Tribune columnist

The Democratic disaster in Massachusetts the other day -- with Republican Scott Brown winning the U.S. Senate seat and breaking 50 years of Kennedy hegemony -- has rattled President Barack Obama and Democrats.

But will politicians in the blue state of Illinois get rattled Feb. 2?

While Obama clearly gets the anger of the electorate from where he sits in Washington, and the frustration of taxpayers against the connected insiders who use government to cash in, I wonder about the Illinois politicians who spawned the Chicago Way White House.

They get it in Massachusetts. But the boys of Illinois don't seem to get it. Not one bit.

They're still up to their old tricks. It's as if they cling to their own creed, one handed down to them years ago by a famous colleague. The Illinois political creed is only seven words long, but even today it is pungent with historical accuracy.

"I can smell the meat a' cookin'"

This was the signature refrain of the late Paul Powell, the Illinois secretary of state and longtime speaker of the Illinois House. A couple days after Powell's death in 1970, it was learned he had stashed $800,000 in cash in a shoebox in his apartment. Also stored there were various other items, including 49 cases of fine whiskey -- and two cases of creamed corn.

But no tea because Illinois politicians just hate tea parties. They don't know what to do when confronted with finger sandwiches and crumpets.

Nationally, ObamaCare, the president's health care plan that doesn't ask the trial lawyers to give up a thing, is undergoing a prudent recalibration.

One thing for sure is that the national Democrats have stopped ridiculing those Tea Party protesters. The establishment witnessed a new Boston Tea Party end the Democratic supermajority in the Senate.

"Here's one thing I know," Chicago's own President Barack Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos about his fizzling national health care plan. "And I just want to make sure this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated.

"The people of Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

How gracious. It's a far cry from a year ago, when the president abandoned the notion of allowing Illinois voters the right to a special election to fill his empty U.S. Senate seat. Instead, then- Gov. Rod Blagojevich, disgraced and already facing federal charges, sent Sen. Tombstone Burris to Washington and Obama welcomed him.

"People in Illinois are as angry as they ever have been," said FOX Chicago political analyst Thom Serafin on Wednesday. "Their anger is anti-establishment, anti-incumbent. I wouldn't be surprised if it manifests itself in a third-party challenge in the general election."

There is less than two weeks until voters go to the polls in the Illinois party primaries, and Serafin is right, they are angry indeed, and still, the establishment plods along.

In the race for governor, it's a contest between two tax-and-spend types on the Democratic side. Among the Republicans, except for conservatives Adam Andrzejewski and Dan Proft, a posse of Illinois establishment types tries to hoodwink voters into believing that the establishment guys are really outsiders. In Massachusetts, the Kennedys lorded over the commonwealth's politics for half a century as if power was their birthright. But we've got our own lords and dukes right here in Illinois. The Daleys and the Madigans, for example.

But unlike in Massachusetts, the spoils of Illinois are shared among warlords in both parties. It's called the Combine. You know the names. Thompson, Kjellander, Cellini, Levine, Vrdolyak. The list goes on.

What amazes me is that for months after Blagojevich was kicked out of office, the national Republicans didn't want to see the whole picture.

Almost every evening, the cable networks would run a snippet of videotape to introduce their three minutes of BlagoHate.

The tape showed Blago led to a podium by a rumpled fellow who looked like a political aide. The rumpled guy walked with his head down, yet attentive. The rumpled fellow's name?

Denny Hastert, former speaker of the U.S. House, a Republican.

And the networks never mentioned it.

Since Tuesday night, the Massachusetts debacle has given establishment politicians the ability to see the future with the clarity of the damned.

Whether that clarity makes it to Illinois depends on the voters.

So which taste sensation will prevail when Illinois primary voters go to the polls Feb. 2?

Will it be the Tea Party of Massachusetts?

Or will Illinois voters continue to sniff, as the political class salivates over all that meat a' cookin'?

jskass@tribune.com