Even a change agent needs a change

I saw Claypool early Thursday morning. He had e-mailed the night before, and we met at a breakfast joint on Clark Street. I assumed it was to say he was running, followed by a big pitch about his candidacy.

Like everyone else, I was stunned when he said, "I'm not doing it."

Major life decisions, when written across the face of the person making them, look like what they usually are: agony.

I imagine Lisa Madigan might be in the same shape. Twisting, sleepless, trying to do the calculus on her own life story. Should she stay in the job she loves, Illinois attorney general; run for governor against a decent, fellow Democrat incumbent, or go for the U.S Senate after being wooed at the White House?

The only thing good thing about hard decisions, I've found, is that they're a great diet.

That belief was confirmed as I watched Claypool pick around the edges of a largely neglected waffle while drinking a gallon of coffee.

All you reformers out there, before you shoot me your own e-mails, hear me out. I know that Claypool's leaving County Board is a blow, especially because former Commissioner Mike Quigley is gone now, too, to Congress. They were two of very few voices raised against the entitlement and excess of a government populated by an army of pols who take care of themselves better than they do the communities they're supposed to serve.