A Cog in the Chicago Machine?

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The New York Sun

Four decades after the mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley, saw his city torn apart at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, his son, the current mayor, Richard M. Daley, will see his candidate nominated at this year’s DNC.

While the convention will be held in Denver it will give off the greatest Chicago cast since 1996, when Mayor Daley hosted the convention that nominated President Clinton for his second term. The June decision to place operations of the Democratic National Committee in Chicago together with Mr. Obama’s headquarters reinforces the Windy City’s dominance of Democratic politics. The big question is whether American voters will notice.

Mr. Obama has run successfully as a candidate of reform. A former community organizer, he fills his rhetoric with references to “a new and better day” and the omnipresent imperative of “change.” In South Carolina last January Mr. Obama said, “we’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington.”

For the junior Illinois senator, change in Washington is a requirement. But that does not seem to be the case for Chicago, as it seems from Mr. Obama’s support for Chicago’s mayor who has been in power since 1989. Mr. Obama announced his support of the mayor’s reelection effort in January 2007 after Mr. Daley, endorsed him for president in 2006.

Mr. Daley has been a successful chief executive of one of America’s most challenging cities. He has overseen the construction of the magnificent Millennium Park and presided over a revitalization of many of the city’s neighborhoods. Yet much of his strength comes from what Mr. Obama now derides — experience. His years in office have given Mr. Daley a precise knowledge of where the levers of city government lie.

The reality is that without Mr. Daley’s backing, Mr. Obama would be running a very different kind of campaign. Part of the tactical genius for Mr. Obama’s campaign has been provided by his campaign consultant, David Axelrod, who also is a longtime operative in Mr. Daley’s operation.

A columnist with the Chicago Tribune, John Kass, explained the arrangement in an interview with CNN: “Richard M. Daley is the boss of [the] Chicago Machine. His spokesman was David Axelrod. Their candidate is Barack Obama. Who speaks for Barack Obama? David Axelrod. There’s no such thing as coincidences. Chicago politics doesn’t have coincidences.”

As far as coincidences go, there’s also the woman Newsweek described as the campaign’s “insider-outsider, a trusted friend who can give them a view from beyond the confines of the campaign bubble,” Valerie Jarrett. Ms. Jarrett served as the planning and development commissioner for Mayor Daley during the 1990s. Today, in addition to being a confidante of Mr. Obama and his wife, she’s also the chief executive of Habitat Co., which has drawn scrutiny for managing uninhabitable affordable housing, such as the Grove Parc Plaza complex.

The Boston Globe recently wrote that they “found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies — including several hundred in Obama’s former district — deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.” The Republican National Convention is attempting to draw attention to Ms. Jarrett, today circulating a Chicago Tribune story about her role in the city’s housing development.

Despite a rigorous Democratic primary campaign, few questions or criticisms have brought down Mr. Obama. It’s so much more pleasant, after all, to ponder the revolutionary potential of the Hawaiian son of an immigrant from Kenya and mother from Kansas than the dreary details of political deal making in Chicago.

For Mr. Daley, Mr. Obama’s path to the presidency has many positives. Better to have the talented Chicagoan training his rhetorical thunder against such foes as Hillary Clinton and John McCain than against the top office holder in Clark County. Moreover, Mr. Obama can be a potential powerful ally in the highest of places.

Just last month, Mr. Obama, fresh from winning the nomination, he showed up at a rally Mr. Daley convened to help the city win the 2016 Olympics.

Mr. Obama, with Mr. Daley at his side, told the enthusiastic crowd, according to the Chicago Sun-Times: “In the interest of full disclosure, I have to let you know that in 2016, I’ll be wrapping up my second term as president. So I can’t think of a better way than to be marching into Washington Park alongside Mayor Daley … as president of the United States and announcing to the world, ‘Let the games begin.'”

But before Election Day, the American people will need full disclosure from Mr. Obama on the nature of his relationship with Mr. Daley. It seems odd, after all, that experience is such a positive quality for a leader in Chicago and such a negative trait for the nation’s chief in Washington D.C.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.


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