Democrats dine to figure out Jones' successor

Because Obama is now the President-elect there's a lot of jockeying going around. Of course the title of this post refers to the jockeying for Senate President. Of course this position opened up well before Obama's election as POTUS. Here's an update from Clout St:

The lawmakers are entertaining themselves at an Italian restaurant as they attempt to put together the ground rules for choosing a successor.

It's sounds like it should be easy, but they don't do it very often.

Jones has led the Senate Democrats when they were the minority party in the 1990s and on through their majority party tenure since 2003. The 37-22 majority is historic because no Democratic caucus has had that many Senate members since at least the 1880s, if ever, according to available records.

The number of candidates who want to step into the presidency is in flux, but Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and Sen. James Clayborne (D-Belleville) are the two frontrunners.

This caught my eye reading the blog 538.com about Jesse Jr.'s chances for Obama's Senate seat. Actually this is old news to you if you read the Capitol Fax blog yesterday...

This is spun as favorable news for Jackson, but I'm not so certain; having the support of 21 percent of Illinoisans is hardly a rousing consensus.

In addition, we probably have to account for name recognition, since most of these candidates are pretty obscure. The Zogby poll says that 65 percent of Illinoisans are familiar with Jackson, so one way to read these numbers is that 32 percent of Illinoisans who know of Jackson have him as their top choice. By contrast, Tammy Duckworth's name recognition is just 40 percent. Among Illinoisans who are familiar with Duckworth, 35 percent have her as their top choice, a slightly larger fraction than Jackson.

Well Jesse Jackson isn't likely to go to the US Senate, but if there is an outside chance that he does, then who might replace him in the 2nd Congressional District. That district being my congressional district. Perhaps 7th Ward Ald. Sandi Jackson?

BTW, Clout City has a few comments about Jackson campaign to be the new junior senator from Illinois.

If Jackson isn't likely to be Obama's replacement then it wouldn't matter if someone decided to speculate on who could replace him. Almost similar to what happened to Bobby Rush as he underwent treatment for cancer earlier this year. But speculation can be fun can't it?