Here’s some unsolicited advice for Alexi Giannoulias, Jan Schakowsky, Roland Burris and Jesse Jackson Jr.: Just say no.

Don’t run for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator in 2010. Spare Illinois the mountain of muck that will surely erupt around your respective candidacies.

But, in the heart of every politician, hope springs eternal. So does self-delusion. The Feb. 2, 2010 primary is slightly more than eight months away. And this much is certain:

* Burris, the tainted, Blagojevich-appointed incumbent, is being investigated by both the U.S. Senate Ethics committee and Sangamon county state’s attorney on charges that he perjured himself before the Illinois legislature’s impeachment committee. Burris failed to reveal contacts with Blagojevich’s agents. Now perceived as a liar, lightweight and opportunist, Burris can’t win. Despite his base among black voters, Burris’s fundraising has been crippled, and he’ll have no media campaign. His opponents need not bury him with muck; he’s done it himself.
But Burris is stubborn, if not delusional, and he won’t retire.

* Giannoulias, Illinois’ 33-year old treasurer and renowned FOB (Friend of Barack), is raising campaign cash at the torrid clip of $1 million a month. According to the candidate, over 80 percent of that amount originated from family, Greek-American supporters, and past contributors to Obama. “They’re (Obama voters) are for me,” he said.
In 2006, Giannoulias was hit for his unimpressive credentials: He was vice-president of Broadway Bank because his father happened to own it. The bank was accused of making loans to felons. But Giannoulias won the primary with 61.8 percent and the election with 54 percent. Now his tenure will be fodder. The $2 billion Bright Start college savings program lost $85 million in 2008, and a Chicago Tribune editorial cautioned Giannoulias against emulating Blagojevich and his “governing-by-public-relations.”

To win, Giannoulias must portray himself as energetic and substantive – despite only three years in a minor state office. His opponents will muck him up, charging that he is crassly ambitious, superficial and incompetent.

* Schakowsky, a 12-year congresswoman from Evanston, fiery feminist, ardent liberal, and staunch ally of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has two serious problems. First, she has a voting record which renders her unacceptable, if not totally repugnant, to half the electorate: She opposes school choice, school prayer, tax cuts, war funding, a ban on flag desecration, and recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, and supports gun control, partial-birth abortions, gay rights and civil unions. And second, Schakowsky’s husband, Bob Creamer, was indicted in 2004 on 34 counts of bank fraud, and pled guilty to two counts in 2006. She claims she didn’t know what he was doing.
There’s plenty of muck to pile on Schakowsky.

* Jackson, the 2nd District congressman once boomed as Chicago’s next black mayor, has been severely tarnished by allegations that he sought to “buy” Obama’s senate seat by donating $1 million to Blagojevich, and a House Ethics committee is investigating. Jackson has no chance to win a statewide race.
U.S. Representative Danny Davis (D-7), from Chicago’s West Side, could unite blacks, and might prevail in a crowded primary against multiple whites. But he won’t run if Burris does. And Cheryle Jackson, the Chicago Urban League president, also is interested.

“I see challenges in Washington,” said Giannoulias. “I see decisions made in the U.S. Senate over the next two to five years affecting America for the next generation. President Obama has been my political mentor. I want to be there to help enact his agenda.”

Giannoulias vigorously defends his record as treasurer, noting that he has created a on-line database for unclaimed property, consolidated all state retirement funds into a single entity (Illinois Public Employee Retirement System) to save fees and costs, targeted credit card exploitation of college students, secured a “reinvestment plan” from the 205 banks, 26 credit unions and 20 savings and loans who share the state’s $1.4 billion in deposits, and collected $5.65 million from a bond on the failed Abraham Lincoln Hotel. “I’ve done a good job,” he said.

Bill Daley, the mayoral brother and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, opted not to run for senator in 2010, and made a salient point: The Democrats have 60 senate seats. It takes a new senator ten years to make an impact. Daley, age 60, didn’t want to wait.

