Posted on 03/09/2008 8:24:42 AM PDT by jdm
This is another in a series of stories that received some play in Chicago at the time it occurred but never made it past the state line for some reason.
It is especially curious that this story never took off nationally because far more than most people realize, Mayor Richard M. Daley is a player in national Democratic politics – perhaps not as powerful as his father but almost certainly the current Mayor Daley has more clout than any other big city Democratic mayor in the country.
The current mayor has fewer congressmen that he can whip into line for the party thanks to Chicago’s shrinking population and a welcome sense of independence among some minority legislators. But the Machine built by the Democratic party prior World War II can still flex its muscles when called upon. It may not be as monolithic as it once was. But thanks to people like the Mayor’s brother Bill Daley – who served as Secretary of Commerce for Clinton and ran Al Gore’s 2000 campaign – as well as some important money men in the party, the Machine’s reach is indeed considerable.
But what led Mayor Daley, normally reluctant to endorse a presidential candidate in the primaries, to give the nod to Obama?
Apparently, the Mayor was looking at his own electoral problems in 2007 with what was promising to be a very tough re-election campaign. Until early November, 2006, Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr – son of the Democratic party activist and former presidential candidate – was planning his own run for Mayor as was powerful Hispanic Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Fortune favored Daley in this case when Democrats swept the mid terms and brought both Congressmen the opportunity to chair powerful subcommittees. Suddenly, Mayor of Chicago didn’t look quite as attractive. Both men dropped out of the Mayor’s race later that month.
The prospect of running against a three term incumbent probably played an equally large role in dissuading both men from running as well.
The problem for the Mayor’s opponents was finding a candidate who could unite the fractious west and south side African Americans while pulling in a substantial number of Hispanic voters along with white, reform minded liberals along the lakefront. Such a coalition would have a chance against the Mayor’s powerbase on the southwest side where he routinely racked up 90% majorities in some wards.
With Jackson and Gutierrez out of the picture, the Mayor’s main challenger was Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court. Brown was an attractive candidate out of the reform mold, beloved of white liberals and just the sort of citywide office holder that might be able to bridge the gap between the south and west side black communities.
To be sure, Brown had an uphill battle against Daley’s huge advantage in infrastructure and fund raising. What she really needed to give her campaign a rocket powered boost was an endorsement from a major black politician being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate.
Taking no chances, Daley called Obama in for a series of meetings that lasted two months. Obama’s major problem with Daley was that he was a corrupt sonnovabith, having just seen 4 of his top aides convicted in the city’s largest patronage scandal. It seemed a given that the squeaky clean Obama would endorse the candidate promising to clean up city hall.
Then, in late December of 2007, the tumblers all clicked into place and Daley made his nearly unprecedented endorsement of Obama for president. About the same time, it was announced that his brother Bill would be going to work for the Obama campaign.
As Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported this week, Bill Daley has signed on as a senior adviser to Obama, who is expected to formally enter the presidential race next month.
Sources said the mayor’s decision to embrace Obama was made before his brother reserved a seat on the senator’s bandwagon. The mayor and Obama have been meeting about the subject for months, huddling for 2½ hours at City Hall as recently as last week.
It is hard to overstate the coup Obama pulled off by getting both Daleys on his side. Bill Daley has a rolodex of Democratic contributors that could rival Hillary and Bill’s. It would be an interesting counterfactual to imagine the Obama campaign’s finances without the younger Daley.
So what did Obama promise in return?
In effect, Obama surrendered to the Machine by promising to endorse its corrupt mayor rather than his reform minded challenger (commentary in parenthesis):
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama today endorsed Mayor Daley’s re-election bid, asserting that City Hall corruption is being cleaned up and that Chicago has “blossomed” under the mayor’s “innovative” and decisive leadership.
Obama said he decided to support Daley and the mayor’s revamped “rainbow ticket” long before deciding to enter the presidential sweepstakes. (Pure BS)
Daley plans to abandon his longstanding tradition of remaining neutral in Democratic primaries to endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race. But Obama said his endorsement of Daley was earned and not part of any quid pro quo. (Liar)
“Even his detractors acknowledge that the city has been well-managed and has performed in all respects in ways that are the envy of a lot of other cities across the country,” (and the envy of corrupt politicians as well) Obama said at a news conference at the mayor’s Loop campaign headquarters.
