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Cook County Mon Jun 21 2010
Claypool Will Make the Ballot
I can't believe how much is ink is being spilled over the race for Cook County Assessor. While the Assessor can be an important advocate and has some policy-making flexibility, it is essentially an administrative office. Actually, maybe I can believe the ink being spilled since nowadays it's not very much ink. Maybe we need to update that cliche. I can't believe how many 1s and 0s are being coded? Too nerdy. I don't know, I'll work on that and get back to you.
Here's a modest prediction regarding that election anyway: Forrest Claypool, the independent politics darling who took on John Stroger in 2006, will make the ballot despite the onerous 25,000 signature requirement. Claypool has gathered a sufficient quantity, and, oddly enough, Scott Lee Cohen may help ensure his signatures survive.
How does bad-premise-screwball-comedy Scott Lee Cohen play into this? His oddball pursuit of an independent run for the governor's office may bring enough additional media attention to the process in the beginning to allow the Claypool people to hype any signature-challenge chicanery (or perceived chicanery) early on. The Berrios campaign is actually at a kind of disadvantage--even following the letter of the law, by challenging signatures, they may look petty or, worse, fearful of a campaign against Claypool, which will only add to his esteem among independent voters (it probably won't help that Joe Berrios is the chair of the county party). While we should probably expect Berrios' campaign to be aggressive, the public attention on the process could give Claypool a significant boost that may not be worth the electoral repercussions should he survive the challenge.
