Mayor Richard J. Daley at Chicago City Hall at June 14, 1973 press conference. Chicago Tribune photo by George Quinn.
by Frank James
Although the 2008 presidential campaign is over, its talking points apparently aren't, particularly the one about President-elect Barack Obama being a creature of Chicago Machine Politics.
In the last few weeks of the election, this was an attack line the McCain campaign used as part of its attempt to raise questions about Obama.
Yesterday, Grover Norquist, a leader of the diminished conservative movement in Washington, was on C-Span accusing Obama and his new chief of staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of being products of the "Chicago political machine." And when Rush Limbaugh after the election called both Obama and Emanuel two Chicago "thugs" he was obviously stretching to make the same point.
There's only one not-so-small problem with this talking point -- there is no Chicago political machine. There hasn't been a Chicago machine for decades. The machine effectively died with Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1976. People who talk as though the Chicago machine still exists are vaguely amusing in the same way visitors to Chicago who want to do the Al Capone tours are.
Not that the Chicago machine didn't have its good points. Chicago became known as "city that works" for a reason. The first Mayor Daley had an army of patronage workers who knew that the "The Boss" cared for few things more than holding onto power and that the path to that was to deliver expected services to the city's residents -- getting the streets plowed of snow and the trash picked up.
But the ship of Chicago machine politics foundered on the rocks of court decrees and demographic changes long before Obama arrived in Chicago.
Here's a helpful passage from the Chicago Historical Society Encyclopedia Chicago.
Long reliant upon the electoral support from a rapidly expanding black population, the political machine's prolonged success finally wavered because of demographic changes. Daley was an avid defender of residential segregation and an opponent of affirmative-action policies in government, and his conservatism ran afoul of the civil rights and black power movements.
Daley's support among black voters dwindled in the 1970s, and wholesale changes came following his death in 1976. To succeed Mayor Daley, the Democrats chose Michael A. Bilandic, a colorless party functionary whose inept handling of a record-setting snowstorm led Chicagoans to question whether the machine could still deliver services efficiently.
Unseating Bilandic at the first opportunity, the voters opted instead for Jane Byrne, a former machine regular who campaigned as a reformer but whose chaotic and ineffectual years in office enhanced the level of dissatisfaction with city government. Despite campaign promises to the contrary, Byrne ignored black political demands.
The election of Harold Washington as the city's first black mayor in 1983 and his subsequent reelection four years later unequivocally ended Democratic machine rule in Chicago. Nor did the election to the mayoralty of Richard M. Daley, the eldest son of the deceased boss, indicate a resurrection of the machine in a new guise.
As the younger Daley readily acknowledged, radically different demographics and the attendant alterations in the political calculus clearly made the machine politics for which Chicago became famous an anachronism by the end of the twentieth century.
The younger Mayor Daley is, if nothing else, a centrist pragmatist, as his is brother William who is part of Obama's transition team and a former Clinton Administration Commerce Secretary.
They tend to associate with like-minded people. Because those are the people who in their eyes get things done, who make cities and nation's work. Because when cities and nation's work, the politicians who run them tend to get re-elected.
So Norquist and other conservatives have been accusing Obama and Emanuel of being part of an entity that hasn't existed for decades.
Instead, if Obama and Emanuel, like today's Daleys, belong to any political machine it would be the New Democrats' machine of centrist pragmatists who tasted power in the 1990s with Bill Clinton's ascent.
They're mostly pro-business Democrats. In another era, a few of them could have even been moderate Republicans.
The big difference they have with today's Republicans is they believe in government so long as it's effective and gets you re-elected. They would never demonize government as a concept and say it should be drowned in a bathtub, as Norquist famously said.
These New Democrats also believe in government a lot more when they run it.
Maybe Norquist and Limbaugh and the people in what was the McCain campaign don't really believe this Chicago Machine stuff but figure a lot of people will just blithely accept it as true.
On the other hand, if they really believe there's a Chicago Machine, I've got a bridge to nowhere I'd like to sell them.
Comments
The Machine doesn't exist because Frank James said so, is that it? So what word do you use for this political system we have in Chicago that is fueled buy corruption, patronage, sweetheart contracts, bloated payrolls and exorbitant taxes and fees; this system that serves the pols first and foremost and robs the electorate?
.
Let us know what the Officially Sanctioned Frank James Alternate Term for this system is and I'll use it. However, it won't change the fundamental nature of Chicago politics.
Posted by: MJ | November 10, 2008 10:19 AM
yeah no Chicago Machine. I mean its not like Mike Tomzack was convicted of using city workers to get out and canvas for Rahm Emanuel on city time. Oh yeah thats right Emanuel was in the corruption trial as the candidate who benefitted from the Tomzack corruption. This article is a joke. There is a Chicago Machine with Mayor Daley, Mike Madigan, Emil JOnes and all other crooked county dems. This sickens me. As these Chicago Pols run our state into the ground these so called journalists just say that it doesnt exist. Maybe it isnt the Machine but there is a corrupt Dem organization taht runs the city of Chicago and the state of IL and now all of them seem to somehow be making their way to Washington aboard the "change" express. Valerie Jarret is another member who was in Mayor Daleys circle and started working at the Habitat Co. 2 weeks after going to work for Habitat the company just coincidentally became the project manager for every Chicago Housing project earning herself and the company millions of dollars. There is a Chicago patronage system. As a journalist if you cant even see that you need to find a new profession. You should read some of John Kass's articles.
