Posted by the old WMAQ radio file... on February 21, 2010 at 01:55:20:
February 20, 2010
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH
It was only in the final days of the campaign that I pulled my dusty college yearbook off an attic shelf and confirmed that, yes, I was a classmate of U.S. Senate candidate Cheryle Jackson, though I didn't know her then.
Her photo doesn't do her justice. I was having a bad hair day, too. But looking through the photos of Northwestern's Class of '87, I noticed an interesting pattern:
There's Dennis Culloton from WMAQ-AM, who went on to be spokesman for Gov. George Ryan before Ryan got indicted.
There's Jackson, who became spokeswoman for Ryan's successor, Rod Blagojevich, before he was indicted.
Does that mean any elected official who hires from NU's Class of '87 is looking for scrutiny from federal prosecutors? Perish the thought: Mayor Daley hired our classmate Jackie Heard to be his spokeswoman 10 years ago, and, far from being indicted, Daley has been proclaimed "the nation's top urban executive" by Time Magazine.
Chicago really is a small town, isn't it? Culloton, Heard and I studied journalism. Jackson was an art major. It would have been hard to predict where some of us wound up.
There's John Heilemann, with his wild '80s hair. He used to be an editor of mine on the Daily Northwestern and now writes for New York magazine. He just wrote Game Change, a book about the Obama campaign. I used to bump into him following Barack Obama around the country in that never-ending primary. On election night, I watched him on MSNBC with fellow NU grad Lynn Sweet commenting on Illinois' Senate race. He probably never realized the third-place finisher -- Jackson -- was our college classmate.
During the presidential primary, I'd see another classmate, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, following John McCain around the country. She has not aged a day.
Then there's The Fixer, the Sun-Times' own Stephanie Zimmermann, still as cheerful and blond and full of reporting talent as she was the day she arrived from Wisconsin in basic writing freshman year. There's Darel Jevens, who edited my stories at the Daily Northwestern and still does here when I write features. Where's Bob Mazzoni's picture? He's a sports editor here and my union rep. Heard was camera-shy too.
There's Todd Warren, who made a better career choice than any of us did, going to work for a little startup in Seattle with a guy named Bill Gates. Hollywood mogul Jeff Kwatinetz did OK, too.
When Jackson and the other Democratic U.S. Senate candidates debated on WTTW-Channel 11, Carol Marin asked what was their biggest mistake. Jackson responded that as a student at Northwestern, she never took advantage of opportunities there.
Deanna Bellandi, a political reporter for the Associated Press who used to cover me for the Daily Northwestern when I was in Northwestern's student senate, turned to me and said, "I feel the same way!"
"So do I," I nodded.
I pressed Jackson about what opportunities she would have pursued as a student and she said, "I would have gotten more involved in the community . . . maybe taken a year abroad." (As president of the Chicago Urban League, she has made up for her earlier lack of involvement.)
I took a spectacularly educational junior year in Ireland. But I regret not striking up more friendships with interesting classmates at Northwestern such as Jackson and her husband, Charles, (who looks exactly the same). And I should have taken more literature classes, like Professor Don Torchiana's Anglo-Irish Literary Revival with its intimidating reading list.
And lest you think that having an old classmate cover your campaign ensures fawning coverage, Jackson got 20 percent of the vote, and on election night, I found myself apologizing to her for giving her so little ink while I focused on the fireworks between Alexi Giannoulias and David Hoffman.
And I regret being so focused on the Senate and governor candidates that I back-burnered that tip to pull the divorce file of a certain candidate for lieutenant governor . .
Abdon M. Pallasch is the Chicago Sun-Times Political Reporter.