Why am I not surprised? The Tribune’s Eric Zorn is happy with the “balding white guy.”

In case you are one of the millions billions who don’t read the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn is the star columnist.

A few years back he got into a sparring match with my blogger pal Glen Brown over pensions. It was like Jerry Quarry in the ring with Muhammad Ali.

When Glen mentioned the pension protection clause of the Illinois Constitution, Zorn admitted he didn’t know anything about all that.

Boom! Down for the count.

When Zorn’s own daughter came home from her school, Lane Tech, and told him the story about the award winning novel Persepolis being banned by CPS, Zorn went to bed.

He told me later he had planned to check into the story another day.

Remember when an outraged Zorn wanted Karen Lewis to resign as President of the CTU?

There are more Eric Zorn moments.

But let’s go to his column today.

Like just about everyone else, I expected Gov. Pat Quinn to choose an up-and-coming Illinois Democrat to be his running mate — an ethnic minority, a woman or both. The party needs to deepen its bench and reach out to emerging communities if it’s going to maintain its hold on power.

<snip>

So Quinn’s selection of itinerant school superintendent Paul Vallas, announced Friday, was startling. Vallas, like Quinn, is a balding white guy in his 60s from a fading political era — he ran a close second to Rod Blagojevich for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2002. And he’s lurched from controversy to controversy as an education reformer since his days as Chicago Public Schools CEO (1995-2001) in a way to thrill opposition researchers.

<snip>

I like the Vallas choice in part for that reason — Vallas is the only candidate for lieutenant governor who’s clearly ready to take over the top job if necessary — and in part because he’s one of the few public figures I’ve covered who doesn’t shy from getting into shouting matches on the phone with, say, columnists with whose observations he’s taken exception.

Just so you don’t think my <snipping> takes Zorn’s comments out of context, here is the whole column.

See. Anybody could have picked a minority or a woman. That would have been the easy and obvious choice suggests Zorn.

Which is why there are so many minorities and women in positions of power in our state. Because they are so the easy choice.

What Zorn likes is that Quinn went the other way. “A balding white guy in his 60s from a fading political era.”

Zorn says that makes Vallas clearly ready to take over the top job.

Not a woman. Not a minority. Not ready.

But a balding white guy in his 60s.