With Illinoisan Obama in the White House, and senior U.S. Senator Dick Durbin the Democratic majority whip, the state has gargantuan clout. But Giannoulias, an early fundraiser for Obama in 2004, and whose endorsement by Obama helped him win the 2006 primary for treasurer, has two formidable assets: First, he is a FOB, which gives him direct access to the president. And second, he’s young enough to wait to accrue institutional power and influence. If elected in 2010, at age 34, and if re-elected to two more terms, Giannoulias would, by 2028, be a senior senator, at age 52.

It should be remembered that Joe Biden, of Delaware, won his senate seat in 1972 at age 29, and 36 years later, at age 65, he won the vice-presidency. He personifies the ancient maxim: Get there, and stay there. That’s Giannoulias’s goal.

The treasurer’s principal adversaries are Schakowsky and Chris Kennedy, son of the late icon Bobby Kennedy, who runs the family business, the Merchandise Mart.

If both run, putting three whites in the race, then a black candidate could prevail. Or if, as anticipated, Giannoulias and Schakowsky go rabidly negative on each other, then Kennedy could win as the “clean” alternative.

“She (Schakowsky) won’t run (for senator),” said one local politician. “She’s way too liberal for the state. She’s got too much to lose (in the House). And she’s too old for a senate career. She’s just floating her name in order to raise money.”

The point is well taken. Schakowsky will be 65 this month, and, if elected in 2010, would be age 72 at the end of her first term. She is in the House Democratic leadership, one of eight “chief deputy whips,” and is a middle-ranking member of the influential Energy and Commerce committee – a great place to raise funds. She had over $1 million in her account as of Jan 1., and will likely have $2 million by June 30.

Pelosi is 69, and most insiders expect her to relinquish the speakership in 2014, midway through a second Obama term. The Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer, is a year older than Pelosi. If Schakowsky stays in the House, and cultivates the women who comprise almost 40 percent of the Democratic Caucus, she could beat Hoyer in the succession battle.

Here’s an early crib sheet for 2010:

“I’ve run statewide before,” said Giannoulias, who is assiduously cultivating Downstate county chairmen, Democratic legislators, and Organized Labor. In a typical Democratic primary, 70 percent of the vote comes from Cook County (and 50 percent from Chicago), with 12 percent from the collar counties, and 18 percent from Downstate. Overall, blacks comprise 35 percent of the statewide primary vote.

An April Schakowsky poll by Lake and Associates showed her ahead 22-15-10 percent, with Burris in last place, with “unfavorables” of 46 percent. But a more reliable Public Policy Reporting poll, done in April, showed Giannoulias leading 38-26-16 percent.

Back in 1992, Carol Moseley Braun won the Senate nomination with just 38.3 percent, garnering heavy support from blacks and liberal women, beating two whites: incumbent Al Dixon and lawyer Al Hofeld. That won’t be duplicated in 2010. Schakowsky’s base of strident liberals and women will give her about a quarter of the vote.
Burris, age 73, will wrap himself in the cloak of “victimization,” and his appeal will be entirely racial: The end justifies the means, he’ll say. America needs at least one black senator. A black should keep the Obama seat. It matters not that he lied and connived to get there.

My prediction: Turnout in the 2010 primary will be just under one million, and the black base is roughly 350,000;

Burris will have minimal appeal to whites and liberals, and his ceiling is 225,000 votes. Giannoulias, in the black media, will highlight his FOB status, portray Burris as a certain loser to a Republican, emphasize his fealty to the Obama Agenda, and shave off at least 100,000 black votes. That leaves 700,000 white and Hispanic votes for Giannoulias, Schakowsky and Kennedy to divide.

If Giannoulias gets half the Downstate vote, 40 percent of the suburban and Northwest and Southwest Side Chicago vote, and a fifth of the black vote, he’s the winner. Schakowsky wins only if she trashes Giannoulias, and Giannoulias would then respond in kind, with disgusted white voters opting for Kennedy, and Burris having a chance to win.
The bottom line: Don’t expect Schakowsky to run. And do expect Giannoulias to be the Democrats’ 2010 U.S. Senate nominee.
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Russ Stewart is a regular columnist and political analyst for The Chicago Daily Observer.

image Section of the West Brumidi Corridor, US Senate Wing, Capital Building