It’s time again for the “Silly Season,” that time of year when political shenanigans are the norm, insults and innuendoes are tossed about with reckless abandon and lies masquerade as statistics.

And we’re not even out of the primaries yet.

Actually, the “Silly Season” started last year when everyone eligible for the presidency declared his or her candidacy, or so it seemed. And it simply has not ended, no matter how much we wish the campaigns and commercials and debates and spin-doctors and lying liars and former presidents and former would-be presidents would just pack up all our cares and woes and trundle off to Buffalo, or wherever those of their ilk trundle off to.

Think how much “fun” we’re going to have—and how many commercials people in states other than Illinois, now a die-hard “red” state, may be forced to endure before it’s finally over on Nov. 4, or Dec. 4, or Jan 20.

After all, this is Illinois and national politics at its best if you like those kinds of campaigns and at its worst if you naively believe that the words “honest” and “politicians” can be used in the same sentence.

Given that we may reside in the most politically corrupt state in the union, it’s not difficult to admit that I find politicians generally repellent but the process of politics fascinating.

I know, it’s kind of like admitting that you like airplane crashes or auto accidents, rather ghoulish, but it might be no more than fitting that the final struggle for the Democratic nomination may feature two politicians (yes, folks, they ARE politicians) weaned on the so-called values of the political culture of Illinois.

We might have guessed that there would be a bruising battle between two would-be presidents for the nomination with Rudy and Mitt riding high in the polls of last year, but who could have guessed that Cactus John McCain would come back from the dead and be riding high as the presumptive GOP nominee?

Who could have figured that “Good Old Fred” Thompson would have sleepwalked through a campaign he apparently never really wanted to take part in? Or that Rudy (Mr. 9-11) Giuliani’s bid would unravel before he even took part in a primary? Or that Mitt’s money wouldn’t be able to buy him Iowa or New Hampshire? Or that Mike Huckabee’s one-liners would prove more durable than his campaign? Or that more than 1/2 percent of voters would know who Ron Paul is, and that he’s still alive?

Even more remarkably, who would have thought that Hillary’s coronation as the first woman president would have been delayed by an eloquent first-term black senator with the “non-American” name of Barack Obama but the ultimate America-as-melting-pot background? Or that Clinton would be battling a left-wing conspiracy to deny her what she deems as rightfully hers?

Who would have figured, say, three years ago, that Speaker Dennis Hastert would have become the involuntarily retired speaker and now the ex-congressman? Or, more remarkably, that a liberal Democrat named Bill Foster would be elected as at least Hastert’s temporary successor in a heretofore strong GOP district?

Or that dairy king Jim Oberweis, apparently destined to run for every Illinois office, would battle with State Sen. Chris Lauzen over who’s more conservative, run a smelly campaign filled with half-truths (as did now Rep. Foster, with a slightly less smarmy TV campaign) and lose a race no Republican should lose.

Of course, who would have guessed that Gov. Blagojevich would apparently be an unidentified person of interest in a Chicago corruption trial? Or that the prostitution-ring fighting governor of New York would decide that he had to sample the wares before jailing them?

Silly? Yes, and then some, as in disgusting. What it goes to show you is that there is, unfortunately, a stench to this political game that refuses to go away.

There’s an old Irish blessing (or curse, depending on how you look at it) that says, “May you live in interesting times.”

Well, that we do, in an election year in which we are almost certainly guaranteed to have presidential candidates at sharp odds with one another on almost every major issue.

Contact editor Don Kopriva at dkopriva@thebusinessledger.com or at 630-428-8788.