50th Ward Aldermanic Race: Don't Vote - It Only Encourages Them

The fur is flying and it's raining mud in the 50th Ward Chicago aldermanic runoff between 38 year incumbent Berny Stone and challenger, Mrs. Ira Silverstein.

And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Ever since casting my first Illinois vote for Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Presidential primary (he lost to Gerald Ford who was backed by the IL Republican combine)I have found myself constantly reduced to trying to divine which candidate might possibly be the lessor of two evils.

Liberal Judy Baar Topinka v. liberal Rod Blagojevich -- Liberal Mark Kirk v. liberal Alexi Giannoulias. How many times can voting be reduced to coin flippery before one succumbs to abject cynicism?

Now, situated in Chicago's West Rogers Park 50th Ward, I finally have.

I'm not going to vote this Tuesday..



The choices are between Berny Stone and Debra Silverstein. A liberal curmudgeon or a liberal mousewife.

Stone accuses Silverstein of nepotism. She takes a salary from her Democrat Committeeman husband's ward organization.

Silverstein accuses Stone of nepotism. His charming daughter, Ilana, takes a salary from his aldermanic office.

Stone accuses Silverstein of dirty campaign money. She took $10k from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's secretly funded PAC and won't return the cash.

Silverstein accuses Stone of dirty campaign money. He paid $13k under the table to a front group which campaigned for him.

Stone accuses Silverstein of incompetent neglect. She and her husband are running the Democrat organization into the ground and her husband doesn't answer constituent mail.

Silverstein accuses Stone of incompetent neglect. He refers citizen compaints to 311 and doesn't patch potholes.

They are both very, very liberal Democrats who pander to immigrant lobby groups (they each have their own Muslim campaign mascot) and cowtow to Big-Labor.

Siverstein has the backing of ultra-lefty Cong. Jan Schakowsky's machine and the public sector SEIU and AFSCME unions. Stone has the backing of the politically connected building trades unions and two-thirds of his fellow Chicago aldermen.

They are both spending scads of money on mailings, robocalls and e-mail blasts trying to convince me that they would be, at the very least, the lessor evil.

And I'm am staying home Tuesday.

I hear that they each will be spending about $200 for every vote they end up actually getting.

Now if one of them would just send me the cash outright, I might be induced to change my mind.

That would be, after all, the Chicago way.

(Might as well just sit back and enjoy some vintage WHO -- "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."