President Donald Trump visited an Illinois county last week which was once considered a Democratic-party bastion, but has been slipping away to the Republicans throughout this decade.

Right up front, let’s just stipulate that the recent appointment of state Representaive Christian Mitchell (D-Chicago) as the Democratic Party of Illinois’ interim executive director will not usher in an immediate sea-change.

Let’s assume you love cats and/or dogs. And you see an ad for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), on television or on the Internet (RCReader.com/y/hsus1). Do you get emotional over the sight of stray cats or dogs living in Dickensian squalor before being euthanized? And do you consider writing out a check to the national organization based on the work it does on behalf of those animals, consistently depicted in rescue shelters?

It’s an impulse you may want to reconsider.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan will be on the ballot in just one of Illinois’ 118 House districts this November, but his name and reputation will be featured in electoral battles throughout the state as Governor Bruce Rauner and the Republican Party use Madigan against every Democrat from JB Pritzker on down to maybe even mosquito-abatement district races. Can his lousy statewide image be used to defeat his fellow Democrats?