Isaac Hayes wasn’t always happy to share the same name as
a singer famed for “Shaft” and other 1970s soul
classics.
“All of my life, I’ve had to deal with that,” say Hayes.
“I didn’t appreciate it as a kid, but now, I think my Mom and Dad
were geniuses.… It helps break the ice.”
Breaking the ice is important for Hayes in his campaign in
the
2nd District of Illinois, where he is perhaps the GOP’s longest
of long-shot candidates for Congress this year. Encompassing the
southside suburbs of Chicago near the border with Indiana, the
district’s electorate is so heavily Democratic that two years ago,
90 percent voted for President Obama. The 2nd District hasn’t
elected a Republican to Congress in 60 years.
Why, then, did the Republican challenger find himself with
a crowded schedule of media interviews this week? The explanation
involves the incumbent Democrat, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Son of the famed civil-rights activist, Jackson Jr. was
among numerous Illinois Democrats who coveted the Senate seat
vacated when Barack Obama was elected to the White House. According
to testimony at the trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, at a
meeting in October 2008, businessman Raghuveer Nayak
offered Blagojevich $6 million to appoint Jackson to the Senate.
The appointment eventually went to former Illinois attorney general
Roland Burris, and the scandal over the “auction” of Obama’s seat
was enough to get Blagojevich impeached by the state legislature
and indicted on federal corruption charges. (“Blago” was convicted
on one minor count last month, although the jury deadlocked on most
of the charges and the prosecutor is now seeking a
retrial.)
Of course, even the most flagrant corruption could not
usually be expected to hinder a Democrat’s re-election in Chicago,
and even the shadow of a continuing federal investigation did
nothing to damage Jackson’s prospects for an easy return to
Congress. And then came the bombshell — a blonde
bombshell.
Giovana Huidobro is a hostess at Ozio, a trendy D.C.
cocktail bar where Jackson sometimes held fund-raising events. A
former bikini model, Huidobro was also evidently the mistress of
the married congressman. The
Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday that Jackson’s
patron Nayak paid for Huidobro to make at least two trips to
Chicago at Jackson’s request. Jackson has not denied the affair,
reportedly describing Huidobro as a “social
acquaintance.”
A little bribery and a little adultery might be par for
the course among Democrats in notoriously corrupt Chicago, but the
blondeness of Jackson’s mistress struck some of his former admirers
as a betrayal of the congressman’s identity-politics bargain with
the city’s black community.
“Once again, a high-profile, married black
professional has been caught dallying with a white woman he plucked
from the ranks of restaurant hostesses,”
Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell
wrote, comparing Jackson to Tiger Woods and
calling the revelation “the kind of thing that gives a black
woman a migraine.” Jackson “has campaigned as a
pro-black politician,” Mitchell wrote, and should know “the
self-esteem issues that black women have had to deal with
when it comes to black men dating white women.”
In the 2nd District, where more than 60 percent of
residents are black, could the kind of resentments expressed by
Mitchell be enough to cause some previously loyal Democrats to
consider voting Republican? As Mitchell wrote in her Thursday
column, Hayes “until now…might as well have been a ghost
candidate,” but the disclosure of Jackson’s extramarital dalliance
has made the prospect of a GOP upset slightly less
supernatural.
A member of the ministry
team at the 20,000-member Apostolic Church
of God in the southside Woodlawn community where he grew up, Hayes
has campaigned vigorously since declaring his candidacy in August
2009. The Blagojevich trial showed that Jackson “directly in the
midst of the conspiracy,” Hayes says. “I felt we needed somebody
who would bring back ethics and integrity to Congress.”
He cites the failing schools and economic woes of the 2nd
District — where many neighborhoods don’t have gas stations or
grocery stores — as demonstrating the need for new policies. And
Hayes, whose website address is Isaac4Honesty.com,
says voters are “fed up” with corruption in both
parties.
“People are ready for change,” he says, noting the
election of Republican Rep. Joseph Cao to replace corrupt Democrat
William Jefferson in New Orleans, as well as Sen. Scott Brown’s
January victory in Massachusetts. “It’s possible in this
climate.”
That belief that anything is possible for GOP candidates
this year may explain why Hayes will be appearing with Republican
National Committee Chairman Michael Steele at an Oct. 15
“Fire
Pelosi Bus Tour” rally in the 2nd District.
Hayes declined to comment on Jackson’s adultery, but admitted that
the people he’s talked to in the community “are certainly
interested” in the latest scandal. “Many people are very
disappointed,” Hayes said.
The blonde bombshell scandal that hit Jackson this week
was one of those unanticipated events that have made 2010 such an
unpredictable year in politics. No one would dare predict
a Republican victory in the 2nd District, but some are
certainly praying for it and, as a Pentecostal minister,
Hayes believes in the power of prayer.
