Senate candidate is wise beyond his years

Senate candidate is wise beyond his years
BY DON TERRY
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
August 13, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1714483,CST-EDT-terry13.article


LeAlan Jones has never let youth or inexperience hold him back.

That's why at 30 Jones is bold enough to join the race for the U.S. Senate seat recently held by his fellow South Sider, President Obama. Jones is running on the Green Party of Illinois ticket.

He's green all right. He has never sought political office. So he knows what you're thinking: He's a kid. He must be nuts. He doesn't have a chance.

"That's what they said about Barack Obama,'' Jones said. "They said he was too young, too inexperienced. Nobody gave him a chance either.''

He doesn't have a political war chest stuffed to the brim with fat-cat contributions. "I'm not trying to keep up with the Joneses,'' he said. "I'm already a Jones.''

Jones swears he is not crazy.

"I'm just confident in my leadership skills,'' he said.

Jones wants to bring more jobs to the inner city and the hard-hit small towns of Illinois. "We have a jobless recovery,'' he says. "The economy is showing signs of improving, but nobody is getting hired.''

He supports a single-payer health-care system and aggressive diplomacy over military tactics.

"We've left a lot of ill will around the world,'' he said.

Long shot or no-shot, I'm looking forward to watching Jones run.

At the start of every election season I look in the mirror and make the same vow to myself: This time, I'm going to vote my conscience. No more holding my nose and voting for the lesser evil. No more being pragmatic when I should be principled. No more falling for the hype and getting played by politicians who promise gourmet meals and deliver crumbs.

Then the mirror starts fogging up and I go out and vote for Tweedledee over Tweedledum.

One thing is certain. Jones is no Tweedle. He has a great "only in America'' personal story to tell.

He's been defying the odds his whole life. At 13, he was a reporter for National Public Radio and helped produce a radio documentary about growing up poor on the South Side. "Ghetto Life 101'' won a bookshelf of awards.

Three years later, in 1996, Jones and his teenage reporting partner, Lloyd Newman, and their New York City producer/mentor, David Isay, followed up "Ghetto Life" with another heartbreaking, award-winning piece, "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse.''

That was the story behind the death of 5-year-old Eric Morse and the two boys -- ages 10 and 11 -- who dropped him out of a 14th-floor window at the Ida B. Wells housing development in 1994.

Jones grew up a block from Ida B. Wells. Although he lives miles away in Englewood now, the problems and even some of the people are the same.

"A lot of folks moved to Englewood when they tore the projects down,'' he told me as we walked through the struggling neighborhood recently. "Any community deprived of resources is going to create desperation.''

We passed a knot of tough-looking men hanging out on a street corner.

"As senator,'' Jones said, "I am going to completely overhaul the social service apparatus in the inner city. There are too many charlatans in the hood -- black and white.''

A late-model SUV pulled up beside us. A young man leaned out the window and shouted, "Hey Coach, what's up?''

Jones is a volunteer high school football coach. He also acts as father to his 19- and 16-year-old nephews, whom he took in eight years ago.

"I'm coaching the kids of my friends who are locked up or dead,'' he said. "We just keep recycling the problems, the poverty.''

The young man, Darien Smith, 19, is on his way back to college. Jones coached him a few years ago.

"He's always willing to help people,'' Smith said. "It doesn't seem like there are too many politicians who care about places like Englewood.

"That's why we need one who does.''