When Jason Plummer grows up, he wants to be president. Actually, he wanted to be lieutenant governor first, but he couldn’t get that job, so now he’s running for Congress from a district in southwestern Illinois.
During his campaign, Plummer visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., and indulged in a little boyish fantasy. The young lumber heir posed for photos sitting at a desk in a mock Oval Office, and standing in the door of a model Air Force One with his arms raised in the “V for Victory” salute. The photos were originally posted on Plummer’s Facebook, but have been taken down. They were distributed to reporters by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which says they “show him playing at being president in the Oval Office and on Air Force One.”
Plummer is running against William Enyart, a 62-year-old former Adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard. Obviously, the DCCC is trying to make the point that the 30-year-old Plummer is immature by comparison. They have a lot of work to do. The most recent poll, conducted Aug. 1-2 by Public Opinion Strategies, showed Plummer with a 45 percent-28 percent lead, and a 72-26 advantage in name recognition. However, Roll Call says the race to replace Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, is a tossup.
During his 2010 campaign for lieutenant governor, Plummer was accused of puffing himself up by claiming he was a Navy intelligence officer -- although he had yet to undergo training. Plummer also said that he had worked for Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and for the Heritage Foundation. Both jobs were internships.
If he wins his race for Congress, though, Plummer will finally have a desk and an office to call his own.
This month, Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland’s Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President will be available on Kindle for $2.99. Tracing Obama’s career in Chicago from his arrival as a community organizer to his election to the U.S. Senate, Young Mr. Obama tells the story of how a callow, presumptuous young man became a master politician, and of why only Chicago could have produced our first black president.
