Dan Lipinski

Searching for a moderate Democrat and bacon buns

by: John Kass

Here’s what I did early Tuesday before working on my column and getting some bacon buns: I voted, writing in Friedrich Hayek for governor even though the brilliant economist and author of “The Road to Serfdom” is long dead.
“You didn’t complete your ballot,” said an election judge when the machine spit my ballot back out.
Oh, yes, I did. I wrote in Hayek. He’s dead but he’s still good.
“Are you really running for mayor of Chicago?” asked my suburban election judge.
Yes, I said.
Then I drove through the Southwest Side to accomplish two things:




1) The purchase of some bacon buns to take back to the election judges at my polling place, as an election tampering test run for my #KassforMayor campaign in Chicago.




2) The search for an extremely rare breed of politician almost extinct in America these days: A moderate pro-life Democrat. That would be U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, 3rd.




Once there were many moderate Democrats who supported strong borders and opposed abortion on demand. But they’ve been driven out of their party.




Things have changed. The old Democrats are all but gone. The new Democrats are the party of their standard-bearer, the socialist bartender, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.




With the Democratic Party lurching ever more leftward each day, and taking much of the American media with them, I thought it was important to find this rare, moderate breed of Democrat. There are only a small handful of them left in Congress, and you don’t need your thumb to count them all.




I caught up with Lipinski in the cold, wind-swept parking lot of St. Richard School, a polling place at 50th and Kenneth. Seeing such a rare creature, I felt rather like the naturalist David Attenborough approaching a species on the verge of extinction.




“Hi, John,” Lipinski said.




We were in what soon will be the hotly contested 14th Ward as incumbent Ald. Ed Burke, the old machine warlord, tries to hold off a challenge from the left in community organizer Jose Torrez.




“What would I want out of this election?” Lipinski said. “To bring the party back to the center, because if both sides keep going the way they’re going, we won’t have a country. I have a good feeling we’ll take the House, and we’ll have oversight on the president. But most important is we have to get things done. I’d like a federal infrastructure bill right out of the gate. And I think the president would go for it.”




Lipinski is on the ballot in the 3rd Congressional District. I voted for him. I’m not telling you how to vote, but if you live in the 3rd District, I hope you vote against the Republican candidate, a Nazi Holocaust denier.




That a real Nazi is the Republican candidate speaks to the failure of the Illinois GOP. It should not have happened. He should have been opposed and stopped in the primary. But Illinois Republicans didn’t pay attention to details. The Illinois Democrats, who are bossed by House Speaker Michael Madigan, are extremely detail-oriented. Madigan works hard. But the Illinois GOP? Meh.




Out in the school parking lot where I met Lipinski was his Democratic primary opponent, Marie Newman, whom Lipinski defeated after a tough campaign. They shook hands. Each smiled, but they weren’t happy about it.




She was collecting petition signatures for Torrez in his run against Burke.




“No question Burke will lose,” said Newman. “His time is over. He has no chance.”




With Newman was Torrez’s campaign manager, Esau Chavez.




“It’s time for a change,” Chavez said. “Burke’s time is done.”




On Election Day next February, Burke will have been the 14th Ward alderman for 50 years. He’s made a fortune in politics, and he’s crafty and experienced, but demographics don’t give two figs for craftiness. His friend and ally, Boss Madigan, draws the election maps in Illinois. Madigan has taken old white ethnic Southwest Side precincts for himself, while Burke’s 14th Ward is predominately Latino.




“Look at the ward map,” Chavez said. “I look at the people. We’re going to take Burke out.”




Even if Burke wears a sombrero and hires a mariachi band to play for him wherever he goes, he’ll have trouble this time. I’ve wondered why Burke doesn’t just retire, but he and Madigan won’t retire. They can’t. If they retired, they’d just be two old Irish guys with a lot of money. And they wouldn’t like that. They like the action.




And I like bacon buns. So from the cold parking lot of St. Richard School, I stopped off at Racine Bakery for the bacon buns I had written about in a recent column.




“Many people come for the bacon buns now,” said the woman at the counter. “Thank you.”




I paid for two dozen — not that I was going to eat two dozen — and drove home, swinging past my polling place where had I cast my vote for Freidrich Hayek and giving a dozen to the election judges.




“These are delicious,” said a judge. “Is this election tampering?”




No, I said. These are bacon buns.




Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.


jskass@chicagotribune.com

Dan Lipinski comes from a family with a fine tradition of moderate politics. Sadly, he has been targeted for extinction by the Libtard Extremist because of his moderate views. He survived the last primary but I don't think he will survive the next.



Let's just presume he has just been elected to his last term. By switching over to the Republicans, he could bring home the bacon to his district in a way it's never been done before and he would at least have a fighting chance for the next term.



I'm not suggesting that Lipinski would make such a switch but I do offer it as an example of how the Republicans could regain control of the house.