Posted by: Vinny | November 10, 2008 10:27 AM
Mike Royko would be tickled with this outcome. Obama has taken the wheel of the American Redneck Mini Van. The children are CEO's, Union Bosses, Army Generals, immigrants, Catholics, and baptists. .Are we there yet? ............
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/11/10/obama-drives-the-american-mini-van/
Posted by: Ohg Rea Tone | November 10, 2008 10:39 AM
Frank -
Your esteemed colleague at the Trib, John Kass, would beg to differ. There is very much a political "machine" in Chicago - but Kass correctly labels it a non-partisan political "Combine". There may be far fewer ham-handed "foot soldiers" getting out the vote on primary and election day by hook or by crook; but political patronage in jobs and contracts handed out to political favorites is thriving. Those in power (Republican or Democrat) will do anything they have to do maintain their current hammerlock on power in Illinois - and pass it down to their relatives (see Daley, Madigan, Tomczak, Hynes, Stroger, etc. for examples). See the frenzied (and ham-handed attempts) by the political "ins" to knock down the call for an Illinois Constitutional Convention. The "ins" like things just the way they are - especially in their ability to maintain political fealty from most state, county and local meployees by providing guaranteed pensions as enshrined in the current Illinois Consitution (pensions which few, if any, private sector enployees any longer enjoy).
This is one reason why Obama MUST either (1) maintain Patrick Fitzgerald as the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (to keep the pressure on the Combine), or (2) elevate Fitzgerald to Attorney General -but ONLY if he appoints an outsider as zealous as Fitzgerald to take his place and keep the heat on the Combine and its cup-bearers.
Posted by: Buster | November 10, 2008 10:43 AM
I still can not get over this article. Clearly Frank James has not been paying attention to what has transpired in Chicago Politics or Il State politics for the last 15 years. Their is a whole patronage system where everyones livelyhood depends on certain people keeping power. Clearly Frank James is not a Chicagoan. You have just made youself the laughinstock of Chicago journalists. As someone who grew up on Taylor and Racine I can only laugh at the pathetic state our city is in. However when you see journalists writing garbage like this you begin to understand how the Cook COunty Pols are able to get away with it. Handing contracts out to supporters and friends and at the same time crying broke and raising taxes yet getting reelected in land slides. Buying off minority "leaders" by giving them pieces of the pie and setting aside sweetheart deals for those inside the Machine. Its like Peter Fitzgerald used to say. In Chicago there are those inside gov. and those outside. This article will go down as the funniest article in the history of Chicago politics. Whoo I needed that this morning. Whew what a laugh to start the day with.
Posted by: Vinny | November 10, 2008 11:10 AM
In the last few weeks of the election, this was an attack line the McCain campaign used as part of its attempt to raise questions about Obama.
Well the ditto heads are out to prove this sentence is correct. By the way, they are the same ones who swear Palin was qualified.
Posted by: bill r. | November 10, 2008 12:13 PM
Nobody should think Frank James seriously believes what he writes.
The psychological theory involved is cognitive dissonance--which (simplified) means that when people are confronted with facts that contradict their biases, they don't change their biases, they instead deny the facts.
Here the fact of the Chicago machine contradicts Mr. James's Obama-worship, thus that fact has to be denied.
Posted by: Regime Change | November 10, 2008 1:24 PM
This is perhaps THE funniest thing I have ever read in my life! No Chicago Democratic Political Machine!! Oh my, so darn funny!! Perhaps the sorriest excuse for a journalist, Frank James, should get a new job being a writer for Jay Leno or David Letterman.
Posted by: John D | November 10, 2008 2:24 PM
Frank James, I think you miss the forest for the trees. Cook County is a jurisdiction rank with corruption, and it did spawn both Obama and Emanuel. Whether you think someone mislabeled it is a trivial point.
Posted by: Herbie H. | November 10, 2008 3:16 PM
Mr. James, I would hope that you ask your fellow workers at the Chicago Tribune if your statement was correct?
They would tell you are living in "la la land"!
Then you could ask the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and after 15 minutes of hysterical laughing he would reply "what planet do you live on"!
Grow up and quit listening to Mayor Richard J. Daley's talking points.
Posted by: Pat H | November 10, 2008 5:39 PM
An interesting note; The gentleman in the photo above (and a mesmerizing image it is, right Frank?) also insisted that here is no such thing as a Chicago Political Machine. I'd say his word on that is as credible as Frank James'.
Posted by: MJ | November 10, 2008 5:43 PM
Vinny - you would be more believable if you could write in complete sentences, and managed to string an articulate phrase out of your words. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand precisely what you are saying in much of your comment.
Posted by: kittyonice | November 10, 2008 9:49 PM
Bill r and you think Obama is qualified. We are anxiously awaiting proof of this falacy.
Posted by: Ruth | November 12, 2008 1:09 PM
The Chicago political machine lives on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County_Democratic_Organization
Posted by: Brian Green | December 10, 2008 11:21 AM