Posted on 01/08/2005 5:15:19 AM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
The mayoral challenger Richard M. Daley fears most took another baby step toward City Hall on Friday.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) came out swinging about the seemingly endless parade of City Hall contracting scandals under Daley and about the deafening silence coming from a City Council Jackson views as under Daley's thumb.
What set Jackson off this time, apparently, was James Duff's bizarre attempt to plead guilty for an alleged minority business fraud scheme that deprived legitimate black-, Hispanic-, and women-owned businesses of $100 million in contracts.
But that clearly was not the only scandal on Jackson's mind during a live interview Friday with talk-show hosts Don and Roma Wade on WLS-AM Radio (890).
"The biggest scandal isn't just trucks. It isn't just towing. It isn't just the Duff family, and it isn't the foul stench that takes place at O'Hare with respect to contracts," Jackson said. "It is the fact that we get 50 City Council members that we pay $100,000 a year to --that's $5 million a year -- and we can never hear criticism when it comes to the budget or anything from any one of them . . . on any scandal.
"A lot of elected officials don't want to stand up to corruption when they see it, particularly when it's fifth-floor [mayor's office] and/or City Hall-related corruption. . . . When the media is independent, and it makes its case, it gives more courage and more backbone for more elected officials to stand up."
Asked point-blank whether he would run for mayor in 2007, Jackson said, "Well, I will not go that far. What I will say is that it's time for people to stand up for good government in the city of Chicago. It's time for people to stand up for fairness, and I'd like to be one of those saints that goes marching in."
When the Chicago Sun-Times asked for a follow-up interview, Jackson declined.
"The congressman is not running for mayor, and he's not gonna do any interviews about what he said on the radio," said Rick Bryant, a Jackson spokesman.
Daley's media consultant, David Axelrod, responded to Jackson's tirade by noting that Jackson was just sworn in for another term and Daley "looks forward to working with him" to help bring federal funding back to Chicago.
"There's plenty of time for the political season. This should be the getting-things-done-for-Chicago season," he said.
As for Jackson's blast about rampant corruption under Daley, Axelrod said, "He's got the best record in the country as a mayor. Those are besmirched by the acts of a few, and he's worked and continues to work to try to deal with those issues."
Over the years, Jackson Jr. has taken great pains to follow a Washington career path that almost never intersects with City Hall.
When the Sun-Times asked Jackson who would hold the mayor in check after Daley's landslide victory in 1999, the South Side congressman said, "I'm not on Daley watch."
More recently, Jackson appears to have changed gears.
He was among the first to demand a moratorium on the resale of impounded vehicles after the Sun-Times laid bare a program that squeezed the working poor and gave taxpayers the shaft to line the pockets of a politically connected towing contractor.
Jackson also responded to the Daley-controlled CTA's since-postponed threat of doomsday service cuts with a demand for a sweeping audit of CTA spending.
The congressman's apparent change of heart is politically simple to understand.
For one thing, his Washington star has been eclipsed by Barack Obama's election to the U.S. Senate.
Now, it's Obama who's being touted as the first black president. That's a prediction that Jackson himself made this week at Obama's swearing-in.
Even more important, Daley has taken a political beating in the last year with the fast-moving Hired Truck scandal, the Building Department hiring scandal, allegations of bribe-paying by corrupt city contractor Marco Morales and the biggest tax package of his 16-year reign.
The scandals have so damaged Daley's reputation as a manager that at least some political observers wonder whether the current term could be Daley's last.
If that happens, or if Daley runs, but appears to be politically wounded, Jackson apparently wants to at least position himself or a candidate of his choosing as a possible challenger.
Jr. is much better than his old man, but the thought of him as mayor makes me shudder.
Is Chicago that stupid????
Everybody get their "Chicago Piano" cleaned and ready.
regards,
Sorry, Fran. Take another bonghit. The first black president will come from the GOP.
Seems to me Chicago'pretty much SOL any way we look at it. The important thing is to keep the disease from metastasizing to the rest of the state and the nation. All we have to do is look at Daley's newest gun grabbing proposal before the Illinois legislature. If JJ, Jr. got elected mayor, that would reduce the power of Chicago in the rest of the state and tend to marginalize its evil influence. Thus, I'd like to see him win.
LOL. Never over-estimate the IQ's of liberal voters.
Wouldn't it be great if the Daley machine could be broken for once and all time? There was a time when the original Mayor Daley, Richard J. Daley, seemed to be the deal-maker from which every other Democrat politician drew inspiration, until the head-busting at the Chicago Democrat National Convention in 1968. But Pa Daley was on the way to rebuilding his national reputation when he had the bad judgment to die in office in 1976, during his sixth consecutive term. There was a little scrambling, but son Richard M. Daley finally got to the top of the heap, and the old machine was back up and running better than ever.
Barack Obama may have been the poorest exercise in judgment ever for the Daley machine. The Americans of African descent now have the blazing inspiration they need to establish their own dynasty in city government in Chicago.
And $.10 ceegars for the A-dults.
True.
That is if Obama was the "machine's pick" - which he wasn't. Dan Hynes was.
Supporters of Hynes
John Daley, Cook County Commissioner, 11th Ward Committeeman, City of Chicago
James Balcer, 11th Ward Alderman, City of Chicago
George Cardenas, 12th Ward Alderman, City of Chicago
John Cullerton, State Senator
George Dunne, 42nd Ward Committeeman, City of Chicago
James Houlihan, Cook County Assessor
The above is a partial list - of a very long list of Hynes supporters and note the 1st name, that's Da Mare's brother. Also note the reference to the 11th Ward and the names Cullerton & Dunne (machine powerhouses) and the Cook County Assessor. I listed the 12th Ward's Alderman because much of the Daley Machine is now Hispanic.
So no offense but Obama was not the 'machines' pick, far from it. In fact when he won the primary and given Hynes' overwhelming trouncing, 'the machine' was in near apoplepltic shock. And to this day I'd be had pressed to recall one article that was in the Sun-Times or Trib where 'Da Mare' even mentions Obama.
I could also go into some finer points on "Pa Daley" but suffice to say he didn't "seem" to be 'the deal maker', he WAS the deal maker. There's numerous audio records of him phoning both JFK and LBJ in the WH and 'ripping them a new one'. Richard J. Daley feared no man. And I'll always respect him for giving the "Shoot To Kill Order" during the MLK riots - that took nads.
I didn't say the Barack Obama was the "pick" of the Daley Machine - only that poor judgment led to the failure to fight for their man Hynes much more strenuously. Obama was a virtual unknown before this campaign started, with nothing remarkable that should have set him up to be a star. He caught a rising tide, and took advantage of the indifference of the Daley Machine. And that is the kind of fatal flaw that could eventually lead to their demise.
Straight lines like that can get you killed around here.
We need to bust the Daley Machine up. After that, it will be a far simpler matter to defeat run of the mill DemocRAT political hacks without the Machine organization.
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