Pols out in force for Pride Parade

Pols out in force for Pride Parade
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
July 5, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/2464144,CST-EDT-laura05.article


'It's become the status quo," quipped Mike Quigley at the Sidetrack bar, just an hour before the kickoff of Chicago's 41st annual Pride Parade. The perennial summer soiree drew 450,000 revelers last Sunday.

Quigley boasted that it was his 29th appearance in the parade.

"It used to be seen as very fringe," the North Side congressman recalled.

But now?

"Is there one large corporation without a float in the parade?" he asked.

I wasn't there to follow the dollars. I was counting the politicians. The Pride Parade is a reliable barometer of political fortunes. That morning, I found plenty of electeds and aspirants at what may be the busiest gay bar in America. Aspiring candidates and longtime incumbents frequently trek to the North Halsted drinkery to pay homage to LGBT causes.

The pols were out in full force at the pre-parade reception. There was Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, padding around in orange crocs, greeting voters with her trademark steely stare-and-shake.

Joe Berrios, the Democratic nominee for Cook County assessor, stood off to the side, looking cool and collected in yellow. He brushed off the 90,000 petition signatures that his independent challenger, county Commissioner Forrest Claypool, had turned in the week before. Berrios' press releases and pronouncements promise that Claypool will be undone by his own flaky Democratic Party credentials. Berrios claims Claypool is not a real Democrat. We'll see.

Claypool marched in the hot sun later that day. He strode on his own, it seemed, with scant visible signs, supporters or the other usual fanfare. The parade draws big time from his natural constituency -- young people, independents, libertarians, unhappy property tax-paying yuppies and women (they love his hair). Did Claypool underplay his base?

Gov. Quinn arrived at Sidetrack, flanked by a green-shirted "Quinn for Governor" entourage. Shaking hands and slapping backs, the Quinn brigade resembled a Greenpeace flotilla, vanquishing the eager-beaver crop of Green Party candidates in search of stray limelight.

At Quinn's side was running mate Sheila Simon, with her familial homey grin. It was her first gay parade ever, she said. How could the progeny of the liberal lion, the late Sen. Paul Simon, be a gay parade virgin? She lives in southern Illinois.

"They don't have a gay parade in Carbondale," she noted. Yet.

The top of the Democratic ticket is going to need more than gay-friendly positions to prevail Nov. 2. Quinn, the well-known incumbent and Democratic nominee, is trailing the Republican nominee, state Sen. Bill Brady, in the latest opinion polls.

Instead of trying to promote a weak Quinn, progressive activists are working up a scorched-earth, anti-Brady assault that was in full regalia at the parade.

Marchers wore T-shirts boosting a Quinn-funded website, WhoisBillBrady.com. Leading LGBT activists and feminists, like Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, say they want "to get the word out" about Brady's "wacky" views.

"His record is so horrible that when voters take a look at it, he makes Sarah Palin look like a liberal," he said at Sidetrack. Brady's views on issues like gay rights, abortion and stem-cell research are too conservative for Illinois, Cosgrove said.

Brady spokeswoman Patty Schuh dismisses the charges. Quinn backers are misrepresenting Brady's record, she said. "This appears to be more distractions from the real issues," she said, "and more of the same old manipulations and distortions."

Still, the political tea leaves portend that LGBT clout matters. My favorite parade float was hosted by the Cubs, with iconic first baseman Ernie Banks on board. As Ernie rode by, I could have sworn I heard him cheer, "Let's play two!"

Parades, that is.