“I don’t think there’s a city in America that has blossomed as much over the last couple of decades than Chicago — and a lot of that has to do with our mayor. He has a national reputation that’s well-deserved . . . as somebody’s who’s innovative, as somebody who’s tough, as somebody who’s willing to make the hard the decisions, as somebody who is constantly thinking about how to make the city better.” (and someone who can help get me elected president despite him being a crook.)
That’s not all. A couple of months later, Obama endorsed another crook from the Machine:
Though it didn’t make national news, Obama inflamed many residents in his old state Senate district last March when he endorsed controversial Chicago alderman Dorothy Tillman in a runoff election.
Flamboyant and unpredictable, Tillman is perhaps best known for once pulling a pistol from her purse and brandishing it around at a city council meeting. The ward she represented for 22 years, which included historic Bronzeville, comprised the city’s largest concentration of vacant lots.
Just three months before Obama made his endorsement, the Lakefront Outlook community newspaper ran a three-part investigative series exposing flagrant cronyism and possible tax-law violations that centered on Tillman and her biggest pet project, a taxpayer-funded cultural center built across the street from her ward office that had been hemorrhaging money since its inception.
In the end, Tillman lost the election despite Obama’s endorsement, which critics said countered his calls for clean government. Obama told the Chicago Tribune that he had backed Tillman because she was an early supporter of his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.
Many speculate Obama only bothered to weigh in on a paltry city council election during his presidential campaign as a gesture to Chicago’s powerful Mayor Richard M. Daley, a Tillman supporter.
This behavior is not unusual for Obama if you examine the record. To wit:
1. His very first race for state senate, he used the time honored Machine tactic of challenging the nominating petitions of every other candidate, getting all 4 of them removed from the ballot.
2. He cultivated a relationship with the ancient President of the Illinois State Senate Emil Jones who told a colleague in 2002 after the Democrats swept into office “I’m gonna make me a senator.” Jones then proceeded to give Obama credit on the passage of 26 key legislative measures – almost all of which had been pushed by other state senators for years – thus giving Obama a record of sorts to go with all that charisma. Obama calls Jones his “political godfather.”
3. While in the Senate, Obama has had numerous opportunities to live up to his promised “post partisan” reforms and has never – repeat never – participated in any bi-partisan agreement reached by Democrats and Republicans on any issue. He has gone so far as to reject the outcomes of those compromises on immigration reform and an agreement on confirming federal judges.
4. When faced with a choice between supporting a mayoral candidate who stood for clean government and the corruption of the Chicago Machine, Obama chose old fashioned power politics.
Obama’s political career is replete with examples of opportunism, cynical deal making, hack politics, and business as usual relationships with crooks and scam artists like Tony Rezko. His entire presidential campaign is built on a lie; that he is a different kind of politician and will be able to change the way business is done in Washington.
When given the opportunity in the past, Obama has usually chosen doing things the old fashioned way. Why in God’s name should we believe him now? Did he try and “reform” Chicago politics? Did he try and “reform” the Senate while his colleagues worked on bi-partisan agreements on vital issues?
You can support the man’s policies without holding him up (and throwing in our faces) the idea he is some kind of “new” politician who will change everyone’s lives. And if he keeps pushing that meme, he will look like the emperor with no clothes as facts about his relationships with various shady Chicago characters come to light, giving the lie to his grandiose claims like “We are the change that we are seeking.”
I think it's a foregone conclusion, isn't it? I mean, you can't get a freaking lightbulb changed in Chicago without The Machine's approval. I would have to think that all things politic there have his fingerprints on them.
And not only there. It was Daley who brought you the Hanging Chad drama of 2000, all the way down Miami way.
Only Daley could take a nobody from the burbs and make him king. Daley and people like him. Let me rephrase: it would take someone like Daley to take a nobody from the burbs and make him king.
More like "crazy as a sh!t house rat".
Check out this account of Todd Stroger's budget management. The writer is an acquaintance of mine One day the people will rise up, the sooner the better...
I read your link and believe it. My read on Todd is that he is way too happy to raise taxes. I’ve heard him interviewed and he’s a cocky young man who thinks that he’s bullet proof.
That’s a big DUH, good buddy! (my take on the headline)
The Alderman and the Senator [Why DID Obama support a corrupt Chicago alderman?]
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