Mark Kiesling: Politicians play games, get played
NWI Times
Aug 11, 2004
nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/politicians-play-games-get-played/article_7ab7f97d-9366-5155-a136-46b4b666b2f1.html
I leave you and go on vacation for two weeks and look what happens.
East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick is called a thief in a report from Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter, his 2003 mayoral Democratic primary is tossed and ordered redone, longtime Pastrick crony James H. Fife III is indicted and so is former Judge Deborah Riga of Schererville, or East Chicago South.
To top off the string of amazing events, no one stole my Caprice while I was gone, but that's strictly personal.
Being that I was born in Chicago during the reign of Richard J. Daley and moved to Lake County when my father was transferred to the Whiting refinery in 1971 -- the same year Pastrick was elected mayor -- I cannot be shamed by allegations of shenanigans by my political officials.
What does make me sort of uneasy is Pastrick's righteous indignation at the idea that Carter, a Republican, may be timing his civil lawsuit against the mayor and 26 others in order to influence the November election.
Of course, we all know Pastrick would never use anything but the most scrupulously clean methods to win an election. Put the issues before the people and let the best candidate win, that's what he always said.
He would never use things like free sidewalks, patios, driveways, parking lots or pools to buy votes. He would never pack a county convention with rummies from a flophouse owned by a crony to vote himself county chairman again and again. And he certainly would never, ever use an underling to remind a thousand city workers who is responsible for their paychecks.
In short, unlike just about every other politician in America, Pastrick would never use politics to sway an election. Such a thing would be as shocking as discovering that gambling goes on in "Casablanca's" Rick's Cafe Americain.
It's like, well, handing out money to precinct captains on Election Day in order to buy all the democracy they can.
It's like an elected city judge using absentee ballots coerced from people who speak little or no English, who trusted one of their own countrymen when he came to their homes and asked them to mark the papers for a candidate they knew little or nothing about.
Let us in Lake County not stand here and take this Democrat-bashing from that Republican weasel Carter and the rest of his Indianapolis crew.
Reports said Riga blew town after her May victory over primary challenger Ken Anderson was overturned when it became apparent that precinct workers acting on her behalf swindled immigrants out of their votes.
It was probably a step up from the Old Country, where they didn't even have a vote to be swindled out of.
She moved to Sarasota, Fla., which houses a museum founded by the late circus magnate John Ringling, but I say if Riga wanted a circus, she should have stayed in Lake County.
As for me, I still have two more weeks of vacation, so look out.
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