be there, serious about his wife and his family. Rich Ives would be at ease at Kens, Barney Callaghan's or Hinky Dinks. Alas,Mr. Ives gave up beer and smokes for Lent.
There at my table sat Mike Houlihan with two gentleman donors, as well as Dan Patlak, the only Republican in Cook County government, and Representative Tom Morrison. We later joined by Mr. Spencer from Christ the King Parish. Jim Tobin and John Powers sat with the Ives' and Chair of Finance Committee Mr. Vince Kolber, an elegant Polish gent from Seneca, NY who adopted Illinois as his home state, built a mechanical service corporation RESIDCO, funds The Little Sisters of the Poor and The Big Shoulders Fund. Real robber-baron type.
We began with the Pledge of Allegiance and Mr. Kobler explained his notion of fund-raising which matched that of the great Bob Foster of Leo High School - make everyone an investor.
Most people believe that fundraising is whale-hunting. Everyone seems to believe the notion of nailing down a million dollar give, as the pinnacle of success. No. Leo High School defied the know-it-alls for decades, including my own two, but counting on committed people. Leo's Alumni are like 17th Century Jesuit Black Robes - they drag in new converts and turn those converts into missionaries.
Jeanne Ives has the support of this Democrat because she is honest, happy and heroic. One older gentleman in Mount Greenwood told me " She's gonna win! The little girl has alot of hard bark on her." That, she do.
Vince Kobler is accepting checks for Ives for Illinois and he wrote another huge one yesterday. Vince Kobler had writtne big checks for Governor Bruce "Bosco" Rauner, until he proved himself to be the fraud that he happens to be. Jeanne Ives was handed a check in the amount of $ 300,000.
Mike Houlihan and I felt the change in our pockets.
Jeanne Ives thanked Mr. Kobler, who himself had run for Congress in the 5th District in 2016, for leading her 'rag-tag band of insurgents' who depend upon people power to get her message out.
Ives noted that all Rauner has is money, lots and lots and lots and lots of money. Fund-raising is the art of friend making.
Jeanne Ives praised Mike Houlihan and me for our work on the upcoming Reilly's Daughter event. In a room full of well-to-do women and men, it was uncommonly nice of Jeanne to recognize two broke boys.
Like I said, fund-raising is friend making and Jeanne Ives was on way to Peoria. She had just comeback from Decatur, Belleville, and Watseka, Illinois, where union members learned the truth about Ives for Illinois from Jeanne Ives herself.
I wish my shirt-tail cousin and a few of louder partisans were as fair-minded.
I met Jeanne Ives and I don't have two-nickels together.
Wonder if Rauner, or JB Pritzker would give me two hoots in hell?
It's your vote.
Hey leave up the signs. Don't go to the event. Even better, don't vote.
